Seager embraces veteran tutor
Young star sees veteran Utley as a role model
They are 15 years apart. Grew up on opposite coasts. Play on different sides of the infield. And are on flip sides of their baseball careers.
The second baseman, Chase Utley, is 37, has gray hair, is married with kids, has 14 years of major league service and has a 2008 World Series ring stuffed in a drawer back home.
The shortstop, Corey Seager, is 22, has a full set of dark hair, is single, has played six months in the big leagues and has a gold medal at his parents’ home.
You study them in the Los Angeles Dodgers clubhouse, watch how they prepare and see how they interact with teammates and their on-field comportment, and you swear you’re looking at the same guy.
“Well, I do think he smiles more than I ever did,” Utley says.
They never even met each other until nearly a year ago to the day, but here they are getting to the clubhouse nearly at the same time each day — usually no later than 1 p.m. for a night game. They have the same workout and recovery routines. They play catch together before day games. They even share many of the same silly superstitions but don’t want to divulge them, except for the practice of jumping from the hot tub to the cold tub before games.
And they talk about hair, with Seager finally persuading Utley to dye his on a road trip this season, one of the zaniest propositions of the year.
“There’s the age difference obviously,” Dodgers veteran reliever J.P. Howell says, “but they are so much alike. They have the same personality. They are blue-collar with talent, super humble, super straight-up, with no flash.
“Chase is an inspiration for all of the young guys on how to play this game, with his work ethic and energy, and Seager is a smart man for copying it.”
Says third baseman Justin Turner, “They are so similar it’s scary.”
With Utley’s stellar career nearing an end and Seager’s burgeoning stardom just beginning as he aims for a certain National League rookie of the year honor and a possible MVP award, they are chasing the same dream: riding in the World Series parade.
Utley, who grew up in Long
Beach and went to UCLA, hopes to win a title for his favorite team growing up, and Seager seeks his first since he led Team USA to a gold medal in the Pan American Games when he was 16.
“Chase talks about it all of the time,” Seager tells USA TODAY Sports. “He said that when he was with Philly, the only spot that could be better would be L.A. That would definitely be meaningful for him, winning it for his hometown team.
“And really, if we were to win it, it would be because of Chase.”
Seager is becoming the Dodgers’ biggest star outside of ace Clayton Kershaw, vying to become the third player in history to win an MVP and rookie of the year award in the same season, but no one reflects the Dodgers more than Utley.
“He’s my most favorite player I’ve ever been around,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts says. “To have Chase Utley at the center of it and to have the players look to him on how to play the game, and now you look at who the torch is going to be passed to.
“For (Seager) to see firsthand how the game is supposed to be played and the person that everyone respects, the culture is going to continue to sustain itself.”
Utley, a six-time All-Star with the fifth-highest slugging percentage of any second baseman in baseball history, never met Seager until he was called up to the big leagues in September. Utley was aware of his brother, third baseman Kyle Seager of the Seattle Mariners. He had heard the hype after being traded to the Dodgers two weeks before Seager’s arrival.
Now, one year later, Utley can’t help but wonder how in the world Seager acts as if he’s a 20-year veteran instead of a kid who could be entering his senior year in college.
“It’s pretty unbelievable the way he carries himself,” Utley says, “with such a lack of experience at this level. He’s really impressed me, just the way he’s handled everything, with all of the things thrown at him.
“He’s got a very smart baseball mind. He’s got a slow heartbeat. And he understands what makes him click.
“And, oh yeah, he can do anything on the baseball field.”
Seager is having a historic rookie season, entering Wednesday with a .320 average and 23 home runs, most by a shortstop in Dodgers history. He was tied for second in the league lead in hits and doubles, and, according to STATS, could become the first rookie to lead the NL in those categories since 1876.
Yet the proudest Utley felt of Seager this season came courtesy of his hustle in the eighth inning of a scoreless game Sunday against the Chicago Cubs. The bases were loaded, with Seager on first base. Adrian Gonzalez hit a routine grounder to third baseman Javier Baez, who casually flipped the ball to second baseman Ben Zobrist, hoping to end the inning. But Seager raced quickly to second base, beating the throw, and the Dodgers had a 1-0 victory.
“I knew Chase was proud,” Seager says. “He didn’t have to say anything. He just came up, gave me some knuckles, and I knew exactly what it meant. That’s all he had to do, and you know you did something right.
“It was just one of those things where you see Chase run hard every time, and it just rubs off on us. You don’t take anything for granted. You don’t slow down on a play. You break up a double play. You do everything you can as a team to win.”
Utley, who runs out every ground ball as if it’s his final at-bat in the big leagues and hasn’t hit into a double play this season, says, “It shows you what hustle and that kind of commitment can do to help you win a baseball game.”
The last time Utley showed emotion on the field was three weeks ago in his return to Philadelphia, with Phillies fans demanding curtain calls after each of his two homers.
“I still get goose bumps thinking about it,” Seager says. “It was unbelievable.”
Utley’s value as baseball’s oldest leadoff hitter can hardly be defined by his stats: .257, 11 homers and 43 RBI entering Wednesday’s doubleheader at Coors Field. His presence resurrects memories of Kirk Gibson’s influence in 1988, the last time the Dodgers won the World Series, with 9-year-old Utley watching Game 2 from the stands.
The Dodgers still speak in reverence of how Utley conducted himself when the Dodgers went to Citi Field in May to play the New York Mets. It was the first trip to New York since the 2015 NL Division Series, when Utley broke Mets shortstop Ruben Tejada’s leg trying to break up a double play.
Utley, who received death threats during the winter, was viciously booed when he walked to the plate in the third inning of the second game of the series. On the first pitch, Mets starter Noah Syndergaard threw a 99-mph fastball behind his back. Utley bent over slightly, but his facial expression never changed. Syndergaard and manager Terry Collins were ejected.
Utley responded by hitting two home runs in the game, including a grand slam in the seventh inning. Still, his expression never changed.
“It was unbelievable the way he handled that,” Turner says. “He was just so cool and calm. It just adds to the legend.
“I mean, if you’re not aspiring to be Chase Utley, you’ve got the wrong idea.”
It would have been easy for Utley to show up the Mets with a bat flip or two with his homers, but that’s not him. He says he understood the Mets’ reaction. He didn’t even mind Syndergaard intentionally throwing at him. It’s old school baseball. He loves it.
“The main goal is to win a baseball game,” Utley says, “so to overreact in a situation like that, to put your team in a situation where they necessarily aren’t going to have a chance to win, that’s not fair to my teammates.
“So that’s what was most important to me.”
And, yes, Seager was watching, knowing there will be times in his career when he’ll be intentionally hit by a pitch just for hitting home runs.
“I’ve learned so much from watching him,” says Seager, who had his parents meet Utley for the first time recently at former Dodgers great Don Newcombe’s birthday party. “You don’t want to say it’s all business, but it is. You’ve got to play the game. You’ve got to play the game hard and play the game the right way.
“It’s something I’ve always done, but I’ve picked up so more just watching him do it. He’s meant so much to me.”
The way Utley sees it, it’s his responsibility to pass on the knowledge. Pat Burrell was his mentor in Philadelphia.
Thirteen years later, he’s the mentor and Seager is the student, which is what Dodgers President Andrew Friedman envisioned when he acquired Utley last September and brought him back on a one-year contract this season, even after he hit .202 with the Dodgers.
“He did a lot to help our team win games,” Friedman says, “and not all of it showed up on the back of a baseball card. It’s the grit and what he added in the clubhouse, and we placed a great deal of value to that.
“Now to have all of our young guys around him and the influence that Chase has had on Corey, this being his first full season, you can’t measure that. I’m sure there are things that Corey has picked up from Chase that will last him throughout his career.”
Utley, married with boys who will soon turn 5 and 2, says retirement time is drawing near. But it’s not now. He wants to play next year, and maybe in 2018, too.
And when he’s done playing, Friedman says, Utley will have a job waiting for him.
“He’s always been a player I’ve admired from afar on and off the field,” says Friedman, general manager of the Tampa Bay Rays when they lost to Utley’s Phillies in the World Series, “but what he’s done for us has probably even exceeded my expectations.”
Then again, so has Seager, who is having perhaps the greatest season by a shortstop in Dodgers history, all with the ego of the team batboy.
“In this day and age, there’s so much self-promotion,” Roberts says. “But to see a player like that, with that talent, where all he wants to make it about is the game, is special. It’s not about the adoration, the accolades. He just wants to help his baseball team win games.
“For a guy like Corey to be the center of our club, I know we’ll be in a good situation.”
And there will be a certain teammate who one day will look back, watch Seager evolve into one of the game’s biggest stars and know that perhaps he had a little something to do with his success.
“He’s going to be fun to watch for a long, long time,” Utley says. “He just has amazing talent.
“This guy is meant to play Major League Baseball.”