This story was excerpted from Jason Beck’s Tigers Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
Some Major League players are destined for greatness. For the rest, there are moments along the way that become pivotal points looking back. For Tigers relief prospect Chase Lee, who made six appearances over two weeks in his first big league stint before being optioned to Triple-A Toledo on Thursday, that was in Tuscaloosa, Ala.
He had given up on college ball, let alone pro ball, when he wasn't recruited in high school. The University of Alabama didn’t show interest, so he went there as a regular student with some academic scholarship money. Then his mother, Tracy, saw an email about the team holding tryouts.
“My freshman year at Alabama was the head coach’s first year,” Lee said. “So they had open tryouts. I think my mom was on the email list for camps from when I was in high school, so when the listing went out, [my parents] were like, ‘Hey, you’re going to do this, out of respect for us.’ …
“They borderline forced me to try out at Alabama. As an unrecruited high school player, I was like, ‘Why would I go try out there? That’s the best college baseball you can get. Why would I go embarrass myself and get told you’re not good enough … again, after a year of being told you weren’t good enough?’ It seemed like just a dead end to my baseball career. But my parents forced me to go.”
No, Lee didn’t miraculously make the Crimson Tide out of tryouts. But without that tryout, he doesn’t show enough potential for coaches to recommend he try pitching for the university’s club team. Without that tryout, he doesn’t dominate in a year of club baseball and earn a walk-on spot on the varsity team the following year. Without that, he doesn’t get drafted by the Texas Rangers in the sixth round in 2021.
It wasn’t the only time when Lee’s family helped convince him to keep the dream alive. Two years ago around this time, with his hips aching and his arm struggling, he had reached a point when he was ready to put his aeronautics engineering degree to work and leave baseball behind.
“I was in a good bit of pain. I wasn’t pitching great. It kinda seemed like this was going to be it,” Lee said. “I was living in an apartment. My wife was pregnant. We had a roommate. It was just one of those situations where best friends were roommates, love them to death, but then you start living with people.
“I think I gave up four or five runs in an outing and I’m like, ‘I’m ready to go home. This just isn’t for me anymore.’ And [my wife] is like, ‘No, you’re going to stay doing it, and we’re going to go buy a camper on Monday so that we can have our own space.’”
Living in a camper didn’t fix Lee’s hips; he needed offseason surgery to repair both labrums, which helped address his pitching. But Claire’s resolve helped create a better situation. They still live in a camper during the season with their son Micah, who was born later that year.
When the Tigers acquired Lee from the Rangers in the Andrew Chafin trade last summer, Chase and Claire packed up their camper from where they were staying at Triple-A Round Rock and drove up to Toledo. They were able to move into the same campground spot where Chafin had been keeping his camper between Toledo and Detroit.
“I think the [Trade] Deadline was at 5, and by 5:30 we were on the road,” he said. “We drove until we got tired, stopped and picked up the next day.”
When Lee made his Major League debut at Comerica Park a couple weeks ago, he brought his parents, his in-laws, his wife and young son onto the field for a picture. Given the intersections his career has crossed on the way to the big leagues, it was fitting.
“Every time you see a big leaguer, you see a group project,” Lee said.