A True Snowball Effect

The rosters of major league baseball teams today are awash with the second generation of the rich and famous. The prowess of the fathers is passed on to the sons. It’s almost like the Hapsburgs or the Romanoffs. A dynasty. The divine right of kings.

There never was any Babe Ruth Jr. or Ty Cobb II. There isn’t even a Gehrig scion abroad in the lineups, but there is a Ken Griffey Jr. and a Barry Bonds who is really a Bobby Bonds II and there is a Jose Cruz Jr.

And there is a J.T. Snow. You won’t find J.T.’s father’s exploits in a Sporting News Guide or the Baseball Register, but he was a tremendous athlete in his own right. You’ll find Papa Jack’s exploits listed in the Notre Dame Review or in the history of the now-defunct Los Angeles Rams. He was a football player. One of the best.

By rights, Son J.T. should be going out for a long one or faking a safety out of his shoes rather than trying to coax a walk or hit a fastball off a major league pitcher.

Because what he should have inherited from his father was a pair of the surest hands in football, an instinct for getting open and speed enough to stay there.

Jack Snow, pere, was one of the best split ends the Fighting Irish ever had. Fifth in the balloting once for the Heisman Trophy, the statue awarded to the planet’s best college football player, Snow once caught 217 yards worth of

passes and two touchdowns in one game, caught 60 passes for nine touchdowns in a season and was a consensus All-American at Notre Dame.

With the Rams, he once averaged 26 yards per reception, caught 45 touchdown passes for more than 6,000 yards in his career. He was a Pro Bowl player.

So, why isn’t John Thomas Snow the Second trying to make a Super Bowl instead of a World Series?

Actually, he was a very good football player, a quarterback good enough in high school for both Oregon schools and his Dad’s alma mater to offer him scholarships. But J.T., a three-sport all-conference athlete, opted for the grand old game.

He doesn’t regret it. The New York Yankees, no less, drafted him first but they had a fellow named Don Mattingly playing first base, so they traded him to the Angels (for Jim Abbott).

Actually, the baseball gene is hardier than any other. Not only fathers and sons, but siblings excel at it. In football, there is no Red Grange Jr. nor any Four Ponies or Jim Brown the Second. Neither is there a brother act out there. But baseball’s alive with them. There were the Dean boys, Dizzy and Paul; the Alous, father Felipe and son Moises, and Felipe’s brothers Matty and Jesus; the McDaniel brothers, Lindy and Von; Ramon and Pedro Martinez and so on.

J.T. opted for baseball not out of fear of injuries or basic ineptitude, but from a simple love of the game. He was even a pitcher good enough to get a contact from a Seattle scout, but he passed up the mound because he wanted to be an everyday player. “I couldn’t sit around,” he told me the other night at Dodger Stadium.

A lot of us thought J.T. on the Angels would be another case where the son also rises even if in a different sport. He looked like the answer to Anaheim’s first-base problems for the next decade when he hit .289 with 24 home runs and 23 other extra-base hits his first season.

So, we were startled when they let this Snow drift as, only a year later, with numbers only marginally less, he was traded to the Giants for a pitcher who had only two complete games and another who had never pitched in the major leagues.

“When [General Manager] Bill Bavasi called me in and told me I was gone, I was shocked too. I thought I had proven myself. But I just thanked him for making my dreams come true and letting me play those games near my home on the Angels all that time. And I packed and left.”

Did he think for a minute he’d played the wrong sport, after all? Snow smiles and shakes his head. “Baseball always was my game.”

At San Francisco, the Giants had no problem handing him his first baseman’s mitt and the position.

He may not make the world forget Willie McCovey, but at week’s end this Snow man was batting .295 with 13 homers, 25 doubles and 47 runs batted in and 44 scored. A switch-hitter, he’s hitting .330 left-handed with all 13 homers and 44 RBIs that way.

His manager, Dusty Baker, says, “J.T. comes to play. You get nine innings or more of quality baseball out of him every day. We got him after both Rod Carew and Chili Davis, who were with him on the Angels, recommended him highly.”

So, the prediction for the National League is for heavy Snow the rest of the way and tough sledding. The Giants were leading their division and opposing pitchers to a man were probably wishing J.T.’s dad had given him a football for Christmas instead of a bat when he was a boy. The patrimony is still there. He’s as tough to keep from home plate as Dad was to keep from the end zone. A Gold Glover, he’s as adept at catching a ball as Dad was.

So, athletic talent is passed on the same way the family jewels were by the crowned heads of Europe, transferable to any sport. J.T. just gives a new meaning to a Snow Job.

You wonder if there’ll be a Henry the Eighth in a lineup one day. Or just the intermittent Snow.