(Story originally appeared in the October 2016 edition of Yankees Magazine)
This piece was almost a full year in the making, with any number of starts and stops along the way. It began in Denver, when Greg Bird agreed to let me and a video crew tag along with him for part of his offseason routine. We went to a clinic where he spoke to high school and college coaches, then we went to breakfast with his family and watched him work out the next morning — doing weights and hitting. After that, a few of his high school buddies joined us for an evening at Top Golf in Denver.
It was a pretty awesome time to be Greg Bird. He’d debuted the previous year, and had set New York ablaze with his immediate impact. He even started the team’s postseason game. But about two weeks after we parted ways in Denver, the word came out — Bird would be out for the season, forced to have his shoulder surgically repaired.
I was lucky that I didn’t have to publish the story immediately — honestly, I have no clue what I would have written. So I checked in with him a few times, then met him in Tampa in August to watch his rehab routine. Along the way, Greg couldn’t have been more accommodating. He really opened up about the mental strain of rehab — the way he couldn’t even bring himself to play video games. He had never not been able to play baseball, and nothing made sense to him for most of the year. When the team came to Tampa to play the Rays, Bird went to visit with his old teammates, but he found it too uncomfortable to stick around.
I really wasn’t used to a big leaguer letting himself be this vulnerable. I spoke with Chad Bohling, who heads the team’s mental conditioning department, and he did a good job walking me through all the hardships involved in what Bird was dealing with.
Anyhow, I did my best to convey what the year was really like. I’m very proud of this one.
http://m.mlb.com/news/article/207435348/greg-bird-new-york-yankees-rebound/