Brett Gardner could grow into Yankees' version of Dustin Pedroia
Monday, March 23rd 2009, 8:50 PM
FORT MYERS, Fla. - The throw from Ryan Raburn of the Tigers, a spring-training throw out of palm trees and blue sky that seemed to explode out of the kid's hand in center field and carry all the way to his catcher, Gerald Laird, on the fly, had Dustin Pedroia cold and Pedroia knew it at City of Palms Park. So Pedroia just pulled up about 10 feet from home Monday and got tagged out as he ran across the front of the plate, and then made his right turn toward the Red Sox dugout, passing a bat boy no bigger than he is.
Pedroia, the best dirty uniform in the whole sport and the MVP of the American League, didn't have to hit Laird or the dirt in the first inning of a game at the end of March. So at last here was a door he didn't have to break down, the way he has been breaking them down his whole career, what is turning into a pretty remarkable baseball career for the Boston Red Sox.
The other day, in another part of Fort Myers and another spring park, Joe Girardi was talking about Pedroia, saying, "It's good to see guys like that succeed. It's the message you want to send to kids and everybody, that anybody has a shot to fulfill their dreams. A guy you wouldn't even know was an athlete if you saw him walking down the street."
Then Girardi said, "There's no size chart in baseball."
There was no size chart for Pedroia, who was the best little guy in his sport before he became MVP. He got off to a terrible start in his rookie season and Terry Francona, the Red Sox manager, stayed with him, and Pedroia just kept swinging from his heels and making the plays at second and winning games. Now he has become a star of his sport.
The kid who fights to be the Yankees' starter in center field on Opening Day, Brett Gardner, is not the kind of hitter that Pedroia is, will never have that kind of power. But Gardner does not fit the modern profile of a Yankee anymore than Pedroia fit the profile of baseball star. He is the kind of kid the Yankees hardly ever produce anymore, a grinder with a ton of heart, one sending the same kind of message that Pedroia did, that anybody has a shot at their dreams.
This is what you hear a lot from Yankee fans these days, because of Mr. Fun, Alex Rodriguez: How hard he makes it to root for their team.
Gardner makes it easy.
"He is somebody anybody can relate to," Girardi said. "He's one of those guys who would run through a wall for you. People want to root for that. So many of the big guys in this sport, you look at what they do and say, 'No way I could do that.' But guys like Melky (Cabrera) and Brett, they're two guys people absolutely can relate to. It's what I mean about how our sport lends itself to all shapes and sizes."
Girardi doesn't tip his hand on center field, even though Gardner has a better spring (hitting .405 to Cabrera's .295). He lets this play out to the end, and even when he praises Gardner's grit and the way he has hit, he is quick to add, "Melky has played at a high level, too." Pauses then and says, "This kind of competition is always a good thing."
Gardner himself comes in after batting practice on this day, never looking as big as the 5-10 he is supposed to be, reminding you more of a Pedroia and says, "In sports, the 40th-rounder is supposed to have as good a chance as the first-rounder if he can do the job."
He wasn't a 40th-rounder. He was picked with the last pick of the third round in the 2005 draft and began spraying the ball to all fields almost immediately and stealing bases and being a dirty uniform everywhere he played. Before all that he was a walk-on player at the College of Charleston. In the spring of A-Rod, and all the talk about the big-money pitchers, he has made himself into a story, and as much of a Yankee kid to root for as we have had in a while.
There is the feeling that Brian Cashman, the general manager and chief money spender around the Yankees, wants Gardner to win the job in center, even though nobody comes out and says that. But you wonder, even if this kid does get the job, how long he lasts if he doesn't come out of the box hitting in the regular season the way he hit in the spring. Cashman loved the idea of plugging in a guy like Nick Swisher right up until Mark Teixeira became available. So you wonder how long Gardner would remain Cashman's heart's desire if another expensive player, this one a center fielder, came into play.
Gardner? He just keeps playing his game, playing hard, every day.
"It's the same with me as it's always been," he said the other day. "I just try to continue to improve every day, try to step it up to the next level."
Doesn't fit the profile, the modern Yankee profile of big names and big trades and constant big money, the Yankees who talk about developing their own then don't. Maybe he can change the profile. All the talk about the pitching this spring, and Jorge Posada's comeback, and the drama around A-Rod, even up to the stories about the New York City madam over the weekend, that seems dumber than "The Bachelor." The best story might be Brett Gardner, last pick of the third round, dirty uniform trying to make it to center field in Camden Yards on Opening Day.
