TUCSON, Ariz. – Zach Simons has not forgotten the people who helped him get a professional baseball contract last year.
One of those people received a letter this spring from Simons. A letter that touched the heart.
“It was an awesome letter,” said Levi Lacey, the baseball coach at Everett Community College. “I’m going to frame it and put it up on the wall of my office.”
Simons wrote how much the EvCC program had benefited his career. But there was more than words contained in the envelope. He also sent a check to help fund the Trojan baseball program that he played in for two years.
To people who know Simons, that came as no surprise.
“That sounds like Zach,” said a woman at Glenns Ferry (ID) High School, where Simons was a three-sport star. “We’ve got a beautiful scoreboard with a three-foot clock on top and I’m sure Zach was a contributor.”
Sure enough, Simons donated some money to his hometown Glenns Ferry Pilots athletic program. “You always need to give back to the programs that helped form your career,” he said.
Simons more than did his part to bring glory to his high school. He was an all-stater in three sports – football, basketball and baseball – and, as a starting pitcher, lost only one game in four years. That in the final game of his prep career, the Class 2A state championship. “They came out to play and whipped my butt that day,” he said. “Story of my life.”
Hardly.
If he weren’t a winner, he wouldn’t have had Division I football teams recruiting him as a wide receiver/defensive back/punter. He wouldn’t have gotten letters from colleges wanting him to come and play basketball and baseball. And he wouldn’t have become a second-round pick in the 2005 June baseball draft.
Nor would he have had a solid first season for the Tri-City Dust Devils, a Class A Northwest League affiliate of the Colorado Rockies. And he wouldn’t have made a splash as quickly as he did, winning the organization’s Player of the Month for July after going 3-1 with a 1.77 ERA.
The 20-year-old right-hander would finish the season with a 6-5 record, tying for most wins on the team, and a 3.81 ERA, fifth best in the Rockies minor league system. His 82.2 innings tied for third most in the Northwest League.
It was a strong first step on the ladder that leads to the major leagues, which his college coach believes Simons will reach.
“He has the drive to be the best player possible,” Lacey said. “He has his eye on the prize.”
Major league teams had their eyes on Simons, who began this season with the Asheville Tourists of the Class A South Atlantic League, after his freshman year at EvCC. The Oakland A’s drafted him, but he turned them down after they balked at giving him a $100,00 signing bonus.
“What a mistake that was,” Lacey said.
Then up stepped the Rockies last year, giving him $650,000 for being the 55th player taken overall. He was one of three EvCC players drafted in the first eight rounds last year.
“I’d never heard of Everett Community College,” Simons said after a workout at the Rockies spring training complex last month. “But what they’re doing there has definitely put the school on the map. To go from four years of being in existence to having three guys (drafted) in the top 10 rounds is huge.”
Before the draft, he had indications that he might be taken between the third and fifth rounds. Then, on the morning of the draft, his agent called and said there was a good possibility he could go early in the second round.
“I was just like, ‘Oh, man,’” Simons said. “I mean, I’m from a small town of 1,600 people. Just getting drafted is an honor.
“It was a dream come true. It’s just something you can’t explain.”
He was just the second player ever drafted from his high school, which has an enrollment of about 180.
“It was huge for the state of Idaho just to get on the map,” he said, “because we’re not very well known for producing ballplayers.”
The state has put only one player in the Baseball Hall of Fame – slugger Harmon Killibrew.
“I’m hoping to be number two,” Simons said.
He was No. 1 in the hearts of his townpeople the day he got drafted.
“I went to Boise when I signed and there were about 200 people there,” he said. “It was really cool.”
Cool that so many people would drive 60 miles to see one of their own write his name on a piece of paper.
In Glenns Ferry, banners were hung to congratulate him. But as yet, no street has been named in his honor.
“We haven’t,” said the woman at the high school, sounding puzzled, “but we should, shouldn’t we?”
Glenns Ferry – a farming community with one blinking light but no stoplights – is, in Simons’ words, “a nice little town. I love being from Glenns Ferry because I go back and they just support me 100 percent.
“In a town like that, you work for everything you get. Everyone just thinks you’re an underdog. You’ve got to just prove everything.”
So far, he is doing just that.
As a pro, it began with his first victory, against the team he used to watch as a kid, the Boise Hawks. He shut them out through 62/3 innings to get the win in an 8-6 decision at Pasco.
If that was thrilling for him, imagine what it must have been like when he beat the Hawks in their own stadium with 600 of his friends and neighbors in the stands.
“I told a bunch of guys that the only thing that could compare to that was if I was lucky enough to get a big-league start,” he said. “It was a real emotional time.”
Another big night was when he came back to Everett and beat the AquaSox in front of his old EvCC teammates.
“I could hear them cheering,” he said.
What he took from his college years was a bigger body (he went from 170 to 200 pounds) and a better understanding of how to pitch.
“The reason I got my money was because of Levi Lacey and Everett Community College baseball. I strongly believe that.”
Lacey said when Simons first showed up, he was strictly a power pitcher. “He became a smart pitcher,” the coach said.
Now he can scoot the ball up to the plate in the mid-90s, but he doesn’t rely so much on velocity anymore as he does on spotting the ball because, as he points out, “everybody can hit a 95 mph fastball.”
Colorado’s minor league pitching coordinator, Jim Wright, said the Rockies let first-year players pitch like they did in college for the first 30 days then they make any necessary changes. With Simons, they revamped his delivery. “He added power to his fastball, depth to his breaking ball and developed a nice changeup,” Wright said.
Besides being a good competitor and a fine athlete, Wright likes the way Simons conducts himself. “He’s very professional for such a young kid,” the coach said.
They say Zach Simons is still the same kid he was growing up – nice, humble, respectful. “He never acted like he was better than anyone else,” said the woman at the high school.
Even if he does drive a big, fancy car. “It’s the only Cadillac Escalade in town,” she said, “and he looks great in it.”
How did he decide on such a car?
“I’m a professional baseball player and that’s the stereotypical image,” he said with a playful grin. “Everybody’s got a Cadillac. But if I don’t pitch well, it’s going to get repoed.”
That’s not likely to happen.
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