Jacob Blas is checking in from Green Bay, Wisconsin, which isn’t where he expected to be in late July 2020.
Blas could have been in some minor-league town, getting his professional baseball career underway. He could have been somewhere in New England, playing in the Cape Cod League. He could have been right here in Tucson, which was Plan C for summer ball.
Instead, Blas’ baseball journey — which has been full of starts and stops over the past 17 months — took him to the Northwoods League, which is playing a modified schedule amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Blas is just happy to be playing, period. The location and format are irrelevant.
“Baseball is what I love to do,” the Arizona Wildcats shortstop said. “I feel like the best times are ahead of me. So I’m just going to keep my head down, keep working.”
Blas has endured multiple disruptions since early in his sophomore season — so many, in fact, that he’ll still be a sophomore, eligibilitywise, next season.
First came time away from the team to attend to a personal issue. Then a season-ending knee injury.
Then the coronavirus, which has altered his 2020 schedule several times.
Through it all, Blas — a fixture in the UA lineup, when healthy, since his freshman year — has maintained a positive outlook.
“I think he’s grown a lot in his time here, both mentally and physically,” UA coach Jay Johnson said. “This past stoppage, none of us really can control (that). For him there was a lot of disappointment in the season being stopped, especially the way that he was playing. But I think he’s handled it well — handled it with a lot of maturity.
“Next year, he’ll leave Arizona with his degree in hand, completely prepared for professional baseball. And that’s the way that it should be.”
The route Blas will have taken to get there will be anything but conventional.
Ups and downs
Arizona shortstop Jacob Blas tries to gather the ball after misplaying a grounder during the seventh inning of the Wildcats’ game against UMass-Lowell at Hi Corbett Field, Feb. 16, 2019.
Blas came to Arizona from the San Diego area in 2018 and made an immediate impact. He started 35 games as a freshman at shortstop and second base and batted .305 with a .407 on-base percentage.
Blas played well at the outset of his sophomore year, reaching base 14 times in the UA’s first five games. After the sixth game, in which he went 0 for 3 at Houston, Blas left the team for about two weeks.
Blas’ departure was described as a “personal matter” at the time. He declined to discuss the situation during a Zoom interview Thursday.
Blas returned to the lineup for a March 10 game against College of Charleston. At the very least, his presence would help solidify the 2019 Wildcats’ shaky middle-infield defense.
Blas played well in the field, but he wasn’t quite himself. He struck out more than usual, and his batting average fell from .286 to .246 over the course of three hitless games at Arizona State.
He left the third game of the ASU series because of pain in his left knee and wouldn’t return for the rest of the season, missing almost two months. Blas had a strained patellar tendon, the result, he said, of “overuse over time.” He elected to receive platelet-rich plasma injections in both knees. The procedure would sideline him for the rest of 2019, including summer ball, but would provide much-needed relief.
“In order for me to achieve my goals, long term, in baseball, I needed to do that,” said Blas, who was granted a redshirt after appearing in only 17 games. “I was playing in pain, and I feel like I wasn’t able to showcase my true abilities.”
Blas came back for the following season stronger and faster.
He matched his career high with six doubles in only 59 at-bats. He stole six bases, doubling his output from the previous two years combined. He batted .322 with a .420 on-base percentage.
“I was able to just let myself loose, and that was the best baseball I’ve played in my career at Arizona,” Blas said. “I was playing with a lot of confidence. I was having a lot of fun.
“I just really felt like my game was starting to progress the way I wanted it to. I was really starting to show what I could do. Everything was just starting to come together really well.”
Then it all ended.
‘What we signed up for’
Arizona’s Jacob Blas is playing summer-league ball with the La Crosse Loggers of the Northwoods League. Blas has played six games and is batting .273 with a home run.
The coronavirus halted Arizona’s season 15 games into a 56-game slate. The NCAA determined that the partial season wouldn’t count against players’ eligibility, creating the absurdity of Blas’ listing on the 2021 roster: fourth-year redshirt sophomore.
“It’s such a bummer that it all happened the way it did,” Blas said. “Obviously, it’s not fun for anyone.”
Like most of the rest of his teammates, Blas went home after the season was canceled. One of his friends has a home gym, so Blas still could work out. He also spent time during those two months in Southern California doing something he can’t do here: surfing in the Pacific Ocean with his father, Abe.
“Those moments are kind of precious,” Blas said. “That’s kind of my happy place.
“I just feel like the ocean’s the most peaceful place in the world. Your brain kind of resets. I just like being out there with my dad.”
Spending quality time at home during the spring is a rarity for competitive ballplayers. Blas relished the opportunity. But he still missed baseball.
With a productive, full season and a normal-length MLB draft, Blas likely would have been selected and might have gone pro. His original summer-ball assignment was in the Cape Cod League, which got canceled. He was supposed to play in the Sun Belt College Baseball League in Tucson, but that too got nixed.
Blas was planning to spend the rest of the summer training, but a spot opened with the La Crosse Loggers of the Northwoods League. Blas had appeared in six games through Thursday, batting .273 with a home run and three stolen bases.
The Loggers’ schedule runs through Aug. 20. The UA is planning to start classes Aug. 24. The situation remains fluid and uncertain. It’s nothing new for Blas, unfortunately.
“I hope everything works out,” he said. “I just want to go out there and play. I just want to play my game and play with my best friends. That’s what we signed up for.”
