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Southeast Texas prospects may be MLB's 'Future'
(Beaumont Enterprise, The (Texas) (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Jul. 8--BEAUMONT -- Game time at Joe and Martha Bruce's house has less to do with baseballs and bats than an Internet connection and text-messaging capabilities.
Without one, Martha Bruce would not have heard description of her son's winning hit off the right-field fence in Chattanooga, Tenn., last week. Without the other, she could not have delivered a supportive note to her 20-year-old son shortly afterward.
"That's what I'm talking about," she typed into a cellular phone. "That's how you play baseball."
Jay Bruce is a third-year professional baseball player in his first month with the Double-A Chattanooga Lookouts of the Cincinnati Reds organization. He plays hundreds of miles from home, but his parents never miss a pitch.
They huddle around a home computer connected to a Web site that carries Lookouts' radio broadcasts, click refresh for updated box scores and read newspaper articles.
"We never miss anything," said Joe Bruce, who delights at the sound of crowds chanting "Bruuuuuuuuce" and nicknames such as "Bruce Almighty" and "The Boss."
A left-handed hitting centerfielder, Jay Bruce opened the season rated as the No. 2 prospect in the Reds organization by Baseball America. A recent promotion from Single-A Sarasota (Fla.) did little to slow him down.
Today he is one of two Southeast Texans set to play in the Major League Baseball Futures Game, a seven-inning showcase of the top minor-league players in all classes at AT&T Park in San Francisco. The other is Lumberton's Clay Buchholz, a starting pitcher for the Double-A Portland (Maine) Sea Dogs of the Boston Red Sox organization.
Both players' parents will be in attendance, just as they hope to be when each player makes a major-league debut, perhaps as soon as September. Until then, they'll continue to rely on descriptions from radio announcers and newspaper reporters.
"The thing with me and Clay is we never talk the day of the game," said Buchholz's father, Skip. "We'll talk the night before he pitches and then as soon as he's off the field, he'll call me."
That ritual began when Skip Buchholz talked to his son shortly before a game in which his pitches took a beating.
"So I stopped talking to him before he pitched," the elder Buchholz said.
Among other parents, Skip Buchholz's wife, Robin, keeps a scorebook; Martha Bruce wears one of several T-shirts given to her by her son; and Joe Bruce stands, sits, shifts his feet and folds his arms -- whatever it was he did the last time his son did something good.
Each task, clothing choice or mannerism is a way to cope with an inability to see their sons play baseball, a difficult step for parents who attended hundreds of games as their children grew.
"We were depressed for about a year," Martha Bruce said of the first season after Jay Bruce was drafted 12th overall by the Reds in 2005. "We didn't know what to do."
Bruce played his first professional season with rookie-league teams in Sarasota and Billings, Mont., both too far away for his parents to see him play every day.
Neither Sarasota nor Billings aired radio broadcasts on the Internet, so Bruce's parents were limited to an agonizing process of reading play-by-play logs and box scores as they were updated on the Web.
On nights without available online updates, they found other ways to keep busy while awaiting a customary phone call from their son.
"We went for walks," Joe Bruce said. "We have friends whose kids play Little League, so we went to those games sometimes."
And they waited to ask questions.
"It would get pretty detailed," Jay Bruce said about what his parents asked during each phone call. "They wanted to know where I hit the ball and everything."
Online radio broadcasts in Chattanooga have taken away much of the nightly uncertainty.
"It's good for them to hear the games," Jay Bruce said.
First-year Lookouts radio announcer Will Poindexter said he receives e-mails that express support and thanks from family and friends of players daily. E-mails are printed and given to players after games.
"It's a huge part of our job to be able to tell people how their son or their brother is doing every day," Poindexter said.
The Bruces visited their son when he played for Sarasota, Billings and Single-A Dayton, Ohio, but not yet in Chattanooga.
The Buchholz family's last visit to see their son pitch was March 29 in Fort Myers, Fla. The No. 2 prospect in the Red Sox organization by Baseball America, Buchholz threw four scoreless innings against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays but allowed three runs in the fifth. The spring training game was his first against major-league competition.
"We had a hard time watching the game because we were in tears the whole time," Skip Buchholz said.
The next hope for both sets of parents is another promotion. Boston's Triple-A affiliate in Pawtucket, R.I., puts many games on television, which can be seen on the Internet. All games at the major-league level can be viewed online or on cable.
And if they reach the major leagues, there's one thing they'll do before watching on television or computer.
"We'll be getting on the first flight to wherever it is," Skip Buchholz said. "It might max out our credit cards, but we're not missing that."
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BATTING AT HOME
Jay Bruce batted in the first inning of a game Thursday against the Mississippi Braves in Jackson, Miss. His family listened to a radio broadcast over the Internet at its home in Beaumont.
Bruce's father, Joe, stood under a doorway near a desktop computer and listened. His mother, Martha, sat on the edge of a sofa. His 25-year-old sister, Kellan, watched her parents.
A radio announcer described the action as Jay Bruce worked the count to three balls and one strike in his first at-bat against pitcher Matt Harrison.
"That pitcher is in deep trouble and doesn't even know it," Joe Bruce said as he folded and unfolded his arms.
Jay Bruce swung and missed the next pitch.
"I bet he took a good rip, too," said Joe Bruce, shifting his feet again.
Jay Bruce fouled the next pitch into the stands. Joe Bruce moaned and Martha Bruce clapped once.
"He's a good two-strike hitter," Joe Bruce said as he leaned forward in anticipation of the next pitch.
A crack heard through a computer speaker sprung the Bruce family to attention. A radio announcer rapidly detailed how Bruce drilled the next pitch to the bottom of the right-field wall and rounded the bases to third.
"His first triple," Joe Bruce said as he shared two-handed high fives with his wife and daughter.
The triple was his first with the Double-A Chattanooga Lookouts.
SCOUTING REPORTS
Jay Bruce, OF, Chattanooga Lookouts
Organization: Cincinnati Reds
Drafted: 12th overall, 2005
Age: 20
2007: .328 Avg., 4 HR, 15 RBI
Outlook: Learning how to lay off a changeup in the dirt might be among the biggest lessons of playing in Double-A, Bruce said. "I'm an aggressive hitter, and sometimes I'm overly aggressive," he said. Bruce opened the season with Single-A Sarasota, where he batted .325 with 11 home runs in 67 games. Bruce has played 15 games with Double-A Chattanooga and hopes to be in the major leagues by the all-star break next season. "A realistic goal for me is to be there next year," Bruce said. Bruce was 3-for-15 with a double in eight major-league spring training games before the season. He hit a home run against Boston's Curt Schilling during spring training in 2006.
Clay Buchholz, RHP, Portland Sea Dogs
Organization: Boston Red Sox
Drafted: 42nd overall, 2005.
Age: 22
2007: 7-2, 1.77 ERA, 116 K, 22 BB, 86 2/3 IP
Outlook: A promotion to Triple-A Pawtucket may be forthcoming after a stellar first half. Buchholz made a relief appearance Wednesday in preparation for today's Futures Game, in which he will likely come out of the bullpen. Portland pitching coach Mike Cather said experience pitching in a major-league spring training game, against Roger Clemens in one of his minor-league starts and in the Futures Game gives Buchholz a taste of life in the major leagues. Cather said Buchholz currently has four major-league quality pitches: a fastball, changeup, curveball and slider. Buchholz has also been mentioned in trade rumors that involve Mark Buehrle of the Chicago White Sox and Atlanta's Andrew Jones, but Boston does not want to trade Buchholz.
To see more of The Beaumont Enterprise, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.www.beaumontenterprise.com/.
Copyright (c) 2007, The Beaumont Enterprise, Texas
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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