Two minor-league lifers guide Reading's prospects

The Phillies' double-A Reading affiliate has a rotation of top prospects as well as centerfielder Roman Quinn on the roster, and Inquirer columnist Bob Brookover was on the recently completed road trip with the team. This is the third in a series of stories about the Fightin Phils.

ERIE Pa. - Being a baseball lifer in the big leagues is one thing. Being a baseball lifer in the minor leagues is something else entirely.

Just ask Dusty Wathan and Dave Lundquist, the primary caretakers of the Phillies' prospects playing this season at double-A Reading. The two men played in a combined total of 40 big-league games. Wathan played in three with the Kansas City Royals in 2002. Lundquist pitched in 37 games over parts of three seasons with the Chicago White Sox and San Diego Padres.

Wathan can brag about being a career .600 hitter with a 1.467 OPS, but his view of those numbers is a little different.

"I would have liked to have had a chance to bring that average down," said Wathan, who went 3 for 5 with a double and a walk in his six career plate appearances.

Lundquist finished with one career win and a 7.92 ERA, but his memories of his 1999 debut with the White Sox in Seattle and his only win at Anaheim later that season are everlasting.

"The debut was on opening night in Seattle," Lundquist said. "Everything was good while I was warming up, but when they announced that first hitter I couldn't feel my legs. But then I threw a first-pitch strike and everything was OK."

He retired the side in order.

"The win, I remember coming in and throwing Mo Vaughn two change-ups and I have no idea why the catcher called them," Lundquist said. "But I threw them and I struck him out. By the time I figured out what happened we had scored two runs and I was out of the game."

Wathan and Lundquist have a lot more minor-league stories. Wathan played in 1,019 minor-league games and has managed 948 of them, starting with the Phillies' rookie-ball affiliate in Williamsport in 2008. Lundquist pitched in 271 minor-league games and has coached 1,352 of them. He also started his coaching career in Williamsport when there was a Pittsburgh affiliate there.

Even though Wathan's big-league career was limited to six plate appearances, he was a good minor-league player. In fact, he hit three home runs and drove in a club-record nine runs in a single game for triple-A Buffalo in 2005.

"That was pretty cool," he said. "My parents were there and that didn't happen too often. My wife and kids were there, too."

Wathan's father, John, played 10 seasons with the Royals and managed parts of five in Kansas City, so he was not around much.

Frank Cacciatore, the 60-year-old hitting instructor at Reading, has been away from the team this season tending to his wife as she recovers from cancer surgery. He, too, is a minor-league baseball lifer who has been in coaching since 1976. Former Phillies second baseman Mickey Morandini, who was supposed to coach at triple-A Lehigh Valley, has filled in for Cacciatore.

"I have a lot of respect for anybody that is a minor-league coach, coordinator or is affiliated in any way with the minor leagues," Morandini said. "It's a lot of hard work, a lot of long hours and a lot of dedication. Being away from the family, the travel and the daily grind, I don't know if people realize what these guys do."

What they do is work long hours.

"Mentally there is a lot of stuff that goes into it that people don't realize," Wathan said. "You're managing the game, you're coaching third base, you're trying to manage your bullpen, you're trying to mark down notes so you can type a report and call in a voice mail after the game. You don't just go home after the game."

Lundquist barely goes home after the season. During the last six seasons, he has been a pitching coach in the Dominican Republic, reporting in October and remaining through the end of January.

Neither man is complaining. Like their players, they are trying to get to the big leagues.

"I love the game," Wathan said. "It's what I grew up doing since I was a little kid. I grew up around the ballpark in Kansas City with my dad and I don't really see myself doing anything other than being in professional baseball."

This is the fifth year Wathan and Lundquist have been together and their cohesiveness is vital on a team filled with prospects.

"We're getting like an old married couple," Lundquist said. "We finish each other's sentences sometimes. But we're on the same page and it's all about whatever is in the best interest of getting these kids better."

That's what has each man so excited.

"In the four years I've been at Reading, we've had a prospect here, a prospect there, but we've never had a group of guys that had so much success coming through the minor leagues," Wathan said. "It makes it fun for me to be able to come out and work with these guys every day and see what is going to happen in their future."

Lundquist, meanwhile, has the job of working with a starting rotation that has five guys with true big-league potential.

"Each guy has his own strengths," Lundquist said. "They are five different animals and every night you have a chance to see something pretty good from each one of them."

You probably won't notice their caretakers, but that's just fine with the two baseball lifers who have spent so much time in the minor leagues.