TURNING TWO
Kai & Kade: ASU baseball freshmen build on legacies
During major league spring training, Pat Murphy attended every Arizona State baseball game he could in the capacity of father, not Milwaukee Brewers bench coach.
He kept a low profile,but as attendance opened up beyond family, more fans put it together that ASU’s freshman right fielder Kai Murphy is Pat’s son.
“It’s about him and cool to make it about him,” Pat Murphy said, although at times the small enclave around him seemed like a flashback to the early 2000s when Kai was an infant and Pat was ASU’s head coach.
From 1997 to 2009, Murphy’s last year before he was forced out, ASU went to the postseason 14 times and made four trips to the College World Series, finishing as high as second. If not the gold or silver age of ASU baseball, it was at least the bronze with the Sun Devils among a handful of consistent national contenders.
Kai grew up in the company of future major leaguers, from Dustin Pedroia to Mike Leake, all now using the redshirt freshman as a measure of how fast time passes.
Kai gets chills seeing highlights of ASU’s 2005 team that finished third at the College World Series when he was four, and the teams that followed.
“You felt the presence when you were playing ASU,” he said. “There was just a different type of toughness and we’re going to dominate you because we’re tougher than you and we’re going to compete better than you. That’s the thing I remember most.
“We owe it to them to keep on that tradition when you come into Tempe to play, it’s going to be a dogfight. Those guys embody it. That’s my mission to make sure that tradition lives on of being bulldogs and tough dudes in Tempe.”
Kai was nine when his dad was forced to resign after 15 seasons as Arizona State coach.
Picking Kai up after school early that November 2009 day, Pat Murphy remembers breaking the news.
“‘Kai, daddy’s not going to coach at ASU any more’. He never asked why. He packed up all his ASU stuff — that’s all he wore — and put it in a big bag and never asked me about it again. He held that inside.”
Now 20, Kai is better able to process that turning point in his life, precipitated by an NCAA investigation into the baseball program that found significant enough violations for a one-year NCAA Tournament ban enforced after an appeal in 2012.
“It was kind of the end of the world for me,” Kai says. “We had a little bitterness at the beginning the way it went down and me being young. As I got older, I got over the situation and started to see what a great program ASU is. I can’t say when I was 13, I really thought I’d be playing at ASU.”
Choosing not to be coached by dad
Kevin Higgins is in his 11th season on UNLV’s baseball coaching staff.
Before that, the loyalties for the Higgins household centered around Arizona State, where Kevin was an All-America second baseman and played on the 1988 team that came within one game of winning the College World Series.
“I’m proud of being a Sun Devil and our house was,” said Higgins, who has four children including son Kade. “He’s heard me talk about what a special place it was and what it did for me and my 30plus years after ASU.”
As Kade developed into a top-10 Nevada high school player and Kevin advanced in his coaching career (this is his fifth season as associate head coach), it seemingly made sense for the two to intersect with the Rebels. Except that wasn’t necessarily what either wanted.
“To be honest, I don’t think he wanted to coach me,” Kade said. “Because if I ever went 0-for-4 in Vegas, I was playing because I was his son. I don’t think he wanted to put that pressure on me. He wanted me to get my own experience without having to worry about me. He wanted me to do whatever made me happy, and I kind of wanted to get away from home for a little bit.”
Position, not pitching addition
Pat Murphy is in his sixth season with the Brewers, a job he took after a 42-54 record of San Diego Padres’ interim manager in 2015.
He has continued to live in metro Phoenix since his departure from ASU, currently in Mesa where Kai played high
school baseball for Red Mountain and was 6A all-state first team in 2019.
It was no surprise when Kai signed to play for Oregon State, especially since there was still a chance that Pat Casey would come out of retirement to again coach the Beavers.
“As much as we fought, we had great respect,” Pat Murphy said of Casey, whose first two of three College World Series titles (2006, 2007) overlapped with Murphy’s best sustained years at ASU (2005-09).
By June 2019, Casey decided not to return and Mitch Canham was hired as his full-time replacement. Kai Murphy started his time in Corvallis that fall only to come down with mononucleosis just months before the coronavirus pandemic took over, forcing a premature end to the 2020 season.
“I was down for a really long time,” Murphy said. “By the time I got back after winter break, I was feeling a little better, but they just had a good deep outfield. I didn’t get too many at-bats and a lot of chance to showcase, but I think it all happened for a reason.”
Murphy pitched in relief in four games for Oregon State and didn’t play in the field or get an at-bat. At ASU, it’s been the opposite. He’s starting most games in right field, hitting .232 through Sunday with four home runs and 16 RBI and has yet to pitch as a Sun Devil.
He has shown off his strong left arm from the outfield and despite a few mistakes being over aggressive on dives is a plus defender.
“We thought we were getting more of a pitcher who could help us in the bullpen,” ASU coach Tracy Smith said. “But he had a good fall swinging the bat, and that put him in position to help us position playerwise. He’s one of our better defenders.”
When father faces son
Before UNLV played at ASU on March 16, Kevin Higgins admitted it would be “weird” to coach against his son. “I want him to do good and I want to win.” That’s exactly what happened.
Kade went 3-of-4 with an RBI double while the Rebels won a back-and-forth midweek game 10-9. A second game between the teams scheduled April 13 was canceled due to COVID-19 issues for UNLV. Higgins starred at Spring Valley High School in Las Vegas and was a top 10-rated player in Nevada.
“He’s always been pretty mature and just has focus and want to achieve what he wants to achieve,” Kevin said. “That’s probably got more to do with his mom and his sisters to be quite honest. Back in the day, I wasn’t quite as focused. I was pretty much straight-lined on baseball, and that was my only thought process and plan. Where his is everything he does, he wants to be successful at it. It’s a little bit from me, but the whole family is kind of like that.”
Higgins, also a left handed-hitting outfielder, hasn’t played as much as Murphy but is trying to make the most of his chances, hitting .333 (8-of-24) through Sunday. Hunter Jump now seems entrenched as the starting left fielder so Higgins likely will continue waiting for his turn.
“I’m ready to do anything I can,” Kade said. “Pretty much all I want to do is put ASU back on the map where it used to be. It’s been long overdue. The College World Series is the ultimate accomplishment you can have in college baseball so experiencing that with this team would be incredible.”