Underappreciated Lowrie a first-time All-Star at age 34.
SAN FRANCISCO >> Jed Lowrie, the A’s late-blooming All-Star, long ago chose Stanford for its academics and strong baseball program. But Britney Spears played a role, too.
During his recruiting trip hosted by future A’s outfielder Sam Fuld, the two made a detour to a Best Buy in East Palo Alto so that Fuld could buy Spears’ latest CD. That’s the part Lowrie remembers most.
“One-hundred percent real,” he said Saturday. “He’ll probably love that I told you that.”
Fuld, given a chance to confirm or deny this account, said: “Unfortunately, I must confirm.”
Fifteen years later, that album title — “In the Zone” — could serve as the soundtrack to Lowrie’s career-best season. He’s already matched his season high for home runs (16) and ranks among
the American League’s best late-game hitters. (He’s hitting .384 with nine home runs in the seventh inning or later.)
On Tuesday night in Washington D.C., one of baseball’s most underappreciated players will finally line up with the big boys — a first-time All-Star at age 34. Lowrie joins Phil Garner (1976) as the only second basemen in Athletics history to make the AllStar team. That includes the Philadelphia and Kansas City years, too.
“I think it’s incredible,” said Fuld, a former A’s outfielder and now the major league player information coordinator for the Philadelphia Phillies. “Certainly, it shows what kind of work ethic he has.
“He’s getting up there towards the end of a typical age curve. But the fact that he’s producing at as good a level, if not better, than he has in his entire career just points to the dedication to his craft.”
What Fuld remembers most about that first meeting with Lowrie in Palo Alto isn’t the lightweight music. It’s the lightweight player. The kid from Salem, Oregon, arrived on campus with a physique so small that candy makers would have labeled him “fun size.” Fuld says that the infielder looked like he weighed about 140 pounds.
“So I certainly didn’t meet Jed Lowrie and think, ‘This guy is going to be a major league All-Star,”’ he said. “And I don’t think anybody in the world did.”
Lowrie was skinny, yes, but also skilled. A switch hitter who could play shortstop, second or third, he managed to crack Stanford’s powerhouse lineup as a freshman in 2003. He had zero homers in 212 at-bats that year, but batted .293 for a team that reached the finals of the College World Series.
Great, right?
Wrong. On the way back from Omaha, after losing to Rice for the national title, a coach sidled up to Lowrie on the plane and told him: “You need to gain 15 pounds or don’t even worry about coming back in the fall.” Lowrie was taken aback. “Saying something to the starting second baseman on the second-place team in the country?” he recalled during a dugout interview on Saturday. “But it was true. I probably weighed 160 pounds. I had the hand-eye coordination to handle it, but if I wanted to do something, I needed to get stronger. That’s always been the question mark with me.”
Lowrie took the advice to heart … and to his legs. On the advice of a hitting coach he met during the ensuing Alaska Summer League, Lowrie learned how to generate power from his lower half. Lowrie also adopted a fitness routine that guides him to this day, a regimen that relies heavily on walking lunges and rear-foot elevated squats. “My legs are
probably more instrumental to my swing than most guys because I don’t have the sheer size,” he said.
Lowrie returned for his sophomore year in 2004 physically transformed, like the pipsqueak who’d had sand kicked in his face. Lowrie batted .399 with 17 home runs, a .734 slugging percentage and a .505 on-base percentage over 60 games.
A Stanford media guide from that era offered this listing for a pronunciation of Lowrie: “Sounds like ‘WOW-ree.’”
“He put a few pounds on but, more than anything, he just stuck to his process,” Fuld said. “He changed his swing a little bit and just became a really, really productive college player.”
Now listed at 6-foot, 180 pounds with the A’s, Lowrie brings a stealth power that shows up mostly between the gaps. He set an Oakland record last season with 49 doubles, a mark that ranks second in franchise history to Hall of Famer Al Simmons (53 in 1926).
Along with his leg routine, he’s abandoned bench presses over the years in favor of push-ups. “I think it activates more muscle groups and it’s a more inclusive workout, a more functional workout,” Lowrie said.
This season, he’s hitting .285 with a .357 on-base percentage and .492 slugging percentage. Still a doubles machine, Lowrie said he’s never aimed for the fences — in part because they didn’t have any at North Salem High.
“I played on a high school field that didn’t have a fence. So home runs were never the goal,” Lowrie said. “The goal was always just to hit it hard.”
Back then, college recruiters had little interest in the undersized kid. But little Lowrie caught a big break. His father, Dan, had previously hired a strength and agility coach named Don Lien to help Lowrie train. And when Lien helped Stanford run an off-season baseball camp
for high school prospects, the school allowed Lien to bring two players. One of them was Lowrie, who promptly used that window to turn heads.
“He was kind of a surprise,” said Mark Marquess, who served as the Stanford head coach from 1977-2017. “He was a late-bloomer coming out of high school. We were really fortunate to be able to see him that final summer before we could recruit him. … You could see the natural ability he had as an athlete.”
Shunning mild interest from Georgetown, Dartmouth and (at the last second) Washington State, Lowrie sent his one and only college application to Stanford. He earned a political science degree, but it’s baseball that earned him a trip to Washington D.C. this week.
“It’s great that he’s reached the ultimate,” Marquess said. “It’s really a credit to him and the work he’s put in.”
Though Lowrie had no homers as a freshman, his parents, Dan and Miriam, provided plenty of long drives from the start. They are still remembered at the school for hopping in the car to make the 11-hour trip from Salem to Stanford. They became the unofficial Cardinal team parents, hosting the team whenever Stanford came to play at Oregon State in Corvallis, less than an hour from Salem.
“I think a lot of times with great athletes — I don’t care what sport — is that they have tremendous support from the parents,” Marquess said. “A lot of sacrifices enable their daughters or sons to be great athletes. They were fantastic and were always supportive.”
These days, Lowrie still arrives at the A’s facility as if he’s the 160-pounder trying to make the cut. Part of the reason Manager Bob Melvin considers his AllStar so valuable is that he sets the tone for a roster full of players figuring out what a professional looks like. This is how you make an All-Star team in your 11th season after more than 1,000 career games.
“He’s been a great resource for these guys,” Melvin said. “They take a lot from Jed. How he goes about his business. How he prepares for games. The work that he puts in inside the cage that not everybody sees. They flock to him. They ask him a lot about the game and he really embraces it, too.”
Lowrie is the second A’s second baseman to make the All-Star Game, but he could be the first to make a contribution. Garner, in that ’76 game in Philadelphia, struck out against John Montefusco of the Giants in his only at-bat.
Maybe Lowrie can break through. He has 33 multihit games this season, which ranks tied for sixth in the A.L. He also has nine three-hit games and two four-hit games.
On Tuesday night on the national stage, A’s fans might want to sing along with Britney. Hit me, baby, one more time.