Baseball’s Lovullos: A season for 2 men
Lovullos enjoy a healthy, independent relationship
For a big-league manager in his first season as skipper of a team, and a 23-year-old player trying to work his way through the minors, the ties that bind are more than baseball.
Torey Lovullo, field manager of the Diamondbacks, is busy with his team neck-and-neck for a wild card position as the season enters the last two months. His son, Nick, entered play last week hitting .287 with 17 extra-base hits in 79 games in this season.
It was a chilly November morning even by Southern California standards, so Nick Lovullo knows the warmup for his daily workout is bound to feature something different.
Lovullo, a minor league baseball player in the Boston Red Sox organization, arrives at the training facility in his hometown of Thousand Oaks, Calif., where he meets with four other minor leaguers and two trainers for regular offseason workouts.
That’s when Lovullo sees an incoming call on his phone.
His father, Torey, is a coach with the Red Sox and has been interviewing for big-league manager jobs. Nick has insisted that Dad must break the news first; he
“I always knew he’d be a great manager, it was just a matter of the right opportunity.” NICK LOVULLO ON HIS FATHER
didn’t want to find out via TV or Twitter.
“I was ready to go work out and minutes before I saw a phone call from my dad,” Nick said. “I kind of knew something was a little different.”
Quickly stepping out into the brisk air, thoughts racing through his mind as he answers the phone. It’s not like his father to interrupt him during a workout. Something must be up.
“Nick, are you doing anything this weekend?” “No.” “Good,” Torey responds. “Because I’m going to need you to come to Arizona for the press conference. I was just named the Diamondbacks’ manager.”
Different kind of call
Most minor leaguers spend years waiting for one specific call — a promotion to the majors. But for Nick, less than a year removed from his days as starting shortstop for College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., the call he was waiting for was the one from his father.
“I was so extremely happy for him, doing what he’s always wanted to do and be a big league manager,” Nick said. “I always knew he’d be a great manager, it was just a matter of the right opportunity.”
Distance is nothing new for the Lovullo men. Although Nick is too young to remember his father’s playing days — a career that spanned 1,433 minor league games and 303 major league contests — Torey has been working as either a coach or minor league manager since his son was 7 years old.
Torey and his first wife, Lynn, settled in the greater Los Angeles area where Nick and their daughter, Taylor, who is now 19 and a student at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., both lived and attended high school. Torey remarried in 2009, and after moving on to college Nick split time living with his mother and father each offseason.
While raising his family, Torey made sure that when he was with his kids the priority was being Dad. Especially with Nick, there was no talk of baseball, no mandated backyard drills. There was just family time.
When Torey was the first base coach for the Toronto Blue Jays in 2012, he was surprised to learn the team planned to use a late-round draft pick on his son, who was a high school senior in Thousand Oaks. Nick was drafted by Toronto in the 38th round, but elected to attend Holy Cross.
When Blue Jays skipper John Farrell became Red Sox manager prior to the 2013 season, he brought Torey along as bench coach. They won a World Series in their first season in Boston.
Nick earned the starting shortstop job for Holy Cross and was drafted by Boston in the 34th round. He decided to go back to school, improved and was picked in Round 20 in 2016.
Nick started for the team’s rookie-level affiliate in Lowell, Mass. Torey made frequent trips as Nick got his first taste of pro ball.
Diamondbacks assistant GM Amiel Sawdaye was heavily involved in Nick’s scouting when working as the Red Sox’s vice president of international and amateur scouting. He came to Arizona along with former Red Sox GM Mike Hazen prior to the 2017 season. He also had a front-row view of the Nick-Torey relationship.
“They are very close and I always knew that,” Sawdaye said. “That was extremely apparent when you would see Torey leave Fenway after a day game, sitting in a lot of traffic … any chance he could get just to watch his son play a few innings.”
Being a part of the same organization, the Lovullo men shared a memorable summer. However, Torey was destined for bigger things.
With Hazen and Sawdaye going to the Diamondbacks, Torey was named manager in Arizona.
His feelings of relief and joy were mixed with melancholy. Now, advice for his son’s journey would have to come from across the country.
“It’s definitely been different,” Torey said of the relationship. “... But I get the best point of view through his eyes. We talk probably 3-4 times a week just to catch up and see what’s going on. It’s as close as I can get to what’s actually going on.”
Torey knew early on that his son was going to be his own person.
‘They were screaming at him’
Torey Lovullo struggles to hold his video camera still. The bleachers on which he’s sitting are practically shaking as the screams of hundreds of parents echo through the Little League field in Simi Valley, Calif.
Playing on his first All-Star team in an elimination game, 8-year-old Nick Lovullo is at the plate with two outs and the winning run on base.
“It was a crunch-time moment, bases were loaded and the team was down by two runs,” Torey recalled. “And parents were screaming at him. They were screaming and yelling at him, at the pitcher.”
As his son steps into the batter’s box, a friend leans over.
“Aren’t you going to go down there and tell him what to do?”
“No,” Torey responded. “He’s got this under control.”
After two pitches, Nick is down to his final strike.
“I’m telling you he’s got this under control.”
Torey caught a glimpse of his son’s face, expecting the kid to look overwhelmed. But all he saw was the same stoic face that always Nick had — whether taking batting practice or hitting with his team’s season on the line.
“Next, it was an 0-2 fastball,” Torey recalled. “I mean, here I am describing it like I’m a major-league announcer. He whistled it over the left fielder’s head for a game-winning double.”
Torey ran to the field. Nick was instantly lifted into the air.
“I’m so proud of you, Nicky. I’m so proud of you.”
But there was no ear-to-ear smile, no cheerful crying from Nick. Just that same stoic face. According to Torey, if that expression could talk it would have said, “Let me do my job, Dad. Put me down and let me do what I’m supposed to do.
“That moment right there I realized he was going to be a special kid.”
The closeness of their relationship has spawned a healthy independence from one another.
“He just always liked to sit back and blend in and be a normal parent,” Nick said. “He let me go out and do my thing. Now it’s different with me reaching out for help and advice. It’s just crazy how much a game can mean to people and how far baseball can take you.”
‘Making his own way’
There is a school of thought that certain rounds in the MLB draft are reserved for favors. A 40-round marathon, many teams use their later draft picks on relatives of team employees — brothers and sons of coaches, front office staff and/or players.
So when Nick was tabbed as a 38throunder by the Blue Jays in 2012 and a 34th-rounder in 2015 by the Red Sox, this was a first thought for many. They were doing Torey a favor by drafting his son.
But there’s a big difference between being taken in the mid-to-late 30s and the 20th round where Nick was picked by the Red Sox last season. Draft evaluators could infer that Sawdaye and the Red Sox clearly wanted this player for his talent, or they wouldn’t have avoided the risk of having another interested team pounce.
“He was not a favor draft — he was a player who we believed in,” Sawdaye said.
“We felt confident that he would be able to bounce around the diamond, show a sound approach with instincts and bring maturity and energy to any clubhouse.”
Among three levels, Nick entered play last week hitting .287 with a .337 OBP and 17 extra-base hits in 79 games in 2017 — a far cry from his .201 average in 57 games the year he was drafted.
When the Diamondbacks manager is asked how Nick is doing these days, the answer is always the same.
“He’s making his own way, and that’s what I tell people when I’m asked how Nick is doing,” Torey said. “He’s really making his own way and I’m so proud that he’s doing it on his own.”
Torey thinks back to the MLB strike of 1994 when he was a member of the Seattle Mariners. The Los Angeles Times ran a story about the local boy Torey Lovullo having an opportunity to spend extra time with his then-wife, Lynn, and their 9-month-old son, Nick.
Sometimes he blinks his eyes and nearly a quarter-century has passed. It seems like everything has changed, yet everything has remained the same.
“I still see him as a little boy running around in the backyard. Him playing with his first glove and me being there to love him and support him,” Torey said. “And it’s still the same, nothing’s changed ... now that he’s 23 years old.
“We still have the same conversations, they’re just a different form but they’re still built on the same thing and that’s love.”