ARLINGTON, Texas — For the 37 first-time All-Stars in attendance this week in Arlington, an invite to the Midsummer Classic is the culmination of years of hard work becoming one of the very best at one of the hardest games on the planet. And while every player took his own path to Tuesday’s All-Star Game — some more winding than others — they all have one thing in common: As talented as they are, none of them could’ve gotten here alone.
They’ll be the first to tell you that. On Monday, Yahoo Sports spoke with several first-timers about the people behind their development on and off the field, individuals who are usually top of mind as players celebrate this significant accomplishment.
Family is a huge part of that equation, of course. But beyond the family members who loved and supported these players since the beginning, who are the people who made a significant impact on this year’s All-Stars on their journey to this point?
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For Guardians utilityman David Fry, a ton of credit goes to the coach who believed in his potential to play not only at the collegiate level but also in the pro ranks. That was Bobby Barbier, then the head coach at Northwestern State (Fry’s alma mater), who has since moved on to lead the baseball program at Southeastern Louisiana.
Growing up in Grapevine, Texas, not far from this year’s All-Star festivities, the high school version of Fry wasn’t good enough to command the attention of any of the numerous college programs in Texas. Instead, he needed to leave the Lone Star State to find an opportunity to develop his skills, and it was Barbier who gave him that chance.
“All the stuff that he did for me, just helping me with my game — he was a huge part of that,” Fry said.
A decade after Fry arrived on campus in Natchitoches, Louisiana, he’s an All-Star — and a key contributor for a first-place Guardians team that features four other All-Stars. His contribution to Tuesday’s game: an RBI single that tied the game 3-3 before the AL eventually won 5-3.
It’s no surprise to hear players praising their baseball coaches from the amateur levels as having made a difference in the earliest stages of their development. But for Giants right-hander Logan Webb, the person who stands out as especially impactful in his development was not someone who mentored him on the diamond.
“I had a football coach, Jason Adams,” Webb said. “I got to honor him last year for a coach of the year in the Bay Area, and it was really cool. He was hard on me, but it was good.”
Webb, a quarterback at Rocklin High School just north of Sacramento, found on the gridiron the competitive fire that he still exhibits today, thanks to Adams.
“Just the mental part, the mental toughness part of it, that was the main thing he taught me that I carry with me,” Webb said. “You see me screaming in my glove and stuff like that … that’s the football player in me that’s coming out.”
Webb gave up three earned runs on three hits, walked one and struck out one in the third inning Tuesday.
For others, such as Reds righty Hunter Greene, some relationships that still impact his development today stretch back further than college or even high school. Greene cited Alan Jaeger, a renowned trainer and pitching instructor who has worked with hundreds of big-league pitchers, as having helped him for nearly two decades.
“I did my first camp with him, figured out long toss, the right throwing program … I was, like, 7 years old,” said Greene, who was touching 90 mph as a freshman in high school and is now one of the hardest-throwing starters in the big leagues. “I still talk to him, still consult with him. He helps me with my throwing program.”
Greene took the All-Star Game loss after surrendering the winning hit, a two-run homer to Jarren Duran in the fifth inning.
Padres rookie Jackson Merrill, the youngest player on either All-Star roster, having turned 21 in April, also mentioned a relationship formed before he was in pro ball. In the summer of 2020, Merrill was looking for ways to improve his game going into his senior year at Severna Park High School in Maryland. Despite the challenges presented by the pandemic, Merrill found a match that helped fuel his physical and mental maturation into becoming a first-round draft pick the following spring.
“I met this trainer named Juan Palacios,” Merrill said. “He’s been more than enough help to me. He’s been a family member, too. He’s a guy who cares, and then he’s also there to help me succeed in baseball. So it’s awesome.”
Asked how Palacios helped him that summer, Merrill recalled: “We just worked out all summer. Everything was closed. We were outside the whole summer. He just got me ready — he didn’t let me slack off. He was always hard on me, which is good. And I needed that.”
Along the way, Merrill, who went 1-for-2 Tuesday, learned how to balance the need to physically prepare to succeed on the field with what his body and mind are telling him on a daily basis — and he credits that mentality with helping him find big-league success so quickly.
“Take it easy,” he explained. “Don’t take your days easy as in lazy, but if you’re not feeling good or you got something going on, make sure you take care of that before you go and lift and hit all day and you make it worse. Know your body, and be respectful to it.”
It unquestionably helps players to have a quality support system at home, but difficult to replicate at home are the lessons cultivated and shared within clubhouses among teammates pursuing the same big-league dream.
Rockies third baseman Ryan McMahon mentioned former and current teammates as being instrumental in helping him become the player he is today. “Trevor Story was huge, and Chuck [Charlie Blackmon], of course — probably those two the most. Just learning [from them] how to be a pro and things to look for.”
Royals lefty Cole Ragans had high praise for how cohesive the entire Royals pitching and coaching staff are, but he was especially effusive regarding fellow first-time All-Star Seth Lugo.
“He’s a genius when it comes to sequencing and when you should throw this guy this and how and why and all that kind of stuff,” Ragans said. “It’s fun to pick his brain because he’s so smart. And he’s taught all of us so much.”
Six years ago, Mason Miller had just completed his sophomore season at Waynesburg University, a small Division III school in Pennsylvania. His ERA his first two seasons was over 7.00. But after being diagnosed with type-1 diabetes at age 20, Miller began to have a much better understanding of his physical condition and what he needed to do to gain weight and build muscle.
As he got bigger and stronger and refined his skills on the mound, his talent started to shine through. That sent him on a meteoric rise over the next half-decade — dominating Div. III competition, transferring to Division I Gardner-Webb, being drafted in the third round by Oakland in 2021 and making his MLB debut just a year later — all while he slowly gained velocity to the point that he is now one of the most fearsome fireballers in the sport. That power enabled him to strike out two, including Shohei Ohtani, and be the official winning pitcher of the Midsummer Classic.
Miller’s intermediate stop at Gardner-Webb was a crucial springboard for him, and he’s quick to recognize that now. His head coach, Jim Chester, also had personal and coaching roots in Western Pennsylvania and, thus, connections with some of Miller’s high school coaches. Those relationships gave Miller immense trust that Gardner-Webb was the right place for him to pursue the next step of his career.
And so Miller took his burgeoning talents to North Carolina with the hope that it could be the beginning of something more. Reflecting on that now, it feels like a distant memory. But the honor of being invited to the Midsummer Classic is an appropriate setting for Miller to pause and appreciate the unlikely path he traversed to get here.
“It feels like a long time ago, but when you put a year on it, like, hey, that was only five years ago …” he said Monday, recognizing the magnitude of his journey from the Division III ranks to the MLB All-Star Game.
“Moments like this … they give you a chance to take the perspective and look back at where you’ve come from and all the steps along the way that have gone into it and just really be grateful for that journey.”
