Long way to go for new Big Guy
TAMPA — My favorite was July 29, 1995. David Cone, a day after being acquired by the Yankees from the Blue Jays, reached the Metrodome about two hours before actually having to start against the Twins. He entered an empty clubhouse with his new teammates on the field for batting practice. Before even putting on a Yankees uniform for the first time, Cone — ignoring blather that starters not talk to the media on the day they pitch — put on a master class in how to handle arriving as the Big Guy with this franchise. Cone called himself a “hired gun” and a “mercenary.” The Yankees had not been to the playoffs in 14 years and obtained the defending AL Cy Young winner to end that. No sense in running from the responsibility. What made it my favorite was not just all of that, but that Cone chatted with reporters for at least 15 minutes, undeterred that his new manager, Buck Showalter, was pacing outside the room and occasionally poking his head in to, you know, try to meet his new ace. Oh yeah, Cone then went out and threw eight terrific innings to beat the Twins. To be around the Yankees for the past three decades covering the beat or as a columnist has meant watching a procession of Big Guys arrive. It is a perk of the job — at some point many of the largest stars in the game land with the Yankees. It is like hosting “Saturday Night Live,” most of the Big Guys (and Gals) eventually do it. The first steps as the Big Guy aren’t always revelatory, but often there are clues about what is to come in pinstripes: Cone regaling reporters unfazed by his manager’s pacing and a game approaching, or Randy Johnson getting into an altercation with a cameraman on a New York street or Alex Rodriguez, fake smile in place, trying to pretend that all was well with Derek Jeter, not even playing along with a fake smile. Giancarlo Stanton joins a procession that has included Hideki Irabu, Jose Contreras, Roger Clemens, CC Sabathia and Masahiro Tanaka. Stanton, in the home clubhouse at Steinbrenner Field for the first time, admitted Friday to being “out of my comfort zone,” yet insisting that was terrific, that after a decade in non-contending isolation in Miami, he hungers for the magnitude of personal and team expectations now thrust upon him. “It’s new, it’s exciting,” said the new Big Guy. Being the Big Guy often is about large salary, dogged pursuit by multiple teams and outsized reputation. You might, for example, have thought, “Hideki Irabu?” but when the Yankees obtained him he was the “Nolan Ryan of Japan.”
The Big Guy comes into a starry cast, yet at least that introductory season is about him. Mainly because the Big Guy is viewed as the missing piece to a championship.
When the Yankees enlist a Jason Giambi or Hideki Matsui, it is with headlines today, parades tomorrow in mind. Those that handled it best instantly were Cone and Matsui, perhaps because Cone had already played with the over-the-top Mets of the late-1980s and Matsui was the biggest star in a baseball-crazed country. But I think they also embraced the weight — that they would be the face of success or failure, fair or not.
“A lot of players are afraid to come here. I feel just the opposite. I like the opportunity.” Those weren’t just words for Cone. He was accountable, accessible, good times, horrible times. That season ended with the Yankees blowing a twogames-to-none lead versus the Mariners in the Division Series. Cone, who toiled gallantly in the clincher (147 pitches on mostly fumes), personalized a loss that was the greater fault of so many others.
The 2004 ALCS collapse against the Red Sox had many co-conspirators. But at the end of his first year, the bull’s-eye was on A-Rod, who rejected the responsibility.
Now, Stanton joins a team that was one win from a pennant. If the Yankees don’t take the next step, the Big Guy can expect to be the target — again, fair or not.
Stanton did not have Cone’s degree of difficulty entering a Yankees clubhouse for the first time. But he got a dose of his new life, encircled at his locker by reporters on Feb. 16.
“He’s never seen a tenth of this media before,” said Wade LeBlanc, with the Yankees as a non-roster invitee and Stanton’s Marlins teammate in 2012-13.
Like with his introductory press conference in December and the baseball writers’ awards dinner in January, the new Big Guy never went Big Unit. He was poised, pleasant and genuinely appeared elated to be a star amid a championship contender. Of course, he has not gone 0-for-12 with nine strikeouts in a Red Sox series yet.
“I think he is welcoming the expectations and the largeness he is walking into,” manager Aaron Boone said.
Stanton has navigated the baby steps of being the Big Guy well. There are miles to go.