BUTTERFIELD’S SUPER EXCITED
Red Sox third base coach connects with, admires team
Red Sox third base coach
Brian Butterfield has had four knee operations in as many offseasons, so a trip to Houston for Super Bowl LI next Sunday is out. He’s just hoping to be at spring training on time, and he expects to be.
Butterfield will be at home in Maine next Sunday night in his self-proclaimed man cave, with five or six others “that will get here well before kickoff,” he said.
Butterfield, 59, swears he never misses a Patriots down. He has a DVR now so that he can make sure he catches all of Bill Belichick’s press conferences, too.
With grandchildren in his home, he can’t always see the interviews live.
“As a professional coach, I felt like I’ve learned so much from the way Coach Belichick and their coaching staff operate,” Butterfield said. “If he’s doing a scrum or he’s doing a press conference or there’s anything on him or any of his coaches, all activity stops in the living room.”
Butterfield is truly an insider to the world of sports. He’s avuncular, detail-oriented and a maestro with baseball infielders.
But there’s no exorcising the fandom for football from the son of the late
Jack Butterfield, who was the football coach at the University of Maine and later an executive with the Yankees.
What you’re thinking about this Super Bowl, what the Patriots are surely thinking but won’t admit to, Brian Butterfield is thinking as well.
“I think everybody in this region has a little extra giddy-up, because we felt like we were robbed,” Butterfield said, referring to
Tom Brady’s suspension. “I think all of us took it very personally.”
Talking about the Pats, Butterfield — or “Butter,” as he goes by — comes across as any other diehard fan. Exuberant, and admirably so.
The difference is Butterfield’s own work has afforded him the chance to befriend Bill Parcells, to meet Belichick, to go behind the scenes. To text and chat with Patriots wide receiver Julian Edelman, who has come out to Fenway Park.
“He’s just unbelievable,” Butterfield said of Edelman. “He’s the toughest player in the league. . . . He’s able to take batting practice with us and do some things. Very good athlete, too, and a really neat, neat kid. He’s still a kid — he’s only 30. And just fantastic.”
A quarter century ago, Butterfield was a minor league coach in the Yankees system. He and another coach — current Yankees bench coach Rob
Thomson — made a detour after a long trip back to Albany, their home base, to watch Parcells run a Patriots practice.
A call had to be made ahead of time because practice was closed, and Parcells welcomed the duo.
Fast forward to this summer, Butterfield went to watch Patriots OTAs on a Sox off day. He and his eldest son marveled at the precision of the drills, and the omniscience of Belichick.
“I don’t know Bill Belichick as well as Coach Parcells,” Butterfield said. “Even though I don’t know him well, he’s been a prominent figure in my life. People will laugh at that. But you watch, I think all of us can learn so much from the people that do it the best, and I think that they are the benchmark for all of the organizations in all of sports. Now, I might be a little bit partisan because I’m such a huge fan.
“We kind of keep our eyes peeled on Belichick all the time (at OTAs) because he’s going from different stations and he doesn’t miss a trick. He can almost have his back turned on one drill, but see something that may be a little amiss on the field right behind him. And I don’t know how many times my son has gone, ‘How did he see that?’
“It’s a great education. And it was funny, because I was listening to (Celtics coach) Brad Stevens talk about Coach Belichick. ... He said, ‘Coach Belichick is so good, he has a tendency, he can make you feel very inadequate.’ And that’s the truth.”
Of course, there is crossover between baseball and football beyond the most obvious elements.
In defensive positioning in baseball, inches matter. If your toe’s supposed to be on the line, don’t be two inches away.
“The teams that pay attention to detail and are precise and practice fast are probably some of the more successful teams in our great league,” Butterfield said. “I always tell the guys that are here (watching the Pats in the man cave) every game: ‘Don’t take this for granted. Don’t takes this for granted.’ Because this is unbelievable the way these guys coach it, and the way we see it played.”
Butter is a notoriously early arrival at the ballpark, prepping for the day’s opponent. If he could somehow fit it in, he’d stop into Patriots practice when the Sox are home.
“I was actually looking during the season for housing over near Foxboro so I could go to morning practices, then go over to Fenway,” Butterfield said. “But I thought that might be a little bit too extreme.”
What would a diehard be if not a little extreme? Kimbrel on attack?
He still pitched very well, really as one of the best in the majors. He just wasn’t consistent, and didn’t quite live up to the big name, to the total dominance that one expected when the Red Sox went out and got him last winter.
We could be talking about starter David Price, but we’re actually discussing closer Craig Kimbrel.
Kimbrel struck out a whopping 14.1 batters per nine innings last season, his highest mark since a mind-blowing 16.7 pernine mark in 2012 with the Braves.
But the 2016 season also saw Kimbrel post the highest ERA of his career, at 3.40, and his highest walk rate in a full season, at 5.1 per nine innings.
“I think at times I threw the ball really well and other times I was kicking myself,” Kimbrel said recently. “I’ve already had talks with people I talk to about baseball stuff about things that I need to work out. I think overall I might’ve had a good year, but personally, I think last year was a down year for me. Just try to figure out some of those kinks, some struggles I went through at times last year, and just figure those out and try to get them worked out for next year.”
Spring training will be a time to watch the pitcher closely, then. It’s not as if Kimbrel’s been throwing off a mound all winter and had time to put his plan into action.
“Just really attacking guys a little bit more, throwing more strikes,” Kimbrel said. “That’s really been my story since I was 12 years old — throw strikes.”
The other interesting thing Kimbrel said happened to him in 2016?
“In the times I got in trouble, I wasn’t really trusting my abilities,” Kimbrel said. “I was going out there trying to do too much. It’s mostly just relaxing and pitching and whatever happens happens and try not to do too much.”