John Mallee

By David Haugh-Contact Reporter
Chicago Tribune
February 24, 2016, 8:29 PM |MESA, Ariz.

On the day before Cubs hitting coach John Mallee left for spring training, he visited his father, a retired Chicago Police Department officer by the same name.

The elder Mallee raised his son to be a Cubs fan at home in Hegewisch — traditional White Sox territory. Calling dad in December 2014 to say he had left the Astros to join his beloved boyhood team still ranks as one of John’s proudest moments. So before John departed two weeks ago for Arizona after what would be their final visit together, the man who instilled his love for Cubbie blue beamed with optimism like everybody else in town.

“He looked at me before I left and said, ‘You and the Cubs are going to win the city a World Series this year,”’ Mallee recalled Wednesday at Sloan Park. “I said, ‘Pops, we’re going to give it our best shot.’ That was the last time I saw him.”

Four days later, John D. Mallee died at the age of 82. At the well-attended wake, many people who came to celebrate the life of the Korean War veteran and longtime youth baseball coach shared with John their memories of him taking ground balls from his dad long after games. The father would put a glove on his left hand and hold a bat in his right, drilling grounders at his son in the name of working harder.

“He’d flip the ball up and hit it and I’d fire it back to him,” John said. “I’d stay after to take extra ground balls from Little League until high school. I resented it at the time but it really was good for me. It made me not settle for being average, taught me work ethic and made me who I am today.”

Today, Mallee basically is the guy enlisted not to screw up the Cubs collection of dangerous young hitters. His directive for the Cubs is familiar to so many doctors: First, do no harm. Mallee merely chuckled when asked if he is the guy most likely to feel heat if the Cubs don’t hit well in 2016.

“We don’t really talk about pressure, we talk about the process and living in the moment,” Mallee said, parroting manager Joe Maddon. “To learn to play the game in the moment, there’s no past and no future. Your only task at hand is the next pitch.”

Mallee deflects attention and only reluctantly agreed to be interviewed, praising his partnership with assistant hitting coach Eric Hinske and the leadership of Cubs veterans. As the Cubs’ big three — Anthony Rizzo, Kris Bryant and Jason Heyward — took batting practice Wednesday, Mallee offered selective input between at-bats but considers his role as much psychologist as technician.

He reports to the ballpark at 10:30 a.m. for night games to start breaking down videotape. His individualized scouting reports can include complex sabermetrics to prepare hitters for what happens in the box or simple reminders for what goes on between the ears. The approach for Javier Baez, for example, will differ from, say, Heyward.

“We spend all day trying to clear up the message and give them bits and pieces,” Mallee said. “These young kids we have now, their personalities, the intelligence, the desire to be great, they all have that, which is amazing because it’s hard to find.”

A 12th-round draft pick of the Phillies in 1991, the product of Mount Carmel and Illinois-Chicago never hit higher than .237 in two minor-league seasons. But, as the adage goes, those who can’t do, teach. And teaching always came naturally to the baseball junkie.

“The guy just sits at the computer all day and breaks it down and then goes to the hotel and looks at it in his bed, I think, just baseball 24/7,” Bryant said. “When I was down last year, he picked me up and when I was going good he made sure I stayed on top of my routine.”

Added Cubs slugger Kyle Schwarber: “He tries to keep it simple as possible but if you want to get complicated, he can get complicated. He’s actually a very funny guy. We’re lucky to have him. We all trust him and he connects great with the players.”

That knack became obvious to Mallee one day in 1995 when he was working a White Sox youth camp. After Mallee exceeded his time limit speaking to a group, then-White Sox coach Ron Jackson pulled him aside for a question.

“Would you be interested in coaching professional baseball?” Jackson asked Mallee.

The answer was an emphatic yes. Two weeks later, the Brewers’ Class A affiliate in Beloit, Wis., hired Mallee as hitting coach. Only one problem existed: Mallee always planned on making his father proud by following his footsteps into the CPD — a family calling that caused him immediately to reconsider a career in baseball.

“I went to my dad and said, ‘Pops, you know I want to be a cop like you, so I’m not going to do this thing in Beloit,”’ Mallee said. “And he told me, ‘No, this is your dream …”’

Mallee’s words trailed as emotion overcame him.

“He wanted me to live my dream,” he said.

Wearing the jersey of his dad’s favorite team, Mallee most certainly is.