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Baseball in the desert home to Bloomquist
- Updated: May 11, 2016
Willie Bloomquist played in more than 1,000 Major League games, and it’s been said he gave so much of himself that he never went to the showers with a clean jersey. In reflecting upon his 14-year career, which included a three-year stint with the D-backs, the 38-year-old Bloomquist shared a peek into the passion that drove him until his retirement in March.
Although he grew up in the Pacific Northwest, Bloomquist said he knew he wanted to be an Arizona State Sun Devil since he was 9 years old.
“My sister sent me a ton of Sun Devil garb growing up, so when I heard my father was going to be in [Phoenix] for a convention, I pestered my dad to take me with him and take me to an ASU baseball game,” Bloomquist said.
“We went to an afternoon game at Packard and the Devils won, and I remembered thinking, ‘Gosh, I am going to play here someday.'”
• D-backs hire Bloomquist as special assistant
Bloomquist, who accepted a position as special assistant to D-backs president and CEO Derrick Hall on Tuesday, spent the next decade working on his craft. And in 1996, he was drafted in the eighth round by the Seattle Mariners out of South Kitsap High School in Port Orchard, Wash. However, he decided to go to college. When he got an offer to play shortstop and second base at ASU from then-coach Pat Murphy, Bloomquist called it “divine intervention.”
“I had just finished visiting Notre Dame and Rice,” Bloomquist said. “When I got to ASU, I met Murph, and he didn’t mess around. He was a disciplinarian, and he wanted things done his way. … I instantly respected him for it.
“Murph became a second father to me. He went from becoming a coach and a guidance guy to being one of the biggest reasons I had the lengthy and successful career that I had.
“I owe the world to him. Alongside my father and one of my high school coaches, Murph has been one of the most influential people in my life,” Bloomquist said.
Murphy, who coached at Arizona State from 1995-2009 — including coaching …
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