 |
POWER HITTER: Mayberry has
a .537 slugging percentage.
Kyle Terada/Stanford Athletics |
BACK IN THE Kansas City
Royals clubhouse in the early ’90s, slugger Bo
Jackson used to rub the little guy’s head for
luck before each game. “And Junior would imitate
Bo’s batting stance, and say he’d be in
the big leagues some day.”
That’s John Mayberry Sr. talking about his son,
John Mayberry Jr., who indeed may follow in Jackson’s—and
his father’s—cleat tracks. A two-time All-Star
first baseman, Mayberry Sr. played major league baseball
for 15 seasons with the Houston Astros, Toronto Blue
Jays, New York Yankees and Royals.
Today, Senior runs clinics and fantasy camps for the
Royals, but he’s happiest when he’s on the
road, watching Junior play with Team USA or the Cape
Cod Baseball League or at Sunken Diamond. “I hope
he gets drafted in June, but it won’t stop there,”
he says. “He’ll have the minor leagues,
then the big leagues, then the All-Star game. There’s
always a challenge in baseball.”
A first-round draft pick by the Seattle Mariners out
of high school, the junior first baseman had to choose
between his lifelong dream of playing pro ball or accepting
a baseball scholarship to Stanford. “It was very
difficult,” he says. “But we figured if
I came here and played as well as I was capable of,
I would be in the same spot in three years, and I’d
also have my degree. And then I found out John Elway
went here ...”
Mayberry pauses, listening to the thwack of bats striking
balls on a glorious spring day. A trim 6-feet-5, he’s
a designer prototype for first base. His strong arm—he
guesstimates he throws the ball at about 90 mph—and
elegant reach anchor the Cardinal infield, and he’s
second on the team with a .344 batting average. Mayberry
and teammate Jed Lowrie, ’06, are candidates for
National Player of the Year.
As Mayberry has closed his batting stance this year
and become an even quieter, more efficient hitter—“there’s
not a lot of wasted movement in the setup”—he
has watched the No. 10 Cardinal (18-9) adjust to the
loss of nine players last spring to pro ball. He thinks
the team’s prospects are good for a sixth consecutive
College World Series appearance in June. “We have
great pitching and great defense, so definitely, we’ve
got a good shot at it.”
Like a lot of kids, Mayberry grew up playing Little
League and collecting baseball cards. (He still has
a Cal Ripken rookie card, though “not the one
that’s worth an unbelievable amount of money.”)
But he had access to better coaching than most. “The
fact that I grew up in a household that always talked
about baseball, I couldn’t help but pick up the
game,” he says. “I started playing as soon
as I had the motor skills to hold a bat.”
If his father’s influence on the playing field
has been considerable over the years, Mayberry says
his mom has always been on the sidelines, motivating
him. “She gets me pumped up and makes sure I’m
feeling good about myself,” he says. “She’ll
say, ‘Go get ’em, Johnny,’ that sort
of thing, to keep me loose before a game.”
When he was in high school, Janice Mayberry drove her
son from their home in Kansas to a Jesuit school in
Missouri every day. When he committed to attending Stanford,
she was there to see that he finished his degree. “I’ve
always said to him, ‘Do not start something—I
don’t care whether it’s knitting or crocheting
or baseball—and not finish it.’” As
the family looks ahead to the June draft, she is just
as clear about what her son’s priorities should
be. “I hope he signs and does what he’s
capable of doing,” she says. “But I want
him to be a good person first, and then play ball.”
|
