Baseball Blueblood

Brad Cresse eagerly awaited the phone call he thought would bring the best news of his life.

But when it finally came, the news wasn’t good.

Cresse, from Marina High in Huntington Beach, expected to be selected early in the 1996 major league free-agent draft, but he wasn’t chosen until the 34th round.

And even being picked by the Dodgers, the organization for which his father, Mark, is a longtime coach, didn’t ease Brad’s pain.

“I sure wasn’t expecting the 34th round, so the whole thing was just a big disappointment and shock,” he said. “It was tough because I had worked so hard, and I kept hearing I would go early.

“I just kind of sat there that whole day, and I was down for a while. But then I got angry. After that, all I could think about was wanting to prove all those teams were wrong about me.”

He appears to be well on his way.

Cresse rejected the Dodgers’ signing offer and instead accepted a scholarship to play at Louisiana State, where he has emerged as one of college baseball’s premier power hitters.

The standout sophomore catcher figures to be a key for LSU in the College World Series at Omaha.

The fifth-seeded Tigers open the double-elimination tournament today against fourth-seeded USC at Rosenblatt Stadium (10:30 PDT, Channel 2). Cresse will be in his familiar crouch behind home plate, which is a comforting sight for Tiger Coach Skip Bertman.

“He’s had a very good year, and he has played a big part in our success so far,” Bertman said. “Really, the young man has done everything we hoped he would do and more.

“We knew he was a kid with unlimited potential when we recruited him, but you don’t know how fast a player will put it all together. He’s done it faster than we could have counted on.”

Cresse is batting .329 with 26 home runs and 84 runs batted in for two-time defending national champion LSU (46-17), which has won four College World Series titles in the ‘90s.

He leads the team in RBIs and is tied for second in homers, and he was selected second-team All-Southeastern Conference.

Cresse was at his best Sunday during the South II Regional championship game. Playing in front of his home crowd on the Tigers’ campus in Baton Rouge, La., he hit two homers in an inning and drove in seven runs in LSU’s 14-3 victory over Cal State Fullerton.

He had four homers and 12 RBIs in the regionals, and he tied an NCAA playoff record with his two-homer inning.

But Cresse isn’t a one-dimensional catcher.

“He’s a thousand times better behind the plate this season than when he was a freshman,” Bertman said. “His pitch selection is much better, his handling of pitchers is better. He’s just better overall, and he’s still improving each game.”

Having a dad who knows people helps, Cresse said.

“I’ve been really fortunate to grow up around the Dodgers,” said Cresse, who played for three years at Los Alamitos before transferring to Marina.

“Going down to [spring training] in Vero Beach since I was a little kid, working with my dad and the other coaches. That’s obviously not your normal experience for a lot of guys.”

At 6 feet 3 and 220 pounds, Cresse, 19, appears to have the total package.

Well, then, what happened on draft day 1996?

“I really can’t explain it,” said Mark Cresse, in his 22nd season as the Dodger bullpen coach. “We heard a lot of good things [from scouts], and then that happened.

“Being at home with him that day was one of the toughest things I’ve ever had to go through. I’ve cried two times in my life: the day my dad died and that day after seeing how hurt Brad was by the whole thing.”

The Dodgers selected him only after former manager Tom Lasorda, Brad’s godfather, pleaded with team officials. The situation is similar to another involving Lasorda and a young catcher.

In 1988, he practically had to force team officials to take a chance on another of his longtime friend’s sons in the 62nd round of that draft. Mike Piazza became a perennial all-star and the team’s franchise player.

Piazza sees big things in Cresse’s future.

“He hits the ball farther than I did at his age,” said Piazza, who was traded to the Florida Marlins on May 15 and then to the New York Mets.

“I don’t want to put any more pressure on the young guy, so I probably shouldn’t say this, but he’s definitely going to be here [in the major leagues] one day. Don’t get me wrong, he’s going to have his ups and downs. But with that swing . . . he’s going to be here.”

Cresse is eligible to be drafted again after next season, but he isn’t looking that far down the road.

“There are a lot of things I still have to work on,” he said. “I’m not even close to doing everything I want to.”

After all, he still has something to prove.