Hugged them. In the middle of the baseball field, in the middle of Game 1 of the World Series, Mook Key Bates, the right fielder for the Los Angeles Dodgers, and Wimley Adams, Tampa embraced the shorts top for two rays.
Out there on another basis. Against all.
Bates walked and stole in the fifth inning. Adams was in the area.
Just as the rays began to shine, Bates stopped holding her hand.
“Hey, little brother come here,” he said. “I haven’t seen you in a while.”
Bates is three years old and has about 800 big-league hits. Adams walked straight into those arms.
Not many cross-team hugs on second base during World Series games. Not too many like Bates and Adams.
Bets you probably know about.
You see Adams game. You will see it from the dugout rail. You see him laughing and cheering and screaming at the stuff and you think there’s light. There is something. Something specific.
Fellow players find him with the sharp corners of the postseason in which he is rarely hit, the way he goes out against the rallies of fortune and others should figure out what he doesn’t know, that he sees something is good , And no one wants to be late.
While the rays are the best and when they’re looking for something close to it, and a postseason game can bring it all together, Adams is part of the spirit – and precision – that makes the rays so compelling. If you think the team is something more than the sum of its lineup cards, then there are two possibilities – you don’t know the rays very well or plug the talent flaw with how they play.
It can be both. It may be that he will always see something good coming.
“Well, it’s rare for a player his age, but once you get to know Willie, then his personality is very contagious,” said Kiran manager Kevin Cash. “There are only people who have those qualities where people just flock to them. And Willie is at the top of our clubhouse list. In our organization. Going through the secondary league, every coach, every former teammate, just stood up about the guy.
“And I give Willie a lot of credit. We talk about the struggles of Branden Lowe, Willie had to go aggressive. You don’t see for a second that his mindset changes between innings or when we hit or during defense. He’s been a rock star on the shortstop for us, he’s just made tremendous plays on the tremendous lipark, created web gems, and he’ll even run his own bat. But the personality about Willie is one of the many reasons that make him so special. “
Adams, 25, sat in a hotel room on Thursday afternoon, between 2 and 3 a.m., his phone standing at the desk, his elbow holding his head.
The moderator said, “Willie, is it possible to turn your phone to the side? You have to undo the lock. “
“This is weird,” Willie said, now horizontally aligned. “But let’s go.”
He said with a smile, putting all the small squares on his phone in his head, and said he met Mocky Bates in his first hours as a big ligier. Adams was 22 years old, six years after signing out of the Dominican Republic with the Detroit Tigers, when he returned to the Rays while trading David Price. His first major league hit was his debut, a home run against the Boston Red Sox S Chris Cell on May 22, 2018, with Batsman scoring a three-run home run. Bates was heading for his third All-Star Game and first MVP award. Adams was learning everyone’s name.
“Since then,” Adams said, “whenever I come second he says hi to me, talks to me. He treats me like he’s known me all his life. It means a lot to me. It’s a There’s a player that you see and you enjoy watching him in the game, he brings it into the game for the holiday and everything he brings into the game. “
So you look at Adams and you think about that light, wondering if you see it exactly. It’s just a few games, just a few summers, you don’t even know the man. When he is on the field and the players gather on the mound, he sometimes rests near the teammate’s shoulder, close to the shoulder of the head, as if to please him, telling him that he is not alone there, sharing his light. You know he worked and played all the way from there to here, hitting some, defending a lot and helping this team down to the World Series. You know that.
And then Mocky Bates arrives in second place, rushes to himself and puts him in the gloves. He must see it too.
Adams said, “I want to talk to him that way for him, you know, every time he comes in second, even when we text each other, it’s really fun.” “The way he comes to me and talks to me. That day, he also asked for that hug.
“It means the world to me. Because, a player like him and a guy like me, I’m kind of new to the league. To see it from me, it means a lot. It tells you how special it is. Such a great person. Such a great heart. I think it makes him special, the way he treats people. That’s the best thing. I am happy with the way he treats people and the way he treats me. “
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