John Blanchette: Prieto, Brown know crazy has no bounds

It’s crazy how things work out.

The kid who was too often maligned for not loving baseball enough actually loves it so much that he can’t give it up. And the grinder who struggled and raged for his big-league moment and had to feel a little cheated when it was so brief, well, he’s sending kids off on the same quest.

Dee Brown and Chris Prieto. Wildly different, and more alike than they know.

Prieto and Brown. The long and the short of Spokane Indians baseball.

In the 25 seasons Spokane has fielded teams in the short-season Northwest League, 86 players have made it from the stadium at the Fairgrounds to the major leagues.

None of them got there faster than Brown – the first-round draft choice of the Kansas City Royals in 1996 who was the NWL most valuable player in ‘97. He was in The Show in a calendar year and 12 days, though not to stay; he would play only one full season and slices of six others in the big leagues.

And none hung in there like Prieto. Eleven years and eight months after his season finale in Spokane in 1993 – at age 32 – the journeyman outfielder was finally called up by the Angels.

Amazingly, he was not amazed.

“I had been ready for so long,” he recalled. “I felt I belonged in the big leagues. We had been rained out (in Salt Lake City) and I was home that day playing my keyboard and Dino (Ebel), the manager, called and said, ‘Hey, this is going to be the greatest phone call of your life.’ “

And it was. It always is.

But often as not, to borrow from the old beer commercial, it’s everything you always wanted in a dream, and less.

He was in the major leagues for all of four games and three trips to the plate – a sacrifice bunt and two flyouts – leaving him “happy to have put on the uniform, but not enough time to enjoy it.”

Prieto came to Spokane as the 24th-round draft choice of the San Diego Padres (twin brother Rick was picked in the 28th round by Cleveland). Chris hit .289 here and stole 36 bases and found himself the next season in Rancho Cucamonga in the Class A California League. Where he stayed. For three years.

From then on, Prieto had to feel like a human spaldeen. He reached Triple-A with the Padres and caromed among five other organizations, made a couple of detours to the Mexican League and even spent three days with Chico of the independent Western League in 2002.

“My twin brother was on that team and they had an injury,” Prieto said. “I played the last two regular-season games and two playoff games and got a ring out of it.”

He chafed at times – particularly in 2001, when he slugged 19 homers in Las Vegas. But until a shoulder injury ended his career this spring and sent him to work with a personal training and baseball academy in California, working with young players, he kept coming back to the same thing.

“I hate to hear somebody in a bar say, ‘I could have been good,’ ” said Prieto. “I had to keep trying. You have to remember why you’re playing the game, for the love you have for it no matter what the level.”

Which, in fact, is exactly the realization Dee Brown has come to.

“I told myself I’d never be that guy, bouncing around Triple-A,” he said. “Now look at me. But you know what? It’s bigger than me. I really do love the game, after all that’s happened, and God will let me know when it’s time to hang it up.”

He was talking from the clubhouse of the Sacramento River Cats, Oakland’s Triple-A affiliate. It’s his sixth organization, if you count the Royals twice. Seemingly destined for greatness in Spokane – he hit .400 the first month, with seven homers – his career suddenly derailed in 2000. In a terrible slump and weighted with the news of his mother’s breast cancer, Brown failed to run out a ground ball and got into a spat with Omaha manager John Mizerock, earning a five-game suspension and, he believes, the enduring disdain from the organization.

The rap was that he didn’t work hard and respect the game – which, even if true, would have been overlooked, if only he produced.

“Honestly, no, in the big picture I don’t think I was treated fairly,” he said. “But on the other hand, I had a few chances and I kept getting hurt and I didn’t hit like I can. So it was a combination of both.”

What he has decided to do, at age 29, is not be consumed by regrets.

“Every now and then, when I hit a ball 400 feet or run something down, it’s like I can still do the things I did when I was 19,” he said. “But it’s about going out my own way. I’m still looking for an opportunity to succeed.

“I’ve been doing this for 12 pro seasons, which is crazy. It’s almost like you’re institutionalized – that’s what baseball is like.”

He’s right. It’s crazy how things work out.