One could say that baseball was in Jeff Bock’s blood from day one, and his passion for the game only grew stronger as he hung around various diamonds with his father. A stellar career at Cary High School led him to Atlantic Christian College, where he made three all-conference teams and won numerous awards while becoming “one of the best players to ever wear a Barton uniform,” said his college coach, Todd Wilkinson.
From there, the 1994 Barton graduate was drafted as a free agent by the Atlanta Braves. He played professional baseball for five years, moved as high up as Double A before going into coaching at Campbell University. He was also head coach for the successful Wilson Tobs collegiate all-star team in the summer of 2000.
He and his wife, Clara, are now the proud parents of two kids in Corey and Shelby. They live in Fuguay-Varina, where he works for Super-Net, a company that specializes in making batting cage and backstop nets for baseball and softball programs.
Bock was the Wake County Player of the Year in 1989, his senior season at Cary High. Ironically, his squad upset Richmond County in the playoffs, then lost to Wilson Hunt, a team that featured Dewey Scott and Angelo Cox, who would end up being Bock’s teammates at Barton.
Bock and the rest of the Bulldogs made their mark over the next four seasons. His junior and senior years, they went 31-18 and 32-18, respectively, winning the NAIA Carolinas Conference championship in 1993 before falling in the District 26 final to Carson-Newman. Bock posted a collegiate pitching record of 24-16 with a 3.61 earned run average. In 337 innings, he allowed 311 hits, 135 earned runs, walked 114 and struck out 237. As a senior, he was a starter and a closer, posting a sensational 2.43 ERA with a 6-1 record and eight saves in 77+ innings. He struck out 77 and walked just 27 and was once named the NAIA National Pitcher of the Week.
The versatile performer also played first base, third base and was a designated hitter, so he was a daily starter. He batted .314 as a sophomore, .344 as a junior and .260 as a senior, for a career .289 average. He logged 95 hits, 72 RBI, 24 doubles, four triples and nine home runs.
After his junior year, Bock was invited to a Team USA tryout in Millington, Tenn., where he remembers throwing in the bullpen with some Division I All-Americans. Right after college, Bock was invited to a tryout with the Atlanta Braves organization at the old Durham Bulls Park. He threw seven pitches for the scouts, reaching 93 mph with his fastball, and was signed as a free agent.
Bock’s father, Pete, brought the Bulls back to Durham in 1980, and Pete served as the team’s general manager for about five years. The Bocks moved to Hawaii, where Pete was a GM for a team there, then came back to North Carolina, where Pete was a consultant for minor league teams, helped start the Raleigh Ice Caps and started the Coastal Plain League. He still serves as the CPL president. So, the Bocks and baseball just went together, and Jeff knew he wanted to be part of baseball somehow. He’s been a player and a coach at various levels, and now he’s helping coaches.
His pro career in the Braves organization began with stints in Danville (Va.), Idaho Falls and Macon (Ga.) his first season. He pitched in high A ball with Durham the following year, which he said was neat because “I used to run around the park as a youngster,” adding, “I actually have the last pitching win in the old park.”
The next season, Bock pitched in the new Durham Bulls Park and was lucky enough to be on the mound for the last couple innings of a rare game televised on ESPN. He spent his last full season in baseball pitching for the Greenville (S.C.) Braves, where one of his teammates was current Major League all-star Andrew Jones. The last month of the season, he experiences severe arm problems, resulting in two cortisone shots and surgery to remove nine bone chips from his right elbow. The Braves released him in 1997, and he played part of the following season with the Thunder Bay Whiskey Jacks.
“I played college baseball at a good school; then, I played professional baseball and got to see a lot of different places and meet a lot of people. I got to coach, teach and give back to the community, and now, I have a nice family. I like where I’ve been and what I’ve done.”
