Mark Loretta Has Come Long Way Since St. Francis High

It’s a long way from the halls of St. Francis High to second base at Pittsburgh’s PNC Park.

Yet, that’s where 36-year-old Mark Loretta, a 1989 graduate of St. Francis, found himself standing on July 7. He had been selected by baseball fans around the world as the starting second baseman for the National League in Major League Baseball’s annual All-Star Game.

No matter that he went hitless, robbed twice of base hits by two outstanding defensive plays. The second All-Star Game appearance, he was added as a bench player in 2004 while still with the San Diego Padres, was the high water mark of Loretta’s long baseball career.

“I was very humbled and overwhelmed,” Loretta said. “It was great fun, but it was also a whirlwind. Things move very quickly around the game and there’s always something to do and some place to be. But, it was great to share it with my family...particularly my parents.”

It’s been almost two decades since he graduated from St. Francis. One of his Golden Knights’ teammate was Gregg Zaun, a 12-year Major League veteran currently catching for the Toronto Blue Jays, who also made his Major League debut in 1995.

Coincidently, and perhaps fittingly, both Loretta and Zaun were inducted into the St. Francis Athletic Hall of Fame on the same night in 2004.

Loretta’s dream was to play baseball for Stanford, but the only California schools who recruited him were Loyola Marymount and UCLA. He ended up, instead, accepting a baseball scholarship to Northwestern University, where he went on to captain the team and notch Big 10 MVP and All American honors.

“A lot of people thought I was nuts to go from sunny California to a Midwestern school to play baseball, but it all worked out for the best,” he said.

Drafted by the Milwaukee Brewers in the seventh round of the 1993 amateur draft, Loretta made his big league debut on Sept. 4, 1995. He was traded to the Houston Astros in 2002 and, as a free agent at the end of the season, signed with the Padres.

He turned in two solid seasons with them before being shipped to the Boston Red Sox for catcher Doug Mirabelli in a December 2005 trade that caught him completely by surprise.

In his first year with San Diego, he posted career highs in batting average (.335), doubles (47), home runs (16), runs batted in (76), walks (58) and runs (108). However, in his second year with the team, he was injured and didn’t play a full season.

“At first, it was disappointing when I got traded, it really was,” Loretta said. “I lived in San Diego and the Padres had made the playoffs. I felt like I had the best years of my career there. But, once I got to thinking about it in baseball terms, I started getting excited about Boston.”

His excitement mounted on his first visit to hollowed Fenway Park.

“It was like a museum, just driving around the Park,” he recalled. “You go there to play and you feel like you’re on a Hollywood stage. It’s almost like it’s part landmark, part movie set. And the fans, the Red Sox Nation, nobody supports their team any better,” he said.

Loretta, a compact 6-1, 175 pounder, has fast become a Fenway fan favorite. Always a solid fielder with a .986 career fielding percentage, Loretta, at the beginning of the week, was batting .309, above his .301 lifetime average. He is among the leaders in hits in the American League with 154.

The Red Sox are currently in second place in the American League’s East Division behind the New York Yankees. With just over a month left in the season, The Sox are scrambling to win enough games to make the Playoffs as a wild card team if they don’t catch the Yanks.

Loretta’s talent, and his value to a team, are no mystery, especially to Bruce Bochy, his manager for two years in San Diego.

“Mark knows how to play the game on both sides of the ball,” Bochy said. “He’s just so fundamentally sound on defense and with the bat and he’ll help any club. He’s just the consummate professional,” Bochy said.