Former CABA players Chavez, Saarloos have fond memories of McCook

It's a long way from McCook to Oakland, Calif.

But you don't have to take the same route to get there.

Eric Chavez and Kirk Saarloos could attest to both. The two spent eight days in McCook - a year apart. Now they are teammates on the Oakland Athletics major league baseball team.

Chavez was named most valuable player of the 1991 Continental Amateur Baseball Association 13-and-younger World Series. Saarloos earned MVP honors of the same tournament a year later. McCook hosted the tournament from 1987 through 1993.

The two were in Denver Monday through Wednesday as the A's played a three-game series against the Colorado Rockies.

Both have fond memories of their brief time in Southwest Nebraska.

"What I remember is that McCook is a small town with very nice people," Chavez said. "My host family (the Don and Pam Ahlers family) was really nice. It was a good experience for me."

Chavez hit .487 during the 13-game series in 1991. He led the tournament field with 20 RBIs. He also finished first in triples with three. The future big leaguer tied for fifth in hits with 19 and tied for ninth in runs scored with 15.

"I don't really remember that much about the Series," he said, which is not surprising, considering the number of games he has played in during the 15 years since the tournament.

Chavez, normally a slow starter, got off to the best start of his eight-year major league career this spring.

"Baseball has a funny way of evening out," he said. "You get so many at-bats in a year."

The A's third baseman has struggled lately, going just six of his last 42 entering play Friday night at San Francisco.

"You just have to go with it," Chavez said. "Whatever happens, happens. You try not to get too high when things are going well and not too low when things are not going well."

Chavez and Saarloos have talked once about the fact that both played at McCook.

"It's a small world," Chavez said.

Also in the "small world" category is the fact that Saarloos' host family in McCook was also the Ahlers. And how's this? Another player during the 1992 CABA tournament was Marques Tuiasosopo of the Seattle, Wash., area.

Tuiasosopo chose football for his career and, after a stellar career with the Washington Huskies, is a quarterback for the Oakland Raiders, meaning all three of the former CABA stars are playing professionally in the same city.

Saarloos won the 1992 MVP for both his bat and his arm. He hit .527 at McCook. He tied for fifth with 19 hits and tied for sixth with 17 runs scored. Saarloos shared second place with seven doubles and was fifth in earned-run average, finishing the Series at 1.91.

Chavez and Saarloos each led his team to the CABA title. Chavez played for the Orange County, Calif., Orange Crush.

Saarloos was a member of the Smith Park Dodgers of Pico Rivera, Calif.

"We were a pair of Southern California kids," Saarloos said. "The main thing we couldn't believe when we were in McCook was that no one locked their doors. They would drive to the store or the post office and leave the engine running while they went inside."

Saarloos also took note of Heritage Hills Golf Course during his visit.

"It's a great golf course," he said. "Every time we drove by it, I wanted to play. I never got the chance, though."

Saarloos said he thoroughly enjoyed his time at McCook.

"That was a lot of fun," he said. "I'm not sure when I first found out that Eric had played there, but I knew it when I got traded to the A's, so we talked about it."

The two took different routes to the majors. Chavez signed with Oakland right out of high school. He was the No. 9 pick overall in the June 1996 draft and collected a $1.1 million signing bonus when he signed two months later.

Saarloos went the collegiate route. He made trips back to Nebraska in 1999 and 2001 as a member of the Cal-State Fullerton team.

"I wasn't the prototypical pitcher," he said. "I had to learn. Eric didn't spend much time in the minors, so his way worked for him. My way worked for me."

Saarloos started his professional career with the Houston Astros before being traded to Oaklahd.

He also enjoyed his time at Omaha for the College World Series.

"I pitched well there," he said. "The pinnacle of college baseball is to go to Omaha. You don't say, 'World Series,' you say, 'we're going to Omaha.' Even if Creighton or Nebraska is not in it, the fans still support it. I don't think it should ever be anywhere else."

Although Chavez started the season with a hot bat, the A's were slow to get out of the gate.

"It's just typical A's," Saarloos said. "When the weather got warmer in June, we started winning."

The A's had a 10-game winning streak snapped at Denver during the first of the three-game series. They dropped the second game as well, before rallying for a 3-2 win in 11 innings in the series finale Wednesday.

"Those two losses didn't change our mindset," Saarloos said. "We knew from the start of the season that we had a good team. We knew it was only a matter of time before we started winning."