BROCKTON, Mass. — As outfielder Pedro Martinez Jr., first baseman Manny Ramirez Jr., third baseman D’Angelo Ortiz, outfielder Jaden Sheffield and pitcher Kade Foulke chat in the batting cages, general manager Tom Tracey chases away the fans loitering outside Campanelli Stadium, hoping to catch a glimpse of the players collectively known as “The Sons”.
“Brockton High School is next door,” says Tracey. “There are always people running around trying to see what’s going on here.”
In fact, word has spread throughout New England. About an hour’s drive from Fenway Park, baseball fans can watch the sons of MLB royalty play at Futures Collegiate Baseball League’s Brockton Rox. Once there, they might see Hall of Famer David Ortiz helping players fine-tune their swings, Manny Ramirez demonstrating how to avoid the curveball, Keith Foulke, the former Red Sox closer who threw the last pitch of the 2004 World Series. raking the dirt from the infield, or Pedro Martínez and Gary Sheffield watching from one of the suite’s boxes.
Children recognize the novelty of the situation. ‘Martínez Jr., Ortiz, Ramírez Jr. and Foulke attempt to follow in the footsteps of four members of a legendary 2004 Boston Red Sox team, the one that broke the Curse of the Bambino. Sheffield’s dad was on the other side of the rivalry, as a member of the New York Yankees.
“Our dads are inseparable in baseball history,” says Martinez Jr. “For a lot of people, this is nostalgic. We all used to see each other at Fenway at meetings. In order to play each other instead of watching our parents play, to make a name for ourselves.”
All five sons joined Rox this summer in an attempt to improve their games. The Futures Collegiate Baseball League, which ranks slightly below the prestigious Cape Cod League, provides players entering college and those playing at the Division I, II, or III levels the opportunity to earn time off. constant play from late May through the second week of August in an eight-team league.
Martinez played at Rox last summer and is the oldest at 21, a senior at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Florida. Sheffield, 19, is an incoming sophomore at Georgetown. Ortiz, 17, Ramírez, 19, and Foulke, 18, are freshmen: They will play at Miami Dade College, Tallahassee Community College and Galveston College, respectively.
Those names on the roster are making Rox games a hot ticket this summer. The team says attendance reaches around 1,500 on an average weekend at a 4,750-capacity stadium; he averaged less than half before this season.
“It’s definitely generated a lot of buzz,” says Tracey, who says she wasn’t planning on getting the kids together. “The fans hear the names and they say they want to go see these kids, are they like their dads and all that. The fans are there before and after the games, and the kids send letters to the stadium asking for autographs.”
But the children shrug their shoulders at this attention. They’re used to it, they’ve been targets of opposing teams and fans since they were kids. The young Martinez remembers hearing taunts of “Who’s your daddy?” for as long as he’s been on a baseball field.
“Everyone has been told ‘you’ll never be your dad’ or this and that,” says Ortiz. “We’re not trying to be our parents. When people put you on a pedestal, they look up to you and try to see what they can take from you. We’re all individually very proud of where we come from and we’re just trying to keep that going.” .
And far more than pressure from the prying public, the children say their harshest critics lie within.
“You just want to use the last name right,” says Sheffield. “That’s really what I want to do. It’s a matter of pride. I’m not trying to be my father. You can’t. My father did great things in baseball, and if I can use that last name well, it’s a matter of keeping the legacy going.” a matter of pride.”
Their parents also expect a lot from their children and hold them to high standards, and under rigorous scrutiny.
“What I don’t like is that if you hit a home run and you see it, (our parents) get mad,” Ramirez says. “If any of us hit a home run and look at it, they’re like, ‘Hey, what are you doing? Running the bases.’ I’m like, ‘I’m trying to do what you guys used to do with pitchers. I learned this from you guys. they prostituted the home runs.
Martínez jokes: “My dad only hit you.”
“I think his dad hit my dad at one point,” Sheffield replies, pointing at Martinez Jr. and laughing.
But at the same time, everyone knows that there are benefits to having famous parents.
“Any problem I might have in baseball, my dad has experienced it,” Foulke says. “If I tell him my problem, he tells me… how I can fix it.”
Rox’s coaching staff say the summer ball is an opportunity to grow rather than focus on numbers, but the stats show there is room for improvement. It’s too early to say whether any of “The Sons” will make it to the majors. So far this summer, Ortiz is performing better at the plate, hitting .271 with 14 RBIs and 19 walks in his first 22 games. Martinez is hitting .250/.372/.278, Ramirez .145/.213/.275 and Sheffield .159/.268/.232. Foulke has allowed six runs in 6⅔ innings with 13 strikeouts and five walks.
But their time together has also been a learning experience off the field. Ramírez says that as a child he didn’t realize that his father was a baseball star and not just a celebrity that people recognized on the streets. Until he came to Brockton, Foulke, who grew up in Texas and Florida, had no idea his father was a Boston legend. Martinez used to be confused about why so many people revered his father.
“I didn’t really understand how big he was until he got into the Hall of Fame,” Martinez says. “I remember doing strength training with him and I see my favorite players and they treat him like royalty. That’s Mookie Betts talking to him like he’s cool, treating him like royalty. Why is this guy talking to my strange idiot dad, who spends his time at home taking care of his flowers”.
z Being teammates at the Rox has made the children feel less alone. They all say that they have never been around so many people with similar life experiences.
“The respect I have for his dad, his dad, his dad, his dad,” says Martinez, pointing to his teammates. “We all like to know, you don’t need to say it. I know, he knows. We all relate to each other in some way. We’re all tied together. There’s an automatic connection because we’re all tied together in the story. It’s something that you can’t break.”
