If you want little bits and pieces of some great baseball content make sure you follow the Twitter account @Watch_Momentum. It’s basically Trevor Bauer’s platform and effort to grow the game of baseball. They continuously put out new content with the help of Bauer and his MLB buddies. Every now and again we get clips of the bromance between Celvinger and Bauer and in their most recent snippet we get an awesome story about how the legendary Miguel Cabrera basically called his shot against Clevinger.
Definitely not one of the more pleasant stories for Clevinger to tell because no one like to talk about the bombs they gave up in their career, but if you are going to give one up, I’d rather it be from a future Hall of Famer like “Miggy”. If you are just watching the game on tv, all you see isb how gitty Cabrera is rounding the bases and just how pissed off Clevinger looks for giving up the home run. What we don’t see or hear is the exchange between “Miggy” and manager Terry “Tito” Francona. Sorry for all the nicknames, a lot of the times when guys talk about players or coaches you’ll never hear their real name, just their nickname. Baseball players are weird, but I’m getting away from the subject.
It was Clevinger’s rookie year and as he states he still got pretty shaky and nervous whenever he stepped out on that mound. Like most rookies who take the field for their rookie year, it can be quite intimidating, especially when you face players that seem larger than life. Miguel Cabrera and former 2012 Triple Crown winner, looks over at Cleveland manager Terry Francona and said, “Second-pitch, changeup…home run right center.” Francona looks over at Indians pitching coach, Mickey Callaway and said, “I hope he’s f-cking kidding.” Low and behold on the second pitch, Celvinger served up a 1-0 changeup to Cabrera. In his head he figured a right on right changeup would be a tricky pitch for him to hit, but the pitch caught too much of the plate and Miggy hammered it. The ball flew out to right center and as he was rounding the bases he looked over at Terry Francona and motioned that he missed it by a little bit.
One of the best parts about this story is the fact that they didn’t tell Clevinger what Miggy said until next Spring Training because they didn’t want Clevinger to be “domed up” the rest of the year. Clevinger goes on to say, that he wasn’t thinking anything when he was out there, just chucking the baseball, and trying not to breath or sweat too hard. The last thing he needed to know, was the fact that Miguel Cabrera called his shot off of him. One of a baseball player’s greatest enemy can be between their own two ears of course. But like all rookies you live and you lear and great players like that are going to make you pay and welcome you into the show properly, it’s just all apart of the process. I’m just glad there’s a platform out there where we can hear amazing stories like this. Thank you Bauer and Watch Momentum for continuing to give us great content like this. I miss sports.
The Washed Up Athlete 