Avila Overcomes Odds -- And Father -- To Become All-Star Catcher
PHOENIX -- The best pitcher in the American League isn't starting the All-Star Game.
The best catcher in the American League is.
It's bad for baseball that Justin Verlander won't appear in Tuesday night's game. And great for baseball that Alex Avila will.
Verlander, ineligible because he pitched for the Tigers on Sunday, has just the kind of star power baseball needs to sell this game. Avila, his 24-year-old Tigers battery-mate, has just the kind of story that baseball needs to sell.
He's young, he's articulate, he's deserving ... and three years ago, his own father told the Tigers not to draft him.
A little background: Alex Avila's father is Al Avila. Al Avila is the Tigers' assistant general manager. And Al Avila was convinced that it would be tough on Alex to play in an organization where his father sat in the front office.
"[Tigers scouting director] David Chadd is my best friend in the game," Al Avila said. "I told him, 'Don't draft my son.' We argued about it for two days."
Chadd took Alex in the fifth round, and 14 months later, Alex was catching in the big leagues. Two years after that, he's starting the All-Star Game.
And Al Avila is as proud as any father of anyone who will play Tuesday night.
"This is the biggest thrill there is," he said. "I thank God every day."
So does Alex, who finally gets a chance to play in front of his father every day. Because of his duties with the Tigers, Al barely saw Alex play in high school in Miami, or in college at Alabama.
But this is about more than a father and son. This is also about a kid who has only been catching for four years, a kid who was rough enough when he debuted in the big leagues that Verlander would ask to have veteran Gerald Laird catch his games, instead.
Two years later, Avila was catching Verlander in a no-hitter, and Verlander was running a #voteavila Twitter campaign to get the kid elected to the All-Star Game.
"It seems like every time I pitch to him, he's just getting better and better," Verlander said. "He still has a long way to go, by which I only mean how good I think he can be. He's already great to watch, and great to throw to."
So far this season, Alex Avila is batting .286 with 46 RBI and 10 HR's. (US Presswire)
Verlander and Avila are so much on the same page that Verlander rarely shakes his catcher off.
"That's saying a lot, for me," Verlander admitted. "But he's absolutely earned my trust."
Avila said that one day last month, he and Verlander spoke briefly about how much fun it would be if they both started for the American League.
"That would have been really cool," Avila said Monday.
It would have been the first time a pitcher and catcher from the same team started an All-Star Game since 2006, when Kenny Rogers and Pudge Rodriguez (also Tigers) did it in Pittsburgh.
That chance ended when Verlander's last regular-season turn before the break fell on Sunday. By rule -- a rule Verlander said he supports -- he was thus ineligible to pitch.
"I pitched in 110 degrees in Kansas City," said Verlander, who came to Phoenix anyway to take part in the All-Star festivities. "If somebody asked me if I could pitch [Tuesday], I'd say yes and then I'd try to throw 100."
And, he said, that would just be too big a risk.
Some have suggested moving the All-Star Game from Tuesday to Wednesday, so that the Sunday pitchers could appear.
"But then what do you do after the break?" asked Verlander, who is scheduled to start again for the Tigers on Friday night. "It'd be nice to be able to represent myself, and Detroit, and my family, but that comes second to winning a World Series."
Even if Verlander was available, it's possible that American League manager Ron Washington would have chosen to start Jered Weaver (who will, in fact, start the game). Weaver and Verlander have both been great in the first half.
But as Weaver said a couple of weeks back, "I don't have the 98 mph fastball."
Verlander has more than just that. As Blue Jays manager John Farrell said Monday, Verlander has a unique ability to finish out games.
"In the last six outs, he almost goes into a mental transformation to being a closer," said Farrell, whose Jays were the victim in Verlander's second no-hitter. "It's not only his body language, and his mound presence, but you see it on the radar gun, too."
It's a great story, one you really wish baseball could tell -- and sell -- on Tuesday night. But there's another great story, the Alex Avila story, and that's one baseball can tell.
It's the story of the youngest catcher to start an All-Star Game since Russell Martin in 2007, the youngest in the American League since Pudge Rodriguez, who first started as a 21-year-old in 1993. It's the story of a kid who once heard a few sneers from teammates that he got preferential treatment because of his last name, but went on to prove that he belonged on his own merit.
Three years later, it seems Al Avila was right on one thing. The Tigers shouldn't have drafted Alex in the fifth round. He shouldn't have even been available in the fifth round.
All-Star catchers go a lot earlier than that.
