Yankees' Jazz Chisholm Jr. is right at home on baseball's biggest stage
The Yankees' Jazz Chisholm Jr. wears a T-shirt referring to Yankee Stadium's rightfield wall, which sits a mere 314 feet from home plate, before his home debut for the Yankees in a game against the Blue Jays on Friday. Credit: AP/Ron Blum
What allows a player to thrive in the biggest media market in the country? Why do some athletes sparkle under the bright lights and others wilt under their oppressive heat?
In baseball — a sport in which so many variables are measured and dissected — this little slice of humanity remains more difficult to quantify.
You could, for instance, see a player with the pizzazz, ability and swagger of Jazz Chisholm Jr. and assume that he was born to play in New York and to wear these pinstripes. It certainly looked that way when he made his Bronx debut against the Blue Jays on Friday evening, emulating Kobe Bryant’s fadeaway as part of his roll call and getting a warm welcome from fans.
Alternately, though, you could be like the Yankees fans who saw a player who dared to have a personality and immediately questioned whether he would fit into the Yankees’ culture (seems like a very premature assessment, that one). You could be like former Marlins executive David Samson, who went on a radio show earlier this week and groused about Chisholm like a spurned lover.
“He’s not the star; he’s not the center of attention,” Samson said on “The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz.”
Does that mean Chisholm would thrive under more scrutiny — like, say, the kind you get in New York? Not quite, Samson said.
“Wait ’til he goes 1-for-13 in New York. In Miami, it gets ignored with one camera,” Samson said. “In New York, you’re on the back page of the Post.”
Doesn’t seem like there’s any winning, does it? Either Chisholm is too much or not enough. If he’d gotten here after getting traded from the Marlins a week ago and failed right away, there already would be talk about this whole thing being a bust. But even though he entered Friday with four homers in his last four games, there still was discourse about how this could just be a flash in the pan.
The theme, though, remains static and played out: We want baseball to be fun and exciting but “not like that.”
See, you have to be confident but not brash (the line between the two is constantly changing). You have to thrive in the face of fame but not seek it out. We want our athletes to be honest, then demolish them on social media when they say something that veers from the accepted platitudes.
But no matter what happens to Chisholm in the Bronx, good for him that he’s not changing his personality to fit into these impossible boxes.
In a pregame news conference Friday, he was asked about his shirt, which simply said “314-ft” — the distance down the rightfield line at Yankee Stadium.
“This is my plan today,” he said, later clarifying that he was joking. “That’s why I put on this shirt.”
When asked about his time with the Marlins, he remained soft-spoken but pulled no punches.
“It makes me feel like I’m out here playing for something,” he said of coming to the Bronx — the implication being that it absolutely didn’t feel that way in Miami. “It’s a lot more exciting to be out there with the guys that I’m out there with now — Aaron Judge, Juan Soto, guys that can push me to my absolute best. I feel like I haven’t really had anyone that really pushed me to be my best, especially to compete with on the team.”
We’re not used to hearing athletes divert from the script like that. Sure, maybe it’s landed him in a little hot water in the past. But if you’re the Yankees, isn’t that what you want to hear? Don’t you want to know that a player is excited to be here, even if he sounds a little bit like Andy Dufresne after he finally escaped Shawshank?
“He obviously brings a lot of swag to the park every day, energy — kind of a light and a smile,” Aaron Boone said. “He’s definitely right away fit in well . . . He’s hugged our room and they’ve hugged him back.”
Time will tell if the love affair lasts and how Chisholm responds to the pressurized environment. But for now, we’re seeing a confident, capable athlete who’s not afraid of change, not afraid of attention and not afraid to speak his mind.
And what’s more New York than that?
Laura Albanese is a reporter, feature writer and columnist covering local professional sports teams; she began at Newsday in 2007 as an intern.
