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VIERA - Now in his second season of minor-league baseball, Jonathan Lucroy understands the rigors of road trips.
On a lot of days, he spends more time on the team bus than on the field.
But he has it easy compared with his parents.
"One night, we drove over to Viera to see Jonathan play," said Lucroy's mother, Karen. "We got home at 1:30 a.m. and went to work the next day."
Lucroy has climbed through three affiliates to arrive at the Milwaukee Brewers' Brevard County team in the high Class A Florida State League.
When he was at the University of Louisiana, his parents, Steve and Karen, flew to Louisiana to watch him play. They flew to Montana to see him play rookie-league ball and to Arizona for spring training.
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Dave Heeren
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They made two trips earlier this season to see him play for a South Atlantic League team in Charleston, W.Va.
It came as welcome news when Jonathan was promoted and assigned to the Brewers' team in Brevard County. But now that he's closer to home, his family makes more frequent trips to see him play.
On top of that, they've seen his 15-year-old brother, David, play in recent travel baseball tournaments in Jupiter and Fort Myers.
"It never seems to stop," Steve Lucroy said.
It probably won't stop any time soon.
Jonathan Lucroy, 22, has come a long way from his days of playing for Umatilla High. On the brewerfan.net Web site, he is listed as the No. 8 prospect in the Brewers' minor-league system.
He rose one notch from last month.
Lucroy is rising in an organization that does not have a strong young player at his position, catcher, at the major-league level.
Defensively, he is outstanding.
His throw from home plate to second base has been timed at 1.68 seconds.
A time of 2.0 seconds is considered good. If you can do it in 1.8 seconds, you are regarded as a major-league-caliber catcher.
And the bonus is, Lucroy can hit. He has not batted under .300 at any of his minor-league stops.
After playing in the South Atlantic League All-Star Game, he was promoted to Brevard. In the first 16 games after his promotion, he batted .351 with four home runs and 15 RBIs in 16 games. He leads the team in batting, slugging percentage and on-base percentage.
In spring training, Lucroy met two of the Brewers' top young players, Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder. He felt right at home and speaks of his big-league future in positive terms.
"When I get up there, I'll be able to hang with them," he said.
Already, Lucroy has four baseball cards and has done signings for three of them. He signs autograph labels by the thousands.
"You can make a little money," he said.
Lucroy was intrigued to find out that his dad at one time had done turf management on the property in Viera where the minor-league stadium is located.
"Dad took care of the cows," he said.
As rapidly as he has risen, he hasn't let it go to his head. He is enjoying the stops along the way.
"A couple of times in Charleston, we had crowds of 9,000 people," he said. "That was fun because down here [in the Florida State League], we only get 200 or 300 people for a game."
One of the memorable moments of his brief professional baseball career occurred during a game in Greensboro, N.C.
"The guy in front of me got a hit and I saw this dog run on the field and grab the bat the guy used to get the hit," Lucroy said. "The dog took the bat to the on-deck circle and sat down next to it. He was a trained bat dog."
Lucroy said he has been more relaxed as a professional player than he was as a collegian.
"In college, they expected you to get a hit or a home run every time at bat," he said.
Lucroy is looking forward to the day, in the not-too-distant future, when he crouches behind home plate on opening day, glances around and sees his family sitting in the stands at Miller Park in Milwaukee.
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