RENO - Reno Silver Sox hitting coach Rafael Melchione says that 33-year-old catcher Marcus Jensen and his 14-year-old son, Marcus Jensen, are "split-images of each other."
They may not share the same middle name - so one's not a Senior and the other a Junior - and although Marcus is 19 years older and at 6-foot-4, 225 pounds, is a good 4 inches and 85 pounds heavier than his son, who goes by MJ, there are definite similarities.
The first thing you notice are their arresting green eyes, which seem to penetrate through the person with whom they are speaking.
And the 6-foot, 140-pound MJ, formerly known as "Little Marcus," has recently undergone a growth spurt and shares the same long, thick frame as his father, whose hands are so large that he can probably palm a large pizza.
They also appear at first blush to share the same demeanor.
"Marcus is very quiet - reserved," says Melchione, for whom Jensen, in the off-season, is a hitting instructor at Baseball Thru the Core Training Center, in Phoenix, Ariz. "He stays to himself. You have to get to know him. He doesn't big-league you. He doesn't speak much. When he does, everyone listens to him. Everything that comes out of his mouth means something."
Asked about MJ, Melchione says pretty much the same thing.
"He's quiet. He doesn't say much," says Melchione, a friend of MJ's father for the last four years. "He's trying to learn and listen to his dad. I asked him one time if he listened to his dad. His words were, 'I should. He was in the big leagues, wasn't he?'"
THE SHOW
Born in Oakland, Calif., Marcus went to Oakland Skyline High School, where he played basketball and baseball. Already pegged as the San Francisco Giants' catcher of the future, Marcus, who had his sights set on pitching for the University of California-Berkeley, was picked up by the Giants as the 33rd pick in the first round of the Major League Draft.
"Once that happened, it changed everything," says the switch-hitting Jensen, who currently leads the Silver Sox with a .361 batting average, 10 home runs and 40 RBI. "I was going to Cal as a pitcher and I was drafted as a catcher."
A power forward-center, Jensen says he could have gone to a small college ("Small then, decent now," he says) on a basketball scholarship, but a chance to play in the big leagues was too much to pass up.
And so it began. Jensen worked his way through the Giants' minor-league teams and up to The Show itself, where he played nine games in late-1996 for San Francisco, batting .211 in 19 at-bats.
After playing 30 more games for the Giants in '97, Jensen was off to Detroit. From there he bounced from Milwaukee to St. Louis, to Minnesota in 2000, where he had his best season (he played in 52 games, batted .209 and had 3 homers and 14 RBI in 139 at bats).
Stints in Boston and Texas followed and he last played in the bigs for Milwaukee in 2002, before going to Triple-A Indianapolis.
Dealt to the Yankees, Jensen played for the Triple-A Columbus Clippers, where he batted .229 in 66 games in '03. In '04, he was off to the Mexican League and the Cancun Langosteros, and last year Jensen played independent ball for Lancaster and Melchione and their Mesa Miners in the Golden Baseball League.
"Last year before the season started, I asked him if he wanted to come catch," Melchione says. "I took a chance. He'd been in the big leagues and stopped playing to be with his son. I was shocked he said yeah to playing independent ball. He had a good year (he batted .272 and had seven homers and 48 RBI in 84 games). This year he decided to come back and play again and possibly get back in the big leagues."
SOMETHING MISSING
"It's certainly been a journey," Jensen says after taking batting practice before taking the field against the Yuma Scorpions, while MJ, who will be a sophomore for Pinnacle High in Scottsdale, Ariz., is in the bullpen warming up some Silver Sox pitchers. "It's been a learning experience. Baseball taught me a lot about life.
"I learned a lot about life through baseball. It was an affordable opportunity I wouldn't have had if I never played. I've traveled to different places - Venezuela, Puerto Rico and Australia (where Jensen was on the 2000 gold medal-winning Team USA in Sydney, where he shared time with catcher Pat Borders). If it hadn't been for baseball, I wouldn't have had the opportunities I've been fortunate enough to be able to take advantage of."
But success in the Major Leagues is a double-edged sword. Being good means Jensen was on the road the majority of the year, which took away from his time with his only son, MJ.
"That's one of the benefits of not playing (in the MLB) anymore," Jensen says. "I've had the opportunity to watch (MJ) play. The downfall of playing baseball was that I was gone all of the time, seeing him only periodically in the summer when he came to see me.
"Now that Marcus has gotten older, I've taken more responsibility. He's come to live with me."
It's been that way for the last two, three years, as MJ left behind his mother to be with his father.
"Ever since he was gone (playing baseball), I'd take every chance I could to go see him," says MJ, who like his father used to, plays baseball and basketball in high school. "I've wanted to live with him for the longest time. Every time I could see him, it was the best thing. I'm glad I live with him now."
A UNIQUE EXPERIENCE
MJ has just taken BP at Peccole Park, having hit a couple of balls deep to center field. Asked if he had ever hit one out of Peccole, he shakes his head with a grin.
"I'm a line-drive hitter, not a home run hitter," he says. "I'm not one for the long ball. As long as I'm hitting line drives hard, I could care less about homers. Today I didn't do so good."
Then MJ says the same thing a Silver Sox player said to him after BP: "We all have off-days."
Lancaster, manager for the Sox, not only doesn't mind MJ traveling with his father, catching in the bullpen and taking BP, he encourages it.
"I think it's great. Les likes MJ and likes kids around," Melchione says. "You can tell by the bat boys he has. It keeps guys relaxed."
And it's keeping MJ where he wants to be - close to his father.
"(MJ) came up here once the baseball season was over in Arizona," Lancaster says. "We work with him on his hitting and catching. He's catching our bullpen during games. He's getting good experience catching pro pitchers at the high school level."
It's a step beyond what MJ could ever learn in school.
"(MJ's) getting Minor League Baseball Life 101 at an early age," Melchione says. "He's pretty good and handles it well. He's very mature. He listens to his dad. His dad is a good hitting coach. MJ is a bullpen catcher full-time here and on the road. He takes batting practice. It's giving him a lot of experience. He's a hard worker. His dad is probably the hardest worker on the team.""
THE SAME, BUT DIFFERENT
From his green eyes to his catcher's outfit, from playing basketball to his stature, MJ mirrors his father in many ways. But he says the apple fell a little farther from the tree than most people think.
"I've learned a lot as I've gotten older," says MJ, who will play varsity ball next season. "I used to be really into catching. I don't know which position I want to play now. I'm a closer, shortstop and a catcher."
While he may not quite have his father's size - yet - MJ says he has a little something on his dad.
"I have some speed on me," MJ says with a smile. "I'll probably be faster than my dad. I can definitely steal. Sometimes my coaches forget I can steal. If I steal, I know I can make it."
Whereas his father is a big baseball fan, having collected memorabilia throughout his life, including baseball cards as a kid and autographs from Willie Mays, Mark McGwire and Alex Rodriguez, MJ is more hands-on.
"I'm the opposite of my dad," he says. "I don't follow baseball on TV. I just play. Same with basketball. I just play. I shoot hoops and play baseball with coaches before I came here."
And here's a little nugget for Melchione, who regards MJ as a hard worker.
"I'm one of the laziest guys you've ever met," says MJ, who is also quicker to talk than his father. "Dad has to get on me about a lot of stuff. He tells me to work on stuff to get better. He shouldn't have to.
"I need better discipline. I'm not one to act up, but when it comes to working at stuff, I'm lackadaisical - especially when it comes to school. My dad always gets on me. He knows I can get better grades. I can get straight A's, but I'm just so lazy. I'm bored with subjects that don't interest me."
That may be, but MJ says he has future academic goals.
"I don't want the same thing to happen to me that happened to Dad," he says. "I want to go to a big school like Stanford or Cal-Berkeley and try going to medical or law school. Or engineering."
THE AGE THING
While MJ is like other kids his age in that he's searching for his identity, Marcus knows exactly who he is and what he wants to accomplish. A career .184 hitter in the majors, Jensen said he wants to disprove the label "defensive catcher."
"I had a few objectives coming in," he says. "One, I want to progress from last year. Two, I didn't finish off my career off the way I would've liked. Three, I wanted to have fun. I want to work on things I didn't do so well. I didn't hit as well as I'd like to."
Melchione believes that Jensen has never had the chance he needed to be all he can be.
"In the big leagues he was up and down, up and down (to the minors)," Melchione says. "Here he has an opportunity to play every day. That's huge. (Coming off the bench) is hard. It's tough to do. Jose Cruz (of the New York Mets) can come off the bench. Marcus had a tough time doing that. Cruz was the leading pinch hitter the last couple of years. You have to have the mindset to do that.
"The last couple years (Jensen) didn't have the opportunity to play every day. If he did, I think they'd see what he's capable of doing. With what he's doing now, he deserves to be back in the big leagues and have an opportunity to play every day."
Melchione believes an experienced 33-year-old catcher isn't a liability and can be in even better condition than a relatively inexperienced 23-year-old. Lancaster also thinks age shouldn't be the be-all, end-all.
"They'll look at age, but if the right organization comes along and sees what he's doing, they could give him a shot at Double A or Triple A," Lancaster says. "Once you're in the organization, you always have a chance to get a call-up.
"Marcus is a silent leader by example. Having that experience behind the plate - our pitchers love it. He can throw runners out. They feel confident with him back there.
"Offensively, he can hit the ball very well from the left or right side of the plate. He's hitting for power this year."
And if the saying "wisdom is power" is true, MJ has benefited from being around people older than he is.
"I tend to be more mature than most kids," MJ says. "It throws people off. When I say I'm 14, they look at me like I'm crazy. I tend to make smarter decisions. My grandma (Karen Proctor, of Peoria, Ariz.) is one of the people I listen to - sometimes her more than my dad. She's older. She understands me more. I don't know what I'd do without her. The same with my dad. They're the closest people I have in my life."
And thanks to Lancaster, MJ will have a chance to get even closer to his father, who now also gets to experience the best of both worlds: pursuing his baseball career while spending more time with and growing closer to his son.