Sept. 21, 2007

By Matthew Leach / MLB.com (08/28/2007)

A call comes from halfway across the country, at the end of the work day, and Padres executive Grady Fuson is still eager to return it. Someone wants to talk about "our boy Luddy." Fuson is glad to oblige when the topic is Ryan Ludwick.

Now San Diego's vice president for scouting and player development, Fuson has twice acquired Ludwick, and attempted to do so a third time. He's delighting in the outfielder's breakout year, even though it's happening for a rival National League club.

"I'm ecstatic for him, personally," said Fuson, "because I've always been a big fan and I thought there was more in Ryan Ludwick at the big league level than had ever been seen before."

After eight professional seasons and three traumatic injuries, Ludwick is proving Fuson and plenty of other believers right. He's enjoying not only his most successful but his longest run in the big leagues, helping to contribute to the Cardinals' surge into contention.

Ludwick, 29, has taken the long road to Major League success. The former second-round Draft pick has reached career highs in games (87 entering Tuesday), at-bats (212), home runs (11), RBIs (37), runs (26) and pretty much everything else. It's Ludwick's fifth stint in the big leagues, but the first time he's stuck and stayed healthy both.

It's rarely been ability or performance that has held him back. Ludwick has simply had terrible timing with some gruesome injuries -- including a broken hip, a broken wrist and torn knee cartilage. Every time he's gotten close, he's gotten hurt.

"That's part of the game," he said. "I have no complaints. I feel like everyone I've been with has treated me fair. I've never had anyone treat me unfairly. I just haven't been blessed with the best health. And they were all freaky things, running into people or running into things or getting hit by a pitch. It's just the way the cards fell."

After a starring career at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, Ludwick was a second-round Draft pick by Oakland in 1999. Fuson, then the A's scouting director, saw a future star in the righty-swinging, lefty-throwing, all-around prospect.

So did John Mozeliak, who was serving as the Cardinals' scouting director at the time. St. Louis seriously considered drafting Ludwick, whose brother, Eric, pitched in the Cards and Athletics systems. He was a five-tool prospect, a player who could do everything that makes a scout drool.

"He was a well-above-average runner -- plus-plus," Mozeliak said. "Obviously he had the power, and the arm strength. He was a legitimate center field prospect out of the draft."

Nothing in his early Minor League seasons suggested otherwise. He was sent straight to high Class A Modesto, and in his first full season, Ludwick smoked the California League for 20 home runs. He went deep 25 times in 119 Double-A games in 2001, earning a late-season promotion to Triple-A.

Following the 2001 season, Fuson changed addresses, joining the Rangers' front office. Soon afterward, Ludwick was headed east as well. He was sent to Texas in a six-player deal full of heralded prospects, including Carlos Pena and Mario Ramos.

"He was one of the bigger pieces in that move," Fuson said.

Ludwick tore up the Pacific Coast League in his first full taste of Triple-A, going deep 15 times and amassing 46 extra-base hits in 78 games. He received his first promotion to the Majors on June 5, 2002, but struggled in his first taste of The Show.

"I started off really well," Ludwick said. "And then I was really young and I went into a little funk and I couldn't get out of it, and they sent me down."

Ludwick returned to Triple-A and resumed punishing PCL pitchers, but in August he sustained his first major, ugly injury. He fractured his left hip and missed the remainder of the season. After looking like a potential mainstay a year earlier, Ludwick was back with Triple-A Oklahoma. He wasn't even permitted to play the outfield at the start of '03, because of limitations from the hip surgery.

He finally returned to the bigs in July of '03, spending two weeks with the Rangers before a trade sent him to Cleveland. And for the first time, Ludwick showed what he was capable of doing at the big league level. He slugged .485 in 39 games, playing almost every day from mid-July until early September.

Until another injury bit him. Ludwick collided with Pena, the man he'd been traded for 20 months earlier. And while Ludwick was sidelined, the future began for the Indians. Grady Sizemore and Coco Crisp emerged in Ludwick's absence. He endured his worst stint as a professional at Triple-A Buffalo in 2005 before another injury, this time a broken wrist, shelved him yet again.

"I just got pushed out of the mix," he said. "It was a numbers game over there, and I didn't fit in. My number got taken and I got sent down. I was a miserable mental wreck, and it was probably the best thing that ever happened.

"I hit .190 over two months [at Triple-A in 2005], ended up breaking my wrist, missed the rest of the year in Buffalo. And I looked at myself and said, 'You know what? I know that I can do this.'"

Ludwick was a free agent for the first time after the '05 season, though it wasn't in the way he had hoped. He was a six-year Minor League free agent, free to seek opportunity wherever it might present himself. He signed with the Tigers, clouted 28 homers for Triple-A Toledo, and didn't even get a taste of the big leagues.

So he went searching again, and met up with old acquaintance Mozeliak. This time there was a fit, so Ludwick joined the Redbirds. He had an excellent spring, and tore it up at Triple-A yet again. When Preston Wilson was sidelined with a knee injury in May, Ludwick got the call. And he hasn't been back down since.

He's third on the Cardinals in home runs, third in slugging percentage (among players with at least 200 at-bats), fifth in doubles and even his three steals rate fifth on the team. Ludwick is going to be a Cardinal for the remainder of the season, and his prospects going forward suddenly look a lot brighter.

"I don't think I can ever be comfortable," he said. "You've always got to be striving forward, striving to get better. I definitely feel like I'm part of the team more, in the regard that I know the teammates better, I know management better. As for job security, I don't think you ever have it in this game. So you always have to continue to work hard and do things to try to stay here."