Leave it to Jeff Francoeur to turn a minor league experience into something positive.
Just when it looked like the game might have finally beaten him down and his Sports Illustrated Coverboy career came to a crossroads in El Paso, Texas, Francoeur got back to the big leagues with the San Diego Padres.
He was called up to join the Padres on Wednesday in Chicago, and he’s back just in time to come home to Atlanta on Friday for the start of a four-game series against the Braves, the team that drafted him in the first round in 2002 and helped him make a meteoric ascent to the majors.
“I’ve got a completely different mindset now than I did the last 8 ½ years,” said Francoeur, now 30, on his cab ride to Wrigley Field on Thursday afternoon. “Just have fun. … I’m lucky to play this game and being back last night was so much fun. You almost wish sometimes that everybody could experience that, because it really just took my breath away, being out there last night again.”
He felt something he hadn’t in a long time – nervous.
“I was in a daze all day yesterday,” said Francoeur, who took a 6 a.m. flight to Chicago. “I love to eat. I only ate like a breakfast sandwich yesterday in El Paso before I left and I didn’t eat until after the game with (wife) Catie last night.”
In the meantime he had gone 1-for-3 with a single to right field – the opposite field, of all places - a run scored and a sacrifice fly, hitting a ball hard to center field for an out and using left field for his sac fly. It seems his time in Triple-A wasn’t all viral videos and summer-camp worthy pranks.
Francoeur made the internet rounds, first when his Chihuahua teammates pranked him into thinking one of his teammates was deaf, carrying on the charade for nearly a month. More recently they locked him in the coaches’ bathroom.
“The first one — they got me really good,” Francoeur said. “That was impressive.”
And the second one? Francoeur might have gotten the better end after all. He escaped the intricate rope-system holding the door shut by climbing through the ceiling and coming down into the main part of the clubhouse, with a big grin on his face. All of it was captured on tape.
Those same Triple-A teammates stood in the locker room Tuesday night and gave Francoeur an ovation shortly after manager Pat Murphy told him he’d been called up to the big leagues again.
“I (first) got called up when I was 21,” Francoeur said. “You’re too young and stupid to realize anything, and you just feel like it’s going to go forever, whereas when I got called up the other day it was just awesome.”
Francoeur skipped Triple-A when he made the majors with the Baby Braves in 2005. He played only four games in Triple-A Fresno last year with the Giants. This time, though, he was there for 98 games.
And yes, he thought about quitting.
“I’d be lying if I didn’t say it crossed my mind sometimes early this year,” Francoeur said. “I was scuffling. … I’m thinking ‘Why am I here? What have I got to do?’”
Francoeur said it came to a head April 22, when he went 0-for-5 with three strikeouts in a game in which El Paso scored nine runs, and lost 21-9. His wife Catie, who’d made the trip to Las Vegas, gave him an earful that night.
“It was, ‘if you’re going to do this, do this, if not come home, do something else,’” Francoeur said. “It really took her and our manager just telling me to get my (act together). If you’re going to do this, do this the right way and try to get back up, work your butt off and that’s what I did.”
He worked to shorten his swing. After hitting .196 in April, he topped .300 for each of the next three months, and was hitting .294 with 15 home runs and 60 RBIs when he got called up.
He got back to having fun, which also meant a well-documented turn on the mound. With his team dealing with injuries and blowout losses, he volunteered to pitch and to his surprise, Murphy let him. He pitched 6 1/3 innings over seven appearances for his first action on the mound since clinching the 2002 state championship for Parkview by winning both games in relief during a doubleheader sweep over Lassiter.
“I loved it,” Francoeur said. “It was so cool. It felt like high school.”
Francoeur said the Padres never took it seriously – he didn’t throw anything offspeed – and he’s most proud of the work he’s done with the bat.
“Everybody is joking about the pitching, which I had a lot of fun doing, but I knew I still had a lot left in the tank,” Francoeur said. “I knew I had to just find it.”
He was home in Atlanta over the All-Star break celebrating his daughter Emma Cate’s first birthday. He and Catie had Brian McCann, Kelly Johnson and Mark DeRosa and their wives over to celebrate. Getting to play again at Turner Field this weekend? All the better.
“A couple times (coming back) was so weird,” said Francoeur, who played against the Braves with the Mets and Royals. “But now it’s just so fun to see everybody.”
