Longoria Has Been a Hit

Aug. 5, 2008

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TORONTO -- A little more than five years ago, Evan Longoria was searching for an opportunity to play junior-college baseball. Four months ago, he was in the minor leagues.

Today, Longoria is the offensive force leading the surprising Tampa Bay Rays past the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees to the top of the American League East. Longoria's whirlwind career -- going from uncertainty to All-Star -- in some ways is a microcosm of the Rays' turnaround from having failed to win more than 70 games in any of their first 10 seasons.

Since his promotion April 12, Longoria has signed a contract that sets him for life, hit two upper-deck shots at Yankee Stadium in the Home Run Derby, delivered the game-tying RBI in the All-Star Game, and even received a bottle of champagne from Eva Longoria, the actress from TV's Desperate Housewives who has a similar name, but is no relation.

LONGORIA HOMERS: No. 22 leads Rays to win

The Rays are 67-45, three games ahead of Boston in the AL East and just three games shy of equaling their club record for wins in a season.

They've done it all with a 22-year-old batting cleanup and playing a stellar third base.

Despite his late promotion, Longoria leads major-league rookies in home runs (22), total bases (200) and extra-base hits (51). He also a team-best 69 RBI. "It's weird, because when I came up, I saw the (overall) leaders had seven home runs and I wondered, 'How am I ever going to get that many?' "

For Longoria, it was just a start.

And Rays manager Joe Maddon says, "Offensively, you are going to see a lot more. We haven't seen him get hot for an extended period of time. He's the type of player that can carry a team for a while. He's going to hit for average. He's going to hit for power. He's going to be a force for a long time."

Longoria's quick ascension to All-Star -- achieved when he received a record 9 million online votes for the final AL roster spot -- is a stark contrast to his very modest beginning in the game.

Humble start

As a 5-10, 160-pound senior at St. John Bosco High School, Nomar Garciaparra's alma mater in talent-rich Southern California, Longoria was not among the 1,480 players selected in the 2003 draft. He did not even receive a partial college scholarship offer.

So Longoria, who grew up in Downey the son of a phone technician and a receptionist, had to improvise.

"What do you do?" Longoria says. "I didn't know what to do. My parents had no idea of what to do either because they hadn't been to college."

So Longoria and one of his childhood friends, Adam Lands, enrolled at Rio Hondo Community College, a junior college east of Los Angeles known for vocational programs in such areas as police training, nursing, welding and automotive technology.

"Rio Hondo wasn't a big baseball school," says Lands, a former outfielder who sells watches and runs a dance studio. "Our league was horrendous, just horrible. Pitchers weren't throwing 93 (mph). But no JCs even looked at Evan, so we picked Rio Hondo because we wanted to go where we could play."

Longoria, then a shortstop, batted .430 as a college freshman -- good enough to draw a scholarship offer from Long Beach State. He transferred in fall 2004 even though the 49ers already had a shortstop, Troy Tulowitzki, who as a rookie last season helped the Colorado Rockies make the World Series.

"It says a lot about a guy when he wants to come to a team that already has a shortstop," says Long Beach State coach Mike Weathers said. "He was willing to change positions."

Longoria moved to third base, hit .320 as a sophomore and the ensuing summer he was named the MVP of the wood-bat Cape Cod League.

Weathers says he saw offensive potential before Longoria arrived, then saw how hard he worked defensively.

"We pride ourselves on pitching and defense," Weathers says. "He matured quickly."

In his junior year at Long Beach, Longoria hit .353 and became a finalist for the Golden Spikes Award, which goes to the nation's best college player. "I grew up physically," Longoria says. "I got a lot stronger, started lifting more weights."

Longoria said he also learned leadership and discipline at Long Beach. The leadership lesson came when he flunked a criminology class.

"It's funny now, but it wasn't at the time," he says. "I was shocked that I got an F, and I apologized. It taught me that if I wanted to be a team leader, I couldn't take things like that for granted. That translates to the big leagues. If you do things at half-speed, you aren't going to be around long."

Aside from the F, Longoria averaged between a B and C, Weathers says. He says of Longoria's failed class: "It is a life lesson and I'm glad he remembers it."

All-around talent

In 2006, despite an overwhelming need for pitching, the Rays drafted Longoria No. 3 overall, ahead of pitchers such as the San Francisco Giants' Tim Lincecum (10th) and Andrew Miller, taken sixth by the Detroit Tigers and traded last winter to the Florida Marlins.

Their draft room had a lot of debate about which pitcher to select, says Rays executive vice president Andrew Friedman. "Two months before the draft ... we were going to take a pitcher. But from all we could gather, Evan had a combination of things we wanted."

Twenty minutes after the selection, Longoria agreed to a contract that included a $3 million signing bonus. "I didn't want to sit at home," he says.

He played at three minor-league levels in 2006 and played last season at Class AA Montgomery (Ala.) and Class AAA Durham (N.C.). This year, he had a strong spring, but the Rays started him at Class AAA because the team wanted to delay the start of his big-league service time and free-agent eligibility.

But just one week into his Rays career, he accepted the club's offer of a contract that guarantees him $17.5 million over six years and could be worth $44.5 million over nine years. "It makes me want to work harder," Longoria says. "It makes me want to earn it."

Friedman says that the Rays are "confident that he's worth the risk."

Longoria's offensive numbers alone could justify the long-term deal, but the Rays are equally enthused about his defense. Rays shortstop Jason Bartlett says Longoria "covers everything," and "just knows what he's doing."

Don Zimmer, a special advisor for the team who's been around the majors since 1954, says Longoria is as good as he's seen. "And that includes Brooks Robinson, Graig Nettles and Mike Schmidt," says Zimmer. "I don't know how he could play any better."

Longoria wants to a buy a house near his family in California with a yard that's big enough for his three dogs -- Lily, Haus and Juicy. He knows his big-league career is similar to how Tulowitzki's started with the Rockies, but Tulowitzki has struggled (.235 average) in his second season.

"Looking down the road, I don't want this to be a one-year thing," Longoria says. "We have the right players to contend in the East every year. I was with Montgomery when we won the (Southern League) championship. Things got crazy, speeded up. I can only imagine what it is like in the big-league playoffs."

At this rate, Longoria could have a chance to find out.

Long Beach State University Athletics

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