Fox Finds New Path in Familiar Pastime

You can take the boy out of baseball, but you can't take baseball out of the boy.

That time-tested adage could not be more true than when talking about Ryan Fox, a former East Valley High School, Yakima Valley Community College and Yakima Beetle standout who turned to watching baseball when his playing days ended.

After he got through playing, Fox turned to coaching. The natural evolution from there was into scouting.

Fox was promoted by the Florida Marlins to a cross checking position, traversing large portions of the Midwest — he lives in Broken Arrow, Okla. — to take yet another look the best and brightest prospects as already identified by the team's scouts.

Fox joined the Marlins — just in time for the team's second world championship — after three years with Tampa Bay. He recently got a watch commemorating the team's 2003 World Series championship with the promise that another world championship would bring the scouting department a ring like those the players received.

Scouting is the baseball front office version of the minor leagues. In one stretch earlier this year, Fox spent 27 straight days on the road. He is working in a part of the country where the high school baseball season stretches as much as 50 games, so he has been hard at it since February.

Tuesday night Fox was in Shreveport, La., looking at high school players in preparation for the June 7-8 free agent draft. As soon as that concludes, he will begin evaluating minor league prospects in Michigan (Single A) and Texas (Double A) and watching the Royals, Cardinals and Tigers big league clubs for trade evaluation.

Fox got into player evaluation (as a part-time D-Rays scout) while working as a coach at Edmonds Community College. His contact was Dan Jennings — the then-Devil Rays scouting director who drafted four of Fox's players from Edmonds — is now the Marlins and so is Fox.

WELCOME ABOARD CAPTAIN: The hiring of program builder Andy Bush, a former Carroll High School standout, is the latest attempt to resurrect the ailing football program at Davis High School.

Busch, was at Cleveland High School in Seattle's Metro League for two years and at Mountlake Terrace for four years. He will try to turn around a Pirate program that has won just three football games in three seasons and 17 games in 10 seasons.

He will need time. The mess that is Davis football didn't happen overnight. Getting back to ground zero — a spot from which positive progress can be measured — won't happen overnight either.

A LEGION OF FANS: From a fans' perspective, this would be the summer for one of the Valley's two American Legion baseball teams to make it to the Legion World Series.

The state tournament will be held at Parker Field beginning on July 31. The Beetles are guaranteed a spot as the host team, and the Pak, which won the state title in 2000 and as host in 2003 and played for it in 2002, will hope to be in the hunt.

The Northwest Region will be in Roseburg, Ore., in mid-August with the World Series in Corvallis — just a couple hours up the road — the following week.

BEARLY TIME: Chad Tracy — who was called up to the majors Tuesday night — is believed to be the first player to start his career as a Yakima Bear under the new ownership group to get called up to the show. The team's current owners began their affiliation with the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2001.

Tracy was with the Bears briefly in 2001 and has moved steadily through the minor leagues since. He was called up to Milwaukee — where the D-Backs are playing the Brewers — after Arizona second baseman Roberto Alomar broke his hand Tuesday night.

Tracy was tearing up the Pacific Coast League, hitting .400 with 11 RBI through 11 games.

Sports editor Michael Anderson can be reached at (509) 577-7633 or by email at manderson@yakima-herald.com.