Buy two lessons and get the third one for free!

Start date of September 13th
http://www.chicolittleleague.com/Eastside/index.html

Buy any Sandlot Stik and we will personalize it for you for free. Professional quality wood baseball bats can be made to fit your youngster and fungos make great coaches gifts too. Sandlot Stiks is a local wood bat manufacturer owned by Chris Corso and Jon Macalutas. Check us out on the web at www.sandlotstiks.com or follow us on Facebook.

“If you don't have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?”

We will be closed this Saturday, Sunday, and Monday.

Coaches, host family knew outfielder could reach big leagues

By Didier Morais / MLB.com

7/8/2010 11:12 AM ET

As Daniel Nava stepped into the batter's box on June 12, Jon Macalutas immediately reached for his iPhone.

Thousands of miles across the country, the former Chico (Calif.) Outlaws hitting coach stood in front of his office television at Macs Professional Baseball School, proudly capturing pictures of his pupil's first career Major League at-bat.

Before Phillies pitcher Joe Blanton tossed the first pitch, however, Macalutas turned to his clients and coworkers to make a bold prediction.

"Clear as day in front of everyone in the room, I was like 'The bases are loaded and he's going to hit a grand slam in his first at-bat,'" Macalutas said.

And when Nava launched the pitch over the right-field wall, Macalutas couldn't help but reminisce about their memories together just three years earlier.

All those batting practice sessions he tossed to Nava. All those personal discussions he had with Nava about being the perfect professional. All those calls he made to Major League scouts to get Nava recognized. All those efforts finally paid off.

"A little small piece of me felt like I actually got my chance to make it in the big leagues that day," said Macalutas, whose playing career ended at Double-A. "I wasn't fortunate enough to make it all the way, so it's neat to see there was another way I could get a little part of me to the big leagues."

Macalutas first noticed Nava at Santa Clara University. While visiting SCU skipper Mark O'Brien, the Outlaws hitting coach watched as the outfielder effortlessly slugged balls around the field with picture-perfect technique.

Stunned to hear that Nava went undrafted, he immediately called Chico manager Mark Parent to discuss his newest discovery. Although Parent had already filled his roster vacancies, he agreed to give Nava a workout.

Even four years after the workout, Parent beamed with pride as he recounts his initial evaluation of Nava.

"He could run, he could throw, he had the same swing from both sides and it was good, and he was a good kid," said Parent, now the skipper for Philadelphia's Class A affiliate, the Lakewood BlueClaws. "I'm thinking this is the best find I'd ever seen when I saw him work out."

Despite marveling at Nava's talents, Parent didn't offer the outfielder an Independent League contract, but it wasn't due to lack of skill.

"I did that because he had a chance to get signed and I didn't want to have independent ball be in his way," said Parent. "I did that for a couple people. But there was nothing ever wrong with him. The first time I saw him, I wanted to sign him."

Some scouts looked, but none called. So Nava ultimately returned to Santa Clara for his last year of eligibility. But Macalutas remained persistent. He continued to keep in touch with Nava over the season. Then, the day before 2007 Spring Training started, he made a call that he wouldn't regret.

"I called [Nava] in the middle of his graduation party and said 'Hey, this is your opportunity'," Macalutas said.

Following the party, Nava packed his things and was assigned to move in with Grace Martinez and her husband -- his host family for the season.

Martinez has been hosting Outlaws players for nearly nine years. But when she welcomed Nava into her home in 2007, she immediately noticed something different.

"A lot of the players were into the moment and weren't as focused as Daniel," Martinez said. "They were young men -- so they would go out after the game, stay out late, sleep in all day, and then go back to the field when it was time. But Daniel always came home. We could always expect him home within an hour after the game was over."

Nava would take that discipline to the dinner table, too. Martinez said Nava was a nutrition freak who carefully monitored his daily, eating habits.

She would occasionally try and lure him in with her signature Mexican spread, but Nava wouldn't bite.

"Daniel would eat, but he'd watch the quantity," Martinez said. "He always filled his plate with more vegetables than the unhealthy stuff. Whereas, other players that we had, they would munch on everything. So you could tell he really watched what he ate."

Nobody appreciated that self-control more than Parent. When his 15-year-old son, Jacob, was struggling with weight issues a few years ago, Nava was the first person to intervene and guide him toward a healthier lifestyle. "He kind of helped me get into better shape," said the slimmed-down Jacob. "He gave me some exercise tips and little running exercises to do, and how better to eat nutrition-wise."

From that point on, Nava developed a special bond with Jacob and his 19-year-old brother, Nicholas. Around the clubhouse, the trio would gather together to play chess or cards.

Even as Nava navigated through the Red Sox farm system, he continued to exchange text messages with the brothers. Parent said Nava became their favorite baseball player. And that's coming from two children that -- during their father's heyday in the Majors -- constantly wrestled with Cal Ripken Jr. and chased Scott Rolen around the clubhouse.

"For a kid like [Nava], to mean so much to [my children], that says a lot about the kid," Parent said. "He's really good to them. I'm really proud of him and really happy he's influenced my kids in a certain way."

But as tenderhearted as Nava appeared off the field, he was a monster on it. He punished pitchers in his lone season with the Outlaws, batting .371 with 12 homers and 59 RBIs en route to capturing the 2007 Golden League championship and league MVP honors.

Fortunately for Alex Carbajal, he had front-row seats to the daily display. As Nava's teammate that season, Carbajal marveled at how Nava emerged from obscurity to league-wide star in a span of months.

"You just hope for someone to hit .300 and hit a couple jacks here and there, but for him to absolutely to be the guy in the clutch all the time and to put up the numbers -- it was unreal," Carbajal said. "He was just a hitting machine. It was pretty astonishing to see that."

Parent, however, wanted to share the wealth. The skipper felt spoiled that only Chico could benefit from Nava's talent.

"Independent ball is the lowest you can get in professional baseball and it surprised me that he was still available for us to have him," Parent said.

So Parent started networking. The ex-Major League catcher -- who played for seven organizations -- reached out to his front-office confidants, persuading them to send over a scout to evaluate Nava.

The scouts came, but they continued to pass. Parent said Mal Fichman, the Phillies' Independent League scout, doubted Nava's throwing ability. The Giants' scout, meanwhile, coveted Nava, but simply couldn't sell the organization on him.

"In baseball, all you need is a track record -- and he never really had the chance to build one," Macalutas said.

The Red Sox ultimately granted him that opportunity, purchasing his contract from Chico for $1 on Oct. 24, 2007.

And once Blanton fired that first-pitch fastball, Nava fulfilled Macalutas' grand-slam prediction -- the only prediction in an unpredictable journey that started in Chico, Calif.