Kornacki: The Friendship of Erik Bakich and David Price
7/14/2015 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
July 14, 2015
By Steve Kornacki
DETROIT, Mich. -- Erik Bakich was the baseball recruiting coordinator at Vanderbilt in 2004, when a tall, skinny kid with a live left arm from nearby Murfreesboro, Tennessee, became his primary target.
David Price turned down one million dollars and other college suitors to come to Nashville to play for the Commodores in large part because he was so impressed with Bakich, head coach Tim Corbin and pitching coach Derek Johnson. He liked the way they taught the game and formed a team that became a family. Price, more than any other player, put the program on the map. And he cultivated an enduring friendship with Bakich while both advanced their careers.
Price became the No. 1 overall pick in the 2007 Major League Baseball draft by the Tampa Bay Rays and pitched in a World Series and won a Cy Young Award while helping turn a woeful franchise into a big winner. He was traded to the Detroit Tigers in the middle of the 2014 season and has become the club's established ace.
Bakich left Vanderbilt after 2009 to become the head coach at Maryland and won the Big Ten Tournament championship last month in his fourth season at the helm of the Wolverines.
Price, prior to a recent game at Comerica Park, said he knew Bakich was destined for an accomplished coaching career.
"The intensity that he brings every day stood out," said Price. "He was more high-energy than anybody on the team, and he brought that to the field every single day. He's in very good shape and takes very good care of his body, and he pushes other guys to get bigger, faster, stronger and better.
"He helps guys with their eating habits and everything. He was somebody we all loved being around. Bakich was just a guy who was fun to be with. He's such a good dude. Being around Erik made you better. Being around the entire staff at Vanderbilt transformed me into who I am today, and I am forever grateful for that."
Bakich called Price "the greatest teammate" he's ever been around.
"It's a combination of his superior physical ability coupled with an even bigger skill set in the locker room of just being able to have a relationship with every guy," said Bakich. "You hear people talk about guys who are the glue of the locker room. Well, he had more talent in the locker room than he had on the field. And he was the best player in college baseball in 2007."
Price won the Golden Spikes Award and Dick Howser Award as the nation's top college baseball player.
"He was our heart and soul," continued Bakich. "He still is one of the biggest positive life forces that I've been around. Come close to him, and you can feel the energy. He just doesn't have bad days. He was as big of a presence when he was in the dugout as he was on the mound. He would hold a fungo bat and pound it against the bricks. He was the loudest cheerleader on our team.
"David won all of those awards because they were not what he was focused on."
They developed a tight bond based on mutual respect.
"It started during the recruiting process with him and his family," said Bakich. "And there was a trust that had to be built because he was a high-level prospect. He turned down a lot of money to come to school."
Price was a 19th-round pick in 2004 by the Los Angeles Dodgers, who anted up with first-round bonus money delivered by Tommy Lasorda, the Hall of Fame manager who has stayed with the organization.
"I went to one of David's summer league games," said Bakich. "I thought he was safe because he was a 19th-rounder. But I'm at the game, and I see this guy walking in, and it's Tommy Lasorda. I'm like, 'Oh, no! You've got to be kidding me.' After the game, he asked David, 'How would you like to be a Dodger? Well, we want to make it happen. We want to offer you a million dollars.'
"I thought, 'We're going to lose him.' But he put his foot down."
Price, recalling that day and that offer, said, "If anything, that swayed me that much more to go to college."
Price said he knew he wasn't ready for pro ball and recalled the advice of his father:
"You're still a little puppy; you need to sit on the porch. You can't go and run with the big dogs yet."
Three years later, he was the top pick in the draft. Price, the 2012 Cy Young Award winner, is making $19.75 million in 2015 and will become one of the game's highest-paid players as a free agent after this season.
Bakich is so proud of Price's commitment to college that he called up the hurler's Twitter account to relay the message Price recently sent to all high school draft picks from @DAVIDprice14: "I know today is a big day for a lot of baseball players...high school kids GO TO COLLEGE!! Can't miss out on the best 3-4 years of your life."
Bakich noted that Price and Corbin also are "extremely, extremely close" and have a father-son type of relationship.
"I was a complementary piece to that," said Bakich, who coached hitting and outfielders at Vandy. "But I was the recruiter. So, I spent a lot of time with him and his family. And our relationship was always easy, comfortable. It wasn't difficult to be in his life and be more than just a coach.
"We've stayed in touch. I haven't been able to see him a lot since he left Vanderbilt, but now that he's with Detroit I've been able to spend more time with him. My wife and I will have his girlfriend, Tiffany, and David over for dinner some time. My best chance to see him is to catch him on an off day here."
The Tigers obtained Price from the Tampa Bay Rays on July 31, 2014, in a three-team trade that also involved the Seattle Mariners. Detroit sent starting pitcher Drew Smyly and shortstop prospect Willy Adames to the Rays and starting center fielder Austin Jackson to the Mariners.
Bakich recruited Price at Blackman High in Murfreesboro, and the whole process could've unraveled had the coaches not handled an unusual delay with aplomb.
"He came to my house for the home visit along with Coach Corbin and Coach Johnson," said Price. "I was playing SOCOM (a video game involving U.S. Navy Seals), and I wasn't going to quit because I care about my stats way too much and didn't want to quit on the teammates I was playing with.
"And I knew they were there because my mom and dad yelled at me that they were there, but I said I would be down in a minute. I told Tiffany that story about making those guys wait downstairs for 10-15 minutes. But they didn't look at me any differently because of that. I said, 'Whatever I start, I finish.' And I think they appreciated that even though it was just a video game."
Price remains lanky, but has put on 25 pounds since college.
"I was joking with him because he was eating nachos and everything," said Bakich, who took in some Vanderbilt postseason games with Price last month. "When we first met him, he was 6-6 and 185 pounds. I tell him that he was built like a fungo. But he was long and lean and whippy and a phenomenal athlete. He was a heck of a basketball player, a two-sport star."
Bakich said Price underwent "an incredible evolution" at Vanderbilt.
"He went from this shy, introverted kid -- I mean he would barely talk," said Bakich. "He almost quit Vanderbilt his first year. School was hard, baseball was hard. He was homesick. He was living on a dorm floor with a bunch of football players and a lot of parties, and he couldn't get much sleep. He was underwater academically, and things weren't going great on the mound."
Price met with Corbin and told him he was probably going to go home and attend a community college.
"He almost shut it down," said Bakich. "But Tim Corbin had a long talk with him about confidence and becoming a man, and he stuck it out. He truly became who he is today. His personality, his character, his confidence -- all of it just sky-rocketed in his three years at Vanderbilt."
He went from being a "loose-armed, highly competitive thrower" to becoming a refined product who could locate pitches wherever he wanted. His velocity went from 88-91 to 95-98 mph.
Price learned what it took to run with those big dogs from Bakich, Corbin, Johnson and others.
He was interviewed moments after Vanderbilt won a College World Series game on a walk-off homer that Price cheered wildly in the Detroit clubhouse. Bakich said Price "is 21 again" anytime he's around college teammates and coaches.
"I don't know if the bond can get any stronger," said Price. "It is a brotherhood."
