MLB PREVIEW 202037winter ball, where he grew homesick
and lonely. He’d wander the streets,
struggling even to order dinner.
He got another shot in the bigs in
’12, but it wasn’t going much better
when he glanced up one afternoon in
San Francisco and saw he was hitting
.082. The Giants’ starter that night,
Barry Zito, was at .133.
Donaldson considered hanging up
his spikes. Then he called his mother.
Lisa French’s son had to find a wayhis brashness, celebrating loudly. Suc-
cess soothed him.
Until, for a period, those successes
stopped coming. Donaldson’s first
major league call-up, in 2010, lasted
14 games, as he struck out in more
than a third of his plate appearanc-
es. He returned to the minors and
dominated, but opponents chafed at
his exuberance and soon he found
himself dodging beanballs. He sent
himself to the Dominican Republic for
to forgive himself. She describes a
young man who for years would strike
out and spend the next week beating
himself up. “I didn’t raise a quitter,”
she told him. Besides, she reminded
him: He’d been drafted out of Auburn
as a junior; he had no degree, no skills
to fall back on. “Do you want to come
home and pump gas? That’s exactly
what you’re gonna be doing.”
So he hung up and went back to
work. Back in the minors, Donaldson
devoured video of Bautista and over-
hauled his swing, adding a leg kick
and relaxing his shoulders so he could
meet the plane of the pitch. When he
was recalled again that August, he hit
.344 and slugged .625.
He got MVP votes in 2013. He was an
All-Star in ’14. Before the ’15 season he
was traded to the Blue Jays, where, com-
ing full circle, he hit in front of Bautista.
Only now he was armed with some ad-
vice from Gomes, his biggest believer
in Oakland: You can hit on your own
but you can’t win alone. He started to
circle the clubhouse, checking on his
teammates, asking what they needed
from him. His girlfriend, Briana Miller,
taught him to meditate, to pause before
speaking. He still said what he wanted
to say, but he “learned delivery,” Lisa
says. That fall, Toronto took the Royals
to six games in the ALCS, the furthest
into a season he’d ever played.
A month later, Donaldson was de-
lighted when he was named AL MVP,
which is bestowed by the media. He
was shocked when he won the Players
Choice Player of the Year award,
which is conferred by peers.
Josh Donaldson gets it. He used to
look around and see opponents who
wanted to throw at him. Now he sees
guys who want to be like him. Really,
though, everything has changed. MLB
exhorts, “Let the kids play,” in ad-
vertisements. Meanwhile, the league
tweets out videos of the best bat f lips.
Players talk trash over Instagram.
So, a 34-year-old who comes across
as a bit of a dick? In the modern club-
house, he just might be the leader the
Twins need. ¼an inspiration.”
For more than
a century, baseball
has accepted
non-players in roles
of authority:
Hall of Fame
manager Ed Barrow
was a reporter and
soap salesman
before leading the
Red Sox to the
1918 title, and now
Ivy League quants
populate every
]ifekf]ÓZ\%9lk
the sport has been
slow to welcome
women. Girls who
love baseball are
largely funneled
into softball, then
are told there is no
place for them to
coach in baseball
because they never
played the sport.
But maybe
2020 is the start
of something
different. Girls can
already watch NBA
games and see
Becky Hammon of
the Spurs (among
other female
assistants) holding
a clipboard; the
49ers made the
Super Bowl with
offensive assistant
Katie Sowers on the
sideline. Nakken
will not appear
in the dugout
during games—
MLB restricts
the number of
uniformed coaches
per team at seven—
but her presence
with the club helps
signal that baseball
is for everyone.
Nakken has
worked primarily
n`k_flkÓ\c[\ij%
When she messed
up during a drill the
players razzed her,
just as they would
any other coach.
That’s the goal for
any trailblazer: for
the path to become
so well-trod as to
be unremarkable.
Nakken doesn’t want
to be a professional
pioneer, she just
wants to be a
coach. —S.A.16
Because...
THE FRAME
GAME WILL ENDIn basketball,
floppers are
not hailed; they
are scorned.
Not so for
their MLB
counterparts.
As pitch-
tracking tech
improved,
teams played
catchers
such as José
Molina and
Tyler Flowers,
who made
balls look
like strikes.
Enough!
Framing is a
skill because of
umpire error.
Thankfully,
the robots
are en route;
MLB is testing
an electronic
strike zone in
the minors this
year. —J.D.