STATE COLLEGE — Pittsburgh Pirates utility man Sean Rodriguez is enjoying a fine season by any measure one chooses to use, and it’s no surprise to his father, State College Spikes manager Johnny Rodriguez.
There is no feeling on the field that is more fulfilling than seeing your children succeed. That point was driven home by Rodriguez earlier this season
“To see him do it day in and day out when he plays, and when he doesn’t play he’s ready to go … it’s a dream,” Rodriguez told me as I caught up with him earlier this season.
“It’s something I don’t want to wake up from.”
“That’s me up there,” Rodriguez tells me, as I point out a picture of Sean hanging in his office.
The younger Rodriguez would definitely pass for a more youthful version of the elder.
“I remember him when he was as little as his own kids are now. I remember when he was that young and I’m seeing that … it’s been seven years he’s been in the big leagues and I’m thinking, ‘Is this real?’”
“That” refers to Sean drawing a walk against Clayton Kershaw, at the time one of just nine on the year from the best starting pitcher of his time. Rodriguez was able to watch Sean’s game live, having wrapped a game early enough to grab some real estate in front of a television at a local restaurant.
“When your kid is at that level, and you’re watching, people say, ‘How are you so calm?’ I tell them that I’ve been in the game a long time.
“But, it’s wonderful … I brought him up telling him you don’t get anything easy. You’re going to work. You’re never going to walk on a field if you’re not 100 percent ready.”
He then asked me if I had kids. I replied that I did not. It was then I noticed that the smile he had worn throughout the conversation had grown considerably since we started talking.
“You’ll know. When you have kids, you’ll know.”
Of course, there are mechanical reasons for Sean’s mini-renaissance.
As the talk turned back to on-the-field matters, I asked Rodriguez what his son might be doing differently this year.
“When he was coming up through high school and the minors, he had a leg kick. And, he powered through if you look at his minor league numbers. But, the Angels wanted him to be more of a line drive guy, to play the middle infield … so they took away the leg kick.”
At this point, Rodriguez got a little more animated, and in that moment he was not a career baseball man observing things objectively. In the span of a few sentences, he morphed into every dad in America analyzing tape of his son’s Little League games. Of course, there was one key difference — this dad actually knows what he’s talking about.
“Last year, he goes to the Pittsburgh Pirates … first half of the year he was alright. One day late last year, he’s in the cage, and accidentally doing the kick. (Pittsburgh Pirates hitting coach) Jeff Branson sees that and says, ‘Are you actually trying to kick?’ and Sean says, ‘No, no, that’s natural, that’s how I hit before I got to the Angels.’
“Branson said, ‘I like it,’ and since then, they left it in.”
The analogy of a Little League dad doesn’t hold up as Rodriguez explains his philosophy when it comes to coaching Sean.
“One of the things I did, even when he was with the Angels and Tampa, I don’t tell him what to do. I like to respect the organization and respect their coaches, but when Branson said that, I said, ‘Go for it.’
“Sometimes, what’s natural, you can’t take away. I tell our coordinators to be careful changing too much, because what’s natural got these guys here.”
What’s natural is clearly working for Rodriguez, who added a mammoth home run off of Jake Arrieta to his list of feats. He walked off the Reds this past weekend, and is providing great value against a one-year $2.5 million contract.
Having already posted a 1.1 wins above replacement, Sean is embodying the ethos of his father. It is a shared philosophy that has kept father and son connected through their mutual passion. Dad may not get to watch every game, but his thoughts are never far from his son and his journey through the major leagues.
As I thanked Rodriguez for his time, he thanked me for asking about Sean, a gesture that only a proud father could provide.
