Ball now resting in MLB’s court
Lefthanded ace Lacy viewed as legitimate top draft prospect thanks to powerful arm
COLLEGE STATION — Asa Lacy grew up going to his parents’ competitive tennis matches, attending camps and hitting balls on the court with his folks.
“But I tended to hit balls over the back fence too much,” Lacy recalled with a chuckle. “I was trying to hit home runs.”
That was one early indicator of Lacy’s sporting future — even if his current gig is trying to prevent homers. Other harbingers were being tall, lefthanded and throwing hard as a Little Leaguer. His mother, Cynthia Lacy, recalled with a laugh the time a man wondered aloud during a Little League game in College Station, “Who are Asa Lacy’s parents?”
“I thought Asa had done something wrong,” she said, cringing.
It turns out the man, Gregg Bennett, was founder of the Twelve Baseball Academy in College Station. He asked Cynthia if the Lacys were interested in joining the upstart Twelve program. The family accepted the invite, and a blossoming lefty suddenly was on a path to baseball renown.
Lacy, a flamethrowing junior at Texas A&M, projects as a top-five overall selection in this summer’s MLB draft after his season as the Aggies’ ace was cut short because of the coronavirus pandemic. Lacy, whose fastball reaches 98 mph, struck out 46 batters in 24
innings and was 3-0 with a 0.75 ERA before the season abruptly ended in mid-March.
“To be nationally recognized the way he’s been and to accept the pressure that comes with it, it’s something I very much admire in Asa,” A&M coach Rob Childress said. “He could not have pitched any better and put himself in a better spot through four weeks of the season leading to the draft.”
Lacy (6-4, 215) has a good chance of becoming A&M’s highest baseball draftee. Fellow lefthanded pitcher Jeff Granger was the No. 5 pick in the 1993 draft.
“With all of the legends who’ve come before me at Texas A&M … to be a part of that would be really cool,” Lacy said.
Lacy, born in Bryan and raised in College Station as an only child, grew up attending A&M baseball and football games. His father, Phillip Lacy, played tennis at Sam Houston State in the mid-1980s, and his parents met in Brenham after both attended SHSU.
The couple settled in College Station, and when Asa was in the eighth grade, the family uprooted to Kerrville, in part because Lacy had grown close to Kerrville Tivy baseball coach Chris Russ, a standout A&M pitcher at the turn of the century.
After playing minor league baseball for seven years, Russ had returned to A&M to earn his master’s degree in 2008. He mentored Lacy via the Twelve program.
“He’s been coaching me since I was 8 years old,” Lacy said of Russ, also a Tivy graduate. “He was the first guy to give me pitching lessons, and I’m very close to his family.”
Russ returned home to Kerrville and became an assistant baseball coach at Tivy, then soon succeeded longtime Antlers coach Steve Rippee, who retired in 2014. Lacy played for Russ first on the junior varsity as a freshman in 2014 and then the next three years on varsity for the promoted coach.
Lacy’s move to Kerrville also meant unexpected pitching sessions with Jim Morris, a Kerrville resident, former big leaguer and subject of the Dennis Quaid movie “The Rookie.” Morris had reached out to the Lacys when he noticed the rangy lefthander with a promising future.
“Everything he does is to get better. From the weight room to his diet, it’s a 24-hour deal with him.”
Texas A&M baseball coach Rob Childress, on pitcher Asa Lacy
Lacy hit a growth spurt as a high school sophomore, and the Cleveland Indians selected him in the 31st round of the 2017 draft. But he chose to attend A&M, returning to his College Station roots.
“When I’d go back and visit when I was in high school, I realized how much I missed the place,” Lacy said.
Under Childress’ tutelage and a strict workout regimen, Lacy added 20 pounds of muscle and 10 mph to his fastball in his three years at A&M. Childress cited Lacy’s work ethic and singlemindedness for developing into perhaps the nation’s top pitching prospect.
“Everything he does is to get better,” Childress said. “From the weight room to his diet, it’s a 24hour deal with him.”
Childress also serves as the Aggies’ pitching coach, and Lacy said his on-mound education at A&M put him in position to succeed at the next level.
“Coach Childress has been huge for me with the mental side of the game, as far as instilling that competitiveness and wanting to be better in every facet of the game,” Lacy said. “Coach does everything the right way. There are no shortcuts.”
Kerrville Tivy is best known for quarterback Johnny Manziel, the 2012 Heisman Trophy winner from A&M, and like the Lacy family, the Manziels moved to Kerrville when their son was in junior high. The Manziel family, originally from Tyler, moved out of Kerrville and to College Station shortly before the Lacy family arrived from College Station.
“They moved away in the spring of that year (2012), and we moved in that fall,” Cynthia Lacy said. “We kind of switched places.”
Added Asa: “‘Johnny Football’ was the talk of Kerrville when I was growing up there. I haven’t gotten to meet him, but I loved watching him play at A&M. And I’ve heard quite a few stories of the things he also could do on the baseball field. He’s just a gifted athlete.”
So is Asa, whom his mother named for his great-great-grandfather, Asah, who was from Sweden, and also King Asa from the Bible. The talented pitcher picked up the nickname “Ace” along the way, and he was living up to the billing before the sudden end of the season because of the pandemic. Lacy said the best approach to what could be a wildly frustrating situation is positivity.
“I’m not alone in this at all. We’re all in it together,” he said. “All of college baseball and all of my teammates — we’ve got to stick together. We’re also blessed that we’ve been given this opportunity to spend a lot of time with family that we normally would not get in the spring.”
Lacy, 20, has stayed in baseball shape by working out with A&M teammate Rody Barker, also a Tivy graduate.
“Luckily, Rody and I have a private gym we’re able to work out in, and we throw on our high school field four or five days a week,” Lacy said. “We work out with free weights, barbells and (resistance) bands, nothing really special. It’s almost like it’s another offseason.”