Oracle Online

Verdugo, who is also head baseball coach and assistant athletic director at Hamline, took a uncommon and lengthy path to the Saints.

Verdugo’s professional sports career took root when he played baseball and football at Arizona State.

While there, he played as backup quarterback for Jake Plummer. Plummer is now the starter for the
Denver Broncos. Verdugo was also a close friend and teammate of Pat Tillman.

Tillman left the NFL’s Arizona Cardinals to serve in the military and was killed earlier this year in Afghanistan.

The highlight of Verdugo’s collegiate baseball career was playing for Arizona State in the 1994
College World Series. His big league aspirations came to head when he was drafted by the California Angels in 1996.

In this position, which nearly every American boy dreams about while growing up, Verdugo made the bold decision not to sign and instead return to school for his senior year and finish his degree.

In 1997, he graduated from college with a degree in history and re-entered the baseball draft. He was drafted in the 12th round that year by the San Francisco Giants and would end up playing nearly four years in their minor league system.

Verdugo started off playing rookie ball and within a year he was promoted to single A. He started the next year in AA, where he had a chance to play with current Minnesota Twins All-Star closer Joe Nathan.

Four games into the second half of the minor league season in 1999, he was moved up to AAA.

In 2000, he started the year in AAA. He joined what proved to be a relatively young team, and his previous training had been as a reliever, but after four starters went down with injuries, Verdugo was changed to a starter.

With the sudden role change, things soon took a downward turn for Verdugo.

“I started to get a sore arm and really had bad arm problems,” he said. “It was really the increase in innings that I pitched.”

At that point, the Giants wanted to send him back to AA for rehab, which meant a move that would take him far from his wife.

With this information, and with his career weighing heavily on his mind, Verdugo decided that he would retire from baseball.

Within the matter of one month, he went from being a professional baseball player to being head basketball coach at McClintock, an Arizona high school.

His life was now headed in a new direction, and baseball never weighed heavily on him until spring training for the Giants started the next spring. Verdugo attended the spring training, no longer as a player, but as a friend to visit former teammates. It was during this period that the baseball pull hit him hardest, he said.

“The hardest part was the first spring training that I didn’t play in,” he said. “Dusty Baker [former
Giants manager, and current manager of the Chicago Cubs] came up to me and said ‘We’re going to miss you.’ That really affected me,” Verdugo said.

As he slowly distanced himself from the baseball life, and as his tenure as a high school coach continued, Verdugo came to the realization that he didn’t want to remain a high school coach forever.

He was connected in 2001 with Hamline and former athletic director Dick Tressel, who invited
Verdugo to come for an interview. Upon his arrival and interview, he was then offered the baseball coaching job at Hamline, which he accepted.

Verdugo then began the transition back into the baseball world and this very thing is what would ultimately, with time, catch up to him and drive him to play again.

But even this process took some time.

“I had played amateur ball but didn’t take the idea of playing on a professional level again very seriously,” he said. “Plus, the Giants still had my rights, and they weren’t going to release me.”

That aside, his resistance to returning finally started to fade, and in the spring of 2004, he started to get the idea of playing again in his mind.

In May, the Saints had an open tryout camp as they started their training, and Verdugo decided to give it a chance. He showed up at Midway Stadium and asked if the team could look at him.

He then took the mound and proved he still had his stuff.

“I wasn’t as sharp as I have been in the past, but I felt really good,” he said.

The Saints’ manager, George Tsamis, liked what he saw,

“Before he showed up to pitch, I hadn’t heard of him,” he said, “but after he showed us what he had, I was very impressed with his throwing.”

But in order for Verdugo to play, a number of hurdles still needed to be cleared.

For one, the Giants still held the rights to Verdugo. Tsamis called Verdugo’s agent to verify he was
serious about returning to the game, and to learn more about his past. Then Verdugo’s agent called the Giants to get his release, which they granted upon learning Verdugo was not trying to make a comeback to the major leagues.

Another factor hampered his return to playing, which was roster room on the Saints team. At the time, they had no position open for him, but said they would contact him later in the season if they needed him, which occurred in June.

Verdugo first pitched for the Saints in relief against Sioux City on June 8, 2004, nearly four years after his departure from professional baseball.

There were two key driving forces behind his comeback.

“I wanted my son to have a chance to see me pitch and I also wanted to see what my players here at Hamline go through,” Verdugo said.

He added, “I just wanted to see if I could do it, and challenge myself after being gone from competitive baseball for four years.”

Verdugo’s call to join the Saints came as a number of their starters went down with injury, and though he originally thought he’d be in the bull pen, he found himself once again in the starters role.

“It was tough early on in the season, but I felt like I was getting stronger as the season was winding down,” he said. “My last 12 starts proved to be quality starts.”

As the initial struggles and transition subsided, Verdugo then preceded to blow his competition away throughout the rest of the season.

When asked about his playoff experiences, Verdugo said, “It was awesome to pitch in the playoffs.
The last time I did that was in 1998 with the AAA team.”

His game four complete game shutout is also another indication of how strong he pitched for the
Saints. “It was pretty emotional after that last game for me, and I also knew it was the last time I’d pitch. But it was also sweet revenge for me to beat that team because they had beat me up pretty good in the regular season,” Verdugo said.

Playing, and playing to the level he did, was a challenge that he was more than happy to overcome.

--“The win was awesome for me and it was one of the best feelings I’ve had as an athlete,” he said.
“Whenever you have a goal and challenge in mind it is always a great feeling to beat that challenge.
It was fun to accomplish it.”

His achieved his challenge and won with pure strength on the mound. He approached his last trip to the mound with determination.

“I really had nothing to lose and I wanted to finish throwing a baseball on my terms,” he said, adding,
“No matter what type of championship it is and at any level, it’s awesome to be apart of that and the fashion in which we won it was incredible.”

Tsamis also felt that Verdugo was a key to the Saints’ success this year.

“He just dominated every time out on the mound and he gave us a chance to win any game he was in. He did a very good job and we wouldn’t have won a championship without him.”

He added, “Jason went out there and dominated down the stretch and the last month of the season.
No one in the league threw as well as he did.”