Watching your son get drafted into the major leagues must be surreal. Seeing your kid follow in your footsteps 30 years later is a unique and intensely paternal experience. Jeff Sauve got to experience exactly that when the Oakland Athletics selected his son with the 200th overall pick in the MLB Draft. Read More: From Father to Son: The Mazey Connection
Thirty years earlier, the Boston Red Sox drafted Jeff with the 298th overall pick, making his dream come true. While Logan enjoyed the moment surrounded by family, Jeff experienced it very differently when he heard his name called.
“I was actually playing in the College World Series with Clemson and was at practice when I got drafted. Logan was able to enjoy the moment with family basically sitting around us,” Jeff said, comparing his life-changing moment to his son’s. “It was unbelievable as a father, knowing all the work he had to put in over time and over the years. Obviously, as a dad, to watch your son achieve one of his lifetime goals and dreams to be a pro baseball player was amazing for Dani (Logan’s mother) and I and the rest of our family.”
Path to WVU
What’s truly unbelievable is that after realizing his son had special talent in baseball, Jeff reached out to his former college coach, Randy Mazey, who was now the head coach at West Virginia University.
“That’s 100% why Logan ended up at West Virginia. It’s crazy. Logan was in 8th grade, and I felt like he was ahead of the game as a catcher. And I really didn’t know the college recruiting scene in baseball, so I literally called Maze out of the blue,” Jeff said, speaking about that fateful day. “I hadn’t talked to Maze since — my gosh — since he coached me at Clemson… Maze said, ‘Bring him to one of my camps,’ so we did. We went to the camp and Logan, I’ll never forget it — it’s funny — we show up, and a lot of these kids show up in their own cars with beards and facial hair, and I had this 8th grader. He had an unbelievable day. They had live at-bats in a scrimmage situation, and Logan had two hits off of high school caliber kids.”
It was at that camp where they also met assistant coach Steve Sabins, who is now the Mountaineers’ head coach. After Logan impressed many of the staff, they told him they would continue tracking his progress. WVU eventually offered him a scholarship. Fast forward a few years, and the Mountaineers had one of the top catching prospects in the nation, coached by the same man who once coached his father.
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“It’s really cool. Coach Mazey is awesome. Giving me the opportunity when I was so young to go there, I will forever be thankful for that,” Logan said, reflecting on both him and his father playing under the same coach. “It’s pretty cool, just being one of the only ones to ever do that.”
While playing for the same coach is special in itself, Jeff always wanted Logan to make a name for himself and succeed on his own terms. He’d offer tips here and there about the game, but he mostly let the coaches handle that side of things. As a father, his focus was on teaching Logan to do the right thing, stay grounded, and remain humble.
Path to MLB
Jeff and Logan both understand that getting drafted is an incredible achievement, but the ultimate goal is to make it to the major leagues. That was something Jeff never got the chance to experience.
But Jeff had his own remarkable journey. He was a two-sport athlete with a full scholarship to Clemson as a kicker before walking onto the baseball team. He had options, and he ultimately played professional football for the Rhein Fire in NFL Europe in 1999.
Jeff readily admits that Logan is by far a better prospect than he ever was and says he’s proud of how his son carries himself at such a young age. Logan knows that reaching the big leagues takes consistent work. He understands that the key is to keep improving every day and take things one step at a time. And with the support of both Mazey and Sabins, his family, and his former WVU teammates, he’s well on his way.
Great read Mitch!