USA TODAY International Edition
Hosmer looks to replicate past success
PEORIA, Ariz. – It’s quiet on this afternoon at the San Diego Padres complex, with just a dozen fans lingering as Eric Hosmer shags balls in the outfield, picks them up, carries a bucket to the pitcher’s mound and then takes batting practice.
Carrying buckets of balls might seem to be a simple gesture, one that Hosmer has done thousands of times, but when you’ve just signed the richest contract in franchise history — $144 million over eight years — isn’t money supposed to buy privileges?
Hosmer has little interest in the baseball benefits afforded its rich. You walk into the Padres clubhouse, and his locker is tucked smack in the middle of a row. There’s non-roster pitcher Jonathan Aro to his left, outfielder Jose Pirela to his right and no spare locker on either side that’s usually provided the team’s star.
This day he even volunteered to be in the last hitting group just to accommodate his teammates who had tee times. When the batting practice ended and his teammates scampered to the clubhouse, Hosmer was the last man to walk off the field, plopping down in the dugout.
Hosmer, now sporting a more conservative version of the modified mohawk replicated by hundreds of Kansas City’s youth, covered plenty of ground in a 30minute chat, from his love of his old city, honoring a fallen teammate, the odd free agent market and his new league, surroundings and role — that of franchise catalyst.
He doesn’t know everybody’s names yet, let alone where he might be living, but he’s a Padre now. They agreed to pay him $105 million for the first five years of his contract, providing an opt-out clause after 2022. The Royals also offered the highest contract in franchise history, but their contract proposal was backloaded and didn’t include an opt-out.
“I went into the process open-minded, and honestly I was open to going back to Kansas City,” Hosmer tells USA TODAY, “and try to continue what we built over there. I thought there was a good chance of going back. It would have been my dream to be the guy to wear the one jersey my whole career. I thought it would be nice because of what we started over there, the legacy we had. It just didn’t happen the way I thought it would.
“I’m not going to sit here and plead my case now, but it was just too much for me to leave here on the table and too good of an opportunity not to go this way. I loved everything about Kansas City — my time there, the fans, the passion and energy they brought.
“I’ll say thank you to all of those people, but I’ve got to move on to a new chapter in San Diego and hopefully be part of something just as special as we had in Kansas City.”
Hosmer and a young group of prospects turned a struggling franchise into a baseball hotbed again, winning back-to-back American League pennants and the 2015 World Series. He was the cornerstone, the Royals’ most popular player since George Brett and meaning so much more to the franchise than the numbers he put up on the field.
The Padres, and owners Ron Fowler and Peter Seidler, who met Hosmer during a December recruiting trip, fell in love with him right away too. They needed someone to lead their young team, a face to which their fan base could grow attached. They needed charm, charisma and a damn good ballplayer to restore the image of a franchise that hasn’t had a winning season in eight years, with a 12year playoff drought.
“They’re getting a winner,” Royals manager Ned Yost said. “I have seen very few players like him that are complete personality-wise, maturity-wise and leadership-wise. He has everything you want.”
Now he belongs to the Padres, for whom he will wear the uniform number 30 of Yordano Ventura, a Royals teammate who was killed in a car crash in January 2017, and bring along a proud piece of Kansas City jewelry.
Yes, that 2015 World Series ring. “A couple of guys have been asking me about it,” Hosmer says.
“I have no problems showing it off. Guys like to joke when you bring up the past, saying turn the page on it, but that’s one of the things I’m going to stress here.
“It’s something you don’t turn the page on. You really don’t. When you win a world championship and you have a parade of almost a million people and you see what it does for the city and you see the people it touches, you realize what it means.
“So there’s no shying away from it. I’m going to be talking about it all of the time. I want to stress how special winning can be to those guys. I want to open their eyes to it.”
Hosmer might have his money now and didn’t flinch when he bought thirdbase coach Glenn Hoffman a Rolex watch in appreciation for giving up his uniform number, but he wouldn’t have come to San Diego if he didn’t believe the Padres were committed to winning. He met with Padres general manager A.J. Preller and manager Andy Green. He listened to them gush about their talented farm system. He walked away believing in their direction.
He can’t wait for the day he treats Padres fans to a Gaslamp District party, celebrating their return to the postseason, just as he did in Kansas City when he dropped $15,000 for the bar bill when they clinched the 2014 playoff berth and invited every fan to join them.