Story and photo from The Omaha World-Herald
30-year-old baseball player Cody Asche emerged from his studies with his bachelor’s degree earlier this month. Truth be told, it probably would have never happened if not for a faithful academic supporter and a pandemic that put his baseball comeback on hold.
Asche has played 390 major-league games — including parts of four seasons with the Philadelphia Phillies (2013-16) and one with the Chicago White Sox (2017) — but has been chasing The Show in recent years. He split 2018 with Triple-A affiliates of the Yankees and Mets. The next year after the Dodgers released him in spring training, he played six games with the independent Sugar Land (Texas) Skeeters before catching on with the Red Sox’s Double-A team. His season ended with a broken leg.
An offseason of training and rehab had the Missouri native ready to compete in the Minnesota Twins organization before the COVID-19 outbreak halted everything. Minor-league seasons were canceled in June, leaving Asche without the sport for the first time.
But Asche had empty days to fill weeks before that became official. So in May he called his former academic advisor at Nebraska, Katie Jewell, who still holds the same position coordinating support for baseball and football student-athletes. Maybe he could pass the time with a few summer classes?
Jewell countered with a more radical thought: What if he graduated?
Twenty-three credit hours separated Asche from the degree he had been working toward 10 years earlier, before the Phillies selected him following his junior season at Nebraska in the fourth round of the 2011 draft. From his Lincoln home, he knocked off seven hours with a few virtual summer courses. Then he was a full-time student in the fall, attending a couple Tuesday-Thursday classes in person.
Asche found the academic pursuits to be more than just a way to pass the time. Studying was a healthy outlet for the anger and grief he felt for having a baseball season stolen from him. This wasn’t a situation where he promised his parents he would get a degree — in fact, he'd often told his wife, Angie, he hoped he would never have to go back to school.
And in an alternate universe, he concedes, he probably wouldn’t have. If Jewell wasn’t still at Nebraska. If his baseball career ended under normal circumstances and he quickly transitioned to coaching or a different job. Multiple MLB contracts set him up well financially too.
“I’m just proud I took advantage of an opportunity to get it done,” Asche said. “Now it’s something that no one can take away from me.”
Asche hopes to play a few more years but knows his time is limited, even as a defender who can play outfield and infield. MLB eliminated 42 minor-league affiliates this year, making jobs even harder to come by as he strives to prove he’s not “an old bum.” He doesn’t want COVID to be the reason he never plays competitive baseball again.
Asche said he’s been blessed. Baseball taught him more life lessons than he can name. He and Angie — the daughter of longtime Nebraska team physician and director of athletic medicine Lonnie Albers — married in 2015 and have embarked on adventures together through minor-league stops around the country. He still holds the NU school record for doubles in a season (27 in 2011) and remains an avid fan of all things Huskers.
Now if Asche wants to pursue a career that requires a bachelor’s degree or pursue his masters, he can. Best of all, he can hug Jewell and validate her faith in him. It’s important that he finished what he started as a young Husker player way back when.
“The people that I really cared about, they were proud of me,” Asche said. “That’s all that matters.”
