Pahoulis' baseball signing is a family celebration

By JOHN BASSETTI
VINDICATOR SPORTS STAFF
HOWLAND -- Vasili Pahoulis was expected to have quite a crowd at his signing this morning when the Howland High baseball player inked a letter committing him to Cleveland State University.
Parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and a brother and sister were to attend the ceremony in the activities office.
The event was shared with Darcy Quinlan, a girls basketball team member who was affixing her signature to a letter declaring her choice of Ohio University.
The support for Pahoulis was indicative of the family involvement with which he grew up.
"It's a pretty big deal for the family," Pahoulis said on Tuesday -- his 18th birthday. "I'm the first of my generation to go to college."
Oldest in clan
He is the oldest of seven first cousins in a strict Greek Orthodox clan.
The senior plays center field and pitches for the Tigers and also plays in the Class B League in the summer.
The 5-91/2, 175-pound Pahoulis may follow in the tradition of recent Howland players to reach professional baseball.
Graduate Jeff Hundley is in the California Angels system at the AA level, while Brian Bush was with the Philadelphia Phillies organization.
Pahoulis' father, George, steered him into baseball at a young age. He's been to numerous camps, clinics and private forms of instruction.
When he was 11, Pahoulis and his brother, Manoli, attended a camp in Winter Haven, Fla., over the Christmas holidays.
"It was a fantastic experience," George Pahoulis said of his sons' participation in the camp that included Charlie Manuel when he was Cleveland's hitting coach and other current and former Indians such as Jim Thome, Omar Vizquel, Orel Hershiser, Mark Whitten, Sandy Alomar and Paul Sorrento.
"Charlie taught them how to cut down their swing and get the bat head out," George Pahoulis said of the lesson to keep their hands in and get the barrel of the bat through the zone quicker to improve bat speed.
Steered into baseball
George Pahoulis, who owns a dry cleaning business in Warren and Niles, directed his sons into baseball because he thought they'd be most suited for it.
Since George graduated from New Castle High, his sons were inclined to gravitate toward the pro teams in Pittsburgh -- Steelers, Penguins and Pirates.
Vasili Pahoulis, a left-handed batter and pitcher, will play for coach Jay Murphy at Cleveland State. He could play as a freshman.
"He said I'll get a pretty good chance to start in the outfield and play every day," said Pahoulis, who had a 1.6 earned-run average and .400 batting average as a junior.
Pahoulis' steadiest mentors have been Scott Knox and Ed Stacey.
Knox was the former operations manager for the Astro Falcons Class B team. He is now Boardman High's coach and operations manager for Line Drive Academy, his baseball instruction business.
Pitching instruction
Pahoulis got much of his pitching instruction from Stacey, a former player at Kent State and former pitching coach at Texas A & amp;M.
"He turned me from a thrower to a pitcher," Pahoulis said of Stacey, now of Cortland. "One of the things he stresses is getting the hip out first, then showing the chest and then delivering the loose arm."
Because of the close relationship with Cleveland State, the Cleveland Indians' area scout, Ken Tirpack, recommended Pahoulis to Murphy.
With Line Drive last summer, Pahoulis had a 5-0 record, 1.69 ERA and led the B league in strikeouts.
Year-round interest
Baseball is pretty much year-round for Pahoulis, who goes from the high school season in March, to summer ball to fall ball.
Workouts for Line Drive at Sluggers in Boardman started this past Sunday.
"He just has a passion for the game," his father said. "He lives and breathes baseball."
It must be true.
Besides his summer ball workouts on Sundays and Thursday, Pahoulis lifts at Howland on Tuesdays, takes pitching instruction from Stacey on Fridays and gets private hitting lessons on Mondays.
Keeping up the family tradition by playing fastpitch is Pahoulis' sister, Panayiota, 12.
bassetti@vindy.com