Over dinner each weekend throughout high school, Joey Blank soaked in wisdom from a baseball legend.
The backstory: Blank’s father, Rob Blank, married Cat Scully when the Colorado Mesa third baseman was in middle school. With those nuptials, Joey got a new step-grandpa — Vin Scully, the legendary Dodgers broadcaster.
“I’d always sit there with him at dinner each week and talk to him about my games,” Joey Blank said. “He always wanted to hear about how I did. I’d show him videos of my at-bats, and he’d always chime in with some old-timer advice like, ‘You’ve gotta keep your (back) elbow up!’
“Having those little bonding moments during a really important time in my life and my career will always stick with me. With him as my step-grandfather, even though it’s not a real blood relative, we formed a connection over the game that I’ll always appreciate.”
Blank, now , is a pillar for the Mavericks as they host UT Tyler in the NCAA Super Regionals this week in Grand Junction. The winner of the best-of-three series, which begins on Thursday at The Diamond at Hamilton Ballpark, heads to the that starts May 29 in Cary, North Carolina.
The third baseman is hitting .354 this season with eight homers, a .551 slugging percentage and a .454 on-base percentage. Every morning, he’s reminded of his grandfather’s influence on his career when he looks at a framed, signed portrait drawing capturing the late Vin Scully, , hanging on his bedroom wall.
Daily glimpses of that portrait remind Blank of his love for the game and the memories he shared with the broadcaster that date back several years before his dad and step-mom were even married. Blank played on a youth baseball team with some of his current step-cousins.
“He would always try to make it to our games, but it was hard to get him out in public because of his fame,” Blank said. “We’d have to throw a huge sun hat on him and some weird glasses and just hope for the best that he didn’t have to leave too early because a bunch of people are like, ‘Can we get a picture?!'”
Blank said he’ll “never get over how (Vin’s) voice sounded the same” at the dinner table as it did while calling Dodgers games for 67 years. Blank believes his grandpa would have appreciated the way this year’s Mavericks team plays, with an emphasis on getting on base, small ball, run manufacturing, pitching depth, and quality defense over trying to out-slug teams with hordes of homers.
The broadcaster’s legacy came up during Blank’s recruitment, which occurred shortly after Vin’s death. Longtime Colorado Mesa head coach Chris Hanks is a diehard Vin Scully fan who has tons of memorabilia celebrating the broadcaster. Hanks even named his Aussiechon dog after the broadcaster — Little Vin Scully, or Scully for short.
“When (Joey) was on his visit, I couldn’t help myself from bringing up Vin,” Hanks said with a laugh. “(Cat) was in my office and I said, ‘I’ve just got to tell you that sometimes in the summer I would turn on the Dodgers, not because I liked the Dodgers. I would be working around the house and turn up the volume because I just wanted to hear Vin Scully’s voice and how poetic he spoke about the game.”
The Mavericks are attempting to reach their fifth College World Series under Hanks, whose teams were national runner-up in 2014 and ’19. Mesa is also in a position to avenge its sour end to last season, when UT Tyler beat the Mavericks twice in regionals to send them home.
Mesa (52-5, RMAC regular season and tournament champions) put up 15 runs in each of its three wins in this year’s regionals. That included erasing a 9-0 deficit in the round’s opener against Lubbock Christian, rallying again in the second game against St. Mary’s University, and then beating St. Mary’s University soundly in the clinching game.
Blank believes this year’s team has what it takes to return to the College World Series for the first time since ’19.
“We’re in every game, even the few games we’ve lost,” Blank said. “There’s no doubt with this team. There’s never any questioning that we can win in the dugout, regardless of what the score is. We just have to keep going, keep pushing through whatever adversity comes up this week, and we’ll get back there (to the College World Series).”
