Alex gordon game 1 world series homerun3/15/2023 Gordon's legacy is unique, of course, and will remain so. It was as if, he added, Gordon had said, "'Now it's your turn, man, Take this, and leave it in a better place than you found it.'" "Sometimes it takes a guy leaving to open up space for someone else to grow in that way," Matheny said. with another sort of boost through yet another gesture of Gordon's.Īs Matheny reflected Wednesday on the meaning of Gordon's choice, he thought about how Dozier at 29 is among the players in the clubhouse most responsive to various cues toward a further leadership role. On each side of the equation, as it happens: Dozier now seeks to further emulate the resilience and perseverance and indelible breakthroughs of Gordon's career. When Dozier arrived back in Kansas City from spring training in Arizona, he took a selfie from his new perch and sent it to Gordon. I'm just in there I'm just renting it out." ![]() "I'm always looking at it I never want to forget that that's Gordo's locker," he said, smiling and adding, "It's not my locker. While he hasn't taken on a ritual such as tapping the top of the locker, he's thankful every day for being where he is. To this day, he's still one of the best teammates, if not the best teammate, I've ever played with."Īs such, this designation naturally inspires Dozier. "I was able to watch him, the way he prepared, the way he was as a dad, as a teammate, as a friend. "He's someone I've looked up to ever since I got drafted, and he's a role model," Dozier said. In fact, Dozier also is known for an relentless work ethic, a team-first attitude and quiet demeanor, traits all his own but surely at least in part enhanced by observation. We're pretty similar with the way we go about different situations." "I think maybe because I remind him a little of himself. When he learned it was indeed to be kept active in perpetuity (or "as long as I don't do anything stupid" in retirement, Gordon joked), Dozier was deeply moved and initially even in some way perplexed that Gordon chose him as its first new inhabitant. Then he said, "Wow," before pausing again and adding, "That's really cool."ĭozier, whose locker had been next to Gordon's, initially had reckoned the locker would be held out of circulation. Told in a recent interview with The Star that Gordon had said he looked up to him, Dozier paused for several seconds as if stunned. "I've always looked up to him, even though I'm older, just because of how he goes about his business." "His makeup, his routine, how he approaches the game, how he works, is kind of very similar to" Gordon's approach, Gordon said, later adding a striking point. But Gordon, like Dozier a first-round draft pick, also but also felt connected with him for more tangible reasons. Through his career, Dozier has endured a series of injuries and ups and downs that Gordon might have had some appreciation for. That was Hunter Dozier, suddenly scalding hot at the plate recently after a sluggish 2021 start in large part because of a thumb injury. After all, Gordon admires Merrifield and spent more time with him off the field the last few years than about any teammate.īut to Gordon's way of thinking, Merrifield was entrenched in his locker space, and perhaps so much overall, that he came to identify someone he related to in other ways: ![]() The most obvious choice to move in may have been Merrifield, Gordon said in a recent phone interview with The Kansas City Star. ![]() Because that epicenter, emblematic of Gordon's ongoing presence, wasn't intended to be retired: It was meant to be passed forward and honored.Īnd how better to do so than in his image?Īnd how much more meaningfully than to be by his own choosing? The idea was the locker in some way would still make the clubhouse, and thus Kauffman Stadium, a better place. "When you left for the day," Merrifield said to Gordon, "you left it in a better place."īut the legacy of the locker didn't end with the typically stoic Gordon overwhelmed and saying, "This is too much I can't say thank you enough." As such, the space became a symbolic focal point. What he radiated in there, and by extension in surroundings from the weight room to the training room to the batting cages and the field itself, was why everyone looked up to him, Merrifield said.
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