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Former American Press sportswriter Carl Dubois blogs about the games people play, in and out of sports, and the people you meet between and outside the lines. Carl is an award-winning reporter and columnist living in the Willamette Valley in northwest Oregon, near Portland. He is sports editor of the News-Register newspaper in McMinnville, Ore.

Catching up with Chad Ogea

Posted February 27, 2009 at 10:20 am
Filed Under People, Sports | 3 Comments

BATON ROUGE — Fortunate enough to be invited to a recent LSU baseball reunion, I had a pleasant conversation with Chad Ogea, who pitched for the Tigers in the late 1980s and early ’90s.

There we were, two Lake Charles natives — and St. Louis Catholic High School graduates — catching up on old times. I told Chad that a few weeks ago, I was watching MLB Network afternoon programming and saw him featured in highlights from the 1997 World Series. As I said to Chad, I wondered if I was the only person watching who could say, “I remember seeing him pitch at Huber Park.”

“That was a long time ago,” he said, smiling.

As a Little League pitcher, Chad towered over his teammates and opponents. Baseball-Reference.com lists him as 6-foot-2, 200 pounds during his major league career, and by age 12 he was well on his way, having grown almost to his full adult height. He was an intimidating presence on the mound, not least of all because of his overpowering fastball.

That’s all he had, critics said during his high school and American Legion career, and when other players began to catch up to him physically and, in some cases, outgrow him, he’d surely settle into mediocrity — or worse.

“All he’s got is a fastball,” an opposing American Legion manager snarled one day. “When he gets to LSU, they’re going to eat his lunch.”

Skip Bertman, LSU’s coach and pitching coach extraordinaire during Chad’s college career, helped him get the most out of his repertoire and develop a better breaking ball and change-up. He won 14 games in 1991, including the victory against Wichita State that gave the Tigers the first of their five national championships.

Chad was part of an impressive Cleveland Indians draft that year, one that featured Manny Ramirez and Paul Byrd. Still, there were skeptics, and I recall hearing the same things I’d heard when Chad was in Little League and in high school: When he gets to the next level, he’s in for a reality check.

He played in six seasons in the majors, five with the Indians and a final season with the Philadelphia Phillies. His lifetime record is 37-35, with an earned run average of 4.88. Best season: 1995, with an 8-3 record and 3.05 ERA.

Chad pitched in that 1997 World Series for the Indians against the Florida Marlins. He won his two starts and raised eyebrows by driving in two big runs in Game 6, when he stroked a bases-loaded single — his first hit since his American Legion career — in a 4-1 victory.

Had Cleveland closer Jose Mesa been able to hold a one-run lead in the bottom of the ninth inning in Game 7, Chad would probably have been voted Most Valuable Player of the Series. Instead, the Marlins rallied for a run against Mesa, then won the Series with a 3-2 victory on a run in the bottom of the 11th inning.

One of the most frustrating things Chad and his family encountered during the mid ’90s was the inability of most baseball announcers to correctly pronounce his last name. If you can properly say “Dr. Zhivago,” you can pronounce “Ogea” as it’s meant to be spoken, but nearly ever play-by-play announcer, analyst and sports anchor said it exactly like “O.J.”

Before, during and after the Simpson trial, it was no fun to be incorrectly called “O.J.”

Today Chad is living here in Baton Rouge, where people know how to say his name. He and Bertman are neighbors, and Chad has his hands full with a couple of business ventures — one in baseball, the other putting his degree in landscape architecture to good use. We talked about these trying economic times, and he commiserated with me about my ongoing search for employment.

What people have to understand, he said, is hard work is the only solution. People who were able to get by letting others do the heavy lifting will have to be reintroduced to hard work if they hope to survive and later thrive in this climate we find ourselves in, he said.

I’m not worried about Chad Ogea. He’s lost something off his fastball, but as he proved in high school, college and the pros, he’s got more going for him than one pitch.

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