The unofficial slogan of Henderson, Nevada is, “Born in America’s defense.” It isn’t a metaphor. The town was quite literally created out of wartime — World War II, to be specific — when it was identified as the ideal spot to build a basic magnesium plant. Sixteen miles east of Las Vegas, Henderson quickly became a main supplier of the “miracle metal” that built airplane engines, munition casings and frames for the allied forces.

The plant closed in 1944, but the blue-collar, patriotic culture it created is still intact.

When the Bradfords moved to Henderson in 1985, they integrated into that culture seamlessly. Doug Bradford — father of Mariners reliever Chasen Bradford — is a current member of the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary and a former Petty Officer in the U.S. Navy. His father, Gerry, was a captain in the Navy and served through three wars. Two of Doug’s brothers served in the Army, two served in the Navy, and Chasen’s maternal grandfather was a commander in the US Naval Reserve.

Growing up in a military household gave Chasen an arsenal of tools — discipline, respect and resolve, to name a few — that manifest on and off the field.

But of all he learned in that house in Henderson, Nevada, the most important lessons were found one bedroom over.

Chasen and Mark Bradford have been inseparable for as long as they can remember. Growing up, their rooms were right next to each other. Each brother’s space was an encapsulation of what their goals were — goals they’d eventually achieve, despite improbable odds. For 5-year-old Mark, that meant posters of special operations officers and Navy submarines covering the walls. For 4-year-old Chasen, that meant a collection of more than 250 baseball caps, spanning from little league to the minors.

At first glance, the Bradford kids had a normal, American childhood. All kids have dreams. It was how they approached those dreams that was different.

“We thought Mark’s [Navy aspiration] was just a passing fantasy,” said Doug Bradford. “But over time he started working harder and harder and thinking more seriously about it.”

While Mark was thinking seriously about the Navy, Chasen was thinking seriously about the major leagues. He knew that less than 10 percent of minor leaguers make it to the majors, but he also knew the value of outworking everyone, because he’d seen his brother do it.
“He taught me that no matter how big or strong you are, if you work harder than anybody else you can do anything,” Chasen said. “If you perfect your craft you’re going to give yourself a chance to excel.”

The Bradford brothers perfected their craft — in different ways — at Silverado High School.

“They weren’t cut from the same mold as ballplayers, but as people, no question,” said Silverado baseball coach Brian Whitaker. “At the risk of sounding cliché, they were the first guys here and the last to leave. If there was anything extra to do, they were there to do it.

“They showed a lot of pride in everything they did.”

For Mark, a catcher, that meant honing his leadership skills on the field.

“He was so focused on every play,” said Doug. “Catchers are like field generals, if you think about it. They direct all the pitchers and handle their personalities. They’re a vital member of the team. When he did his first boot camp for the Navy, he was chosen to be a Chief Recruit Petty Officer because of his leadership abilities.”

For Chasen, a starting pitcher, that meant going 11–0 with a .065 ERA while alternating between third base and the mound his senior year.

“I’d pitch one day, maybe six or seven innings, and then the next day play third base,” he said. “I grew up an infielder so it was no big deal.”

His teammate, Kevin Rath, thought it was a big deal.

“When Chasen and I were seniors, our team didn’t have a lot of talent but we did pretty well — just out of sheer will,” Rath said. “Chase was playing third, he was pitching, he even hit five or six home runs that year. He was there for what the team needed, no matter how big or small the task. He and Mark were both like that: selfless.”

Mark graduated from Silverado and went to college in Monterrey, Calif. In 2010, he enlisted in the Navy.

Chasen played baseball in Southern Nevada until he got a scholarship at the University of Central Florida. In 2011, he was drafted by the New York Mets in the 35th round of the MLB Draft.

The Bradford brothers were on their way up, but far from the top. While Mark headed to the Great Lakes Naval Station, Chasen headed to Tennessee to play with the Kingsport Mets.

It was the furthest they’d ever been apart — 615 miles, to be exact. But as both embarked on the beginning — and most challenging — years of their new careers, they grew closer than they’d ever been.

“When I was going through the minor leagues, things started going south and Mark kept me in check,” Chasen said. “Right before I was supposed to be called up I was put on the DL for pulling my right oblique. I was about to quit. He told me, ‘You signed a contract that said you would play for the Mets so you’re going to stand by that contract.’”

Mark reached his near-breaking point during the fourth week of basic conditioning for US Navy special operations soldiers. Students train for five days and nights and average about four hours of sleep.

For the first time, Mark thought about quitting. But then he thought about Chasen.

“He reminded himself of why he was doing it,” Chasen said. “He was doing it for me and my family. He said he didn’t want to disappoint me — but he couldn’t disappoint me in that way even if he’d tried. He thought it would, though.”

In 2019, they’ve both beaten improbable odds. The 1062nd overall pick in the 2011 MLB Draft is starting his fourth season in the major leagues, and the soldier who enlisted out of community college has a Naval position that’s so high-level, it’s confidential.

But those achievements weren’t mutually exclusive, and neither is their future success. So no matter where he’s stationed, Mark will continue checking Chasen’s box scores. And Chasen will continue to honor his brother tonight on Salute to Armed Forces Night, and the other 364. Because if the Bradford brothers learned anything in that house in Henderson, Nevada, it’s that the most important lessons came from one another.

Every night is Salute to Armed Forces night for Chasen Bradford was originally published in From the Corner of Edgar & Dave on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The Mariners prospect was the first to be drafted out of his high school, and the highest to be drafted out of his college. Now fully healthy, he’s ready to embrace his next challenge.

Springtime in Gwinnett County brings blooming dogwood trees, temperatures in the mid-70s and legions of baseball scouts. These scouts don’t come unprepared. They’re armed with a route — a route that often runs through Parkview High School.

Going northbound on the Stone Mountain Freeway, Parkview is a talent evaluator’s dream. Its field is spectacularly maintained. Its facilities are state-of-the-art. Its program is ranked №1 in Georgia and №24 in the nation by MaxPreps, and it has a legacy to prove it (30 players drafted and counting).

But Gwinnett’s best-kept secret to date was found five miles away.

Going southbound on the Stone Mountain Freeway, Shiloh High School is decidedly not part of a scout’s springtime route. It has no professional baseball legacy. Its baseball program is ranked №355 … in the state. Some of its students don’t even realize the campus has a baseball field, since it’s tucked away behind a hill about 1,000 feet away from the school.

The vast majority of Shiloh’s players don’t partake in national tournaments or year-long travel teams. They just suit up in the spring and quietly grind away.

From 2009 to 2013, Kyle Lewis was quietly grinding away. Three years later, he’d become the 11th overall pick in the 2016 MLB Draft.

Kyle Lewis was never groomed for baseball. He was a multi-sport athlete throughout high school. He was, and still is, a voracious learner. Academics came naturally to him, and whether he’d get the chance to play collegiate sports or not, he would be going to college.

Kyle Lewis was never groomed for baseball. He was groomed for success.

Keep moving forward. Always think one step ahead.

Chuck and Ruth Lewis instilled that message in their children for as long as they can remember. It rang through in every facet of their lives.

“I applied [that mentality] to everything,” Kyle said. “Basketball too. I used to be really good at getting steals and passing lanes, because I would anticipate passes. Before a player would throw the ball I would see where it was going to go.”

But baseball was different. Making it in baseball, out of Shiloh, was unheard of.

“His high school team was pretty good, but it couldn’t compete with the well-known teams,” Chuck said. “We had some pretty big-name players playing around here at that time — Austin Meadows was coming through, Clint Frazier was coming through. We were all within 10 miles of each other. Those guys got talked about more.

“Kyle ended up being more of a surprise.”

For Kyle, it was not a surprise. While the baseball world was talking about Austin Meadows and Clint Frazier, the center fielder was sneaking into his high school batting cage at night, leaving the back door unlocked after practice for 24-hour access.

Kyle and teammates Cletis Avery, Chase Waters and Jeremy Glore would take hack after hack after hack. The cage had no windows, and was far enough from the school that no one could hear them.

Their high school baseball coach, Reggie Ingram, had never seen anything like it.

“They were always going to figure out a way to get an advantage,” Ingram said. “They were serious about it. We tried to change the locks but they got back in again. Everything would be moved around, so you knew someone had been in there.

“I’m wishing now that I had kids who actually did that. I’m just trying to get them in the cages every day.”

His senior year, Kyle and Chuck sent tape to every SEC and ACC school. Only one responded — University of Miami — and by that point he had already verbally committed to Mercer University.

“I want to go a place that wants me,” he told his father. “This is it.”

In many ways, Mercer University was the perfect culture for a Kyle Lewis to blossom in. Similar to Shiloh, it always had a good baseball team, but didn’t draw much national attention. A private school of 8,600 students, Mercer’s program doesn’t size up to that of Georgia or Georgia Tech, which are known for producing first-round picks.

“There’s something to going to a school where a lot of guys are hungry and have something to prove,” said Mariners reliever and Mercer alum Cory Gearrin. “When I committed there I didn’t really think that pro ball was something realistic. But the summer after my sophomore year I got to go to the Cape Cod League. When I came back, I knew I had an opportunity to play.”

Kyle had a similar path. He won Player of the Year in the Great Lakes League the summer after his freshman year, and was called to the Cape shortly after. It was a small sample size — only two games — but Lewis made the most of them, posting a slash line of .333/.500/.500.

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B4: potential top 10 draft pick Kyle Lewis MASHES this 461 ft HR to push the @MercerBaseball lead to 10-0!

After a torrid sophomore year that saw him lead the Southern Conference with a .367 batting average, he was back in the Cape. He hit .300/.344/.500 with seven home runs — tied for fourth in the league.

Finally, Kyle was on an even playing field with the Clint Fraziers and the Auston Meadows. And finally, Kyle was in front of some scouts.

“He didn’t need everybody’s attention, but he did want to validate all of his work,” said Chuck. “He wanted to say, ‘Hey, I’m up here with these guys that everybody’s talking about.’”

All of sudden, Kyle Lewis became one of those guys that everybody was talking about. His final year at Mercer brought, among other accolades, a Golden Spikes Award, a first-team All-American nomination and a Baseball America Collegiate Player of the Year distinction.

Before he knew it, Kyle was sitting in the Glenn Hotel, surrounded by family and friends, waiting for Rob Manfred to announce where the 2016 MLB Draft would take him.

“We had a group of guys at Mercer who were rough around the edges and had some chips on their shoulders, but we wanted to create something there,” said Gearrin. “We wanted to create the kind of culture that a Kyle Lewis would want to be a part of — that a Kyle Lewis could come out of.”

With the 11th overall pick, Kyle became the highest drafted player to come out of Mercer in school history. The excitement was palpable on both sides. Thirty Mariners employees watching from T-Mobile Park erupted in applause when Lewis’ name was called, and 2,705 miles away, Kyle’s family celebrated the culmination of his hard work.

“I probably went overboard like I usually do,” Mariners Special Assistant to the GM Tom McNamara said to The Seattle Times. “But we get excited about players with high ceilings.”

Two weeks later, he was in Everett, Wash., playing with the Class-A AquaSox. But the work was far from done.

Keep moving forward. Always think one step ahead.

In his first 30 games, Kyle batted .299, including .375 with two outs and runners in scoring position. But halfway through the season things took a turn for the worse.

On July 19, Kyle collided with Tri-City Dust Devils catcher Chris Mattison at home plate. In August he had season-ending reconstructive surgery for a torn ACL and a torn medial and lateral meniscus in his right knee.

“In a way, it was the moment that everything kind of clicked for me,” said Kyle. “My parents have always said to think one step ahead, whether it’s in life or in baseball. After the injury, my brain kind of defaulted into that — just see what’s going to come next. I got injured, but I knew it wasn’t going to get me down.”

He temporarily moved to Arizona, to rehab near the Mariners spring training complex. In his first game back with the High-A Modesto Nuts, he crashed his right knee in the outfield wall while trying to make a catch. He’d be limited to 46 games that year, with patella tendinitis.

As he prepared for Spring Training in 2018, the knee problems re-emerged. Instead of meeting his future teammates, Kyle began the season on the disabled list for a bone spur, and ended up having his second surgery in two years soon after.

“I think his lowest point was when he had to have that second procedure,” said his brother, Kenny. “He was wondering if his knee would ever be right. He felt like it wasn’t going to go away.”

But for a kid who’d encountered setbacks every step of the way, the answer couldn’t have been more clear:

Keep moving forward. Always think one step ahead.

“Even as a patient, but I could always do more,” Kyle said. “Sometimes ‘more’ didn’t mean work out harder. It meant massage, rest, or researching which foods cause more inflammation so I can avoid those. When you get overlooked a lot, you can always do more. And that’s universal. Even when you’re coming back from an injury.”

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If you know, you know. 🧨 #MarinersST x @KLew_5 https://t.co/VcFxH5x6K0

Lewis’ knee felt better in August 2018. He finished his year with the Arkansas Travelers, and headed down to Miami a couple of weeks later to work with a hitting coach and a trainer.

“He’d been working all winter,” Chuck said. “And when I say ‘work,’ I mean twelve hours a day. He told me, ‘This is my first Spring Training, and they never got to evaluate me next to the other guys. I’m going to be ready to go.’”

The player that reported to the Mariners Spring Training complex in February was mentally and physically stronger than ever, and it showed.

“That kid was prepared,” said his mental skills coach, Tommy Dueñas. “When he came to Miami, we didn’t really have to change much. It was more polishing that diamond, putting pressure on it. He was preparing for his moment, and then all that preparation he did — he let it take over.”

For Kyle Lewis, that meant batting .423/.464/.923 with a 1.387 OPS and three home runs in his first 12 Spring Training games.

“Once I was able to get that ball in the air it felt refreshing,” he said. “I had worked so hard in the offseason, so to see it finally pay off in the game felt good. But for me it was about going day-by-day, preparing my body and mind the right way. About seeing how present I can be.”

It’s springtime again in Gwinnett County. The dogwood trees are blossoming, the temperatures are rising and the scouts are back on their routes. A couple-hundred miles west, off I-20 east, springtime comes with higher stakes. At Dickey-Stephens Park, home of the Class-AA Arkansas Travelers, spring brings legions of young baseball players, ready to prove they belong in the bigs.

Kyle Lewis is there, and he’s still quietly grinding away.

Kyle Lewis is still here, and he’s still grinding was originally published in From the Corner of Edgar & Dave on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The Mariners Director of Strength and Conditioning won multiple Rose Bowls and a national championship with UW. What drove him then is what drives him now.

This was not the tunnel that James Clifford was used to. The tunnel where the ceilings were low and the walls paid tribute to bowl games dating back to the 1930s. The tunnel where thousands of University of Washington football players discovered, then rediscovered, their program’s storied legacy with every step towards the bright lights. The tunnel where Clifford, and many before him and many after him, felt safe among their brotherhood.

This was not that tunnel.

When Clifford looked up, he didn’t see low ceilings. He saw a giant gold “W” against a purple backdrop. When he looked to his sides, he didn’t see bowl game posters. He saw a sea of strangers — supporters of the brotherhood, but not a part of it.

The third quarter was starting soon. Clifford, the Mariners Director of Strength and Conditioning, navigated his way through the unfamiliar confines of Husky Stadium’s west concourse to return to his seat. But then he heard…

“Jimmy! Jimmy!”

…and it all came rushing back. Only two people in his life had ever called him “Jimmy,” and tomorrow the former linebacker would be attending the memorial service for one of them. The other, Carol James, collapsed into his arms as tears streaked down her face. It’d been 20 years since Clifford had donned a purple and gold uniform, under the tutelage of Carol’s husband, Don. It’d been seven days since the University of Washington lost its winningest coach in football history and Carol lost her partner of 61 years.

She hadn’t embraced anyone — except family — since then. Until Jimmy, that is.

Carol and Don created a legacy in Montlake that remains intact to this day. Since 1975 — Don James’ first season at the helm of UW — he’d recorded only one losing season. In 17 years, he led the Huskies to 153 wins, five conference titles and one national championship. With Carol by his side, Don helped develop Nick Saban, Warren Moon and Steve Emtman.

Why didn’t she seek them out? Why did she choose Jimmy?

Don James had a very atypical recruiting process. Carol was heavily involved in the decision-making. She’d cook breakfast at their house for all the players visiting Seattle. Football was rarely discussed; family was.

For Don and Carol, those trips provided a glimpse into the maturity of their recruits — a glimpse into their priorities. For the players, those trips provided a glimpse into the culture the James family had set at UW. A glimpse into the culture they could eventually be a part of.

“[Coach James] cared about the things that mattered,” said former UW linebacker Dave Hoffmann, who was on Clifford’s recruiting trip in 1988. “Of course football was important, but we didn’t talk about football on that trip. It was just about life, and the things that mattered, and being thankful. If you focus on the things that really matter, you can reach your potential.

“I see that focus in James,” he added. “His priorities are invaluable to him.”

In countless ways, James Clifford was the kind of kid that Don and Carol wanted. He was the kind of kid who led by example. An instant leader. They knew that before he ever stepped foot in Husky Stadium.

“James had good values. He knew what he wanted in life. He knew how hard he’d have to work to get to where he wanted to go,” Carol said. “He always stood out.”

By the end of that weekend, Clifford had verbally committed to play football at Washington. A couple months later, the Mariners came calling. James was a two-sport athlete in high school, and was drafted by Seattle as a first baseman in 1988. They let him take batting practice at the Kingdome as Mariners first baseman Alvin Davis watched. It was flattering, and he was close to signing. But something kept pulling him back.

“Mentally and physically I was prepared to go play football,” Clifford said. “So I turned their offer down and played football.”

James Clifford made the right decision. He lettered as a true freshman and led the Pac-10 with 164 tackles in his sophomore season. He was a key part of the Huskies’ 12–0 record in 1991, and in their national championship later that year.

But the experience that had the biggest impact on Clifford’s life didn’t come in 1988, 1989 or 1991. It didn’t even come on the field.

“I blew my knee out in two-a-days,” he said. “I was out before the season even started. I mean I went from being on top of the world, to seeing my best friend Dave (Hoffmann) step into my position and excel. It couldn’t have been a better situation because I love him — but it was just a moment where you realize that the wheel keeps turning. It doesn’t wait for anybody.”

Clifford kept turning, too. He wasn’t about to accept stagnation as his new reality. He had ACL surgery, and started looking for answers.

“I needed to find out why this happened,” he said. “When I got hurt, I was in the best condition of my life, in my mind. I was mobile, I was stable — I felt like I was a finely tuned car.”

But the rehab process brought more questions than answers.

“There was a gymnast who had surgery the same day as me,” Clifford said. “We were kind of going through rehab together, and her rehab went so much easier than mine did. It was frustrating in a way — how did she have her full range of motion already when I wasn’t even close?”

It was a new kind of challenge for Clifford, a challenge that would require a different set of skills. He would have to temporarily replace his toughness with patience. He would need the self-awareness to know that speeding through rehab wouldn’t do him any favors. His intensity would be directed towards researching injury prevention — not touchdown prevention.

“I was 20 years old,” he said. “It was crazy. I was so lucky, so blessed. People recognized me as a football player, and then all of a sudden, at 20 years old, that’s taken away from you.”

It felt like an identity crisis at the time. But from that struggle Clifford found his purpose.

James was patient. In November, he watched from the sidelines as the brotherhood won a conference championship. In January, he watched them win a Rose Bowl. But even if he wasn’t on the field, there was always a role to play. There was always more to give.

“He was right there,” Hoffmann said. “I knew he was watching everything I did and I wanted to please him as a friend, out of respect. I wanted him to approve of the way I was playing and the level I was competing at.”

What UW’s linebackers did on the field wasn’t just about themselves. It was about the guy next to them, and the guy next to that guy. It was about bringing the same hunger and intensity to a practice that you did to a Rose Bowl, so when the Rose Bowl came around, you were all working in lockstep.

But you can’t work in lockstep without trust. And that trust didn’t materialize overnight. It was born out of countless conversations with Clifford in a locker room so empty you could hear the shower drip. It was born out of steelhead trout dinners with Garland Morrison, Clifford’s grandfather, at his house in Queen Anne. It was born out of trips to Offutt Lake, cramming the entire linebacker corps onto a wooden dragon boat that Garland had crafted by hand, the “Uff Da Queen.”

“As loud and as cocky as we were, when we got out there on that boat we were totally relaxed,” said Hoffmann. “The wisdom and humor that came out of those experiences was unbelievable. I mean we still talk about it today. We really learned how to be good people, how to look out for each other.”

The bond that was formed from 1988 to 1991 went beyond the practice field. It was familial, and Garland Morrison was part of that family.

“Garland was the sweetest, most generous man — I mean he was an angel,” said Hoffmann. “He really was. He was wise but he was still so humble. He had the intuition to know when somebody was having a tough day, or when they wanted to share something exciting in their life.

“He was one of the guys. He was a teammate.”

Morrison was at every UW football practice. The linebackers would wave to him as he sat in the stands. When they’d walk into the tunnel after practice to watch video, drenching with sweat, Garland would be waiting with a pack of mints. Every coach knew him.

“Steve Emtman, Dave Hoffmann, Brett Collins — even offensive guys like Ed Cunningham — they all loved my grandpa,” said Clifford. “He taught me how to be the best person I could be at any given time.”

After the bowl games, the conference titles, the championship win, Clifford found himself at a familiar crossroads. He’d alternated between UW baseball and football during his redshirt senior season, and after hitting .304, Seattle sent him to play with the Bellingham Mariners for three weeks of Spring Training. But first, he had a date in Indianapolis.

Clifford was invited to the NFL Combine in 1992. He performed well, and thought he might get drafted late. While he was waiting for that call, the Mariners kept him in extended Spring Training, knowing full well that his heart was in football. The call didn’t come during the draft, but as soon as it was over his phone rang off the hook. Clifford had nine free agent offers from NFL teams, and a decision to make.

So he flew to Atlanta and to Kansas City to meet with their staffs. He talked to his family and friends, but something kept pulling him back.

“I called my agent and said, ‘You can tell the Falcons and the Chiefs that I really appreciate it, but I’m going to give this baseball thing a try.’”

So Clifford went all in. He graduated from UW and headed up to Bellingham again. In his first season, the Mariners went 43–33 and were crowned Northwest League champions. In his second, they went 44–32 and “settled” for a playoff berth.

It was a different sport, but the story was the same. Clifford was building a culture of accountability on a foundation of compassion.

“I would work with the guys on my team, wherever I went,” he said. “I was just helping them as a teammate. It’s about expecting effort and caring. I expect that from people.”

But where James Clifford saw a duty to his teammates, Benny Looper saw potential. Twenty-year potential.

“It was one of the first two moves I made [as Mariners farm director],” he said. “He had the work ethic. He was a good person. I knew he had a background in strength and conditioning. Back then, guys didn’t touch weights. It was taboo. The players had to buy into something like that, and I think if you’ve walked in the shoes of a player, you can empathize with them.”

So in 1998 Benny made Clifford an offer. If he hung up his cleats, the Mariners would make him their first strength and conditioning coordinator. Clifford accepted and got to work on his next challenge.

“It was me and 150 minor league players,” he said. “I was working out of a really small office in the old weight room. With the lack of man power, it was hard to be as targeted in our training as we are now. But we brought in really good people, people who were intelligent and helped this thing grow. Now we have full-time guys at all of our affiliates, a staff of 13 and our overall process is in the top tier of the industry.”

One thing he didn’t have to worry about was buy-in. Clifford had built up six years of personal currency. The players knew him. They trusted him.

“I had already cared about them,” he said. “I mean, if there’s one thing that explains why I’ve been here so long, it’s because I truly care about our athletes. Each guy is so different — what they do, how they do it, what their life goals are, what matters to them, is different.

When an athlete really knows that you have his best interests at heart and you truly care, it’s not about holding him accountable any more. Instead, it’s: ‘I care about you enough to ask you to do this.’”

Twenty years and countless trades later, Clifford is still here, and he still cares.

“Trust comes with time,” said Mariners third baseman Kyle Seager. “And I’ve been with Cliffy for almost 10 years now. He was our coordinator in the minor leagues, and when I was getting called up he was here. I’ve been around him so long that I trust him not just in the baseball sense, but with life. We’ll have talks that aren’t baseball related — anything that’s going on.

“He’s a quality person. I feel lucky to work with him every day.”

Carol James asked Jimmy to speak at her husband’s memorial service. Clifford hadn’t prepared anything, but he agreed. He sat in HecEd Pavilion as dozens of former UW players regaled an arena of Don James supporters with stories of a small, white-haired man holding a blow horn, barking orders from his “tower of power.” He heard stories of fear. Stories of intimidation. Stories that missed the point:

Don James saw the things that matter.

Clifford stepped up to the podium.

It was an usually sunny day in December, he said. The Huskies were in a closed bowl practice, and Garland was there, sitting in the stands watching, with his personal seat cushion. The sun was setting in the south, and started to shine in his eyes. He grabbed his seat cushion and his bag to move to a shadier spot.

Garland started walking towards the west end zone until he reached the 20-yard line on the south side of Husky Stadium. He sat right behind Coach James’ tower, where no one was allowed to go. Security came running out, as Clifford watched from the sidelines.

Coach James grabbed his blow horn.

“HEY SECURITY!”

The guards paused and looked up.

“He can sit wherever he wants.”

It’s not a moment that will be engraved on a trophy or printed in the record books. It’s not going to be analyzed on the Pac-12 Network, or featured prominently in a Don James documentary. It was merely a head coach embodying the culture he’d promised his recruits when they came over for breakfast at his home. The culture that kept pulling Jimmy back.

“It’s my favorite memory,” he said. “It seems weird. But to have coach recognize how much my grandpa meant to me? I mean…”

In a weird way, it makes perfect sense. There was a reason Carol and Don were drawn to Clifford on that recruiting trip. What mattered to him was what mattered to them. It was about Clifford’s father, Edward, his mother, Patricia and his grandpa, Garland. It was about conversations in a locker room so quiet you could hear the shower drip. It was about showing your starting third baseman that you care about him as a person, not just as an athlete.

Carol knew that would never change. So on a brisk October night in Husky Stadium, the night before she’d say her final farewell to her partner of 61 years, she sought out someone who understood Don on a different level. Someone who understood what mattered. Someone named Jimmy.

From the University of Washington to the Seattle Mariners, James Clifford has always cared was originally published in From the Corner of Edgar & Dave on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The Pirates locker room was buzzing as Roberto Clemente stepped up to the podium. Pittsburgh had just won its fourth World Series, and The Great One was a big part of that victory. He’d posted a slash line of .414/.452/.759 in the World Series, adding the Game 7 go-ahead home run to top it off.

A cluster of microphones were thrust in his face, anticipating a message of exultation and fulfillment. But on one of Clemente’s proudest days, he chose to focus on a place 1,578 miles away.

“En el día más grande en mi vida, para los nenes la bendición mía, y que mis padres me den la bendición desde Puerto Rico.”

“In the proudest day in my life, to my children I give my blessing, and from my parents I ask their blessing from Puerto Rico.”

His statement was the first to be broadcast in Spanish via satellite. It reached millions of homes, including one on Calle 13 in Dorado, Puerto Rico. As a future Hall of Famer acknowledged the people who helped him get there, 8-year-old Edgar Martinez was watching very carefully.

He’d play baseball, he’d make it, and he wouldn’t forget where he came from.

A couple years later, that same kid found himself on the rooftop of his grandparents’ house. Edgar had lived in Barrio Maguayo since he was a baby, raised by his grandparents Mario Salgado and Manuela Rivera after his parents divorced. Now, over a decade later, his parents were back together, and they planned to move the entire family to New York City.

Edgar was having no part of it.

“I was in a real hard situation,” Martinez told The Seattle Times in 2001. “I wasn’t sure what I was doing, but I went with my feelings. I felt my grandparents needed me. I felt it was the right decision.”

An hour before his parents and siblings were set to leave, Edgar climbed onto the roof, refusing to leave behind the people who’d raised him.

“Now I understand that it was better that way,” his mother, Christina Salgado, told El Nuevo Día. “In New York he wouldn’t have done anything. Maybe he would have studied and worked.

“I’m proud of him for being such a good son (buen hijo), a good human being (buen ser humano), and for being so humble (tan humilde).”

Edgar is as synonymous with “tan humilde” in Dorado as he is with “The Double” in Seattle. He still owns the one-story house he grew up in on Calle 13 — the one-story house where he learned the value of hard work.

Mario drove a carro público — a taxi that took customers around town — while Manuela did chores around the house. They didn’t believe in lazy weekends or big egos.

“It was all about respect, strong character and loyalty,” Martinez said. “I think that translated into the way I approached my work. Into the way I approached the game.”

It translated, alright. Growing up, Edgar was always doing odd jobs. From selling shish kabobs on the sidewalk to working as a cashier at Panadería El Coquí, he earned a reputation for dependability. For self-motivation.

“He was a cashier, but he also baked bread, made pastries,” the bakery owner, Frank Caballero, told ROOT Sports, then called FOX Sports Northwest. “He did everything there was to do here — including mopping.”

As the years passed and his schedule filled, Edgar grew more and more ingrained in his community.

“What can I say?” Felipe Romiguio, a friend of Manuela’s, said to ROOT. “He was a muchacho del barrio — a local guy who grew up with us here. And for that we’re very proud of him. A simple man — un hombre sencillo.”

His schedule was anything but sencillo. 19-year-old Edgar would go to school from 6 to 10 p.m., drive to work at General Electric from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m., sleep a few hours, and then practice baseball. He’d play games on the weekends.

He was busy, but he thrived on being busy. Just like Manuela and Mario. So when the Mariners came calling and he left for Bellingham, Edgar chose to focus on a place 3,738 miles away.

“[My grandparents] knew about my career,” he said. “My cousin would bring them the paper every day. My grandfather’s eyesight was bad so my cousin would read him what I did [on the field]. He was able to appreciate what I was doing.”

When Edgar signed his first big contract in 1992, he paid for Manuela’s heart medicine. When his grandparents fell into debt, he bought their home on Calle 13 and remodeled it for them.

He’d played baseball, he’d made it, and he didn’t forget where he came from.

On December 19, 1982, Carmelo Oquendo pulled up to the yellow one-story house on Calle 13. Although he was a few minutes early — he had arrived at 7 AM and Edgar wasn’t expected back from work until 7:30 — Oquendo didn’t mind the wait. This was too important.

Carmelo was the general manager of La Central de Dorado, a semi-pro team in Puerto Rico. He’d watched Edgar’s career progress over the years, and believed he had major league potential.

So on an early December morning in 1982, Oquendo made a decision on Edgar’s behalf.

“The Mariners are having a tryout. Get ready, I’m going to take you there,” Carmelo told Edgar. “Pick up your stuff, let’s go.”

Without Oquendo, Edgar wouldn’t have even known this tryout existed. Coming off of an eight-hour shift at the factory, the last thing on his mind was a shot at professional baseball, thousands of miles away. But the general manager refused to take no for answer, driving Martinez 30 minutes to Estadio Juan Ramón Loubriel in Bayamón.

Based on the results of Edgar’s first few tryouts, he didn’t feel overwhelmingly confident.

“I found out later that [previous scouts] were looking for more power, more speed, and more strength in the arms — which I never had,” he said. “They just didn’t look into other skills. Skills like accuracy, feel for the game, a different type of hitter besides power.”

He added: “Those are the skills that Marty Martínez saw.”

Marty Martínez was a scout for the Mariners at the time. Nicknamed “Baseball Marty” by former manager Chuck Cottier, he served countless roles in the organization. For more than a decade, Marty was an interim major league manager, a major league coach, a minor league manager, a minor league coach, a scout and a supervisor of Latin American scouting.

Marty was honest — sometimes brazenly so. He wasn’t afraid to butt heads with other scouts.

“He didn’t impress easily,” said Tulsa World writer Barry Lewis, who met Marty when he managed the Tulsa Drillers. “If he vouched that a guy could play, it carried extra weight. He looked beyond home runs, RBI and batting average.”

Luckily for Edgar, Marty was impressed.

“I liked his bat, of course,” he said to The Seattle Times. “I liked his hands. He threw the ball so accurately. A little bit of a funny motion but [he threw it] perfectly to first base, all the time.”

By the end of the tryout, Marty and fellow scout Coco Laboy were between two players: Edgar and a catcher. They could only offer a contract to one. Marty vouched for Edgar, so Edgar got the contract.

“I never did listen much to other scouts,” he said to The Seattle Times. “I had my own ideas on things.”

Marty’s impact would transcend that tryout. He became an advocate of Edgar’s throughout his entire career. When Edgar averaged .173 in Single-A Bellingham, Marty convinced Mariners GM Hal Keller to move him to the instructional league in Arizona. When Edgar was bouncing between AAA Calgary and the Mariners, Marty kept telling him not to be discouraged — to be patient.

“He was a father figure to me, to all of us,” Edgar said. “He taught us how to behave, all of the things you need to do to succeed. He protected me.”

Thirty-seven years after that December tryout, Edgar still knows how many potential roadblocks he encountered on his road to the majors, and how Marty guided him through them all.

“Organizations are always evaluating if you should move up to the next level,” he said. “Marty advocating for me was huge, because I don’t think a lot of people saw me the way he did.”

Marty advocated for Edgar, so now Edgar advocates for young players in Puerto Rico. He returns to Dorado and teaches the next generation how to stay inside the ball, how to be patient at the plate, how to hit to the opposite field. He paid for the college education of Kevin Robles, a former Mariners minor league catcher from Dorado, and helped train him.

Edgar does this quietly. It’s not about attention. It’s about returning the favor. (devolverle el favor a la próxima generación.)

After the tryout, Carmelo Martinez met up with his cousin for a literal (and figurative) game of ping pong. As a tiny white ball whizzed back and forth across the table, they discussed Edgar’s future.

On Edgar’s side was pragmatism. He was getting a college education, had a well-paying job, had his whole family in Dorado. Why would he risk that for a $4,000 signing bonus?

On Carmelo’s side was idealism. Carmelo had seen how American ballplayers hit. He’d seen how Edgar hit. He gave the edge to Edgar.

Nevertheless, it was a tough sell.

“When we were growing up, Edgar hit rocks with a broomstick,” Carmelo said. “He made things look easy. I told him he was a better hitter than the [minor leaguers] I saw in the states. He really didn’t want to sign. I kind of pushed him a little bit, and he finally gave up. And I’m glad he did.”

Carmelo and Edgar’s childhood sounds like a baseball Cinderella story. Growing up together in Dorado, they played every day, rain or shine. They’d hit anything they could get their hands on — bottle caps, stones, large raindrops from a gutter — taking as many as three or four thousand swings a day.

“When he was younger, the main thing I tried to teach him was to hit the ball to right field as a left-handed batter,” Carmelo told ROOT. “In baseball, if you can go to the opposite field more times than you can pull the ball, you got a shot in the big leagues.”

Carmelo was often referred to as an unsung hero of the Padres’ first postseason run in 1984. He passed that attitude along to his cousin as he traveled through the minors.

“I always told him, ‘Let people talk about you,’” Carmelo said. “‘You don’t have to say anything. Just produce.’ He’s a quiet guy who keeps his head down. But he did a lot of damage.”

If Clemente is Edgar’s hero, and Marty was his father-figure, Carmelo Martinez is his mentor.

“I felt pretty good at the time about where I was going,” Edgar said. “I felt like taking a chance for a low amount of money was taking a risk. Carmelo was the one who convinced me.”

On Sunday, July 21, in Cooperstown, Carmelo Martinez will be sitting front and center at the Clark Sports Center as his close friend — compadre — walks across the induction stage. The perfect ending to a historia de Cenicienta — a Cinderella story.

Calgary Cannons owner/president Russ Parker needed a third baseman. Spring training for the 1987 season was rapidly approaching, and Jamie Allen wasn’t getting any healthier. The Cannons were a new franchise — their inaugural season was two years earlier — but attendance was already high. Parker wanted to keep it that way.

So he asked his farm director, Bill Haywood, to find a replacement.

“I got ya a third baseman,” Haywood told Parker. “Don’t expect much. He’s a pretty good glove but you’re not gonna get much offense out of him.”

Needless to say, Calgary got plenty of offense.

“I think it was a big jump for Edgar, coming up from Double A,” Parker said. “He wasn’t tearing up the league there. But we needed a third baseman, so it was a bit of a break for him.”

Edgar took his break and ran with it. He’d batted .264 the season before, not cracking the .300 threshold he was accustomed to. What he lacked in offense he made up for with his glove, earning a .960 fielding percentage — tops among all third basemen in the Southern League.

But 1987 was a turning point. Everything clicked.

“I felt like I was getting close to the big leagues,” Edgar said. “I struggled a bit in Double A. In Calgary, everything came together. It was a confirmation that if I can hit here, I’m going to hit anywhere. In the minor leagues you have to make some adjustments. I was able to make those in Triple A.”

Edgar embraced Calgary and Calgary embraced Edgar. He was there during the golden years of their franchise — the years of Vizquel, Valle and Buhner.

“He was a part of a team you don’t often see at the Triple A level,” said Mark Stephen, a former Cannons broadcaster. “The Mariners affiliates of 1985 to ’94 produced a heck of a lot of big leaguers. Not only that, but Seattle was the closest MLB team we had. We got the Blue Jays on TV, but that’s not quite the same as going to a game.”

Edgar gave Cannons fans a lot to root for. Through the first 129 games of the 1987 season, he batted .327 with 31 doubles and 10 home runs. The Mariners called him up for their last 13 games. The following year he won the Pacific Coast League batting title. Seattle came calling again.

Despite his success, the back-and-forth wasn’t easy — especially after nearly 7 years in the minor leagues. But Edgar had faith in his ability. He knew he’d make it, it was just a matter of when.

“He was sent down on two occasions,” said Parker. “The players were allowed 72 hours to report once they returned to Triple A. I’ve known other players who took as much time as they possibly could, and didn’t come back with a very good attitude. Edgar was just the opposite of that.

“He would be on the field the next afternoon. I don’t even know how he got there that fast. But he wasted absolutely no time.”

The third and final time he was called up was in 1989. The hard work paid off. Edgar Martinez was in the majors for good.

In 2015, Russ Parker and his family came to Tacoma to watch the U.S. Open golf tournament. The night before the event they attended a Mariners game.

“I always like to get there early. We were looking down on the field, and there’s Edgar,” Parker said. “I didn’t know why he would be there.”

He wandered down to the field to say hello, where he was promptly informed by an usher that he wouldn’t be able to speak with any of the Mariners personnel.

“We got talkin’ away, and [the usher] looked around and said, ‘You know what, go ahead,’” Parker said. “So I went down to the backstop area. He was close enough that I could yell at him.”

Edgar came over and visited with his former GM, reminiscing on their days in Calgary. Eighteen seasons later, his reputation was all that changed.

“I’ll always remember our farm director saying, ‘Got ya a third baseman — don’t expect much,’” Parker said with a laugh.

It’s laughable, in retrospect: how a Hall of Fame caliber player could be so underrated for so long. Edgar’s now exceeded all the expectations he can possibly exceed. His moment in the sun is finally here.

Edgar Martinez got the call on Jan. 22, 2019 at 5:18 p.m. He was in a Manhattan hotel, surrounded by his immediate family. In typical Edgar fashion, he was stoic. He calmly expressed his gratitude six times, smiling quietly as BBWAA Secretary-Treasurer Jack O’Connell turned the phone over to Hall of Fame Chairman Jane Forbes Clark.

Mario and Manuela would have wanted him to check his ego at the door. So even after he secured a spot in baseball’s hallowed ground, there would be no showboating.

Carmelo Martinez got the news one time zone and 1,610 miles away. He was managing a game for Los Cangrejeros de Santurce, a Puerto Rican professional baseball team, in San Juan’s Estadio Hiram Bithorn. The game stopped, the players cleared the field, and everyone stood for a special announcement: Edgar Martinez, Dorado’s adopted son, was going to Cooperstown.

Dave Niehaus’ voice boomed through the loudspeakers of Hiram Bithorn as the video board operator replayed “The Double” for all to see. It was followed by about 10 minutes of congratulations — felicidades — on the big screen by everyone from Iván Rodríguez and Carlos Beltrán to Tony Peréz and Francisco Lindor.

Three time zones and 3,442 miles from San Juan, former Calgary Cannons employees and media gathered at a local baseball academy. Russ Parker and Mark Stephen sat around the TV in heightened silence, flanked by former Cannons jerseys, bats and balls. When Hall of Fame President Jeff Idelson uttered the name “Edgar,” the group erupted into applause, celebrating the storybook ending of a career they knew was destined for greatness.

“We were all pretty excited,” Parker said. “Somebody said, ‘You must feel like a proud papa.’ I guess I felt something like that. It’s special for a lot of fans here.”

On July 21, 2019, baseball fans thousands of miles apart will honor Edgar’s long, fruitful journey. But as his proudest day approaches, el hombre sencillo is focused on the people who helped him get there.

“Those are the things you reflect on,” he said. “You think about the things that happen at the beginning — as a kid, as a minor leaguer, when I was training with Carmelo, when I was doing that tryout. The things that happened a long time ago.”

A long time ago, Edgar Martinez was an 8-year-old kid watching his hero on a broadcast of the 1971 World Series. In a couple months, their plaques will sit just a few feet apart.

On Edgar Martinez’s proudest day, he’ll be thinking of the people who got him to Cooperstown was originally published in From the Corner of Edgar & Dave on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

How the Mariners prospect’s relationship with a friend battling cancer altered his outlook

In August of 2016, Pierson Gibis made a promise to Jarred Kelenic. A promise that he’d survive. A promise that he’d play ball again.

Kelenic — a top outfield prospect who was acquired this offseason by the Mariners — was in an airport when he first found out that his training partner, his competitor, his friend would be undergoing 54 weeks of chemotherapy and radiation.

The whole world went silent for a little bit.

“My coaches told me Pierson had cancer. I remember my heart started pounding out of my chest,” the center fielder said. “Here’s a kid who never cheated. Never did anything wrong. He was just unlucky.”

Pierson knew he was unlucky. Pierson also knew he had a plan.

“The day I was diagnosed, I decided I would miss my senior year of high school,” he said. “I would graduate. I would take a gap year before college. I would gain the weight I lost in chemotherapy. And I would play ball again.”

What Gibis predicted was almost exactly what happened. He graduated from Wauconda High School last year. He gained back 40 of the 60 pounds he lost in treatments. He earned a baseball scholarship to a junior college in Madison, Wis.

But his promise wasn’t truly fulfilled until it was nearly two years old.

The whole world went silent for a little bit.

“For the sixth selection of the 2018 MLB Draft, the New York Mets select Jarred Kelenic.”

Jarred buried his face in his hands, as dozens of his closest friends and family erupted in cheers around him.

All of those hours in the gym, those visits from scouts, those early morning wake-ups, condensed into sixteen words. They were validating, but not surprising. The talent was always there.

“When Jarred was little he could peg anything with a rock, from anywhere,” remembered his cousin Rob.

One day while visiting Rob in Farmington, Minn., the cousins went to a local park. He gave Jarred a little test. He’d choose targets, and Jarred would try to hit them.

“Watch this,” Jarred said, before pinging a street sign.

Rob decided to step it up. How about that power line? Why don’t you hit that?

“First, I’m going to get that light,” he said indignantly, before nailing a metal canister about 70 feet away.

Then, the 9-year-old grabbed another stone. “Now I’m gonna hit the power line.” He did it not once, but twice.

Kelenic coupled his raw talent with a tireless work ethic. He knew scouts would second-guess a kid from snowy Wisconsin. He played with something to prove.

“I used (those scouts) as motivation,” he said. “I have two facilities by my house. I have the opportunity to get more work in than anybody.”

He proved it on June 4, 2018, when he became the highest drafted baseball player to come out of his home state.

Thirty-eight rounds and 1,172 picks later, Pierson Gibis got a phone call. He was in a batting cage at Pro-Player Consultants, a training facility in McHenry, Ill. His friends were on the line. They told him to find a TV.

“I did and I just about lost it,” the catcher said with a laugh. “Jarred was expected to be taken, obviously. I absolutely had no expectations of being drafted at all.”

There was no fanfare — no family and friends nearby. Just the quiet assurance that he’d play again. Just the quiet fulfillment of his promise.

“I was always a big athlete,” said Gibis, who was diagnosed with rhabdomyosarcoma, a rare form of pediatric cancer. “I was physically one of those bigger guys, who walks around with his head held high. Losing 60 pounds — becoming a skeletal figure — was really hard for me.”

But on that day in June, he was just a baseball player; just one of 1,214 draft picks. All of that weight lost, all of that school lost, all of that baseball lost — redeemed by eighteen words. When the Cubs saw Pierson, they didn’t see cancer. They saw his talent. His work ethic.

They weren’t the only ones.

“[Jarred and I] both saw each other as competitors,” said Gibis. “We both knew we were there for a purpose. You know, we would be hitting together for hours at a time, playing extra games during the weekend.”

“We motivated each other.”

Things changed after August of 2016. The stakes were higher; inner strength was tested. Bearing witness to Pierson’s inspiring fight gave Jarred a tool that proved to be the most powerful motivator of all: perspective.

“It’s inspiring for guys like us,” Kelenic said. “Sometimes we wake up and say, ‘The weather sucks, it’s cold out, we don’t want to play,’ and here’s a guy who’s fighting for his life and still wants to play. He doesn’t care if it’s 30 degrees out and snowing. He just wants to play the game.”

Kelenic used his perspective quietly. In the gym. On the field. But all the while, he knew Pierson was a competitor. He refused to treat him as anything else.

“At my hardest times, Jarred acted like nothing was different,” said Gibis. “When I came back to play last spring, he knew I wasn’t going to play as well as I did before, but he would yell at me just as much as he would yell at anyone. He didn’t let me get away with anything.”

Gibis’ Hitters Academy family gave him care packages. They sent him messages of encouragement. But at the end of the day, they didn’t see cancer. They saw a baseball player.

“After losing 60 pounds, I felt like everyone pitied me. But [the guys at Hitters Academy] gave me crap for everything I did. It meant a lot.”

Three years later, Jarred’s perspective, and intuition of how to treat others, is still intact. He made a visit to Seattle in December, after he’d officially been traded to the Mariners. His first stop was the Cancer and Blood Disorders Center of the Seattle Children’s Hospital, armed with an Under Armour baseball bag bursting to the seams with gear.

“Your youth is really important,” he said. “It shapes who you’re going to be later in life. When kids are stuck in hospitals, they can’t go out and play sports with friends. It limits them. I want to dedicate my time — even if it’s just an hour — to let them forget their situation. Even if it’s just an hour.”

It ended up being about two hours. With unbridled enthusiasm, Jarred floated around the hospital room, making sure he got every kid’s name and a couple of minutes playing with them.

First, he sat down with Josie and helped her finish a painting she’d been working on. “You can see how I did in art,” he joked.

Then he zoned in on Eli, offering him some gear — and some help in molding his Play-Doh.

Towards the end of his visit, he approached Cameron, a 12-year-old patient who recently got out of intensive care. Cameron was linked to an IV pump, which didn’t stop him from playing “Fur Elise” on the hospital piano.

“When did you start playing?” Jarred asked.

“A half a year now,” replied Cameron.

“It was too hard for me to play piano,” said Jarred, as he sat alongside him. “I wasn’t as good as you.”

The rest of his visit followed suit, all the way to his last stop at the Boys and Girls Club. No distractions, no complaints. Just complete focus.

Pierson Gibis didn’t expect anything less.

“When I got sick, he tweeted at me, texted me, he gave me emotional support,” said Gibis. “I know I put a lot of things in perspective for him. It really got to him. It got to everybody.”

As Jarred looks to the next phase of his career, he plans to take that perspective with him.

“When you can play on the same team as someone like Pierson, it’s pretty special,” he said. “It changes you. He kept his promise. He came back. He’s playing again.”

38 rounds and 1,172 picks away, Jarred Kelenic finds perspective was originally published in From the Corner of Edgar & Dave on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Through a pro baseball career on and off the field, Angie Mentink continues to change the narrative

By Alex Coffey

The most tangible proof of Angie Mentink’s impact on the sports industry is taking swings in the crawlspace of her house. There, flanked by signage that reads “ROOT Sports” and “Seattle Mariners,” lies a batting cage about 10 feet tall and 45 feet long. The cage is disheveled — sunflower seed buckets strewn across the floor, a bouquet of bats gathered in the corner and bright lights shining overhead, so Mother Nature can’t control when practice comes to an end.

Angie’s is not a pitching machine household. If her sons are going to learn the game, they’re going to learn it the right way. So 11-year-old Chase and 13-year-old Jaxen Mentink receive a healthy mix of fastballs, curveballs and change-ups from their mom, about three to four times a week. They see her talk about baseball on ROOT Sports.

They never saw her play it professionally.

Tonight, practice falls at 5:42 PM, as Chase waits patiently at the plate. Even though he’s a lefty, the stance he chooses to emulate belongs to right-handed UW softball legend Danielle Lawrie, who led her team in home runs, slugging percentage and RBI her senior year, to complement her eight no-hitters and four perfect games.

Though Chase has legions of male baseball players to choose from, he doesn’t see his decision as unconventional.

His mom doesn’t either.

“(My husband) Jarrett and I have raised our kids with a different perspective of what a woman’s role is and what she can accomplish,” Mentink said. “Danielle Lawrie is who he pretends to be, but it could be all different kinds of people. My kids didn’t grow up seeing the whole ‘I’m just supposed to idolize a man’ mentality. They grew up idolizing greatness.”

Mentink was raised the same way. A self-proclaimed “Navy brat,” Angie (then Marzetta) moved all over the country during her most formative years. Amid the chaos, Jackie Cooper instilled an unwavering confidence in her daughter, leaving little room for doubt.

“My mom has always has been my biggest champion,” she said. “I grew up thinking I was going to be a princess just because my mom filled me with an enormous amount of confidence that I could do anything. She had six kids who all ended up in college athletics so her entire life is running around, supporting her kids in what they want to do.”

She paused, then added:

“I don’t think it’s that my dad wasn’t super supportive. Men from his generation had a preconceived notion of what a woman could accomplish, but he didn’t really know. Dad was more like, ‘You can try it,’ whereas mom was more like, ‘You can do it.’”

And do it, she did. After a childhood filled with games of tackle football, pickle and 500 against male counterparts, being the only female on the field was second nature to Mentink. She didn’t expect to be judged on gender, but on ability.

“Even at a young age, I don’t think I ever really thought of men as not being my equal,” Mentink said. “I just thought, ‘I play with my brothers, so I’ll play with you.’ Today, everything is so structured. Back then, it was such a free-for-all. Even in junior high, I was always on the playground with the guys, playing tackle football. A couple years later I finally got to put pads on, and was like, ‘This is so much easier!’”

Angie managed her high school’s football team as a freshman, and worked her way onto the field her sophomore year. She quickly showed she belonged, becoming the first woman to letter in football at Taft High School in 1988. Her fall was spent at wingback and linebacker. Her spring, at shortstop and centerfield.

“Obviously, now we can look back at my high school resume and realize I was crazy — and that was just sort of the beginning of my crazy,” she said with a laugh. “The high school and college me didn’t really see the chance of failure. It was just, ‘Here I am. I’m going to go succeed.’”

The crazy continued. After landing a softball scholarship to Central Arizona Community College — and leading it to its fourth and fifth national championships — Angie brought her veteran presence to the University of Washington. There, she laid the foundation for what would become one of the best softball programs in the country, at a time when they didn’t have a field to play on, or a gym to work out in. The following season, after batting .364 with 36 stolen bases, Mentink led the Huskies to the NCAA tournament in their second year of existence.

To this day, the name “Angie Marzetta” still sits atop a multitude of individual season and career leaderboards. Career batting average? .429. Most runs scored in a season? 60. Stolen bases in a season? 59, out of 63 attempts. Mentink held herself to a high standard, but high standards were all she knew. Success seemed inevitable, and failure, unfamiliar.

But 1995 brought an unprecedented challenge.

“Back when the dinosaurs were roaming and I was in college, they didn’t have things like DVR, so I watched TV a lot,” she said. “I remember standing in the living room of my house in 1994 as Phil Niekro came on.”

Niekro, a renowned knuckleball pitcher who was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1997, had agreed to manage a women’s professional baseball team called the Colorado Silver Bullets, which would tour the U.S. and play against men’s semi-pro, international and collegiate teams. So in 1993, he took to cable to promote a series of tryouts.

A year later, after finishing her senior season at UW, one of Mentink’s coaches mentioned that those same Silver Bullets would be holding a tryout in Everett. Thousands of women across the country would be vying for 24 spots.

“Let’s be clear, I didn’t need a whole lot of motivation to play professional baseball — that was the dream,” she said. “But I was so invested, and softball had been very good to me — it paid my way through college. But when you compare that to growing up with this dream of playing professional baseball, it’s a no-brainer.”

The Silver Bullets were the brainchild of former Atlanta Braves executive Bob Hope, who had witnessed his own daughters face a myriad of challenges with gender discrimination in sports. He successfully enlisted the financial support of the Coors Brewing Company, and on Dec. 10, 1993, the team announced its inaugural 50-game schedule. Forty years after the demise of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, women would be playing the national pastime again.

“I knew I needed to try out, but it was a risk,” said Mentink.

Not just a physical and emotional risk, but a financial risk as well. Mentink had to terminate her lease, pack her suitcase and leave the rest in storage.

“I could have been back after one week, or three weeks, or four weeks, or seven months, looking for a place to live,” she said. “But I packed up all my stuff and went off chasing a dream.”

In the days leading up to that tryout in Everett, Mentink took a crash course in baseball as if she were cramming the night before a test. Pickle and 500 in the backyard were one thing; wood bats and curveballs were another.

“I had seen a curveball in softball, but in baseball it’s almost like a slider — it moves left to right,” she said. “It starts up out of the zone and drops into the zone, or it’s in the zone and drops out of the zone.

“(Former UW baseball player) Christian (Shewey) threw me one of those. I felt like I was reading fastball and it bounced three feet in front of the plate. I nearly fell over trying to swing at it.”

The tryout was brief. Take four ground balls at shortstop — left, right, left, right — and then run from first to second. If you passed that round, only then did you get to take BP. But most players hadn’t seen much live baseball pitching, so the coaches honed in on other qualities.

“We were looking for the best athletes,” the 79-year-old Niekro said in a phone interview last week. “We took the best athletes we could find. The ones who had good arms on ’em, weren’t afraid to catch a ball hit at ’em, had swing fundamentals. They had never seen anyone throw a baseball overhand — no curveballs, no fastballs, no sliders.”

As the pool of women narrowed down, Marzetta’s name remained.

“Right off the bat you could tell she had played the game and been around it a lot,” Silver Bullets assistant coach Johnny Grubb said to the Virginian Pilot and the Ledger Star. “She had pretty good baseball knowledge, especially with hitting. She was one of those girls who came in that we didn’t know much about. But we had her name on our list and her name kept moving up.”

Angie made the team, and at 22 years old, was their third-youngest player. In the weeks leading up to spring training, she received a letter from Hope in an attempt to ensure that all 24 Silver Bullets truly understood the impact they were about to make:

“In the end, some will be happy and some will be disappointed. But all of you will have done something very special.

You will have been BASEBALL PLAYERS so that many who follow you can be baseball players too, so that someday young women may achieve things that just don’t seem possible in today’s world…and that young men won’t think it’s so unusual for women to try to do things in ‘their’ world.

We are proud of what you are doing and the risks you are willing to take.”

This would be an incomparable athletic challenge for every woman on the team. They were the best softball players in the country. They didn’t know how to lose.

“All of a sudden I’m dividing my batting average in half,” Mentink said. “So there’s a frustration where you’re thinking, ‘I’m better than this.’ But at the same time, you have to remind yourself you’ve only been playing baseball for a year. The guys we were facing started seeing a curveball at 13, and then they saw it at 14, then 15, then 16. And all along that curveball is getting better, so we’re just jumping in when the curveball’s really good and we’ve never seen it before.”

The two sports may look similar, but there are significant distinctions. A baseball field is bigger. The distance between the base paths is longer. Baseballs don’t spin like softballs do. That yielded different defensive strategies, different base-running techniques, different focus and release points at the plate.

In short: baseball was a different game.

“Women can compete,” Niekro said in a promotional video in 1994. “I tell you, attitude, heart, desire, guts — they’ve got as much of that as any guy I’ve ever coached. Sure we have some catching up to do, but give these women as much time to learn the game as men have had in this country, and you’re going to see some exceptional baseball players.”

For all of her frustrations, Angie was exceptional. Her first year she led all rookies with a .221 batting average, good for third on the team, including a six-game hitting streak mid-way through the season. Some of her most notable games came at big league ballparks like Kauffman Stadium, where she gunned a runner out at home plate from right field, in Vladimir Guerrero fashion. Or at Jacobs Field, where she went 2-for-3 in front of 25,000 people.

Mentink even played in the Kingdome, against the Puget Sound All-Stars, hours before a Mariners-Yankees game.

“Angie was a great athlete. She had a great swing, a good arm on her,” said Niekro. “She always had a smile on her face. I knew she could take a joke. I nicknamed her ‘Spaghetti,’ because every time I saw her she was talking about wanting to get pasta somewhere.”

Mentink spent two seasons with the Silver Bullets, earning the fandom of major league ballplayers and traveling all over the world — including to Taiwan, where she won MVP in an offseason tournament.

“I think the trophy says ‘MVP,’” she said with a laugh. “I can’t read it. It’s in Mandarin.”

By the time she’d received an invite to return in 1997, Mentink had already zoned in on her next challenge — sports broadcasting — at a Seattle TV station called Prime Sports, now ROOT Sports. It was a bittersweet farewell, but the impact she and her teammates made on women’s sports endures.

“The number of young women and girls playing baseball was jumping exponentially because of the Silver Bullets,” Mentink said. “The more people you get to play, the better it becomes. You get more skilled athletes — bigger, faster, stronger — competing for a small number of spots. When you do that, the level is raised.”

In truth, Mentink’s legacy transcends statistics. She’s helping shift perception of what a woman can become.

“We had a lot of young boys who were fans,” she said. “It’s a really cool thing to have young boys wanting your autograph and idolizing you for playing baseball, in addition to young girls. When I found out I was having a baby boy, I was a little disappointed, because I had always wanted to raise a girl. The world needs more strong women.”

But a friend told her something that sticks with her to this day:

“You are going to raise two boys who are tolerant and are going to seek out strong women. That’s even more rare than a strong woman.”

Tonight, Chase is imitating Danielle Lawrie. Maybe tomorrow, it’ll be Angie Mentink.

Angie Mentink is changing the narrative, one batting practice at a time was originally published in From the Corner of Edgar & Dave on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

By Alex Coffey

Whether you knew him as Bullets, Eddie, Tata, Dad, or Tio Ed, Edward Willi was a special person. He was rough around the edges, but had a heart the size of Manhattan. And speaking of Manhattan, he was also a quintessential New Yorker. So much so, that he brought his transistor radio with him wherever he went, pre-set to the only station that really mattered: WFAN. A loyal Yankee fan dating back to the days of DiMaggio, he was determined to restore peace in the family when I told him I’d switched allegiances to Boston.

Every time the Yankees defeated the Red Sox, I’d receive an envelope in the mail from Redding, Connecticut. No context was needed. Inside, I’d find newspaper cutouts from the game recap, along with post-it notes commenting on what the Sox could’ve done better, how much of a shame it was to see the Red Sox lose in that fashion — you get the idea. At Christmas that year, he gave me a pink Red Sox cap — an olive branch of peace, of sorts. Or maybe a white flag of surrender. Either way, I knew after that, he had accepted the fact that he’d lost me to Boston (things got easier on my end post-2004).

A Dartmouth graduate who spent a stint at Julliard before breaking his hand, Ed was a man of many talents. He was a brilliant musician, had sharp business acumen and wasn’t too bad on the tennis court either. But for all of these accomplishments, his greatest may have been the strength he showed in battling against alcoholism. About a month before he passed, he had celebrated his 45 year anniversary of sobriety — a fact he shared with all of his caretakers at his rehab center. A regular at local AA meetings, Ed didn’t think his past was anything to be ashamed of. Quite the contrary. After getting the help he needed, he was eager to pay the favor forward, always willing to share the lessons he’d learned in his journey.

Which brings me back to yesterday, June 25, 2018. Ed was a fighter, we all knew that. Which was perhaps why we were taken off-guard when he suddenly passed away. But as we reflect on the 85 wonderfully full years he spent on planet Earth, we know his spirit will stay with us. With every trip to Dunkin Donuts, with every match on the tennis court and with every game in the Bronx. And you better believe that if the Yankees win less than 110 this year, he’s going to be griping about it. Rest in peace.

Through 14-year old Drew Jackson, Denard Span sees the impact of his Foundation — and a bit of himself

By Alex Coffey

In Washington, D.C., public schools open by late August. Stuart-Hobson is no exception to this rule. On the morning of August 20th chaos ensues, as once-vacant hallways are flooded with young students — eager to reunite with their classmates, less eager to receive their first homework assignments of the term.

For Drew Jackson, Stuart-Hobson was comfortable. He’d spent the past three years there, quickly establishing himself as a standout two-sport athlete. In the spring, he roamed center field, and in the winter he played point guard. The school gave him a sense of belonging. It gave him his routine.

The jump from middle school to high school is a steep transition for any young person, but for Drew it was especially challenging. He’d recently been accepted to a private school a couple of miles up the Potomac called Riverdale Baptist. It meant new friends to make, different teams to play on and more homework to do.

Classes began on September 5. Sure, that meant more vacation time, but also more time to think — to think about whether this was the right decision for him, to think about whether it would be the right fit.

So he reached out to a friend who knew a thing or two about transitions.

“I connected with Drew when he was 7 or 8; I was playing in D.C. with the Nationals at the time,” said Mariners outfielder Denard Span. “He came to one of my Spans Fans events and told me he played centerfield and came from a single parent household, so I gravitated to him quickly. We started out just talking about baseball, but lately have been talking more about life in general. My son is only 11 months old, but over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been getting text messages from this teenager, and I’m looking over at my wife like, ‘What do I say?’”

Eleven years and five teams later, Denard knew what to say.

“Take it as a challenge. You like to compete, don’t you?”

Writing the text didn’t very take long. The impact? That lasted longer.

“Drew thinks a lot of Denard’s opinion of him — he admires him,” said Drew’s mother, Tracie. “The average kid does not text a Major League Baseball player, and is not friends with them on Instagram. He understands that it’s a true blessing that he can have this relationship with Denard, because there are millions of children who can’t say the same.”

Drew is not average. Neither is Denard. That’s part of what makes their connection so strong. They are both gifted athletes who faced off-field challenges and found the resilience to keep competing. They keep in touch every couple of days. For Drew, he gets a role model. For Denard, he gets to see his foundation’s impact on the ground level.

“I wanted to donate my time and money towards something I had a personal connection to. Growing up in a single parent household was my norm,” said Span. “Obviously I knew I was missing a father figure, but I didn’t realize how detrimental it was because it was what I was used to. The fact that Drew trusts me, and looks up to me, means a lot to me and to him. This has probably been the instance where I’ve felt like I’ve made the biggest impact. It’s been five years and I’m still a part of his life.”

That personal connection has made all the difference. Much like his style of play, Denard’s foundation is pragmatic. What the team needs is what he provides. It focuses on three areas that are seemingly simple but essential: transportation, groceries and scholarships.

“We defined those three components last year, when his wife Annie came aboard,” said Christal Kotchman-Giardina, a representative for the foundation. “Our goal is to create a more sustainable lifestyle for them. Even something as simple as buying groceries for a family can make a difference. It’s a need, it’s a necessity, but it does get overlooked. There are families working hard to make ends meet. And some just need that assurance of ‘Look, we have our groceries covered.’”

A couple months ago, the foundation set the goal of buying a car for a single-parent family. Mariners fans caught wind of it. What seemed lofty at first became realistic within hours as donations came pouring in. Two days later, they had reached 60% of their goal. Within weeks, they’d bought the car.

“The summer fundraiser definitely made a huge impact. We created this campaign surrounding Denard’s 10th full season in baseball. We wanted to raise $10,000 to help give away a car, but Denard had just gotten traded and you never know how a new community is going to embrace you,” said Kotchman-Giardina. “Mariners blog Lookout Landing picked it up, and their publicity helped us tremendously. Seeing people in Seattle jump on board and support us was really humbling. It was a record campaign for our foundation.”

The role of journeyman doesn’t induce negative connotations for Denard. Each city provides a new opportunity to make an impact on his community, to meet more single-parent families.

“My foundation definitely motivates me,” he said. “I want to keep this platform; I want to see it grow. Getting traded has helped because I’ve been able to come into different cities and make an impact. Take Seattle, for example. I had just gotten here and Lookout Landing found out about us and immediately got on board, which we weren’t expecting. Stuff like that has been so motivating and encouraging for me to keep doing what I’m doing.”

Denard’s plan for 2019 has yet to be determined. But no matter where he ends up, there will be more Drews waiting at the ballpark — more families who just need the assurance that their groceries are covered.

“I’ve worked for other foundations over the years, and sometimes marketing companies take over and run with it,” said Kotchman-Giardina. “But here, everything is approved that goes out, so it truly represents their core beliefs. I’ve never worked with a foundation that is as family operated as this one is. It’s authentic. What you see is real.”

Through 14-year old Drew Jackson, Denard Span sees the impact of his Foundation — and a bit of… was originally published in From the Corner of Edgar & Dave on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

By Alex Coffey

When the Seattle Mariners, the Public Facilities District and architecture firm NBBJ met in late 1996, they had some important decisions to make. A funding package had recently been approved for a new facility to be built south of the Kingdome. But referring to Safeco Field as a “facility” seemed to be counterintuitive. Facilities are cold and unfamiliar — two things the ballpark at the intersection of Edgar and Dave was never meant to be.

From the start, the Mariners intended for Safeco Field to be more than a place to play games. They wanted it to be a destination that would become a baseball mecca for generations of families to come. What Wrigley is to Chicago, and what Fenway is to Boston, is what Safeco Field would be to Seattle.

Iconic ballparks are iconic because of their features. Wrigley has its ivy, and Fenway has its Monster. So what would Safeco Field have?

To answer that question, the Mariners went to David Eskenazi.

“Someone asked me for a quintessential Seattle baseball image to put on the stanchions,” Eskenazi recalled. “I immediately thought of a photograph of 18-year-old Fred Hutchinson, mid wind-up, while playing for the Seattle Rainiers. I told them it would be my number one choice.”

And that was the choice the team went with. To this day, Eskenazi’s image of Hutchinson graces the end of every northwest green row in Safeco Field, a proper ode to a Seattle sports icon. More than 20 years later, Eskenazi will receive an ode of his own, when he is recognized as the Mariners’ Fan of the Year this Friday. As the team’s go-to consultant on all things Seattle baseball history for more than two decades, the award was a long time coming.

“When I met Dave in the early 1990s, he was touted as an unmatched historian of Seattle baseball,” said Kevin Martinez, the Mariners SVP of Marketing and Communications. “We were looking to do a Turn Back the Clock game in 1993, and wanted to do a tribute to the Seattle Rainiers. In talking to people in the baseball community, they said ‘You have to talk to Dave Eskenazi.’”

A man whose life had been deeply intertwined with Seattle baseball long before the Mariners played their first game in the Kingdome, Eskenazi found the collaboration to be as natural as a ferry crossing Puget Sound.

“I’m a native, and have always been immersed in all things Seattle,” Eskenazi explained. “I used to go to Seattle Angels games, Seattle Pilots games. My grandfather was a big fan of the Pacific Coast League of the 20s, 30s and 40s, and owned a shoe repair shop (Eclipse Shoe Repair) on 7th and Union. He became friendly with a lot of the Seattle Rainiers players, because the players’ hotel was right across the street from his shop. That was how he developed relationships with guys like Fred Hutchinson and Eddie Taylor.”

For the uninitiated, Fred Hutchinson was essentially Seattle baseball royalty. He was scooped up by the Seattle Rainiers out of Franklin High School in 1938, pitched for the team for one year (going 25–7 to compliment a sparkling 2.48 ERA), and was purchased by the Detroit Tigers at the green age of 19. He spent ten seasons in the Motor City (missing four to military service), posting a 3.73 ERA for his career.

But what really solidified Hutchinson in Seattle baseball lore was what he did after his playing days were over.

“He essentially did the unthinkable,” Eskenazi said. “The Tigers tried to renew his managerial contract in 1955 for only a year, and he chose to return to Seattle to manage his hometown team (the Rainiers), who had finished fifth under Jerry Priddy the year before. They cobbled together a group of former MLB notables, like Vern Stephens and Lou Kretlow, and won the pennant.”

It would be Seattle’s second to last Pacific Coast League title, as the Angels went on to defeat the Tulsa Oilers in 1966. To this day, 1955 still seems to carry more weight, not only as a heartwarming underdog story, but one involving a hometown hero. If the Mariners were going to do a throwback night, Fred Hutchinson’s moment in the sun would be the place to start.

“They put me in charge of getting together all of the old players,” Eskenazi recalled. “We almost had the whole 1939 Rainiers pitching staff at the event. Paul Gregory came all the way from Mississippi. Hal Turpin, who lived in Oregon on a farm, was notorious for showing up at spring training, winning 20 games every year, and heading back to his farm without saying a word. He showed up, and got a standing ovation. Artie Wilson, the last black player to hit .400 in the Negro Leagues and the first black player on the Rainiers, sprinted out of the dugout.”

The Mariners won the game 6–3, Dan Wilson hit his first big league home run — in a Rainiers uniform — and a team tradition was set in stone. Seattle had found its historical resource.

“He gave us photos and information that we then used to create a scorecard that harkened back to the ones they used in Sicks Stadium,” said Martinez. “We sold them for a quarter or something like that. In getting to know him through that event, and seeing how passionate he was about the game of baseball, we kept him right by our side through the years. When we started moving into Safeco Field, he was really instrumental. Through Dave’s photo collection, we were able to basically decorate the ballpark.”

Martinez’s assessment is no exaggeration. Eskenazi’s collection can literally be seen all over Safeco; it just might not be blatantly apparent at first. Along Dave Niehaus Way, there are trees planted every couple of feet leading up to the statue of Ken Griffey Jr. The big metal grates surrounding those trees feature an image of a ballplayer, crouching down, waiting to field a play.

“That’s modeled from a 1907 Seattle Siwashes program cover,” Eskenazi answered instantaneously. “They just changed it from ‘1907’ to ‘1999,’ to commemorate when the ballpark opened.”

Grates and stanchions only scratch the surface. David helped the Mariners create their Hall of Fame, suggesting thematic ideas and loaning newspaper clippings, scorebooks, and artifacts ranging back to the 1880s. Above various concession stands, you can see tickets stubs, dating back to a time when it only cost $3.50 to get into Sicks Stadium, and souvenir buttons that refer to the Rainiers “Knothole Gang.”

Details like these might seem small, but they give Safeco Field its character. They are a subtle reminder of a Pacific Northwest baseball tradition, one that continues to this day.

“I remember hearing a lot of my grandfather’s old stories about the Seattle Rainiers,” Eskenazi said. “That was embedded in me early on, and was invigorated when the Seattle Mariners came to town. They have always recognized and wanted to pay tribute to our 125-year plus professional regional baseball history, even though it’s not major league baseball history. It’s not lip service. They really want to devote positive energy to it, and the sense of community that it builds and fosters.”

As the Mariners and Eskenazi continue their partnership, they build on a twenty-year foundation dedicated to honoring the past. If you have any doubts, look no further than the 18-year old pitcher who appears at the end of every row.

Originally published at marinersblog.mlblogs.com on September 28, 2018.