Yuba City’s Max Stassi collects big league homer

It didn’t even take a full calendar week before Yuba City High product and former Gold Sox slugger Max Stassi notched his first home run of 2020 – a 3-run

bomb in the fourth inning of the Los

Angeles Angels 10-2 win over the Seattle Mariners Tuesday night.

Stassi, who earlier this summer was coaching third base for the YubaSutter Gold Sox, went 1-for-3 with a run scored and three RBI for the Angels.

“It’s great to see a local hometown hero,” Gold Sox General Manager Tommy Lininger said Wednesday. “The first two weekends he was coaching third base for us, now he is hitting 3-run bombs.”

Stassi, for a while, was a member of a very talented Gold

Sox coaching staff that featured multiple ex-big league products.

Lininger said the team’s field manager, Brock Stassi used to play for the Philadelphia Phillies, while pitching coach Ryan Mattheus used to pitch for the Washington Nationals and Cooper Goldby is currently a minor leaguer.

“This by far the best coaching staff the Gold Sox have ever had,” Lininger said. “It’s been a real treat this summer being exposed to those guys.”

Stassi, who has 13

career home runs in nine seasons playing for the Houston Astros and the Angels, was once a Yuba City Honker playing for his dad, Jim Stassi. Yuba City continues to tout the Stassi name led by Jim’s successor, Dave Rodriguez. Rodriguez, who took over the Honker baseball program three years after Stassi graduated, said he knows the former Yuba City star’s game well and thinks it is only a matter of time before he hits it real big.

“He’s always been known as a great defensive catcher and it looks like he’s hitting

pretty well,” Rodriguez said. “I think it’s a breakout year for him at the plate.”

Like the pandemic has exhibited daily, things are always evolving, so Rodriguez said it behooves everyone to take full advantage of an opportunity when it presents itself.

“You have to be mentally prepared to play everyday,” Rodriguez said. “When the opportunity comes, like it has for Max, you have to be ready.”

– Jeff Larson jlarson@ appealdemocrat.com