Mike Ivie obit

Mike Ivie, former No. 1 overall draft pick of the Padres, dies at age 70

 

He was not on the list.

The hype grew thick after the Padres chose a big, strong teenager from Georgia named Mike Ivie with the first pick of Major League Baseball’s draft in June 1970.

Ivie, Padres leaders said, would hold the catching position for a decade. When Ivie was promoted to San Diego in September 1971 just four weeks after his 19th birthday, the forecasts of stardom appeared in the San Diego Union and Tribune newspapers.

Fred Kendall, a Padres catcher, made the mistake of reading those comments about the hotshot catcher.

“Freddy was a good friend of mine,” recalled former longtime Padres broadcaster Bob Chandler, “and I remember he went out and got drunk because he read in the newspaper Mike Ivie was going to be the Padres’ catcher for the next 10 years.”

What followed was the type of strange development that baseball spins off.

Ivie developed a mental block about throwing the ball to the pitcher. Though he evolved into a fair hitter and a serviceable first baseman, his throwing yips, maturity issues and a strong preference for hitting would limit him to just five starts at catcher across his 11 seasons.

Kendall, meantime, would start some 700 games at catcher, mostly with the Padres, in his 12-year career.

Ivie, who played three full seasons with the Padres before they traded him to the San Francisco Giants in February 1978, died at home Friday in North Augusta, S.C., according to Posey Funeral Directors. He was 70.

Though he never fulfilled the Padres’ vision of a power-hitting catcher around which the young franchise could anchor its roster, Ivie led them in hitting with a .291 average in 1976. In his final season with San Diego, he tied Hall of Fame outfielder Dave Winfield for team honors with 29 doubles.

The Padres made a last-ditch effort to cure Ivie’s throwing yips at catcher. They added veteran catcher Randy Hundley to their team going into the 1975 season.

Hundley developed the yips himself, infusing unwelcome drama into the team’s season opener at San Diego Stadium before some 17,000 fans.

“Randy must’ve short-hopped me four or five times,” former Padres pitcher Randy Jones recalled Saturday, laughing. “I had to pick it. It was hilarious. It was pitchers’ fielding practice. It was still nothing-nothing after nine (innings) so it didn’t make a difference.”

Jones painted Ivie’s Padres tenure as a forced fit, one that began when the ballclub persuaded the 6-foot-3, 205-pound teen, then 17, to forgo a college scholarship in return for a $100,000 signing bonus.

“Lots of talent — a little immature,” said Jones. “Hadn’t grown up. Big leagues kind of overwhelmed him. He had some power. Behind the plate, he wasn’t a big-league catcher. Physically, he might have been. Mentally, it wasn’t even close. Later, he started growing up a little bit. It takes some time.”

Ivie finished his career with the Detroit Tigers in 1983.

Of the 24 players taken in the first round, Ivie placed third in career win shares with 7.3. The most productive career among the 24 would come from another catcher in Darrell Porter, who went fourth to Milwaukee, made four All-Star teams and earned 1982 World Series MVP honors with the St. Louis Cardinals.

Porter, who said drug addiction plagued him throughout his playing days, died at age 50 of a cocaine overdose.

During the 1978 offseason, the Padres traded Ivie to the San Francisco Giants in exchange for Derrel Thomas. Going into the 1980 season, Ivie was considered the Giants' successor at first base to Willie McCovey upon his retirement, but after an off-season accident with a hunting knife in which he sliced part of his fifth finger from his hand, he was unable to perform and became a bench player. He walked away from the team in June, but received counseling and returned in July. He played out the 1980 season, hitting four home runs. In 1981, Ivie lost the starting first base job to free agent Enos Cabell, acquired during the offseason. The Giants traded Ivie to the Houston Astros for Dave Bergman and Jeffrey Leonard on April 20, 1981. He asked for his release from the Astros during the 1982 season, which was granted.