Neither one of them remembers the first time they met. To Ryan Theriot and Mike Fontenot, the Chicago Cubs' Cajun Connection double-play combination, it just seems like the other one was always there, like a favorite old pair of jeans.
"High school, maybe?" says Fontenot, the lefty-hitting second baseman from Slidell, La.
|
|
| Theriot: 'We know each other's strengths and weaknesses. It's a fun double-play combination, that's for sure.' (US Presswire) |
Theriot and Fontenot have always fit together like infield dirt and chalk. But over the years, chalk fades away. With these two, there is no fading away. There are only headfirst slides, clouds of dust and coming back for more.
As the Cubs take aim again at that elusive World Series crown, their gritty double-play combo comprises one of the most unique tales the game has to tell this season. Theriot and Fontenot played shortstop and second base on Louisiana State's College World Series championship team in 2000.
Now, nine years later, here they are, together again, in Chicago's Wrigley Field. Same dance around the second-base bag. Only the stars are bigger and brighter.
Those who watched them every day at LSU still cannot believe it.
"To see them playing second base and shortstop in Chicago is a real thrill," says Skip Bertman, the legendary former LSU coach who guided Theriot, Fontenot and the rest of the Tigers to that '00 CWS title. "I've had more than 100 guys in the big leagues. I've had four guys on the same team in the majors.
"But to watch two of them playing second base and shortstop for the same team is a first."
A first, not just for Bertman, but for pretty much every other college coach. Digging by baseball historian Ed Hartig, a member of the Society for American Baseball Research, reveals only a couple of other instances in which CWS-champion teammates started in the same big-league infield.
There were third baseman Tom Satriano and first baseman Dan Ardel for the California Angels on Sept. 27, 1961. The duo played together on the University of Southern California's 1961 CWS title team.
There were first baseman Ron Fairly and third baseman John Werhas for the 1964 Los Angeles Dodgers, who were teammates on USC's 1958 national title team.
But as for a CWS-winning keystone combo later continuing their middle-infield run together as teammates in the majors ... so far, all the excavating under the Baseball Encyclopedia sun hasn't produced a pair comparable to Theriot and Fontenot.
"That's great," Bertman says, laughing, when informed of this. "Baseball is like that every day. The Los Angeles kid who hit for the cycle last week [Orlando Hudson], when nobody had ever done it in Dodger Stadium.
"There's something new every day."
Cubs Cajun Connection Personality Profile, Take 1:
Who's the most talkative?
Theriot: "Depends on when you catch him. If you catch him before noon, definitely me."
Fontenot: "I think he probably talks more. But if you say who's more crazy, yelling, who runs around the clubhouse more acting stupid ... I've got him on that part."
Theriot is 29; Fontenot will turn 29 on June 9. They roomed together for a short time at LSU, though to call them best buddies back then would be overdramatic.
"We had a close-knit team in college," Fontenot says. "The whole team hung out together."
The two probably spend more time together today, though even at that, it's not as if every night is a party. Theriot is married with three children ranging from 4 to an infant daughter born last July. Fontenot is single -- and "Uncle Mike" to Theriot's kids.
But they hunt together (deer and duck). They fish. Over the winter, when they lived roughly 20 minutes apart in Louisiana, they fished area salt waters for trout. In Arizona this spring, at a small pond near the complex in which Theriot lived, they fished for bass.
"Guy stuff," Theriot says.
You know, same sort of stuff that happens between them on the field. Though they're both early in their big-league careers -- each got his first firm foothold in the majors with the Cubs in 2006 -- there is a comfort level between Fontenot and Theriot that only the years and thousands of ground balls taken together can produce.
Often, a well-placed grunt here or a twinkle of the eyes there is all they need to communicate.
"We've taken hundreds and hundreds of ground balls and turned hundreds of double plays together over the years," Fontenot says. "We're both confident with whoever else might be [playing across the second-base bag], but it's nice to be together.
"We'll look at each other while we're out there sometimes and kind of smirk to each other. It gives you a good feeling."
And while the oddity of them shuttling from LSU's infield to that of the Cubs is one of the most unusual things going in the bigs right now, to Theriot and Fontenot, it's as normal as storing that beloved, broken-in leather glove you've had for 25 years in your garage.
"It's not strange," Theriot says. "It seems normal. Because that's how it's always been. I think it would be strange if he wasn't over there. It seems normal to have him around.
"When you do something with somebody like that, playing the same positions for so long, it's almost like having a second sense. You don't have to worry about feeds on the double play, where the ball is, where the other person likes the ball [delivered]. We know each other's strengths and weaknesses.
"It's a fun double-play combination, that's for sure."
Cubs Cajun Connection Personality Profile, Take 2:
OK. We're in Louisiana, it's dinnertime, we're starving and in desperate need of a recommendation to one of those fabulous Cajun restaurants. Who's the go-to guy for that?
Theriot: "I don't know, man. But he's definitely the better cook. I'm probably better as far as restaurants go, but he's good on the grill. He's good with anything on the grill. He really is."
Fontenot: "He's always trying to get me to come over. He's always like, 'Hey, why don't you come over and grill some burgers, or some steaks?' I can cook whatever."
Specialty?
"I'm a guy," Fontenot says. "So steaks. Chicken. I can put some vegetables on the grill. And tuna. Preferably tuna steaks where you don't have to leave them on the grill very long."
One is 5-11, 175 pounds.
The other is 5-8, 170.
"Both of them, you had to dream a little," says Gary Hughes, special assistant to Cubs' general manager Jim Hendry, who worked for Cincinnati back when he first scouted the duo at LSU. "They're not exactly imposing. I thought both had the ability to play in the majors, but I didn't know as regulars. I thought Fontenot, maybe."
That was the industry's feeling back then, too. Fontenot, 5-8, was drafted out of high school by Tampa Bay in the 21st round in 1999, but chose to attend LSU instead. Theriot, 5-11 and a year ahead of Fontenot, was already at LSU because he was not drafted out of high school.
"I didn't know whether Ryan, as a shortstop, would be able to play in the big leagues," Bertman says. "There was no question about his toughness. ... I thought Mike would do it because the professional scouts had already seen it. With Ryan, they hadn't. But he got better and better at LSU."
Baltimore wound up making Fontenot, who has more power despite his shorter stature, its first-round pick in the 2001 draft (19th overall). Hendry acquired him in February 2005, in the deal in which the Cubs traded Sammy Sosa to the Orioles.
The Cubs made Theriot their third-round pick in the '01 draft.
"Mike had power. A lot of scouts were projecting him to hit a lot of home runs. I saw a lot of gap power," says Jim Crawford, 70, the longtime Cubs scout who signed Theriot. "I knew he could hit and run and field. ... When I saw Ryan, I fell in love with him."
Theriot and Fontenot each blossomed in the minors. Hughes, by now working for the Cubs, recalls coming back from watching Theriot playing at Double-A West Tenn in 2005 and telling Hendry "this guy can play shortstop in the majors if you need him to."
Hughes, laughing, recalled Hendry's reply: "Aw, you've been talking to Bushie, haven't you?"
Unbeknownst to Hughes, another Cubs executive, assistant general manager Randy Bush, had just watched Theriot the previous week and had delivered the same exuberant report to Hendry.
While neither Fontenot nor Theriot fits into the classic, big frame, rangy profile that big league clubs search for in a middle infielder (shortstop especially), each makes up for it in other ways.
"I coached with Eddie Stanky for a long time at the University of South Alabama," Crawford says of the former major league player and manager. "And I want my players to be hard-nosed. I liked Mike, and I loved Ryan.
"I think they bring a lot of energy to that ballclub."
Says Bertman: "They're both great locker-room people. They keep to themselves, but they don't pout. Ryan, especially, has a great sense of humor. Everybody likes him. Everybody likes Mike, too -- he could be the butt of a joke, and he'll laugh as hard as anybody."
Cubs Cajun Connection Personality Profile, Take 3:
Who's the brains of the operation?
Theriot (smiling): "Me, definitely."
Fontenot (grinning): "Oh, me."
Pause.
"Hopefully," Fontenot continues, "we both have a little brains to handle each other."
One more strange twist in the Theriot-Fontenot story?
While Fontenot was drafted out of high school and Theriot wasn't, and while Fontenot was a higher draft pick in 2001, it was Theriot who landed a full-time job in the majors first. Of course, right?
Theriot became entrenched with the Cubs in '06, not long after Hughes and Bush were wowed by him in the summer of '05. He took over as shortstop for good in '07, and his team-leading .307 batting average last summer led all major league shortstops.
Fontenot split time between the Cubs and Triple-A Iowa in '07, not landing in the bigs for good until last summer. And then, it was in a super-utility role.
Which is why, when manager Lou Piniella named Fontenot as his second baseman this spring to fill the hole left by Mark DeRosa even after the Cubs had acquired veteran second baseman Aaron Miles, as Fontenot received congratulations, Theriot shrugged.
"To be honest with you, I kind of always thought he would [win the job]," Theriot says. "It makes you feel good to know he's going to get the same chance I got."
Piniella's feeling is that Fontenot's left-handed bat will help balance the lineup this summer, and the skipper likes Fontenot's pop. Cubs radio broadcaster Ron Santo refers to Fontenot as "little Babe Ruth," and while an obvious exaggeration, you get the point. Fontenot bopped nine homers in only 243 at-bats last summer, one every 27 plate appearances. He won't be setting any home run records anytime soon, but for a guy who's only 5-8 ... that could translate to 18-20 over a full season.
Though Fontenot was in an 0-for-14 funk before finally rapping a single last Friday against St. Louis, he had walked nine times in eight games through midweek and owned a .367 on-base percentage.
Theriot, meanwhile, reached base safely in 10 of his first 12 games and was hitting .409 with a .471 on-base percentage. And, talk about a tough out: His .412 batting average with two strikes ranked fourth in the majors entering Tuesday night's game with Cincinnati.
"Listen, those are two wonderful kids," Crawford says. "If all kids in the major leagues were like them, managers wouldn't have anything to worry about.
"They both give you an honest effort."
Bertman was in Chicago for the Cubs' home opener on April 13 against the Colorado Rockies, whose right-fielder, Brad Hawpe, also played on LSU's 2000 CWS championship team. A group of them went to dinner at Gibson's Bar and Steakhouse that night, and what Bertman saw was about what he expected: Neither Fontenot nor Theriot has changed since their Tigers days.
"Absolutely not," Bertman said. "It's unbelievable. They're very funny guys. They're just regular kids from solid homes."
Be it a quick flip to start a double play, or one of those knowing smirks across the bag at second, the Cubs' Cajun Connection is savoring each cloud of infield dust.
"You sit back and look at where we've come from, our past," Fontenot says. "We have a lot of things in common. It makes it nice. To share all the good memories, and the memories we're making now in the big leagues ... we're taking advantage of every moment we have."
Says Theriot: "We had such a good time [at LSU], and we're fortunate to be able to do it now. It's a good story. It's something that I don't think ever loses its luster.
"We were champions there. Hopefully, we'll be able to be champions here."
brnelson81 
