Chris Young and Bruce Bochy, a pair of hardened, sharp World Series winners, head a former Padres contingent that returns to San Diego this weekend.
You’re better off forecasting Jupiter’s weather than baseball outcomes. But the presence of two gritty former Padres standouts Friday night at Petco Park recalled an easy exception.
See, Bochy never had visited Young across the season’s six months, not once, entrusting his pitching coach, Darren Balsley, to smooth out any rough patches across the 31 starts. “Baseball is an individual team sport,” said the former Princeton two-sport standout, whose basketball potential earned him a contractual offer from the NBA’s Sacramento Kings. “Although it might sound crazy, the chemistry of a team is more important in baseball than any other sport. You spend almost every day together for seven months, hopefully eight if you play through October.
The team’s special chemistry, insisted players such as Young, Gonzalez, David Eckstein and staffers such as Hall of Fame catcher Ted Simmons, Dave Roberts and manger Bud Black, contributed to the success. Boosting the chemistry, perhaps, was homegrown flavor, not typically a Padres specialty. Catcher Nick Hundley, right fielder Will Venable and third baseman Chase Headley had won a Texas League title together, soon after the Sandy Alderson-Kevin Towers front office drafted them. Mature beyond their years, they supported Mat Latos, an immature rookie ace.
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