McCauley adjusting to pro ball
Advertisement
Text size: small | medium | large
By Brian Hunsicker
Published: August 16, 2008
The Osbourn graduate is playing for the Idaho Falls Chukars, the Kansas City Royals’ affiliate in the far-flung rookie-level league.
“It’s a game bird,” McCauley said of chukars, which live year round in the mountain west and other dry, mountainous climates around the world. “I found that out when we had a discussion about all the mascots in the league.”
Certainly, the nicknames represent a sense of adventure, of the frontier, of pioneers: The Mus-tangs. The Osprey. The Voyagers. So too do the cities that host those teams: Billings, Casper, He-lena, Missoula, Great Falls, Ogden and Orem.
It’s a long way from Manassas, geographically and culturally.
“It’s a smaller town,” McCauley said, “but everyone’s real nice, and they go the extra mile for you.”
In a baseball sense, his experience in the Pioneer League isn’t so adventurous and unknown.
After being selected in the 12th round of the 2007 Major League Amateur Draft, he was assigned to the Royals ‘ rookie-level Arizona League team, where he hit .286 with two home runs and 13 RBI in 31 games.
That’s also where he got his first taste of pro baseball: calling games, working with pitchers, playing day after day.
He spent much of this season in extended spring training, where he first met up with Chukars manager Jim Gabella.
“It’s amazing the progress he’s made offensively and defensively,” Gabella said. “I really haven’t seen a catcher in our system that blocks balls like he does or throws people out like he does. Offen-sively, he’s starting to come into his own.”
McCauley entered Friday’s game against Great Falls with a .263 batting average, two home runs, 17 RBI, 16 walks and 27 strikeouts. But he’s gone nearly the entire month of August without a multi-hit game.
“I’m hitting balls right at people. But you’ve got to deal with it,” McCauley said. “So I just keep swinging.”
Gabella said McCauley must bulk up to handle the rigors of being an everyday catcher; as it stands, McCauley catches for five days and gets a day off. The Chukars’ roster lists him at 170 pounds.
That will come, Gabella said, as McCauley gets older. In the meantime, he’s following the organi-zation’s lifting program, which is lighter in the season but intensifies during the offseason.
“You’ve got to have strength to play. This isn’t a weak man’s game,” Gabella said. “Even the small guys in the majors are strong.”
The weight will also help him absorb collisions at the plate. McCauley remembered one such col-lision a month ago, when he came up dizzy and went to the hospital. He had suffered a mild concus-sion, but said he’s had no lingering effects.
There’s only a few weeks left in the season; the Chukars will likely be kept out of the playoffs, as they entered the weekend six games behind South Division leader Orem with only 21 games left to play.
After that, it will be back to bulking up and preparing for the spring. If a promotion is in order, at least he won’t have to worry about learning about an animal he’d never seen before he became one.
The next stop on the organizational ladder is the Burlington Bees.
Post a Comment
The commenting period has ended or commenting has been deactivated for this article.
Can't find what you're looking for? Try our quick search:
