Blue Jays’ Merrifield almost quit baseball, but dad’s advice kept him playing

ARLINGTON, Texas – At the top of a attempting 2015 season, Whit Merrifield was able to stroll away from baseball.

His confidence had been shaken the earlier fall, when the Kansas City Royals didn’t add him to their 40-man roster and no workforce picked him within the Rule 5 draft after he’d batted .340 at triple-A Omaha. A powerful camp the next spring, through which he’d been the final minimize, restored a few of his misplaced religion.

But then on the evening of July 8, shortly after Alex Gordon was carted off the sector in Kansas City with a groin damage, he was pulled from a sport and informed he was going to The Show, just for the promotion to be rescinded as soon as his luggage have been packed. Three weeks later, the Royals acquired Ben Zobrist earlier than the commerce deadline, there was no September name up for Merrifield and he felt extra off the grid than ever because the big-league membership received the World Series. “Maybe,” Merrifield recollects pondering, “I can’t play at that level.”

Before definitively making the decision to retire, Merrifield sat down together with his dad Bill, whose professional profession had every kind of parallels to that of his son. He was additionally 25 when he had a big-league promotion pulled out from below him. Bill was within the beginning lineup for the Pittsburgh Pirates earlier than a rain delay gave them time to rethink issues and ship him to the autumn educational league. He then determined to give up halfway by means of the subsequent yr at 26.

In that method, Bill may provide his understanding and perception as each a guardian and a baseball participant. Their subsequent conversations modified the course of Merrifield’s profession and his life, and on Father’s Day, provide a poignant instance of the facility in some well timed recommendation, and within the relationship between guardian and baby.

“I mean, he was pretty integral,” says Merrifield. “When I was 12 years old, he coached our travel team and I didn’t really play because I wasn’t one of the best nine players. He kept me in that, you’ve-got-to-earn-everything-you’re-going-to-get mentality. We’ve always had a unique relationship that’s transformed over the years. But he’s always been my coach in everything.”

Says Bill, who’s now Wake Forest’s assistant athletic director: “When I finished playing baseball, I was done. I knew I didn’t want to do it anymore. I didn’t miss it one day once I got out. I think he would have missed it and he realized that.”

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Amid the frustrations Merrifield was feeling again within the fall of 2015, he wanted some assist in discovering causes to maintain going.

Though he entered professional ball with some momentum, he was a key participant on the University of South Carolina and his walk-off single received the College World Series in 2010, his runway was restricted as a ninth-round decide who signed for $100,000. It took him 4 years to the touch triple-A and his type of play – win-first, numbers-second catalyst on the plate, chaos-maker on the bases, versatile defender succesful at a number of positions – meant his stat line didn’t at all times precisely mirror his affect.

The transition to the minor-leagues after three years at South Carolina, the place the individuals of Columbia gave the expertise of enjoying for the Gamecocks a big-league really feel, had been jarring. When Merrifield arrived at low-A Burlington in Iowa after being drafted, for example, he was picked up by a clubhouse attendant in a beat-up sedan with no air-con and dropped off at an condo complicated the place he shared a two-bedroom unit with 5 teammates. When he requested the place to arrange, considered one of them pointed to a spot on the ground.

Merrifield grinded by means of it however grew more and more annoyed as teammates he felt weren’t as impactful as he was saved getting promoted to the majors whereas he didn’t. The 2014 season, when he batted .340/.373/.474 in 76 video games with Omaha after an early-season promotion from double-A, left him feeling like he was on the cusp however not being added to the 40-man roster actually made him query if he was pretty much as good as he thought he was.

He endured by means of that, however then the phantom promotion in the summertime of 2015 “kind of crushed me.”

Playing in Omaha towards Iowa, he labored a fifth-inning stroll, superior to second on an errant pickoff throw, scored on a Rey Fuentes base hit after which was abruptly pulled from the sport. Confused, he pleaded his case to supervisor Brian Poldberg, saying he was good to play the sector after an ungainly slide into residence plate.

“No, you’re out,” replied Poldberg. “Alex Gordon just got carted off the field in Kansas City.”

Oh, rattling, Merrifield thought to himself and a parade of hugs started. He scurried into the clubhouse to pack up his belongings and was about to get into his automotive when Poldberg referred to as him again into his workplace. Expecting some last-minute particulars on his long-awaited promotion to The Show, he was completely unprepared for what he was about to listen to – the Royals had modified their minds, and reliever Brandon Finnegan was going up as an alternative.

Merrifield struggled the remainder of the way in which. “I ended up not being very mentally tough about it. I turned a good year into just a very average year,” he admits. When he obtained residence, he sat down together with his dad.

“I’m just not having a good time, struggling to want to go to the field every day and try to continue chase this,” Merrifield informed his father. “And he understood it was sucking the life out of me.”

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If anybody would perceive, it was Bill. A second-round decide of the then California Angels in 1983, he’d been caught of their system 4 years when on Aug. 29, 1987 he was traded to the Pirates together with left-hander Miguel Garcia for veteran second baseman Johnny Ray.

Bill merely needed to change dugouts that day because the golf equipment’ associates have been enjoying one another. He crossed over from triple-A Edmonton to triple-A Vancouver, performed three video games there after which out of the blue discovered himself making three stops en path to Pittsburgh, arrived at Three Rivers Stadium with nothing however Canadian cash and wanted considered one of his new teammates to cowl the cab fare to the stadium.

Twenty minutes after checking in, he was instructed to take the sector for batting apply below the shut watch of supervisor Jim Leyland and GM Syd Thrift, who informed him to swing for a wide range of totally different conditions. A 3rd baseman, he was informed he would begin at first, began looking round for cleats and garments as lefty Bob Kipper launched him across the clubhouse after which when the sport was delayed by rain, he was referred to as into the supervisor’s workplace the place he figured they’d go over indicators and methods. Instead, he was informed to report back to educational league and show that he may hit for energy. His locker had already been packed as soon as he left the assembly.

“I was disappointed, certainly,” says Bill. “But I thought this is a brand new start with a new organization, they’re going to give me every opportunity now because they traded for me. Why else would they trade for me? And it just didn’t work out that way.”

The subsequent spring, Leyland basically informed him the membership had no spot for him, he was despatched to minor-league camp and was set to start the season at triple-A Buffalo when he was traded once more, this time to Texas. He arrived at triple-A Oklahoma City in time for a pair of warm-up video games and within the dugout, met supervisor Toby Harrah, who checked out him and mentioned, “‘Who are you?’” Bill recollects. “I said, ‘Bill Merrifield, I’m your new player. I just got traded.’ He goes, ‘Well, what position?’ I said, ‘Third base.’ He goes, ‘I’ve got a third baseman and walked away.’”

Eventually he discovered his method into 90 video games earlier than struggling a damaged foot, one found solely after a four-hour post-game bus journey from Des Moines to Omaha, his leg wrapped in ice and elevated the entire method. The subsequent morning he went for X-Rays that exposed the fracture, he took the photographs with him to Rosenblatt Stadium, the place the workforce was understanding, walked into the dugout holding up the scans “and I said, ‘Toby, my foot’s broken out. I’m out.’ He looked at me and said, ‘OK.’ And that was the last time I played.”

Years later, after his son received the College World Series for South Carolina with a walk-off single at the exact same Rosenblatt Stadium, Bill would consider how that taking place on the park his professional profession got here to an finish, “brought it all full circle. It was kind of cool.”

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The parallels of their professional ball experiences got here in useful as Merrifield weighed his future. His buddies have been all starting to construct their lives whereas he felt caught in impartial, chasing a dream he didn’t appear able to fulfilling. Bill had been there, too, deciding that it was time to cease dragging spouse Kissy everywhere and begin their household. But he additionally wished his son to make certain. 

“He said to me, ‘You know dad, I’m done. I don’t want to keep doing this. It doesn’t seem like anything I do is good enough,’” he recollects. “I just told him, ‘I’m 100 per cent behind you, I will support you whatever you do. I get it. But the one thing you have to consider is that once you take your cleats off, you’re done, you can’t put them back on again.’”

The finality of the choice actually resonated.

“He was like, ‘Look, I get it. I was there. I quit right when I was on the cusp. And I don’t regret it because I didn’t like it. But if you want a chance to know what that big-league life is like, stick it out,’” says Merrifield. “He told me to do what I wanted to do, that if I don’t like it, don’t play. But to know that whenever I’m done, I’m done, that you can’t really come back and try again if you changed your mind.”

After wrestling with the decision, he determined to present it yet one more yr. They hatched a exercise plan that helped him add about 20 kilos of muscle. The further energy meant he hit the ball slightly tougher and the Royals observed at spring coaching in 2016, when he was once more the ultimate minimize of camp.

This time he did earn a call-up, debuting May 8 within the second sport of a doubleheader towards the Boston Red Sox with a base hit off David Price. He’d later be demoted throughout a quick dry spell however performed in 81 video games that yr, once more didn’t make the workforce out of camp in 2017, however was recalled about two weeks into the season and was as much as keep, finally changing into an all-star in 2019 and 2021, and now a key contributor for the Blue Jays.

“I was fortunate that my parents were real supportive of me,” says Merrifield. “I got to live at home in the off-season because you’re not making any money in the minors, so I couldn’t afford to live on my own. I didn’t have to get a job in the off-season or anything like that, they kept me going, so I stuck it out.”

The two used to speak hitting after virtually each sport, however Merrifield is “at the point of my career now that I don’t want to take it home anymore, I’ve done that enough in my life. If I talk to him on the phone, I can feel him wanting to talk about hitting if he feels like I’m struggling. And I’m just like, ‘I don’t want to talk about it anymore.’”

Bill understands that his work on that entrance is completed, even when it’s generally exhausting to close off his instincts as coach, and as a dad. “I still watch all his games like I’m coaching third base, I’m cussing and I’m yelling. It’s fun watching your kid do something special at the highest level that they can be.”

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