UC Irvine catcher has a receptive mind

UC Irvine catcher Francis Larson is always thinking.

Tucked away behind the mask is a mind that is … well, fertile. His teammates have noticed.

“He wants to change the national anthem to ‘Party in the USA’ by Miley Cyrus,” first baseman Jeff Cusick said. “He said that if we did that the whole world would be a little less serious.”

This, it seems, is what happens when you cram the mind of a philosophy major into the body of a baseball player.

Larson, a senior, has a thought process that goes beyond “see ball, hit ball,” though that is often enough for him.

He is Irvine’s career home run leader with 22 and has skillfully handled the Anteaters’ pitching staff. Irvine will play Louisiana State on Friday at 2 p.m. in an NCAA regional opener at UCLA’s Jackie Robinson Stadium.

But Larson’s career path won’t include going from first to third on a single to right, at least not in the near future. He has been accepted to the prestigious London School of Economics, where he will go to school in September.

His final athletic efforts before taking up cricket — “I have the swing for it,” Larson said — will be to try to get the Anteaters through this weekend’s NCAA regional at UCLA. His approach, like always, will be different.

Asked if he has been happy with his season, Larson said, “I’m happy with the learning process. Sometimes you think you will have the same year you had before because it is what you did in the past. But that just not true.”

Larson then smiled, saying, “Maybe philosophy has done it to me, but I have a unique perspective of the game. It’s not above anyone else’s, just different.”

The tools of ignorance don’t apply to this catcher.

“Talk about a league of your own; he’s off-the-charts brilliant,” Irvine Coach Mike Gillespie said. “He’s the first player I have ever had who can tell me the difference between Socrates and Plato.”

Said Larson: “Socrates came first. He was short and I don’t think he was a very good baseball player.”

And Plato was not Mickey Mouse’s dog, a thought that brought a smile from the Esperanza High graduate.

“You really shouldn’t combine philosophy and baseball,” Larson said, laughing. “Your head will hurt.”

There are moments where this does seems like a loose fit.

Dugout chatter runs a little highbrow. “Sometimes he chirps at the other team and they have no idea what he’s saying,” Cusick said. “Maybe that’s for the better.”

His presence behind the plate is believed to be eclectic. “I would dearly love to hear his conversations with the umpire back there,” pitcher Christian Bergman said.

But Larson can also provide a necessary balance.

“I might be mad about something that happened on the field, and he’ll come up say something a little weird,” said Bergman, who was Larson’s roommate for a time. “It kind of gets me thinking and I forget what I was mad about.”

The interest in philosophy and the desire to follow an academic path are easy to trace. His father, William Larson, is an attorney and his mother, Kirsten Rokke, has a degree in psychology and a PhD in nutrition. It was baseball that was wandering in the wilderness.

Larson said he is the first person on either side of his family to play team sports. Skiing, jogging — those were the physical activities in his family. Baseball “was just something I tried out for one day as a kid and I loved it,” he said.

The game came easy. Larson was named the Sunset League’s most valuable player as a senior at Esperanza. He progressed at Irvine as a catcher and hitter, and was named a semifinalist for the Johnny Bench Award, given to the nation’s top catcher, a year ago.

He hit .309 and led the team with nine home runs and 43 runs batted in. He also honed his defensive skill.

“If there’s a runner on third I’m not afraid to throw an 0-2 curve in the dirt,” Bergman said. “He’ll get it.” Larson has thrown out 50% of runners trying to steal.

Larson’s has struggled with consistency a bit this season, hitting .299 with five home runs and 34 RBIs. But Gillespie emphasizes that “there is danger in the bat. If it’s white and round, he likes to swing at it.” Larson reminded opponents of that with two home runs and seven RBIs in an 18-13 victory over Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

But Larson’s other contributions, intentional or not, are just as important to team members — such as dealing with stress.

On a road trip during academic finals a year ago, Irvine players needed to take tests. Larson appeared to be have nodded off as others started theirs. The school official monitoring the test was about to wake him, but was told by another Irvine player to wait. Larson’s eyes popped open and he piled into the test as if it were a hanging curve.

“You might say he’s a little out there,” Bergman said. “I remember hearing this heavy metal music blasting through the wall when we lived together. He was screaming. When I peeked in his room, he was wildly playing air drums. He just thinks on a different level.”

Or, as Gillespie put it, “He sees things a little ahead of everyone else and figures out things a little ahead of everyone else.”

Like “Party in the USA” as the national anthem?

“That’s going to be my campaign through the regional,” Larson said, smiling.

chris.foster@latimes.com