My history with Alex Gordon goes back to Day One.
I was 10 years old in 2005 when the Royals went 56-106. Having to be different than everyone else in New Jersey who like the Yankees and Mets, I wanted to find a baseball team to call my own. Being 10, the stadium, team colors, and uniforms are what appealed to me at the time.
That summer, with the No. 2 overall pick, the team selected Alex Gordon from the University of Nebraska. A left-handed hitting third baseman, he was anointed as the next George Brett.
Gordon won the Dick Howser and Golden Spikes Awards for the best college and amateur baseball player in 2005 and was Baseball America’s Minor League Player of the Year in 2006, playing the entire year with Double-A Wichita. He skipped Triple-A entirely and debuted on Opening Day 2007. After having been so bad for so long, the Royals had some young players in their organization that were going to turn things around, and Gordon was supposed to be the cream of the crop.
I went to Kansas City for the first time that year and watched the Royals lose to the Indians 9-4 and 5-3 the weekend of my 13th birthday in August. But that didn’t matter because having been there and seeing the stadium in person, I knew I had found my team, no matter how bad they were.
I remember Gordon coming up to bat and one fan cheering “Come on phenom!” My dad, who always has something to say, looked at his .244 batting average and made a sarcastic remark. Me, who keeps my mouth shut, was thinking “just you wait.”
(Perhaps it’s fitting that I went to Kansas City for the second time last summer in what turned out to be the last year of Gordon’s career where fans were allowed to attend games.)
But yes, Gordon had his struggles. He posted mediocre seasons in 2007 and 2008 before missing time in 2009 with a tear in his right hip. He then fractured his right thumb during spring training in 2010 and was sent down to Triple-A in May to learn how to play left field.
The rest was history.
Gordon had the best season of his career in 2011, posting a .303/.376/.502 line with 23 home runs, 45 doubles, 87 RBI, and 17 steals while winning his first of eight gold gloves in his first full season playing a new position. He led the American League with 51 doubles in 2012 before making three straight All-Star teams from 2013-15 and winning the platinum glove in 2014. His offensive production slipped after the 2015 season but he still managed to be one of the top defensive outfielders in baseball, winning gold gloves his final four seasons and going out as the best defender in the American League with his second platinum glove.
But Gordon’s legacy in Kansas City goes beyond what you see on the back of his baseball card. He’s a kid from Nebraska who grew up a Royals fan with unattainable expectations who spent his entire career with one team. He was a phenom and a bust who became a post-hype star whose numbers won’t jump off the page but was the poster boy for a team that prided itself on playing elite defense. When the Royals were winning and people were thinking about who the face of the team was, most thought of Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas, Salvador Perez, or Lorenzo Cain first. Not me. This was always Alex Gordon’s team.
It’s hard to think of only five memories that stand out, but I did my best to pick Gordon’s five best moments as a Royal. (The dude threw out a million runners as well, but it’s hard to pick one of those that stand out the most.)
5. April 25, 2015: Get out of my way White Sox fans
4. 2014 ALCS Game 4: Nah (I’ve found myself saying Nah on most fly balls to left field the last decade)
3. 2014 World Series Game 7: Tying run at third base
(For the love of God, no you do not send him home.)
2. 2014 ALCS Game 1: Go-ahead extra-inning home run
(Perhaps this one means more to me since I was at this game.)
1. No words needed
Alex Gordon is going to have a statue at Kauffman Stadium some day. #Royals #ForeverRoyal @Royals pic.twitter.com/MI9kVxY9rJ
— Jeremy Scheuch (@jeremyscheuch) January 6, 2016
More than anything else though, people will tell you it’s the work ethic that impressed them the most. I’ve always said nobody in baseball works harder than Alex Gordon. The dude is still ripped out of his mind. He has a daily routine that most mortals would not be able to handle. He hasn’t eaten a cheeseburger, pizza, cake, or ice cream in years. He does what he calls “power shagging” during batting practice before games where he replicates game situations and players over the years have learned to get out of his way or he’d run them over. He was a lead by example guy who didn’t say much but didn’t need to because players knew if they worked as hard as that guy, they were going to take their game to another level.
Alex Gordon is the epitome of what it means to be a Royal. He came up as a superstar prospect, went through his struggles, endured a position change, and was a pivotal part of two World Series teams before seeing his offensive production fall off the past few years while still being one of the top defensive outfielders in baseball. But it’s that blue-collar mentality and intense drive that left an impact on everybody who stepped in that clubhouse and watched him play.
In his retirement press conference on Thursday, Royals General Manager Dayton Moore, who has been around for Gordon’s entire career, said “I’ve never been around anybody as committed as Alex Gordon… He truly represents what a baseball player is and should always be.” I think that sums him up better than anything.
Johnny Baseball 