From Toms River to River Avenue
Jersey Shore roots prove Frazier was big league years before he became a Yankee
TOMS RIVER, N.J. — If he’s half as clutch as he was as a 12-year-old, Todd Frazier will be quite an addition to the Yankees. Frazier, of course, was the hero of the 1998 Little League World Series, when, standing all of 5-foot-2, he went 4-for-4 in that historic title game for Toms River. He started it off with a lead-off home run against Japan, and he ended it by throwing the game-winning strikeout as the winning pitcher.
He’s all grown up now, and the Yankees traded for the 31-year-old corner infielder this week in the hopes that he still has a knack for playing big in the biggest moments. Frazier is no longer 12 years old, but some traits never fade with age. Since winning national sports fame as a Little Leaguer, Frazier went on to win a pair of state championships in high school and a conference title in college at Rutgers, too.
“He’s a winner,” Ken Frank, Frazier’s coach at Toms River South said this week of his prized pupil. “I think his father did a good job with him growing up and I thought the Little League, he always handled that well and he was always a top performer.”
The Little League championship was 19 years ago this summer and Frazier, now 6-foot-3, has grown in many ways since that experience. It is an experience that took place long ago, but one that molded the player the Yankees acquired this week.
The Little League World Series is not an easy experience for kids involved. Images of crying children at the end of games are ubiquitous, more of a signature than any triumphant images of the winning teams. The LLWS is tough on those kids, it is not easy to win, and what made Frazier successful in that tournament is the same stuff that’s powered him his entire baseball career.
“It was a big deal,” Toms River teammate Casey Gaynor, now the pitching coach at Rutgers, said. “People still ask me about it to this day. It puts you in situations not every 11 or 12-year-old goes through, whether you’re playing on TV or talking in front of the media or signing autographs, it’s a whirlwind. It makes you mature a little bit.
“With all the pressure,” he said, “if you can handle that, you can almost handle anything, baseball-wise.”
Lots of players come to New York and crumble under the weight of the expectations and the attention heaped on the Yankees each year. The Bronx isn’t for everyone, but according to those who know him best, the bright lights of the big city won’t be an issue for Frazier.
Pressure’s never been a problem for him.
“He’s always had that ‘it’ factor,” Gaynor said. “Ever since he was 9 or 10 years old, it was just ‘if that kid don’t make the major leagues, I don’t know who does.’ He was that type of personality, he was that type of athlete.”
Frazier’s heroics against Japan have been well documented over the years, but a better indication of the kind of alpha male Frazier is unfolded far from the baseball field in Williamsport that week. Frazier first announced his presence on a ping pong table in a place the players called “the barracks.”
“That’s where everyone lived, where every team lived, all the American teams and all the international teams,” Gaynor said of the dorms where LLWS participants lived during the tournament. “And they had a ping pong table. Todd was the king of the table. He took anybody on. He was the ping pong champion.
“When it was just us and Japan left, everybody else went home, the day before that (championship) game, we were playing ping pong with the Japanese guys and we got really close with them through ping pong,” he said. “We didn’t speak the same language, but ping pong was big in their culture. Todd brought everybody together and we were exchanging autographs. That’s just who he is. It was his U.N. meeting. He brought everybody together around the ping pong table.”
The next day, Frazier handed his new Japanese friends the most crushing loss of their young lives.
A year before he arrived at Toms River South to play for Frank, who has been at the school 40 years, Frazier was a local celebrity. He and his teammates got to visit Yankee Stadium and meet guys such as Derek Jeter, and there is a famous photograph that was dusted off this week of Frazier standing alongside Jeter, adding to the craziness of the baseball journey that’s finally delivered him back home. Even before he got to high school, Frazier was a big man on campus.
“He didn’t act that way,” Frank said, “and he didn’t play that way. He always acted like he had to get better.”
Frazier lead South to back-toback state titles in 2002 and 2003, continuing a rich tradition of Toms River baseball excellence. The school won five state championships under Frank’s watch, and regularly had upwards of 1,000 fans at home games, another example of why people around here just know
Frazier will do well with the Yankees.
“I think he’ll handle it well,” Frank said. “The more pressure on him, the better he gets. Coming to New York is a lot of pressure, I don’t care who you are. But no matter where he’s been in baseball, he’s always performed. He accepts the challenge. That’s what I like about him the most. He’s excited about it. He’s not going into this saying, ‘Jeez, I’m in New York.’ He’s saying he’s looking forward to it and he’s with a contender and he’s going to make it work, hopefully help them carry this a little further. That’s just the way he is.”
A hallmark of the Yankees dynasty teams was their ability to come up big in the clutch. Jeter did. Paul O’Neill, Frazier’s favorite player, always did. But the player Frazier most resembles to his old crew is Scott Brosius, another one of those Yankees who never seemed to crack under pressure.
“I just see him as a clutch guy, a good team guy,” Gaynor said, floating the Frazier-Brosius comparison. “I think he’s a guy who can be a really good role player and come up big in big spots.”
Frazier is the youngest of three boys. Growing up, he was always pushed by his older brothers, who were also excellent ballplayers. Jeff Frazier played nine years in the minors and Charlie Frazier Jr. played six in the Marlins’ system. The family is legendary in New Jersey baseball circles. The fieldhouse at the Toms River Little League complex is named after the Fraziers. Inside, there is a shrine to Frazier and the 1998 Little League team.
The Frazier boys also made a big impact at Rutgers, where Todd broke Jeff’s home run record.
Less than two miles from those over-stuffed trophy cases at the Little League complex on Windsor Ave., the Driftwood Deli honors Toms River’s favorite son with a sandwich named after him. When he turned pro, Frazier’s longtime sandwich order was memorialized on the menu with “The Todd,” a footlong packed with turkey, roast beef, yellow American cheese, extra bacon and extra mustard. And no vegetables, which is just the way Frazier likes it.
Sandy Long, who used to own the deli, has no doubt Frazier is going to be a smash with the Yankees. She knows this, she said, “because he steps up. He always steps up.”
Frazier played five years with the Reds and made the All-Star Game twice. He won the 2015 Home Run Derby, possibly another sign of him coming up big in a big spot on national television. The AllStar Game was held in Cincinnati that year and in front of the home crowd, Frazier once again did not crack under pressure. He wound up winning the thing in the bonus round when he went deep to edge Joc Pederson of the Dodgers by a score of 1514. Clutch.
After two unremarkable seasons with the lowly White Sox, Frazier may benefit from a change of scenery. He may flourish in his unexpected homecoming. Because this is a big moment for him and the Yankees, and Frazier has a history of making the most of these chances.
“He’s always played in the Midwest his whole career,” Gaynor said. “It’s got to be a lot of pressure for him to come here with all his friends and family, all the ticket requests and all the people wanting to come see. But if there’s anyone who can do it, it’s Todd. I don’t think he’ll be fazed by it. Even if you’re not from here, playing in New York is a lot of pressure. I think he’ll be able to handle it.”