From Vero Beach to Texas, Beltre ranged wide, struck hard to make MLB Hall of Fame mark

Unless you’re paying close attention to the news, chances are you have no clue who Adrian Beltre is.

Or what his connection is to Vero Beach or the Treasure Coast.

In preparation for Tuesday night's announcement, I searched the Press Journal archives to offer some context. I found it in an Aug. 10, 1997, column by staff writer Scott Samples.  His words jumped off the digital page to me like I was a baseball hitter served a big, fat, hanging curveball.

“Obviously it’s premature to reserve a spot for (Adrian) Beltre in the Hall of Fame, let alone a spot on the Los Angeles Dodgers roster,” Samples wrote. “He is still at least two steps away from the big leagues and has a couple of other prospects in front of him.”

Teenage trip to MLB Hall of Fame

But, Samples noted, Beltre — then an 18-year-old third-baseman from the Dominican Republic having a landmark year for the Class A Vero Beach Dodgers — just had two hits and scored two runs in the Los Angeles Dodgers 16-8 win against the San Diego Padres in the annual exhibition Hall of Fame Game in Cooperstown, New York.

“It’s very exciting for me,” Samples was told by Beltre a few days before the teen headed north, and offered a “little laugh” when asked whether his face would eventually be immortalized in a bronze bust next to the best to play the game.

It turns out Samples' line of questioning was prescient, albeit 27 years early. Tuesday, Beltre, who hit 477 home runs for four major league teams, became the second player from the former Vero Beach Dodgers Florida State League team to enter the Hall.

The first player had a forgettable 1990 season in Vero Beach. At 21, he hit only .250 with 6 homers and 45 RBIs, fighting for starting time with a guy who never made the majors.

“In my crystal ball, I didn't know he was going to make the Hall of Fame (in 2016),” Tom Simmons, former Vero Beach general manager said of his team's first Hall of Famer, who finally broke in with the Dodgers in 1992. “I know that defensively he wasn't the catcher that Pete Gonzalez was, but he also was the hitter that Pete Gonzalez wasn't.”

More on that catcher later.

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Beltre, however, was the real deal from the time the Dodgers signed him for $23,000 as a 130-pound, 15-year-old in Santo Domingo. He played at the Dodgers Campo Las Palmas complex, then made his professional debut in the Dominican Summer League in 1995, according a Society for American Baseball Research article by Zac Petrillo.

By the time he came to Vero Beach for spring training in 1996, still just 17, Beltre stood out, said John Shoemaker, who managed him with the Savannah Sand Gnats for half of 1996 and with the VBDs for all of 1997.

“Sometimes you don't know really how good somebody's going to be until they get a chance to go out and play, but the arm strength and the ability to throw the ball from different angles, the power he possessed, speed that he had and just a fun-loving guy out on the baseball field … everybody gravitated towards him,” said Shoemaker, a Vero Beach resident who, in his 48th year with the Dodgers organization, 44 as a coach, manages the Class A Rancho Cucamonga Quakes.

Excitement in Savannah, San Bernardino, Vero Beach

Beltre became the South Atlantic League’s best prospect before being promoted to a Dodgers team in San Bernardino, where he struggled a bit, finishing the season batting .286 with 26 homers and 99 RBI. The next year he was paired again with Shoemaker in Vero Beach. Beltre remained a svelte teenager, only 5-11 and originally seen as a shortstop.

Simmons, now the athletic director at Ohio Northern University, will never forget when he heard Beltre was ticketed for Vero Beach.

“When they said you're gonna get Adrian Beltre  … I was like, this is great,” Simmons said. “You knew he was good.

“He was the kind of player that you know something's going on in the stadium,” said Simmons, who wanted to make sure he saw anything Beltre did.

Building blocks for Hall of Fame

“When he threw the ball to first base, you knew this guy was special,” Simmons said. “In the Florida State League, when you hit (26) home runs in those big ballparks, because those were major league parks, you didn't see people do that.”

Beltre not only set a Vero Beach Dodgers record for homers and 104 RBI, but he batted .317 with 95 runs scored and 25 stolen bases in only 123 games. He was an all-star, was named the league’s most valuable player and led the team to the final game of the FSL championship, where it lost to the first-year St. Petersburg Devil Rays.

Shoemaker explained why folks like Simmons and I were awed by home runs the teenager skyrocketed deep into the Holman Stadium night.

“That bat came through the hitting zone very, very quickly,” said Shoemaker. “He took an aggressive swing, but he was under control.”

Shoemaker recognized Beltre’s other assets.

“He learned and knew a lot of English at a young age,” Shoemaker said, noting that helped him learn quicker from coaches and teammates.

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“We didn't really give him a whole lot of coaching or instructing, it was more just watching him play and just giving him a few things maybe to try and adjust,” Shoemaker said, noting Beltre had two key functions necessary to succeed: aptitude and retention. He could learn and repeat what he did.

“He was just a super, super talent and a great guy.”

Shoemaker still marvels at some things Beltre did.

In a May 10, 1997, game, the Dodgers defeated the St. Lucie Mets, 4-3. In the ninth inning, Beltre tried to stretch his fifth hit of the game into a double. The ball was overthrown. Beltre hustled so much, he scored.

The other Vero Beach Dodgers Hall of Famer

In a game the prior year, Shoemaker said Beltre hit a homer in extra innings to put the Sand Gnats ahead. In the bottom of the inning with men on base, Beltre made amazing plays and throws on slow choppers to third and behind the pitcher’s mound to save the game.

“Those are just unbelievable plays normally you don't see somebody make,” said Shoemaker, surprised when reminded Beltre committed 37 errors in the field in 1997.

Still, Beltre became the top fielding third baseman five times in his 21-year major league career, which began in 1998.

Mike Piazza, the other Vero Beach Dodgers player in the Hall of Fame, had to work extra hard to get out of the Hibiscus City and become one of the best hitting catchers in history.

“He worked his tail off,” said Simmons, noting Piazza went to the Dominican Republic in the off season to become a better catcher and hit balls off tees in Holman Stadium while not playing in Vero Beach. “People just don't see all the work that these guys put in when they're in the minors trying to climb the ladder.”

Beltre takes over for Dodgers veterans

Beltre had the right “head on his shoulders” to make the jump to the big leagues, Shoemaker said.

That was evident in a 1998 interview Beltre did with Samples, in which the third baseman expressed his passion for the game.

"I like to play ball. I love baseball," Beltre said. "I love to play hard, give it everything I can give."

Later that year, Beltre supplanted Bobby Bonilla and Todd Zeile at third base for the MLB Dodgers. What he did after was even more impressive.

“I feel like that everybody in our organization has been lucky because we, over the years, have had a lot of good ballplayers pass through our system,” Shoemaker said.

As Dodgers fans, we were lucky to see amazing talent for 60 years before the Dodgers played their last game here in 2008.

This column reflects the opinion of Laurence Reisman. Contact him via email at larry.reisman@tcpalm.com, phone at 772-978-2223, Facebook.com/larryreisman or Twitter @LaurenceReisman.

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This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: MLB Hall of Fame calls name of teen who set records in Vero Beach