East Lake's Chris Coghlan has a fierce year at the plate, breaking school records and preparing to play Division I ball.
By JOHN C. COTEY
Published June 14, 2003
For most baseball kids, 2-for-4 is magic. It's .500. It's all-county, all-state, all-world.
For Chris Coghlan, 2-for-4 was, well, blah. It was only magic in that it made his eye-popping batting average begin to disappear.
That's how good Coghlan, the Times Pinellas County Player of the Year, was this season. Flirting with .500 is the dream of any ballplayer, but East Lake's Coghlan had a season-long love affair with .600. He finished the year hitting almost 70 points higher than anyone else, at a .573 clip.
"He is the best overall hitter I've ever coached," said East Lake coach Lee Byers, a hefty compliment considering Byers has been around long enough to win more than 500 games.
Coghlan, a senior shortstop, was a near impossible out. He struck out just once. And in his only hitless game of the 26 he played, he was walked three times and hit by pitches twice.
He led Pinellas County, and set school records, with 51 hits, 47 runs scored and 16 doubles. He tripled six times, homered twice, stole eight bases and drove in 29 runs.
Playing against a tough Class 5A schedule, with games against perennial powers Seminole and Dunedin, Coghlan had one of the more impressive statistical years in recent memory.
For an relatively unknown player - but not unheralded, as he was a first-team all-county pick in 2002 - Coghlan broke through convincingly this year. He possessed what Byers said is the best knowledge of hitting he has seen. Coghlan swung his way to getting drafted in the 19th round of major league baseball's amateur draft by Arizona.
"It's really pretty exciting, because I would have never thought this could happen," Coghlan said. "Not too many people knew who I was my junior year. I was just hoping to go to college after my senior year."
And he will. Originally committed to St. Petersburg College, a strong showing at the state all-star game earned him three Division I-A offers. Thursday night, after his first recruiting visit, Coghlan signed with Mississippi.
Not bad for a kid who walked away from the game two summers ago after his father Tim died in a car accident. But with the help of Byers and others, Coghlan was persuaded to return to the game his father loved, and loved for him to play.
"Baseball," said Coghlan, "helps me deal with it."
And success helps him repay his dad for all the batting practice pitches and nightly games of catch. There is little doubt, Byers said, that Tim Coghlan would have enjoyed watching his son lay siege to the East Lake record book as he carved a place for himself in Pinellas County baseball history.
"I guarantee," Byers said, "that his dad is looking down, and he's smiling."
