For S.F. rookie, Mom knew best
Kim Drummond learned lots about hitting, taught future infielder the game
“This is like a dream. Surreal is a word we throw out there a lot. It’s really hard to describe.” Kim Drummond, mother of Giants rookie infielder Christian Arroyo, on her son’s first week in the major leagues
What’s a mom to do when her young son is Christian Arroyo and wants to learn the finer points of hitting a baseball? Send him to a camp? Rely on Little League coaches? Let him figure it out on his own? Here’s another idea: Pick up a copy of the book “The Science of Hitting” by Hall of Famer Ted Williams and teach the kid herself. Who does that? “My mom does,” Arroyo said. “Super Mom.” Arroyo’s first week in the big leagues was unforgettable for the infielder, the Giants, their fans and especially the person who taught little Christian how to swing a bat.
The Giants called up Arroyo on Monday. Kim Drummond missed that night’s game, then attended her son’s next five big-league games before returning home to Florida on Sunday. It was a journey of a lifetime, the culmination of count-
less hours of tutoring Christian, pitching to him, driving him to practices and games and supporting him throughout his climb through the ranks.
“She meant everything,” said Arroyo, who got his first big-league hit off Clayton Kershaw and has smacked two home runs, including Friday night’s game-winner in the eighth inning.
“She was the one who taught me how to hit. She’s the one who taught me how to play the game. She’s the one who introduced me to the game. She was there every step of the way.”
Drummond smiled when hearing her son’s “meant everything” comment. She made a point to say Christian had super coaches throughout his childhood — “they were like family” — and that he took to the game naturally and inevitably wanted to learn more.
So she read Williams’ book, a Cal Ripken instructional book and other how-to-hit periodicals, watched videos and attended clinics — anything to pass along tips to a special kid.
“We did a lot of studying,” Drummond said in an on-field interview at AT&T Park on Saturday as she watched her son take batting practice. “He always had a natural ability to hit.”
Arroyo, 21, had six hits and four RBIs in his first week, getting five starts at third base and two at shortstop while hitting mostly fifth in the lineup.
Now come his first road games. The Giants are at Dodger Stadium the next three nights and then play in Cincinnati and New York.
“This is like a dream,” Drummond said of the whirlwind week. “Surreal is a word we throw out there a lot. It’s really hard to describe.”
Take Friday night. After he homered to beat the Padres, Arroyo and his clan went to Mel’s Diner in Union Square. The waiter recognized him and got wide-eyed, as did others nearby.
Suddenly, the place was abuzz. There were congratulations and pictures and autographs. Despite Arroyo’s status as an elite prospect and the promising start to his big-league career, Drummond still is amazed by all the attention.
“To me,” she said, “Christian is just my little boy.”
To the Giants, he’s far more. They were 6-13 after four straight losses, their worst 19-game start since 1983, when they promoted Arroyo from Triple-A Sacramento, where he was hitting .446 with three homers and 12 RBIs in 16 games.
A jolt of energy was needed, and Arroyo brought it. Two days later, Michael Morse arrived from Sacramento with a power bat and spirited vibe. In Arroyo’s first seven games, the Giants, still having issues scoring runs, went 3-4.
“I understood I was coming up here for a reason,” Arroyo said. “I tried not to get caught up with the whole shock and awe of being here. Just play good baseball and help the team win.”
Arroyo was 2 years old when his father, Israel Arroyo, and mother separated. She was a single mom for 10 years. In that time, Christian fell in love with baseball.
He started playing at 4 and did a bunch of sports like other kids. But in junior high, he told his mother, a well-rounded athlete in high school, that baseball would be his focus. She committed herself to his dream.
Along the way, she married Ken Drummond. The couple has an 8-yearold daughter, Olivia.
“When I was 8 months pregnant with her,” Kim said, “I was out on the field practicing with Christian. He likes to tell that story.”
One drill she had Christian do was pushing his right foot against the bottom of a fence and taking swings, compact and short enough so his bat wouldn’t hit the fence.
When his swing would become long in games, his mother would remind him, “Christian, get up on the fence.”
Eventually, she stopped throwing to him. He was getting big and strong and once drilled a ball off his mom’s hip.
“Now he’s at a level where he teaches me,” she said. “I don’t say much anymore.”
Baseball might have been the emphasis, but school hardly took a backseat.
“Brains before brawn,” she’d tell her boy, and it paid off. Christian was salutatorian at Hernando High School in Brooksville, Fla., earned a gradepoint average well north of 4.00 and — are you sitting down? — did not get a B.
He turned down a scholarship to Florida, where he would have studied architectural engineering, to sign with the Giants, who took him 25th overall in the 2013 draft.
Four years later, Arroyo is with the Giants. Right where he seems to belong.
“The best Mother’s Day gift ever,” Drummond says.