mberardino@pioneerpress.comtwincities.com
KANSAS CITY — Anticipation is great in the Vavra household with the Major League Baseball draft coming up later this week.
So is trepidation.
Tanner and Treysen Vavra would love nothing more than to continue their baseball careers on the professional level. It seems the next logical step for the college-age sons of longtime Twins coach/instructor Joe Vavra.
“Both of them would sign in a heartbeat,” said Vavra, now the Twins’ third-base coach. “It’s just the way they look at it.”
Tanner, 23, is a senior second baseman at Valparaiso. Treysen, 21, is a junior corner infielder at Eastern Illinois who led the team in slugging (.568), home runs (eight) and RBIs (47).
They have filled out the draft questionnaires for a handful of teams in advance of the 40-round draft, which will run Thursday through Saturday.
“They’ve been around this scene, so they know how it works,” Joe Vavra said. “They’ve certainly had a lot of quality exposure.”
Since Joe joined the Twins’ big-league staff in 2006, his three sons — Terrin is a high school sophomore — have been beneficiaries of top-quality resources in the Twins’ clubhouse.
“They’re sponges, that’s for sure,” Joe said. “They look at everything, watch everything. A lot of these players are their age or a little older. They get a good heads-up about a lot of things, and they’ve done well.”
Tanner’s Valparaiso club made it to the NCAA tournament the past two seasons, including the school’s first NCAA victory
Both Vavra sons starred in the wood-bat Northwoods League last summer. Tanner led the league in batting, while Treysen finished in the top 10. Both made the league all-star team.
Tanner, a sports management major, was among five national winners last fall of the Tom Walter College Baseball Inspiration Award. He lost the sight in his right eye at age 3 in a fly-fishing accident, but he has never let that keep him from pursuing his dream.
“He doesn’t consider it a disability,” Joe said. “He’s not intimidated by anything that comes his way. He gets a lot of calls from families that have gone through the same thing. They’re looking for advice, looking for some kind of hope. He’s real living proof of what they’re going to go through.”
Joe and Lesa Vavra didn’t know what to think when Tanner’s right eye was damaged by a hook his father cast during a family outing in Washington state.
“In our case, we were very young parents,” Joe said. “We had this happen to our son when he was a very small boy. You’re thinking about driving years and what probably will happen. They weather the storm and come through it real good.”
A number of pitchers have played pro ball over the years with one eye, Joe said, but to his knowledge there haven’t been many, if any, position players to overcome that particular adversity. Kirby Puckett retired from the Twins when glaucoma left him legally blind in one eye.
“You put him on a playing field, you wouldn’t know it,” Joe said. “He’s an inspiration to everyone on his club wherever he plays. You or I sit there and close one eye, we go, ‘No way.’ He plays second base with one eye.”
Joe has encouraged his eldest son, who has strong communication skills, to start a website or seek out additional ways to advocate for those facing similar challenges. For now, however, Tanner is focused on playing baseball and leading by example.
“It should be an inspirational thing,” Joe Vavra said. “Hopefully, it will be something he can share with others and be able to get the message across to people with similar hardships.”
In the meantime, the Vavra Boys want to keep playing ball.
Follow Mike Berardino and twitter.com/MikeBerardino.
