Former Shocker Blake battled his way onto the MLB Hall of Fame ballot

Casey Blake’s name was on the Baseball Hall of Fame ballot this year and it embarrassed him.

Blake, the former Wichita State Shocker third baseman who persisted in professional baseball long enough to eventually build a 13-year career in the big leagues, is like that.

He’s been gone from the majors for five years now and is back in his hometown of Indianola, Iowa, where he and his wife, Abbie, are raising their six kids, ages 4 through 15.

“I’m pretty much just being a bum,” Blake said. “My wife gets kind of sick of it. But I help take care of these kids and we’ve got somebody playing or practice every night. We’re running like crazy.”

Blake played at Wichita State from 1993 to 1996 and led the Shockers to the ’96 College World Series by batting .360 with 22 homers and 101 RBIs. That’s the last time Wichita State made it to Omaha.

He was chosen by the Toronto Blue Jays in the seventh round of the 1996 draft and proceeded to get stuck in the minors, playing in more than 700 games in the Blue Jays and Twins organizations before signing as a minor-league free agent with Cleveland before the 2003 season. He was 29.

So while Blake is never going to make it to the Hall of Fame for his baseball abilities, his perseverance is worthy of a speech at Cooperstown.

“It’s a little weird for me to have my name on the ballot,” Blake said. “Given where I’m from and the path I took, with six years in the minors, it took me a while to even believe I belonged at the big-league level. To see my name on that ballot with all of those great players . . . it kind of blows my mind a little bit.”

Blake finally got a shot in Cleveland, which at the time was managed by former WSU catcher Eric Wedge. Indians third baseman Travis Fryman had retired and Cleveland, Blake said, was looking for a replacement.

“Wedge was pretty cool, he was like, ‘Hey, this is the chance you’ve been waiting for,’ ” Blake said. “I had a great spring and made the team but even then, I knew I was just a stop-gap guy because that’s what (general manager) Mark Shapiro told me. I was a guy to fill in for a year until they could sign somebody bigger or give the spot to a prospect coming up.”

It looked like Blake might not make it past a couple of weeks after a dreadful start (7 of 44) to the 2003 season.

“When they told me I made the team out of spring training, I had a really emotional exchange with my dad (Joe),” Blake said. “There was a lot of time we spent working on my game. But then the season is upon you and just kind of in your face. Every day, you’re playing against guys at the highest level and it was pretty overwhelming.

“Wedge called me into his office and said I better pick it up or I was out of here. Not those exact words, he was cool about it. But he made sure to let me know it was a business.”

Blake picked it up. He played in 152 games for the Indians in 2003 and batted .257 with 17 homers and 67 RBIs. His best season was 2004, when he batted .261 with 28 homers and 88 RBIs. Cleveland traded Blake to the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2008 and he was LA’s regular third baseman for two-plus seasons.

“The thing I’m probably most proud of when I look back at my career is that I did stick around for a while,” Blake said. “When I see some of these young studs and All-Stars today and they do it for a year or two and then fizzle out, it makes me realize what a special opportunity I had and the career I was able to put together.”

The toil of the minors took a toll, Blake said. There were fleeting moments when he wondered why he was still playing and questioning if he would ever stick in the big leagues.

“I was fortunate in those times to have my dad and my brothers back home encouraging me and rooting for me to stick with it,” Blake said. “My dad would always tell me to come home and sell insurance for a week or two when that would make me change my mind about hanging it up real quick.”

You can imagine, then, how surreal it must be for Blake, a kid from a small Iowa town, to see his name on the Hall of Fame ballot. Former players become HOF eligible five years after a career that included at least 10 seasons in the majors.

Blake’s name is on the ballot with the likes of Jeff Bagwell, Trevor Hoffman, Edgar Martinez, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Tim Raines and others. Several, including Bonds and Clemens, have been implicated as part of baseball’s Steroids Era.

“These guys, they were already great hitters, great pitchers,” Blake said of the stars whose reputations were tainted by allegations or proof of steroids abuse. “It’s too bad, unfortunate they felt the need to inject something into their bodies. Would I vote for them? I would say ‘no,’ but a part of me wants to dive into the type of player they were before they started that stuff. They were good, good players who were just made that much better by that substance.”

Blake is glad he doesn’t have to wrestle with the morality of the era. Wrestling with six kids is enough.

This story was originally published January 18, 2017 at 12:04 PM with the headline "Former Shocker Blake battled his way onto the MLB Hall of Fame ballot."