Today's feel-good baseball story

[juddling]

Matt LaChappa hasn't thrown a pitch professionally in 10 years. He is confined to a wheelchair, and constrained by the physical fallout from back-to-back heart attacks.

 

Yet the Padres continue to pay him as if he were an active player. It might be the noblest thing they do.

 

“When he became a six-year free agent, I just renewed him for six more years,” said Priscilla Oppenheimer, the Padres' director of minor league operations. “Nobody's said that I shouldn't, so I keep doing it. To me, it was the right thing to do. If they gave me any static about it, I would have taken it.”

 

The baseball salary LaChappa draws is relatively insignificant – even by the Friars' modest standards – but the gesture is absolutely grand. It helps the disabled pitcher retain his insurance coverage and fulfills a promise Oppenheimer made when the Padres picked the El Capitan lefty with their No. 2 selection in the 1993 June draft.

 

“When he was drafted and he came into the office to sign, I've never seen such a troop of tribal people,” Oppenheimer said. “I think he was the first full-blooded American Indian ever drafted.”

 

Oppenheimer assured LaChappa's parents then that they needn't worry about their teenage son because, “I'll take care of him.” Three years later, when LaChappa was stricken in the bullpen in Rancho Cucamonga, Oppenheimer proved even better than her word.

 

Narrowly interpreting a vague promise by then-CEO Larry Lucchino that LaChappa would “always be a Padre,” Oppenheimer kept the young player on the club payroll and placed pictures of him on her desk.

 

“He's my hero,” she said yesterday. “He was always up. He had a good personality, a good sense of humor. He was cheerful. It made you feel good to be around him.

 

“I try to go out to see him every month. Even though I do most of the talking, he's very strong in his upper body. If you get a chance to give him a hug, be prepared to fight for breath.”

 

LaChappa turns 31 on Thursday. Friday, the seventh annual Matt LaChappa Golf Tournament will be staged at Barona Creek Golf Club to raise scholarship money for college-bound San Diego athletes. To date, roughly 120 students have received grants totaling close to a quarter of a million dollars.

For Matt LaChappa, charity has become a two-way street.

 

“When Matt was in high school and going to try out (for baseball), we had to budget real good to get cleats and a mitt,” said his mother, Linda LaChappa. “There are kids out there with talent. If we could help them with college and stuff, we wanted to do it.

 

“When we started, we thought if it only lasted one year, we'd be successful. But our sponsors have helped us every year. They just continue to support Matthew.”

 

No one is forgotten faster than the former athlete who never made it to the big time. Yet LaChappa's dreams were dashed so dramatically and so abruptly that his legacy has outlived his brief career. His uniform number has been retired at both El Capitan High and Rancho Cucamonga. Oppenheimer said the Padres are considering naming a minor league award in LaChappa's honor.

 

“He could have been a No. 2 or 3 starter in the big leagues,” said Reggie Waller, the former Padres' scouting director. “His fastball could occasionally touch 90 (mph) and he had two curveballs. One of them was just an absolutely major league power curve ball.”

 

LaChappa won 11 games as a starter in Rancho Cucamonga in 1995, compensating for erratic control with a lethal pickoff move.

 

“He would mesmerize guys,” Waller said. “They'd look and next thing they were out.”

 

It happens that quickly sometimes. One moment, you're teeming with opportunity. Then, suddenly, it's all gone, and irretrievable. For LaChappa, the transition was but a twinkling. He was warming up for an April relief appearance against the San Bernardino Stampede when he clutched his chest and collapsed in the bullpen.

 

Derrek Lee, the Padres' No. 1 choice in 1993, would go on to win a World Series, play in an All-Star Game and sign a $65 million contract with the Chicago Cubs. LaChappa, meanwhile, went on to round-the-clock care.

 

“Matthew is doing fantastic,” said his older brother, Eagle. “He actually participates in everything his family does. He attends church, goes to dinner, goes to the movies.

 

“He's still the same person that he was before. Nothing – no matter what happened to him – could get him down. He's always been a fighter.”

 

So, too, is Priscilla Oppenheimer where Matt LaChappa is concerned.

 

“I always buy a foursome in his golf tournament,” she said. “Somebody gave me a little grief about that in a finance meeting, and I had to use some not-so-nice words. But other than that, no one's ever said anything.

 

“The sad thing is most people don't remember who he is now. Most of the staff never dealt with him, so they don't know.”

 

That's a shame, for this is a story that does the Padres proud

 

 

[Gregory Pratt]

What a classy thing for them to do.

[Steve9347]

It's stories like these that never make the evening news. Thank you for sharing.

[southsider2k5]

I love stories like this

[Goldmember]

As do I...

[Queen Prawn]

Me three.

[zygoat]

Not only do i love stories like this, but i love organizations like this. I mean if that was the Yankees or Red Sox, he would have been gone. Major props to SD and i hope the Sox are like that