Kurkjian: Why everyone loves the guardian of the guardian Austin Hedges

Eight in the morning at February morning at the Clevelands Jersires Club, and Austin Hedges, as it is often, without a shirt, who has always been one of his managers, Terry Francona, because, as the 65 -year -old leader, said, “with his shirt, looks like me.” Hedge, as always, talks, knows and laughs, as with his teammates, although it is difficult to imagine a group that laughs more difficult after game 1 of the 2023 series, when Adolis Garcia celebrated in Texas Rangers, while he was quietly celebrating time-inspiration-inspiration-inspiration Instagram With what the hedges may think at that moment: Great, you don’t have to hit!

“It was honest … it was not very nice, but it was honest,” Hedges said. “Look, I wanted to that night, but we just won the street hoirus. It was one of the greatest games that I was ever.”

“He is the best. He takes the game seriously. He does not take himself seriously,” said Bruce Bushi’s director, Rangers.

This is one of the reasons why Austin Hedges, 32, is the best backup fisherman, and is the most important. 186 in the major championships and one of the best leaders in the game. Including the title of 2023 World Series, its team has appeared in three posteesons in a row and four of the past five. It is rare for the reserve mask a big role in the team’s success, but the hedges are already a rare person. His teammates have always described him with love, as a personality, a gym, a defensive weapon, a future manager, an uncomfortable power force, a stubborn, smart, involved, fool, eccentric.

“It is all these things, and me love “Matthew,” said Francona, the director of his preparation for three seasons in Cleveland, who is now captain of the Cincinnati Reds team. [Cleveland] In 2020, I made him to 22, we won, then left, and we did not win, it was not a coincidence. We missed him so hard. And now they have returned. “

Current Guardian Director Stephen Vaget said he could not be happier about it.

“He is also one of his best teammates ever [been around] Fogat said every day in my career. It is 100 % Austin every day. He is one of the best defensive fishermen in 10 to 15 years. “

Bushi said he was hedging.

“He brought talent, especially the way you deal with the jugs, and it was a great complement [Jonah] Heim [the everyday catcher]Bushi said: He also did a great job in bringing resorting to our meetings. It is very good to make everyone better. He denounces himself. He loves to speak he really loves to speak. “

His colleague David Fry, smiling, said, “O man, I try to keep him in the choice, but I can’t do it. His energy is amazing, and she is not fake. People listen when he talks. But sometimes I told him,” You have to stop talking now. “

The third base man from San Francisco Matt Chapman called his childhood friend, “The biggest child I have ever seen.”

The hedges laughed at all comments.

foolish?

“This is true,” he said.

The biggest young child?

“Right,” he said.

Speak a lot?

“I tell all of my team mates, it is good to tell me to close hell. I answer it,” Hedges said.

But when a real courtesy comes, the hedges are satisfied and appreciated.

One of the best defensive fishermen in the game from the past 10 to 15 years?

“These are some of the most beautiful words ever, especially from our manager, who was a fisherman,” Hedges said. “This is what keeps me in the game. If I don’t perform at the elite level, I am looking for a job.”

The best backup rate in the game?

“It is a huge courtesy,” he said. “This is what I want to be. I want to play for another 10 years. I want to be a beginning, but if I cannot help the team offensive, I have accepted this role. I love the role. I love the little things that I have to do in that, so do not require it to everything, so it shouldn’t be so.

Hedges was a star when he was a child in Orange County, California, playing with his father, Charlie. Played in the same Little League teams like many of the largest future afflictions, including Chapman and San Diego Badris Joe Mustarav.

“We have not lost a game,” Hedges said. “Even I won the world series two years ago, I was telling my father,” It was as if God gave me a lot of victories when I was a child, and now you will lose in the major championships. “

The hedges were not a backup copy at the time.

“We took trips on the family roads together, and he was speaking all the time when he was 8 years old,” said Chapman, smiling. “He was the best player in our team. I was not better than him until the high school year.”

Hedges said, “Tell him all the time that I was much better than him.”

But the distinctive smile, the visible personality and the peripheral hedges in high school, and still are almost not prominent after it was formulated by Padres in the second round in 2011.

“From secondary championships to three years to the Grand League championships, it was very stressful for me,” Hedges said. “Your whole life, all you want to reach a professional ball, make it to the big league championships, and as soon as I arrived there, it was very stressful and very overwhelming performance.

“In particular, 2018, in San Diego, it was the most difficult mental battle in my entire life. I no longer like the baseball.” I don’t know if I can do this. Can I deal with this tension every day? You will reach the field in one hour with a lot of energy.

Then deal with Cleveland before the 2020 season.

“Getting trading to Cleveland was my new start,” Hedges said. “They are doing such an amazing job there with culture. But you have to look at yourself in the mirror and say:“ I will not be the man who strikes. 300 with 40 Homer every year, [a] All perennial stars. I must find a way to stay in this game. If it is not offensive, I can do things defensively. I know that I always have an effect on the archers. When I became a backup hunter [in 2023]And I am playing once a series, what kind of effect I brought to the game? I read a lot of books, I spoke to many people. I discovered myself what is going on. The thing that emerged was a positive and uncompromising energy on a daily basis regardless of how it happened. “

Even when he was not hitting.

“Blessing and curse was not well for me,” Hedges said. If you go 0 for 4 with four passes once againAnd I still smile on my face, then you can also. Not like Hedgy is always happy because he swings; It seems as if Hedgy is the best time because he didn’t get a blow within a week and he will still come to children to try to do anything he can help them. This is what I am trying to do every day. “

It helped play with Bochy in Texas. Francoona and now she is crowned in Cleveland.

Hedges said: “Vougert, Tito and Bush are three completely different people, but they have one common thing: the leader of the men.” “When they speak, this is brief. What they say, you may have heard before. It might not be deep. But people listen to them.”

Now, every person at Guardians listen to the hedges. He said he wanted to play another 10 years. He said he thought about management one day, but managers are delegated – he wants to teach the game.

“I decided to be a life in the baseball game, whatever that is,” Hedges said. “I want to put a shirt. Bastoul pants and a shirt in a big club in the league. It’s the greatest honor you can. When I finish playing, if you can [still be in the big leagues]I will feel the most fortunate alive. “

The most fortunate man was the first Guardians squad for training in the spring. As DH.

The hedges, which deny the self as always, laughed, and said: “You should keep this bat in the squad!”