Selfless Augustine Puts Team First as Jethawks’ 3rd Catcher

Life in Class-A baseball is one of sore backs from sitting on a bus, a barely life-supporting salary, cheap hotels and cheaper food.

But if you ask most minor leaguers about it, they’ll tell you it’s worth it because at least they are getting a chance to play and develop, hopefully, into major leaguers.

So what if you took even that chance away, would it be worth the hassle?

Meet Andy Augustine, the JetHawks’ No. 3 catcher.

Augustine is perhaps the most admirable of the 25 JetHawks because he is going through all the rigors of minor league baseball but, for now anyway, he’s doing it more for his teammates than for himself.

Augustine’s job description: catch in the bullpen, play about once every eight or nine days. In essence, he’s there for the pitchers, to help them get to the major leagues.

“I have the utmost respect for Auggie, because he probably has the toughest job on this club,” JetHawk Manager Dave Brundage said. “It’s not easy to sit there every day and watch these guys play and have fun. And yet he does all the so-called grunt work.

“He’s in the bullpen blocking balls, catching all the pitchers. Pretty much the excitement for him is batting practice. It takes someone very special to fill that role.

“I think you have to be half crazy to be a catcher as [it] is, let alone a catcher that doesn’t get a lot of playing time.”

Is he crazy for moving 2,000 miles from his home in Wisconsin to sit in a bullpen for $1,200 a month?

“That’s crossed my mind last year and this year as well,” Augustine says. “But I don’t know what else I’d want to be doing. . . . It’s kind of hard to give up something like this.”

Augustine, 23, has been in this hole before.

In high school, he played football, hockey and baseball. While he was all-conference in hockey and baseball, in football he was a blocking running back who didn’t get the ball much.

Sort of the football equivalent of what he’s doing now.

At Triton College, a two-year school in River Grove, Ill., he spent his sophomore year as merely a cog in a powerful offensive team.

“I was kind of overshadowed by a lot of guys,” he said.

He still earned a full scholarship to Mississippi, but the Seattle Mariners picked him in the 29th round in the 1993 draft. The Mariners’ generous offer of $20,000 was too good to pass up, so Augustine signed.

Because he signed late in the 1993 season, he played in only 10 games. In 1994, he was the starting catcher for short-season Bellingham, Wash., but he hit only .225. Last season, he was a backup at Class-A Wisconsin, hitting .171 in 129 at-bats.

Don’t get the idea Augustine is not valuable, though.

In spring training this season, he was hand-picked by Brundage to be the team’s third catcher, which is a necessary role in Class A because teams need two catchers in the bullpen while one is playing.

What so impressed Brundage was Augustine’s attitude and acceptance of the role. His teammates also have noticed.

“Not to say he doesn’t struggle with it, but he doesn’t cry and complain like a lot of us would,” says JetHawk pitcher Chris Beck, who played with Augustine last season. “He works hard. He’s a great guy to have around.”

Watching so much baseball--as opposed to playing--has also made Augustine a student of the game. He often throws out suggestions for the pitchers, or talks to hitters about how they should expect to be pitched.

“He’s like an assistant pitching coach,” says Juan Eichelberger, the JetHawks’ pitching coach.

Augustine says he’d like to take some of the knowledge he’s soaked up in bullpens and dugouts for the past three years and put it to good use, as a coach.

“I see the level of coaching at the high school and lower college levels and some of these guys just don’t have a clue,” Augustine says. “I wish I could show these players just half of what I’ve learned.”

Still, he says he’s too young to give up on his dream, no matter how unlikely it may seem. Roger Hansen, the Mariners’ minor league catching instructor, says Augustine will get his chance to play, though it probably won’t be this year.

So Augustine waits, patiently. He believes a chance to play is all he needs to develop into a player who can advance. But at the same time he’s not sure, because he hasn’t had the opportunity.

“I would like to think [I’m capable of developing into a major leaguer], but it’s kind of hard to put myself there because the last couple years I haven’t had the chance to play every day,” he says. “There are a lot of what-ifs and questions in my own mind.”