TAMPA — In contrast to his father, Cody Bellinger isn’t one of many final gamers on the roster.
Nonetheless, the brand new Yankee says he takes satisfaction in treating the sport like he’s — a lesson taught to him by his father, Clay.
Clay Bellinger spent components of three seasons with the Yankees and received a World Sequence title in annually from 1999-2001.
After he retired and have become a firefighter in Gilbert, Ariz., he coached his son’s Little League crew.
“Me and my buddies who I played with knew if we messed up, we’d get the ‘Clay stare,’” Bellinger mentioned Friday earlier than the Yankees confronted Toronto at Steinbrenner Area. “No one wanted that.”
The teachings labored.
“It was instilled in me early on: Play the game hard, run everything out. If you didn’t, you’d know about it. It was funny.”
And it labored?
“Oh, it labored,’’ Bellinger mentioned.
However it wasn’t simply his father’s affect that induced the youthful Bellinger to play with most effort.
“Until junior high school, I was the littlest guy on the field,’’ Bellinger said. “I was tiny, so I had to play hard, I had to swing harder, I felt like. I had to throw harder to match up with the big boys.”
When he grew right into a prospect after which started to play professionally, his model didn’t change.
“Sometimes he would remind me,’’ Bellinger said. “If he saw something he didn’t like at a showcase, he would tell me, ‘That looked terrible. Don’t be dogging it. You never know who’s watching.’ ”
So it’s no shock that the primary individual Bellinger referred to as after getting traded from the Cubs to the Yankees within the offseason was his father.
“He was excited,’’ Bellinger said. “We both knew I’d probably be traded, but we didn’t know where. To have it be the Yankees is cool.”
Bellinger mentioned his father will probably be at Opening Day on March 27 in The Bronx, throughout the road from the earlier Stadium, the place the youthful Bellinger used to roam the clubhouse.
Now, Bellinger hopes to be a part of a championship crew with the Yankees, identical to his father.
Cody Bellinger, although, will enter his first season as a Yankee with significantly extra stress on him than his father did.
“I’m just looking forward to getting there,’’ Bellinger said. “For me, it’s all about winning and I think we have a great chance to do that here.”
