Cubs hero Kyle Schwarber showed off power swing in Cardinal Newman workout

T.J. McMahon wasn’t watching TV when Kyle Schwarber deposited a baseball on top of the scoreboard at Wrigley Field in Chicago on Tuesday. But everyone was talking about the home run launched by the mighty rookie in the Cubs’ National League Division Series-clinching victory against St. Louis.

So McMahon, the baseball coach at Cardinal Newman High School, viewed the replay via the MLB app on his phone. And yep, there it was. The same violent swing McMahon had seen on the Cardinals diamond nine months earlier.

Schwarber, one of the bright young power hitters in baseball, had worked out at Newman with Santa Rosa native and Cubs minor league field coordinator Tim Cossins last Jan. 27.

It went about as you might have predicted.

“He hit balls farther than any I’ve seen leave this yard,” McMahon said. “He was putting them over the scoreboard, and over the road behind the field. It’s probably over ?400 feet to reach that road, and he hit it over the trees in front of the road. … There’s a batting cage back there, a creek bed, the trees and then the road.”

When Kyle Schwarber swings, you need a topographical map to chart his drives. Against the Pirates in the NL wild card game on Oct. 7, he sent a home run out of PNC Park and into the Allegheny River. He hit one at Philadelphia’s Citizens Bank Field on Sept. 11 that ESPN’s Home Run Tracker estimated at 450 feet. No one was quite sure where his rainmaker against St. Louis touched down until someone found an aerial photo of a ball resting atop the scoreboard in right field.

Schwarber’s cameo at Cardinal Newman was arranged by Cossins, who graduated from Santa Rosa High and remains highly connected to local baseball here. In addition to coordinating the Cubs’ spring training operation, he is considered the organization’s “catcher guru.” Frequently, he travels around the country to work out the Cubbies’ catching prospects. Sometimes he brings them here to use Cardinal Newman’s all-weather field.

Schwarber hadn’t taken a single major league at-bat in January, but McMahon took a keen interest in his workout. In fact, McMahon had known about the kid since he played at Indiana University. The Cubs made Schwarber, now 22, the fourth overall pick in the 2014 draft, and he seemed fast-tracked for the big leagues.

McMahon has become a closet Cubs fan. His wife has family ties to Chicago, and the coach appreciates Cossins’ involvement in the Redwood Empire. Each of the past six years, and occasionally before that, McMahon has taken his Cardinals players to Arizona for spring training; twice now, that trip has included a behind-the-scenes look at the Cubs’ operation, courtesy of Cossins.

“Having the full access Tim gives us, it’s pretty cool for the kids,” McMahon said.

Anyway, these are the Cubs, the lovable hard-luck losers of major league baseball. They’re the team you root for when your team has been eliminated. That’s certainly true of McMahon, a diehard Giants fan.

“They’re doing great things with that organization,” McMahon said of the Cubs. “They have so much good young talent, with (infielder Javier) Baez and Schwarber, (first baseman Anthony) Rizzo and others. They’re getting a lot out of these kids. But they’re doing it the right way. Schwarber wasn’t there on opening day. They didn’t bring him up until they thought he was ready.”

Many of Chicago’s best players are 25 or younger. Besides the three McMahon mentioned, you can add third baseman Kris Bryant, shortstop Addison Russell and pitcher Kyle Hendricks.

So McMahon was fully primed for Schwarber’s visit. A physics teacher at Cardinal Newman, he wandered over to the field during a prep period. A few friends joined him there to watch the practice session, which including defensive drills.

Another catcher worked out, too - Kyle Skipworth, who is in the Reds organization. One of McMahon’s assistant coaches, Brian McGee, threw batting practice. A couple of local baseball luminaries, Jason Lane (Santa Rosa High, seven MLB seasons) and Eric Bruntlett (now a Santa Rosa resident, also seven MLB seasons), helped out.

The experience cemented McMahon’s interest in the Cubs. But they weren’t the only team to draw his attention this season.

“I was following the Royals down the stretch because of Scotty Alexander,” he said of the Cardinal Newman alum who made his major-league debut when he pitched for Kansas City on Sept. 2. “Unfortunately, he didn’t make the playoff roster. I was hoping for a Royals-Cubs World Series with Scotty on the roster. That’s probably not gonna happen.”

The Cubs, however, now stand roughly a 50-50 chance of playing in their first World Series since 1945, and a 25 percent chance of winning their first championship since 1908. If they do, it will almost certainly come with contributions from the 22-year-old lefty who sent baseballs toward the hills behind Cardinal Newman High.