The Pecan Park Eagle

At Age 41, Former Astro Catcher Brad Ausmus is Done.

Word out of Los Angeles from reliable sources is not surprising. After 18 seasons in the big leagues, former Houston Astros catcher and pitching coach on the field, a catcher named Brad Ausmus, will not be returning in 2011 for another limited duty spin on the bench for the Dodgers or any other MLB club.

At 41 – the man is done. And he will leave as one of the smartest men to ever put on the tools of ignorance and squat for a living in baseball. The former Dartmouth University alumnus somehow escaped all of the Ivy League nicknames that writers could have crowned upon him for his brainy background, but that did not stop him from showing us all over time just how the powerful the combination of intelligence plus ability plus MLB experience plus the ability to communicate wisdom to others as coaching information together all carries the weight of a value that goes way beyond that of a player’s individual statistics.

Ausmus was one of the greatest handlers of pitchers to ever play the game – and he did it with a flair for oozing every ounce of confidence in pitchers about their own abilities. You can’t get a pitcher to relax and use his own best abilities for long unless he really believes in himself and that truism is something that Brad Ausmus just seemed to naturally understand. If anything, he inspired confidence as much as he taught or picked up on issues of technique and mechanical performance. The catcher who do both of those things is a cut above all others – and Brad Ausmus was such a catcher.

Maybe the “Dartmouth Dandy” or the “Daring Datmouthian” would have either worked as monikers for Ausmus. Or maybe not. He didn’t need them anyway to get the job done – and his abilities extended to working with both the young and the veteran members of the Astros staff while he was here.

Brad Ausmus trained young pitchers for success – and he made it beyond easy for exceptional veterans like Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte to join the staff at Houston in confidence that they were working with a battery mate that totally knew what he was doing behind the plate.

Statistically speaking, the offensive career of Brad Ausmus is not much to write home about. In eighteen seasons (1993-2010), Brad Ausmus batted .251 with 80 career homers and a career slugging average of .344. Over his past two seasons (2009-10) as a limited duty backup catcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers, Brad had only appeared in 51 games through August 26th of this current 2010 season. His main value to LA has been in his role as a coach on the ground of active duty, but the absence of success under the Joe Torre managerial tenure and wholesale personnel questions seem to negate the continuation of Ausmus in his current role. Until the Dodgers figure out what they want to do now, even Brad Ausmus can’t help them.

Old Number 11 Lives on in Astros Club Lore.

Brad Ausmus did a little traveling in his big league days. He started out with the San Diego Padres (1993-96) before being dealt to the Detroit Tigers for the latter part of the 1996 season. The Tigers then traded Ausmus to the Houston Astros for his first tour of duty here (1997-98) and those first two NL Playoff Runs under new manager Larry Dierker.

Then, because the Astros still didn’t understand the jewel they held in their hands, Ausmus was dealt back to the Tigers for the 1999-2001 seasons. After a huge fall from playoff grace, the Astros reacquired Brad Ausmus in time for an eight-season run (2001-08) that would see the Astros return to the playoffs under Dierker in 2001, and then, under new manager Phil Garner, get close to the pennant in 2004, and then take the NL flag and go all the way to the World Series for the first and only time in 2005.

Brad Ausmus made the American League All Star Team with the 1999 Detroit Tigers, Upon his return to the Astros, Ausmus also captured Gold Glove Awards at catcher in 2001, 2002, and 2006.

Brad Ausmus’s greatest Astros moment came in the deciding game of the NLDS battle with the Atlanta Braves at Minute Maid Park in 2005. With the Astros needing only one more win to move into the championship round against the St. Louis Cardinals, the Braves jumped all over the Astros and led 6-1 going into the bottom of the eighth. Then thunder began to strike from Astro bats.

Lance Berkman crunched a grand slam in the bottom of the eighth to bring the Astros back to mere 5-6, one-run deficit. Then, in the bottom of the ninth, with two outs and Brad Ausmus batting, things looked pretty much “over and done with” for the trailing Astros.

That’s when Brad Ausmus lifted a high fly to deep left center. The ball bounced arguably over the HR line on the high wall for a game-tying swat. The two teams would then spend almost another nine innings trying to break the 6-6 tie before Houston rookie Chris Burke finally  lifted a home run into the left field Crawford Boxes to sudden death the 7-6 Houston win and send the Astros on to a pennant series win over the St. Louis Cardinals.

Were it not for the 9th inning game-saver shot by Brad Ausmus, the whole parade of iconic drams that unfolded from there, including Roger Clemens’s great  extra inning relief appearance, never would have happened.

And now Brad Ausmus finally takes leave of his valued role as the flight instructor who still sits down in the co-pilot seat for every flight with his trainees. In my view, Brad Ausmus is quitting just in time to begin a beautiful new career as a full-time coach and manager – if that’s what he wants to do.

Good Luck, Brad Ausmus! Maybe we will see you in Houston again someday for a charm-filled third tour of duty with the Astros as a full-time teacher, coach, or even manager.

Who knows? I just have a hunch, or maybe it’s a baseball wish,  that our paths will cross again in Houston in some kind of way down the line.

Tags: Baseball, Brad Ausmus, History, Houston Astros

This entry was posted on August 27, 2010 at 12:34 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.