October 14, 2007

Whicker column: Ex-Servite star making parents proud with Cleveland

MARK WHICKER
Register columnist

CLEVELAND - Elaine and Michael Garko made this trip in April. The goal was to see their son Ryan play major-league ballgames for the first time.

It was a partial success. They saw Ryan in their hotel. They had lunch with him. They heard him talk of spring training and the thrill of traveling north with the club.

And then they did it again, and again, as they saw the city go white.

Pretty good weekend, except for the ballgames. All three were snowed out.

“It was a good time to do some family bonding,” Ryan said the other day. “You couldn’t really do anything but sit around the hotel.”

That was the end of the regular-season road show.

“We’re not the type of parents that are going to follow Ryan around everywhere,” explained Elaine, a former teacher and vice principal at St. Francis of Assisi school in Yorba Linda (Michael is an accountant and CFO).

They did see their son twice in Anaheim, when the Indians visited. And now they’re back on the shores of Lake Erie, for Games 3-4-5 of the American League Championship Series.

After a glimpse at the Weather Channel.

The Garkos know there will be some adjustments. The Indians and Red Sox, now tied 1-1, don’t automatically quit playing at bedtime.

Neither team swings the bat for show, and Daisuke Matsuzaka, Boston’s Game 3 pitcher tonight, likes to leisurely walk around the mound, as if checking on invisible tomato plants.

Game 2 consumed five hours and 14 minutes (and 416 pitches), before Cleveland waited out Boston’s premium relievers, got a hungry look at Eric Gagne, and struck hard for seven runs in the 11th inning.

Garko singled home one of those runs, and he’s hitting fifth. Just four years ago he was a senior at Stanford. Last year he got to Cleveland and hit .292 over 50 games, as General Manager Mark Shapiro and Manager Eric Wedge tried to see how to make a young, promising club actually live up to its word.

This year Garko took over first base and hit 21 homers with 61 RBIs and a .289 average, at age 26.

Garko’s bat spread wreckage at Servite and Stanford. He visited four College World Series and hit .402 as a senior with 92 RBIs. Twice his Cardinal teams eliminated Cal State Fullerton, once when Garko caught a 144-pitch victory by Jeremy Guthrie, now with the Orioles.

In his senior year Garko was co-Pac-10 Player of the Year with Arizona State’s Dustin Pedroia, the Red Sox’s current second baseman. The Dodgers’ Andre Ethier was at ASU at the time.

For the Friars Garko was known as the “man-child,” ever since he stepped into the box as a 6-foot freshman.

“He came out hitting from the first day,” said Todd Cook, who was the pitching coach at the time and later became coach. “It was pretty obvious he was going to make our team right away. I was throwing batting practice one day at Cal State Fullerton, when we were practicing to play Mater Dei, and he hit one over this net in left-center. During a game at Westminster he hit a home run to right-center, where nobody hits them.”

Garko was Servite’s quarterback until his senior year, when he concentrated on baseball.

“When Stanford recruited him there was really no question about what he was going to do,” Elaine Garko said. “He was a big Notre Dame fan and still is. But for baseball he needed a warm-weather school and Stanford just had the best combination of everything.”

But then Garko was hoping to spend only three years, not four, at Stanford.

If there is one day in Garko’s smooth athletic life that he would like to vaporize, it’s draft day 2002, when nobody called his name.

“It was a tough thing to deal with but it became a blessing in disguise,” Ryan said. “I remember sitting down and talking with Coach (Mark) Marquess about it. I never did get an explanation from the pros, but it was probably good, as it turned out. I was a lot better prepared for all this.”

Garko slammed 18 home runs in 2003, which doesn’t sound like many until you compare it to his strikeouts — 15. The Indians picked him in the third round.

“When you play in the Pac-10 you face great pitching,” Garko said. “You play in pressure situations. When I got into the minors I really looked at the Pac-10 as the equivalent of Double-A ball. And I had played enough with the wood bat (in the Cape Cod League) that I knew how to move my legs more and compensate.”

The Garkos are guaranteed to see Jacobs Field this week, since the temperature isn’t supposed to get below 57. And they really don’t expect Ryan to keep them up all night. He’s normally on time.

ALCS schedule

Cleveland vs. Boston

Series tied, 1-1

Friday: Boston 10, Cleveland 3

Sat.: Cleveland 13, Boston 6 (11)

Monday: at Cleveland, 4 p.m.

Tuesday: at Cleveland, 4 p.m.

Thursday: at Cleveland, 5 p.m.

*Saturday: at Boston, TBA

*Oct. 21: at Boston, TBA

All games on Fox/11

*If necessary