With Trump behind him, Buchholz back to old ways
PHOENIX – Clay Buchholz, talking quietly in the Diamondbacks clubhouse about his friend, slowly raises his index finger to his mouth and in a soft whisper says, “Shhh!”
“I don’t want to say that too loudly around here,” he says, breaking into a sly grin. “Gotta be a little careful these days.”
Buchholz, who missed nearly the entire 2017 season and is now helping lead Arizona atop the National League West, happens to have a special friend in an awfully powerful place.
A friend he hopes to introduce one day to all of his teammates. Who just so happens to be the most powerful man in the world. Perhaps the most polarizing, too.
He is Donald Trump, the president of the United States.
“I know he’s not the most popular guy,” Buchholz tells USA TODAY, “but I really like him. I don’t get into politics and stay away from the social media, but I will say that everything he said he was going to do for this country, he’s done. I stand by him. He’s my friend.”
Besides, he says, how can he not support the man he’ll be indebted to for the rest of his life.
It was 10 years ago when Buchholz and about a dozen of his Red Sox teammates and friends went to a UFC Fight in Anaheim, Calif. They went to an after-hours party as guests of Trump, who knew they played for Boston.
“I remember him saying, ‘OK, who’s single here and who’s married?” Buchholz said. “I told him I was single. That’s when he introduced me.”
He met Lindsay Clubine, a model on the show Deal or No Deal, who was helping host Trump’s Affliction: Banned event. They talked most of the night, were married a year later and today have two daughters (7-year-old Colbi and 4-yearold Landri), a 15-month-old son (Jax) and a beautiful life together, living in Austin during the winter, down the road from ex-teammate John Lackey.
“If not for the president,” Buchholz says, “none of this possible. He’ll always be a good friend. I’m able to tell my kids that the president of the United States introduced their mom and dad. Pretty special.”
Buchholz, who was married Nov. 14, 2009, at Trump National Golf Club in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., says Trump was unable to attend but footed a significant bulk of the tab. They have remained friends, visiting in New York, talking baseball, the Yankee-Red Sox rivalry and Yankees icon Derek Jeter.
“He’s a big Yankee fan, so he wasn’t big on the Red Sox,” Buchholz says, “but he also knew that Derek Jeter was my favorite player. That was kind of the bridge that got us together. We had something in common right there.”
It has been two years since they last saw each other, before Trump took office, and Buchholz can’t help but wonder if he knows that he’s even pitching again in the big leagues, 1-1 with a 3.21 ERA, yielding two or fewer runs in four of his five starts.
“He’s a pretty busy man these days,” says Buchholz, who followed the news of Trump’s summit meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. “I haven’t talked to him for a while, letting him do his thing. Besides, I think he’s got more things to worry about than how I’m doing.”
Well, the rest of the NL sure is paying attention. Buchholz is on a roll he hasn’t seen since his Red Sox days, back before his shoulder and arm started aching, and before the April 18,
2017, surgery to replace a torn flexor tendon with the Phillies.
Buchholz, 33, a two-time All-Star who made four postseason starts in the Red Sox’s
2013 World Series run, doesn’t throw as hard as he once did — his fastball declining from 95 mph to about 90-91 mph — but yet the D’backs believe he’s a smarter, more refined pitcher than his Red Sox days.
Buchholz, who didn’t have a job until signing a minor league contract the last week of spring training with the Royals and opting out May 1 to join Arizona on a one-year, $1.6 million contract, has been a lifesaver to a rotation that lost Taijuan Walker for the year and Robbie Ray (oblique strain) in April.
Who knows how far this shot will go.
“It would be a dream come true to win the World Series, get invited to the White House and show off that trophy,” Buchholz says. “Believe me, I’d be there. Could it get any better than that?”