ALEX THE GREAT

Apr 27, 2020 | Baseball, Newspaper Column, Sports & Recreation

R-T Photo/Seth Herrold
Alex Gordon touches home plate after blasting a home run at Wrigley Field in Chicago, IL in 2015. Gordon has been my favorite athlete ever for a while now.

Seth Herrold
@HerroldTimes
One thing I have really enjoyed while watching The Last Dance documentary on ESPN on Sunday nights is the banter that coincides with the show on Twitter. The Last Dance chronicles the Chicago Bulls’ last championship in the 1997-1998 season.
Reading some of the tweets it is clear that Michael Jordan is a lot of people’s “favorite athlete or sports figure of all time.” My friends and I bring up this topic from time to time – who is your favorite athlete of all time?”
It is always an interesting debate. For me, personally, my answer has varied over the years. I was a big Jeff Gordon fan in NASCAR, I wore the number 2 on the diamond in high school for Derek Jeter. I wore 15 on the basketball court for Vince Carter*. For the Royals, I was always a big Carlos Beltran fan. Beltran wore 15 for the Royals and I really wanted to, but I couldn’t talk a classmate out of the number, so I settled for Jeter’s 2.
*Side note, Vince Carter is STILL playing basketball! At least he was before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the NBA season. It has been almost two decades since I was wearing #15 and Nike Shox in high school and Vinsanity is still running wild.
Later on, when Chase Daniel was at Missouri, he was my go to. I was unapologetically a Daniel fan to a fault. Any and all disasters the Tigers incurred were strictly the fault of the defense, head coach Gary Pinkel or anyone else. Chase was never to blame. It kind of became a running joke with my group of friends.
Over the past 10 years, however, I have settled on the Royals’ Alex Gordon, though, as my favorite athlete of all time. While the others on my list came and went, it is hard for me to ever envision being as big a fan of anyone as I am of Alex Gordon.
Gordon was the first big prospect I remember following in the minor leagues as a Royals fan. I feel like I have followed his career from an earlier point than anyone else. In an era when players rarely play out their entire careers with one team, he has done it.
Gordon is hardly the greatest player of my generation. He is a sure-fire Royals’ Hall of Famer, but the MLB Hall of Fame will likely never give him a call. Gordon being my favorite goes beyond what he does on the diamond, though. He is extremely relateable for me and that goes a long way when picking out your favorite athlete.
Dale Earnhart Jr. won NASCAR’s Most Popular Driver award every year. He came in with a large fan base because he was Dale Earnhart’s son. But once NASCAR fans saw that he was spending his spare time in the garage, drinking beers and turning wrenches with his buddies, just like them, he reached a status with the fans no driver had ever reached before.
For me, I was born in April of 1984. I spent my formative years growing up just south of Omaha, NE. Alex Gordon was born in February of 1984 and grew up in Lincoln, NE. I always like to think if my family would have stayed in Nebraska I might have ended up going head-to-head with Gordon at some point in the Nebraska high school ranks. I can guarantee, however, I would not have been getting the scholarship offer to Nebraska he got.
So Gordon has been a favorite of mine for a long time. The only baseball jersey I have ever owned has a 4 on the back. I got it a long time ago and have since added the World Series champions patch to the sleeve.
Gordon’s hard work ethic and ability to accept a trip back to the minor leagues and a position change is a daily reminder for me to be better. Because of Gordon I eat healthier, work harder and try to be the best husband and father I can be. In short, there are a lot worse people to use as a role model in your life.
A friend of mine saw me on TV in the stands at Game 2 of the 2015 World Series. He tweeted me a screen shot of myself in my number four jersey with a Royals hat and full beard. “Who’s the Gordo wannabe?” was the caption he used. Well, it’s me, I am a Gordo wannabe. And yes, Alex Gordon was the inspiration behind the beard I wear to this day.
Probably the peak of Gordon’s career was his game-tying home run in the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 1 of the 2015 World Series. I have the YouTube video of the homer bookmarked on my phone and computer browsers. I watch it at least once a day. It’s my favorite moment in sports history.
So while I have seen many in the last two weeks professing their undying devotion to Air Jordan, I will continue to dial up my “Air Gordon” highlights, because Alex Gordon is my favorite athlete of all time.
This week’s recommendations are…
Read: Andy McCullough, the former Royals’ beat writer for The Kansas City Star, wrote a tremendous story on The Athletic about the Royals’ trade for James Shields ahead of the 2013 season. The trade was viewed as a huge win for Tampa Bay at the time, but ended up paying off in the biggest way for the Royals – the 2015 World Series championship. It is a great story on the behind-the-scenes details on how the trade got made. If you don’t have a subscription to The Athletic, find someone who does and bum their password to read this.
Watch: Fox Sports Kansas City has been replaying the Royals’ undefeated playoff run to the 2014 World Series. Between the insanity of the Wild Card game that year and the seven-game classic with the San Francisco Giants in the World Series, a lot of the sweep of the Angels in the ALDS and sweep of the Orioles in the ALCS gets forgotten. It has been fun for me to re-watch that series and remember things I had forgotten. If you want to jump in on the fun here is the schedule…
Tonight (Tuesday) – ALCS Game 2, Royals @ Orioles.
Wednesday – ALCS Game 3, Orioles @ Royals.
Thursday – ALCS Game 4, Orioles @ Royals.
The broadcasts start at 7 p.m. each night.
Eat: Today (Tuesday) is my eighth wedding anniversary with my fantastic wife. In a normal year we would be heading to Kansas City for a nice meal somewhere. But that isn’t in the cards in 2020, so my plan is to fire up the grill and make her a meal. Not just the main dish, mind you, I’m talking all the sides, too. So I guess my recommendation here is for the fellas out there to make something nice for your person. Remember, it doesn’t have to be your anniversary to whip up something nice and show your appreciation.