Las Vegas 51s manager DeFrancesco delivers call-up news with flair
Every major leaguer has one — a story about his first call up.
The moment when a player realizes a dream of a lifetime that they’ll never forget.
“You’re always thinking about what it’s going to be like when you get told,” 51s starter P.J. Conlon said. “What’s the situation going to be like? Where am I going to be or how’s it going to happen?”
As a longtime Triple-A manager, Tony DeFrancesco has had the chance to deliver the happy news numerous times.
It’s a little different each time, but there’s one constant for him.
“The first time I kind of try to make it special for the player,” DeFrancesco said.
Four different players have been called up from Las Vegas to make their major league debut this season — Corey Oswalt, Conlon, Luis Guillorme and Tim Peterson — and undoubtedly there will be more by the end of the season.
Oswalt was the first, getting called up on April 10. It was during a game and Oswalt was charting pitches in the stands when he was summoned to the dugout to see DeFrancesco.
DeFrancesco didn’t have much of a chance to get too creative with that one, though Conlon remembers his teammate’s reaction vividly.
“The funniest thing, I’ll never forget it because it seemed like (Oswalt) just went pale white and couldn’t believe it. I was stoked, I was hyping it up and he just couldn’t even talk back,” he said.
Conlon’s first call up came a month later and he was informed of it after first sleeping through a call to his cell phone from DeFrancesco. He then hung up on the manager when he called the hotel phone.
“I just wanted to sleep and I was like ‘Alright, it can’t be important, it’s probably a wrong number or something whatever,’ so I just literally take it off the hook and put it back down and then laid back down, tried to go back to sleep and it rang again instantly and so I was like ‘Alright, it has to be something for me.’”
So the third time around, DeFrancesco had some fun with it.
“I go back through the front desk and they connect you and I get him on the phone again, this time he answers, and I say ‘Next time you hang up on me, I’m going to be pissed because you’re not pitching for me tonight because of that,’” DeFrancesco said. “He goes ‘What do you mean?’ I go ‘You’re going to be pitching in Cincinnati. Next time answer your phone,’ and he was in shock.”
He joked around with Guillorme, too, a couple days later, rounding up a group of guys and bringing them over to the shortstop, who was having his haircut by a barber in the clubhouse bathroom.
“Tony came in and kind of messed around with me, something about missing the anthem at the game saying, ‘We’re going to fine you a hundred bucks,’” Guillorme told Mets reporters. “I was like ‘Why?’ He was like “Well, you missed the anthem, plus now you’re going to be able to afford it now, you’re leaving tomorrow,’ so it was pretty nice. It was around a couple of the guys at the field.”
Over the years, DeFrancesco has had times when he’s had to get hotel security take him to a player’s room. Others cry on him after the realization of their longtime goal. Many are shocked, first asking “Are you kidding me?”
When the team’s around, DeFrancesco likes to present the news in gatherings.
“I really make believe that I’m mad at somebody,” DeFrancesco said. “… (I’m a) pretty good actor, kind of fake like I’m really mad about a situation or something that happened the night before and I tell the guy ‘Hey, do you really want to pitch for the 51s? Because right now we don’t need you. They need you in Boston. You’re pitching tomorrow.’ Something like that. I’ve done that before.”
The most rewarding, he said, are the guys that grind through the minor leagues for six or seven years and finally get their opportunity.
But no matter who it is, it’s a little bit different — and special — each time.
“I’ve been doing it for a long time,” DeFrancesco said. “There’s a lot of guys that I’ve sent to the big leagues for the first time and hopefully they’ll always remember the first time that they get called up, how it happened.”
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Contact Betsy Helfand at bhelfand@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BetsyHelfand on Twitter.