The Official Site of Chase Utley

Mon, Aug 25th 2008, 09:17

Utley's play speaks volumes

Bill Shaikin

PHILADELPHIA — You can take the kid out of L.A., but you can’t take L.A. out of the kid. Unless, that is, the kid is Chase Utley, who would no sooner brag about himself than play second base naked.

Utley is a metronome, a three-time All-Star and the most popular player on the Philadelphia Phillies, by far. In a town that eats its stars, he is beloved.

He left L.A. without the Hollywood ego. He never had one. He shows up early every day, works hard, plays hard and deflects attention onto others. He would rather not talk at all, thank you very much, and he says nothing even remotely controversial.

We tried. This is as close as we could get: There is no hamburger in Philadelphia quite as good as the one he loves in L.A.

“There’s no In-N-Out,” Utley said. “I do miss that. I get my fair share when we get out to the West Coast.

“Here they have their cheese steaks. You can only eat so many of them.”

The kid was born to play second base for the Dodgers. He grew up at Dodger Stadium, cheering for Orel Hershiser as he pitched a shutout in the last World Series game played there, in 1988. Utley was 9.

He played Little League in Long Beach, where his manager was Jeff Burroughs, the former American League most valuable player.

He played high school ball at Long Beach Poly, the alma mater of Tony Gwynn, teammates with Milton Bradley.

“I would never have suspected he’d be this good,” Bradley said at the All-Star game last month. “But nobody, probably, would have suspected I’d be here either.”

Long Beach Poly played many of its home games at Blair Field — cool, damp and spacious Blair Field.

“He didn’t have power like this in high school,” Bradley said. “Me either. I hit two home runs.”

The scouts took notes, and they took Blair Field into account. The Montreal Expos took Bradley in the second round in 1996; he signed.

The Dodgers took Utley in the second round in 1997. He said no to the Dodgers, yes to UCLA.

Terry Reynolds, then the Dodgers’ scouting director, said Utley had agreed to sign, then took a trip to Mexico. When he returned, Reynolds said, Utley had changed his mind.

Utley said he could not remember the details of his decision to turn down the Dodgers.

“It came down to the opportunity to go to college during college age,” he said. “They said I could always go back. I wanted a normal college experience. I figured, if baseball was meant to be, there would still be that opportunity after college.”

So he headed up the 405 to UCLA, the jewel of a recruiting class that included Garrett Atkins, then of Irvine University High, now of the Colorado Rockies.

By the end of his freshman year, Utley’s defense at shortstop was so poor that the Bruins limited him to designated hitter. They moved him to second base the next year, and the rest is history, including a junior year in which he hit .382 with 22 home runs.

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