LaRocca’s glad he stuck with baseball

Victoria Sun

Wednesday, Aug. 23, 2000 | 11:02 a.m.

The subject brought Greg LaRocca to tears.

For a moment, the normally bubbly Stars second baseman was all choked up.

His eyes watered, his throat was dry and he uncharacteristically struggled to come up with the right words to say.

Just the thought of getting called up to the major leagues and putting on a San Diego Padres uniform was enough to make him weep -- and for good reason.

"I don't know," LaRocca spit out before tears started streaming down his cheeks. "That'd be ... That'd be unbelievable.

"It's tough because I've been doing this all my life. It's something I love to do and ... I can't describe it. It's just such a happy feeling if that would come true. But I'm not expecting it."

Under the circumstances, maybe he should.

Entering Tuesday night's doubleheader against Edmonton, LaRocca was batting .296 with a Pacific Coast League-leading 39 doubles, eight home runs and 76 RBIs.

He was 2-for-4 with one RBI in the Stars' 7-2 victory over the Trappers in Game 1 and 1-for-2 with one run scored in the Stars' 3-1 loss in the nightcap. The loss ended the Stars' (69-63) bid for a playoff berth, putting the team 13 games behind Sacramento with 12 games left.

"It was gonna take something very special for us to overtake them, but that's what you play for," Stars manager Tony Franklin said. "To see if you can do it."

When major league rosters are expanded in September, LaRocca is one of five Stars being considered for a promotion. In Tuesday's edition of the San Diego Union Tribune, Padres beat writer Tom Krasovic listed LaRocca, Kevin Nicholson, starting pitcher Will Cunnane, left-handed reliever Dave Maurer and right-handed reliever Tom Davey as the top candidates for possible call-ups.

A year ago, LaRocca would have laughed at the idea.

Playing in his second season with the Stars, LaRocca's season was finished two weeks after it started. During a brawl with the Omaha Golden Spikes, LaRocca had his right pectoral ligament torn while he was on the ground and people were trying to pull him up.

He had surgery to repair the damage, but doctors advised him to sit out the season. It was the latest setback in a career filled with freak injuries and it almost drove him to quit baseball.

"I was sitting in my hospital bed and I'm just like, what the heck am I doing," LaRocca said.

"I was just thinking of packing it in. I said, you know this is not it for me."

The Padres gave him the option of returning home to New Hampshire for the rest of the season or staying in Las Vegas with the team.

Still uncertain whether he would continue playing baseball, he stayed in Las Vegas, which turned out to be a wise decision.

When the season was over, the Padres sent him to play winter ball in Mexicali, and it was there that he started to rekindle his love for the game. But two weeks later LaRocca was released.

That, coupled with the fact that the procedure to repair his pectoral muscle was the fifth time in his career he underwent surgery, caused some of his friends to try to persuade him to get a regular job.

LaRocca, a graduate of UMass, said that the same friends offered him a job doing "anything he wanted," but he finally turned them down.

"People were saying, what do you want to do?," LaRocca said. "They were like, we can hook you up, don't worry about it.

"That was tough because my parents were saying stick it out, stick it out, you could do it. They were always behind me. I don't know. I was just real confused. It was a tough time.

"(My friends) telling me to go into the work world. Like, it's OK to be average."

LaRocca paused, shook his head before a mischievous grin appeared on his face and with fire in his eyes he roared, "I'm not average. Raaaahhhh!"

Stars starter Buddy Carlyle took a two-hitter into the seventh before surrendering two hits.

DaRond Stovall's two-run homer in the fourth inning of the second game helped the Trappers to a 3-1 victory.