danwashburn

September 20 07

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Micah Owings, long before he was an Arizona Diamondback

In honor of Arizona Diamondbacks rookie pitcher Micah Owings tossing a complete game shutout against the San Francisco Giants on Tuesday, I thought I'd reprint this profile of Micah I wrote while with the Gainesville Times, in Georgia, a little more than six years ago, when he was about to start his senior year at Gainesville High School. People were already convinced of his big league potential back then.

Owings is one of the best in the nation

by DAN WASHBURN

July 1, 2001 — On the coffee table sat a prayer book and a remote control. On the couch sat Micah Owings. He was watching baseball.

This is how Owings spends his free time, what little there is of it, when he's not playing baseball. With more baseball.

"Even if I don't have a game, I feel like I need to keep practicing just to stay on top," said Owings — a rising senior at Gainesville (Ga.) High and one of the top high school prospects in the nation — as he picked up a baseball that lay beside him and tossed it from one hand to the other. "And if I'm not playing, I'm at least swinging a bat or watching baseball on TV.

"I'd say it's an everyday thing for me."

Nearly a month has passed since Owings threw the last pitch of Gainesville's state championship season. The strikeout came in the bottom of the fifth inning against Swainsboro at Ivey-Watson Field, and sparked a tide of Red Elephant revelry that soon spilled over into Lake Lanier.

But it was what Owings did in the top half of that inning, what he did at the plate, that has people still shaking their heads in astonishment. Owings batted twice ... and hammered two home runs. His second shot — a grand slam that eventually landed far beyond the right-field fence — capped a nine-run inning and put Gainesville up 11-0, the eventual margin of victory.

"That was pretty nice," Owings said. "Of course, the strikeout was pretty fun, too."

That win, back on June 2, made Gainesville's record 34-1 and earned the Red Elephants their fourth state title in six years. But it was just the start of Owings' summer of baseball. He is currently halfway into a schedule that has him playing nearly every day with the nationally-renowned East Cobb Yankees.

Today, Owings' life gets even busier. College coaches and professional agents can now officially come calling. And you better believe they will. Most of them probably already have Owings' phone number programmed on their speed-dial.

"Everybody knows about him," Gainesville coach Wayne Vickery said. "They'll say, 'Coach, we'll be up there to see him. We're coming there in droves.'"

And what they're coming to see is the player that at least one reputable scouting service — Cedar Rapids, Iowa-based Perfect Game U.S.A. — has ranked as the 20th best high school prospect in the country and the No. 1 player in Georgia.

Owings, 18, stands 6-foot-5 and weighs 210 pounds. The right-hander can throw a baseball faster than 90 mph. And he can hit one, it often seems, all the way from Hall to Habersham.

"We like him a lot," said Jerry Ford, national director for Perfect Game, which provides prospect rankings for Baseball America magazine. "He's potentially one of the top power guys in the country for next year. He projects to be a big-time power hitter down the road."

Down the road? How about right now?

Putting on a power show

As a sophomore at Forsyth Central in Cumming, Ga., Owings blasted 21 home runs, just one shy of the state record for homers in a season. Owings hit a team-high 15 home runs for Gainesville last season, and currently has 44 for his career.

He would need just eight home runs as a senior to crack the national all-time high school career top-10 list, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations. Former University of Michigan quarterback Drew Henson, now the top prospect in the New York Yankees organization, heads the list with 70 home runs in his high school career.

"Micah is the best power hitter I've coached," said Vickery, who has a 318-83 record in 13 seasons at Gainesville. "Heck, he's the best hitter I've coached. I'll say that."

Owings led Gainesville's powerhouse lineup in nearly every offensive category: home runs, batting average (.469), hits (46), RBIs (56) and walks (29). Perhaps most impressive of all, Owings struck out just nine times the entire season.

"You hope, in time, if you see him enough that he'll show you a weakness," lamented North Forsyth coach Byron Orr, forced to face Owings several times over the past three seasons. "But if you throw him outside, he takes you to right field. If you throw him inside, he turns on it down the left field line. You throw it down the middle and he'll hit it out over center.

"He is a contact hitter with power, which you don't see very often. He doesn't take those wild, big swings. He's just a combination of everything. He just does it all."

And Owings shows it all during batting practice. He routinely launches balls over light standards, or into Lake Lanier.

"Since I've been at Gainesville High School, I've never seen a guy who could put on that type of show during batting practice," Vickery said. "He puts on an awesome show."

Gainesville pitching coach Cris Carpenter has a good view of these power surges — from the pitcher's mound.

"That's the best part about practice, watching him take batting practice," the former major league pitcher said. "He hits eight or 10 out a day on 10 or 12 pitches. It's impressive."

Prior to games, Gainesville will wait until the opposing team arrives before sending its top eight hitters in for batting practice. The display can be quite demoralizing. Often games are over before they begin.

For all his prowess at the plate, though, some believe Owings' baseball future rests on his right arm.

Mounds of talent

"His size is going to make him what scouts are looking for in pitchers," one National League scout said. "We look for tall, lanky type kids that are going to stand pretty tall on the mound. I like him as a pitcher, but he's not just a pitcher. He's just a very good baseball player."

Complementing his fastball with an improved offering of sliders and change-ups, Owings struck out 69 batters in 60.5 innings last season. He allowed just 34 hits and issued only 10 walks.

"High school is a tough level because a lot of pitchers can get people out with just their fastball," said Carpenter, the Gainesville High and University of Georgia product who was drafted No. 14 overall by the St. Louis Cardinals in the 1987 major league draft. "And Micah could do that. But he's taken it upon himself to make himself a better all-around pitcher.

"He's probably the first high school player I've seen that can dominate both ends of the spectrum, pitching and hitting. His pitching was outstanding this season — he was flawless in the playoffs — and the scary part is he's going to get better."

A move for the best

The Owings family doesn't disguise the motives behind their move to Gainesville last summer. It was done for baseball, pure and simple.

"Some people thought we were crazy," Owings' mother Danise said. The family had to purchase a home inside the Gainesville school district to make the move official.

But playing for the Red Elephants has its benefits: top-notch coaches and facilities, the chance to compete for a state title on a yearly basis. With success comes more exposure to college and pro scouts. Not that Owings needs much more of that.

Owings' younger brother Jon Mark, a rising sophomore at Gainesville, and friend Bryan Van Bavel, Owings' classmate at Forsyth Central, also joined the Red Elephants last season. The trio comprised one-third of Gainesville's starting lineup.

"Moving into it, we never knew we'd win a state championship," Micah Owings said. "It ended up being pretty awesome."

The transition wasn't always easy, however. During basketball season, Owings — a starting forward and Times All-Area selection for the Red Elephants — received his share of heckling when Gainesville visited Forsyth Central.

"We talked about that," Danise said. "He knew it was going to happen. But Micah said, 'It will just make me play better.'"

The day after Gainesville lost to Westover in the state basketball final four in Macon, Owings was in the starting lineup for the Red Elephants' baseball season opener. He had no spring training.

Still, some accused the slugger of having a slow start. His early-season numbers were solid, although admittedly not up to his previous standards.

"I'm the type of guy who takes a little while to get used to something new," Owings said.

"My brother, he just jumps into it. It takes me a little longer. There was some pressure, but after a couple of games I got over it and decided I didn't have to prove anything to anybody."

Slow start notwithstanding, Owings' new teammates recognized there was something special about their new third-baseman-slash-starting-pitcher right away.

"We knew what kind of player he was coming in, but I guess we didn't know firsthand," four-year Gainesville player Bryan Brinson said. "He impressed me on a daily basis when we were out there practicing. It's like everyday there's something new. He can do it all. He really can do it all."

Postseason explosion

After the near record-setting home run pace of his sophomore season, Owings hit just five home runs during his first regular season at Gainesville. But in the state playoffs, as Vickery said, "the lights came on."

Owings tripled his season home run total in the tournament. Ten home runs in 10 games. In the opening round against Eastside, he threw a no-hitter and belted three balls over the Ivey-Watson fence.

"I knew I was back in my groove," Owings said. "Once you feel it, there's nothing like it. It's such an adrenaline rush. I guess when you feel it, you just want to keep doing it."

For all the praise, for all the potential, Owings has somehow remained level-headed. He shies from attention. In fact, he personally requested that this story not run until after the state tournament. He didn't want the focus to be placed solely on him.

Born a family man

Owings listed his interests outside of baseball as spending time with his family — Owings, his parents, two brothers and two sisters are very close — and going to church. And the look in his eyes said that he was telling the truth. He's a "yes sir, no sir type of guy," to use Vickery's words.

"He's a good, clean-cut young man," Owings' father Jim, owner of a computer consulting company, said. "He's honest to a fault. He's a 4.0 student. He's an intense competitor. He is a well-rounded young man. Those are things I am proud of."

Jim, who played tight end for Georgia Tech in the 1970s, said his middle son has aspired to be a professional baseball player since he was an infant, swatting at carpenter bees in the back yard with a plastic bat.

"I've never looked that far ahead for him," Jim said. "I don't want him counting on that future so much that he forgets about every day along the way."

But starting today, that future is now for Micah Owings. The phone will ring, and it will ring again. At the other end of the line will be coaches and agents, each with a different opinion on how Owings should spend the rest of his life.

Tough decisions lie ahead, and Owings knows this.

"It will probably start being overwhelming when I start getting some calls," Owings said, still holding that baseball in his hand. "I'll have to start checking the Caller ID, I guess."

Micah Owings

• Height: 6-foot-5
• Weight: 210 pounds
• Born: Sept. 28, 1982
• Class: Gainesville High, 2002
• Positions: third base, pitcher
• Noteworthy: Ranked the 20th best baseball prospect in the nation for the Class of 2002. .. His 21 home runs as a sophomore at Forsyth Central were one shy of a state record.
• He said it: "I'm the type of guy that wants to go out and hit .500 with 20 home runs every season. I know it's not going to happen, but that's still my goal. I think that's why I do as well as I do, because I put that much pressure on myself."

2001 Statistics Batting G AB R H RBI K BB HR AVG 35 98 48 46* 56* 9 29* 15* .469* Pitching INP W L R H K BB ERA 60.2 12 1 16 34 69 10 1.85* *indicates team leader

# · Writings · (2) · 09.20.07