Youk’s Fuel

There's a pretty good chance you have fueled Kevin Youkilis' fire. Photo from this site.

If I hadn’t gone to the well so frequently in the last couple weeks with Q&As—and wasn’t planning to post a Kevin Millar Q&A tomorrow morning with the Blue Jays coming to town for a weekend series—I would have posted today the Kevin Youkilis interview I conducted for Fighting Words in September 2007.

I’ll post the Youkilis Q&A sometime in the next few weeks. In the meantime, I’ll say (or write) that I was pleasantly surprised at how well the interview went, given how Youkilis seemed as fond of the media then as he did in speaking to Dan Shaughnessy Tuesday (Youkilis clarified his comments yesterday and said he was not angry with the fans). But Youkilis was expansive two years ago in describing the negativity players perceive from the media, the awkwardness of celebrity and why he was more intense and less approachable as a regular than as a reserve.

It’s hard to believe now, but when Youkilis joined the big club in 2004, he fit in seamlessly with the goofy, endearingly idiotic likes of Millar, Johnny Damon, Bronson Arroyo, et al. In fact, Youkilis contributed background vocals to Arroyo’s CD in 2005 and joined Damon in backing up Arroyo at a concert during the All-Star Break.

Youkilis was decidedly less amiable in 2005, which I figured was a byproduct of riding the Boston-to-Pawtucket shuttle all year long, but the gruffness was a sign of things to come. The persona of the Sox, too, began to change in 2005 and particularly during Youkilis’ first season as a regular in 2006, and I have often wondered what Youkilis’ public persona would be like if the idiots still ruled the roost.

Dustin Pedroia can walk up and down the dugout talking trash, complain about the media alternately praising and burying the Sox vis a vis the Yankees and rail at skeptics seen and unseen, yet he does it all with an impish grin that implies even he doesn’t believe everything he says.

But there’s no sense of winking self-awareness coming from the perpetually scowling Youkilis, who seems to get both better and unhappier by the day. He’s a perennial MVP candidate, one of the Sox’ building blocks and rich beyond all comprehension, but you wouldn’t know it by watching him or reading his comments.

It doesn’t seem to make any sense, especially his complaining about negative Boston fans. Youkilis spent most of his minor league days in New England, which made him a cult hero to Sox devotees long before he even appeared at Fenway Park. If he’s not the favorite player among the faithful, then he’s surely in the top three with Pedroia and David Ortiz.

But maybe Youkilis’ words and actions are actually providing a glimpse into what drives a superstar, especially one who was never pegged for greatness , has always felt the need to prove himself in order to fit in and who is alternately motivated and pursued by unpleasant memories. All pro athletes use slights, real and perceived, to stoke their competitive fires, but Youkilis doesn’t have to dig too deep to find some fuel.

I don’t think there are too many superstars who were pudgy as kids—even today, one look at Youkilis indicates he probably wasn’t among the first kids picked in gym class—and who played four years at a non-descript Division I school before being drafted as an eighth-round afterthought.

“That’s probably one of the hardest things I’ve had to deal with—sometimes, I’ve got to let that go and not think I have to prove myself all the time,” Youkilis said in September 2007. “But it’s in my nature, since day one, ever since I was young. [He has been] trying to prove myself since I was like 11, 12 years old. It’s been something that’s going on for a long time. Hopefully, at some point, it all goes away and I don’t have to worry about it.”

Youkilis also hinted at some darker childhood moments last month, when he spoke to a group of Needham teenagers about the suicide deaths of three of his closest friends. Pedroia is the one who has authored an autobiography, but the more I think about it and the more he speaks, the more I think the really interesting story would be the one penned by Youkilis.

Email Jerry at jbeach73@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jerrybeach.

Bits and Bytes: 8/10/09

Kevin Youkilis is grimacing about plenty these days. Photo from this site.

Sincere thanks to Jon Couture, who produces the so-good-it-makes-me-jealous Better Red Than Dead blog at SouthCoastToday.com, for penning a very complementary review of Fighting Words in his Sunday column in the New Bedford Standard-Times. As nice as it is to receive verbal boutiques from family and friends, it’s particularly humbling and invigorating to get such positive feedback from a journalist unrelated to me. Cooch, you’re on the Christmas card list!

Some other bits and bytes from my mini-vacation:

—When it comes to absorbing the media attention during times of crisis and generating a rallying cry for his teammates, Kevin Youkilis isn’t exactly evoking memories of Kevin Millar, as your good friend and mine Joe Haggerty details in this blog post from yesterday. It would be folly to read too much into Youkilis’ feistiness, as the 2007 Sox proved a team could not exactly welcome the attention bestowed upon it yet still block out all distractions—real and perceived—and win a championship, but it will be interesting to see (or hear) how the Sox and the press get along if the Sox continue to stumble.

—I don’t know about you, but I was stunned Tuesday night, when the Dodgers’ Guillermo Mota plunked the Brewers’ Prince Fielder with two outs in the ninth and the Dodgers clinging to a 17-4 lead. I mean, who has ever heard of a Joe Torre-led team sending a noted headhunter to the mound in the ninth inning of a blowout win to exact revenge for an earlier plunking (Manny Ramirez had been hit by a pitch by ex-Sox farmhand Chris Smith)? That’s crazy talk.

Afterward, Fielder channeled Mike Piazza by trying to barge into the Dodgers’ locker room and assault Mota. Ramirez was shockingly out of the lineup the next day, leading to this classic reaction from Brewers manager Ken Macha.

Torre, of course, expressed surprise and disgust at still being asked about the incident less than 24 hours later. Let’s give him credit though: He doesn’t seem to have blamed ESPN for it.

—Phillies GM Ruben Amaro is talking about going to a six-man rotation once Pedro Martinez is ready for big league action. And somewhere in Fenway Park, Theo Epstein laughs, because the only other alternative is to cry.

—Looks like our instincts were, for once, right. Indians president Paul Dolan met with the Cleveland media last week and wailed about how the Indians had to trade Cliff Lee and Victor Martinez because they’re hemorrhaging money—$16 million, to be exact, which just happens to be how much the Indians would have paid Lee and Martinez had the club exercised their options for next season. Funny how that works.

He also mentioned how difficult it is for the Indians to compete under baseball’s current financial system and how the club is unable to retain its own players once they get beyond their arbitration years. Of course, he wasn’t squawking two years ago, when the Indians were a win away from the World Series, nor over a nine-month span in 2007 and 2008 when he managed to find enough change in the cushions to lock up Travis Hafner, Jake Westbrook and Fausto Carmona to long-term deals. Those three will make more than $24 million this season, a pretty gaudy sum for a 32-year-old injury-prone DH, a pitcher unlikely to appear in the bigs as he recovers from Tommy John surgery and a hurler who was sent to rookie ball following an awful start.

Dolan also complained the small-market teams are unable to even compete for amateur players anymore. Mark our words: This is just the beginning of Dolan and other hawkish “small-market” owners doing the dirty work for Bud Selig as he aims to implement a salary cap and overhaul of the draft in the next labor agreement

Email Jerry at jbeach73@gmail.com.