This is embarrassing, but I have to get it off my chest.
Here it goes.
I was given the ASU baseball beat last year for The State Press.
I’d never seen the team play before, so when went to I cover the preseason press conference, I was hoping players would be introduced in front of the media — nametags would have been great.
Instead, after then-coach Pat Murphy spoke, scribes were let loose to interview the street-clothed players milling about the media room — some sitting, some standing.
Confident that I could tell the difference between a ballplayer and a bystander, I started winging it — hey, profiling beats “So, remind me who you are again?”
I had to pretend I knew the players, and I figured I’d deduce their identity within a couple of minutes of haphazard 20-questioning.
As I moved across the room to my first target, I bumped into a little fellow.
I stopped and apologized. He stopped, peered out from his hoodie and gave me a death stare.
Holy evil Emperor from Star Wars.
I crossed the wrong groundskeeper.
After finishing up my interviews on the other side of the room, I noticed a reporter holding a microphone to the hooded one.
I entered his force field. He couldn’t be a player. Maybe he was a coach’s son.
It was Mike Leake.
I could never really be sure he held it against me, but over the course of the season, I became convinced he was the kind of guy who stored all the moments of perceived disrespect into some kind of mental incinerator. Schoolyard slights were renewable ruminations to be set ablaze over and over. The byproduct was a torrid fury of sinking fastballs and glares of terror.
Prime example:
Early last season, Leake faced off against Kyle Gibson, a 6-foot-6 big-league pitching prospect from Missouri with a mid-90’s fastball.
Gibson was thought to have better upside and better stuff than Leake, and there were close to 100 scouts on hand that Friday night to find out.
Gibson, the prototype right-hander, was good, lighting up the radar and striking out a few ASU hitters.
Leake was better. He was pissed off.
He pitched like he was unloading a giant chip off his shoulder, mowing ‘em down like Manny Pacquiao.
He threw a one-hitter, struck out 10 and put the radar-readers into submission with a combination of vanishing sinkers and the body language of the begrudged.
After the game, Murphy said “Leake was on a mission. He’s been hearing that the other guy across the road was a little better prospect.”
“Don’t put [Leake] in a position to prove he’s the best,” he said. “I think he went out and proved it.”
You just don’t cross Leake.
After another one of his gems later in the year, the postgame interview with Murphy turned into a conversation about the big leagues. Murphy, off the cuff as he was from time to time, made what sounded like a prediction about Leake.
He said something to the effect that Leake would be a guy you’d see on TV next year.
He seemed completely convinced Leake would make it to the big leagues in his first year.
Murphy was a bold guy, but he’d never predict what Leake did Sunday.
For a guy who just became the 21st player in MLB to history to make his professional debut in the majors (even other ASU greats like Barry Bonds and Reggie Jackson didn’t do that), I doubt there were 20 people who recognized him walking on campus last year.
Of course, Leake profiles well at the major league level, but the reason I know he’s going to stay there and get really good?
The media are still talking about Stephen Strasburg and another flame-throwing prospect in the Reds organization.
That’s about a million ‘bump-into’s’ right there.
Reach Nick at nruland@asu.edu
