Furm's Take: Catching (And Keeping) Up With Heisey
By Cory Furman
Assistant Athletics Director, Messiah College
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Posted Oct. 18, 2008
Former standout Chris Heisey showed up for Messiah's Homecoming Saturday. He and wife Lisa will move to Puerto Rico Sunday.

Grantham, PA — It’s clear now that Ken Griffey Jr. has a sense of humor to match his 611 career major league home runs. But what’s with these stick-in-the mud, vole-brained fans?

It was March 27th of this year and the Cincinnati Reds were hosting the Minnesota Twins at their spring training facility in Sarasota, Florida. Griffey had just hit a towering long ball to right-center field, sending Ed Smith Stadium’s 7,500 sun-baked enthusiasts to their feet.

Toiling in the Reds’ dugout at that very moment was former Messiah standout outfielder Chris Heisey. The Falcons’ first All-American baseball player in school history, Heisey left Messiah following his junior year, selected as the 504th pick overall in the 2006 Major League Baseball Draft. He was now in uniform for his third spring training game with the big-league Reds before settling in permanently with the home team, the A-level Sarasota Reds.

And the big league coaching staff was having fun with him.

“When Ken gets back in here, I dare you to tell him, ‘You’re out of the game, old man,’” said Reds’ third base coach Mark Berry.

Heisey did. And Griffey laughed. Baseball humor at it’s finest, right?

Those fuddy-duddy, mossback fans didn’t find the joke as funny.

“When I jogged on the field after the inning was over, I was booed pretty badly,” Heisey recalls. “People didn’t want to see me. They wanted to see Ken Griffey Jr. He had just hit a home run, and here I was taking his place in right field. So much for a usual entrance.”

But that’s been pretty much Chris Heisey’s life since he left Messiah in the spring of ’06. With the dream of becoming the school’s first alum to make it to the majors, Heisey’s voyage over the last two and a half years has been a nomadic minor league trail littered with drop-of-the-hat moves, call-ups and opportunities.

“It’s not for everyone,” Heisey said while visiting his alma mater over this weekend’s Homecoming festivities. “There have been challenges, and doing this doesn’t exactly lend itself to the most stable lifestyle. But I can only follow this dream once. And I’m enjoying it.”

Still the Falcons’ career leader in batting average (.405), total bases (294), doubles (41) and home runs (23), Heisey made the difficult choice to forgo his senior year of college to enter the draft, though he vows to finish his degree later. He was selected by the Reds in the 17th round, first being sent to the rookie-league Billings (Montana) Mustangs before moving up to the A-ball Dayton Dragons at the outset of the 2007 season. From there, the six-foot, 205 pound speedy outfielder was called up to Sarasota in mid-season, a stint truncated by a broken left thumb after just 12 games.

“I was sliding into first base and it just bent the wrong way,” he said.

It would only be a slight bump in the road rather than a detour for Heisey, as he returned to his Lancaster-area home and began rehabbing over the winter. He worked construction to pay the bills and married Messiah field hockey standout Lisa Strausbaugh, who — by virtue of the union— became Chris’ minor league co-pilot.

“I like to be in control, I like to know what’s going on, but those thoughts have changed,” Lisa said. “I used to ask questions like, ‘When are we going to get settled down somewhere?’ I don’t ask that specific question anymore.”

I’ll say. Heisey returned to Sarasota at the start of this baseball season, with Lisa joining following her graduation in May. The couple then spent the better part of three months with the club, and Lisa made friends with some of the coaches’ wives and players’ girlfriends.

It didn’t last long.

“I got a call at five o’clock in the evening on August 11th from (Sarasota Reds manager) Joe Ayrault saying that Chris had been called up to double-A Chattanooga,” Lisa remembers. “He had a seven o’clock game that night, and I wasn’t allowed to even tell him that he had been called up, because an injury during the game could nullify it. He had to be on a plane at 7 a.m. the next morning.”

Heisey blasted a towering home run in his final at-bat that evening. As he was rounding third base, he learned of the news.

“Coach Ayrault stuck his fist out to me and said, ‘That’ll be the your last home run in the Florida State League,’” Heisey recalled. “The next morning, I was on a plane and Lisa was packing up our apartment. It happens fast like that.”

Apparently it does. Heisey finished out the ’08 season with the AA Chattanooga Lookouts hitting .316 with six doubles in just 79 at-bats, numbers good enough to warrant a trip to the Puerto Rican Winter League this fall. Chris and Lisa will move to the U.S. territory tomorrow, an opportunity that could provide major dividends down the road.

“This is a major, major step for Chris,” said Bryan Engle, Messiah head baseball coach. “This (Puerto Rican) winter league is invite-only. You have a lot of triple-A players down there as well as some major leaguers that are on assignment. For him to be invited down there speaks volumes about the level of his play right now.”

And so, the Heisey story is a book still being penned. To sit and talk with Chris about his travels leads to a variety of immersing baseball tales, from the 12 and a half hour bus rides in Billings, all the way to his hitting a double off of current Florida Marlins closer Kevin Gregg in the spring of ’07.

“I was as nervous as could be,” Heisey said of the latter. “I don’t even know how I swung the bat, let alone hit a double.”

But probing deeper into Heisey’s journey, you find a young man with extreme maturity and reverence.

“I’m not good at estimating, but I figure I’ve signed over 15,000 autographs during all of this,” he says. “I just don’t understand why anyone would want my autograph. Because I can hit a ball? It seems to me we should be getting the autographs of teachers, who make a difference to so many people, or doctors who save peoples’ lives.”

The conversation then shifts to life as a professional baseball player.

“To be a Christian in this lifestyle is tough,” Heisey continues. “There are a lot of temptations, not a lot of rules and not a lot of Christians in what I’m doing. But the guys know I’m different. They know I don’t chew or cuss. I don’t go out and get drunk with them. I don’t condemn them, but I try to show them love.  It’s a good mission for me. A lot of these guys don’t know Christ, so I try to be a witness in all that I do.”

Heisey said that he and Lisa are going to do all that they can to ensure that they’ll be back in central Pennsylvania for Christmas this year. With Chris losing his father to Lou Gehrig’s disease a year ago last fall and his younger sister Jessica suffering from a rare chromosomal disease, Heisey values family more than anything, saying simply, “The holidays are an important time for us.”

For now, however, the dream continues. Pending on how things go in Puerto Rico, the Heiseys will learn of their next stop, most likely just hours before they are expected to be there.

“As long as Chris is enjoying playing and playing well, I don’t really need to be settled and have a house. I’ve transitioned,” Lisa says.

“We talk about that a lot,” Chris says of his baseball future. “We figure if I continue to show improvement and seem to have a legitimate shot at making the majors, I’ll keep playing. But if we’re two years down the road and I’m still at double-A ball, it will be time to hang it up. You have to be smart enough and humble enough to give up the dream at some point.”

After looking at his quick rise through the Reds farm system and meeting Chris for the first time this Homecoming Weekend, I’m certainly not going to be one to count him out.

Who knows? Next spring, Lisa just may be looking for that house after all.

In Cincinnati.


Cory Furman is the assistant athletics director for public relations and marketing at Messiah College. His monthly column, “Furm’s Take” does not necessarily represent the views of Messiah College or the Messiah College department of athletics. Have a comment? Click here to send him an email.