KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Four years ago, when the Royals re-enlisted Alex Gordon with a four-year, $72 million deal, his seemingly improbable return made for a celebration. As it should have been.
The Royals were coming off back-to-back American League championships and had just won their first World Series in 30 years with Gordon playing an instrumental role. Re-signing him to the most lucrative deal in club history suggested both a commitment to more and appreciation of the very embodiment of their resurgence from the abyss:
A player drafted as a would-be savior (the next George Brett!) only to experience profound failure before grinding his way to stardom; a player who became a pillar and symbol of what it took to navigate doubts and futility to reach the pinnacle; a player who made an art form of defending his terrain in left field and was part of absolutely exhilarating defenses in 2014 and 2015; a player who will soon be on his way to the Royals Hall of Fame after announcing his retirement Thursday.
Of all the considerable accolades at the news conference that day in January 2016, this stood out from then-manager Ned Yost: “If you could make a mold for a baseball player, Alex Gordon would be it. I mean, the perfect player.”
As it happened, though, there was to be no perfect ending ahead.
Instead, there was something more real and meaningful in its own way.
That May, his collision with third baseman Mike Moustakas left Gordon out a month and Moustakas out for the season. In the last few years, other than some spurts here and there, he seldom produced at the plate the way he had before even as his outfield play remained a joy to behold.
Meanwhile, the team regressed into back-to-back 100-plus-loss seasons as it became stranded between eras: Acting with some element of sentimentality (approved here), it sought to wring all it could from the moment instead of making coldly pragmatic moves such as dealing key players like Eric Hosmer and Lorenzo Cain before they priced out.
Now, amid the pandemic, Gordon will be playing his last game on Sunday in an empty Kauffman Stadium without so much as a last hurrah in person (for now, anyway) from Royals fans.
The thing is, though, that storybook stuff and life its own self are vastly different. And bummer that it is that it will end this way, there is a certain fitting symmetry in the full-circle humanity of Gordon’s career — including the very fact that he never played anywhere but here.
Because his connection here goes well beyond the incredible, indelible Gold Glove moments, beyond the majestic game-tying home run off Jeurys Familia in the ninth inning of Game 1 of the 2015 World Series that forced extra innings in what became a 5-4, 14-inning victory and so many other highlights.
Those moments resonated all the more because of who provided them and from whence he came.
When he was asked Thursday in what pose he’d like to see any prospective future statue of himself, Gordon first resisted the notion it was inevitable. Then he smiled and said it should depict him lying on the ground knocked out after running into the left-field wall.
He was joking. But it also would be apt for someone who got up so many times and often quite literally left everything he had on the field with diving catches, part of a statement he made to teammates and fans every single day.
It’s that broader story, that rise from the dregs through a legendary work ethic, that makes him relatable and all the more compelling. So much so that when general manager Dayton Moore recently recorded a commencement speech for the Kansas City Public Schools Class of 2020, Gordon was a fundamental part of it.
After saying “challenges are meant to mold us and shape us and guide us in the future,” Moore pivoted to Gordon. After all, the second overall pick in the 2005 MLB draft 10 years ago was demoted to Class AAA Omaha while hitting .194 in his fourth big league season.
At the time, Moore said, there was a real question about whether Gordon would ever get back to the major leagues — especially since part of the reason he was sent down was to convert him to the outfield from third base to make way for Moustakas.
Gordon didn’t make excuses, didn’t blame others, didn’t tell Moore to trade him or that he wasn’t a very good GM, Moore recalled. Instead, he said, “I’ll do whatever you want me to do.”
When I asked Gordon about Moore’s story a few days later, he called it “a difficult time in my life.”
“But just being brought up the way I was, knowing that life’s not going to be easy all the time,” he added, left him knowing “it’s how you handle it” that matters.
So he resolved to swallow any anger or excuses and keep his head up and work hard.
“It was just about looking in the mirror and making changes and doing it the best way I could,” Gordon said, later adding, “Life is going to throw you curveballs here and there.”
You know what came next: Gordon became a three-time All-Star and a virtuoso of his new position, reflected in his seven Gold Gloves. With numbers through Wednesday, he’ll retire among the franchise career leaders in most offensive categories, including home runs (fourth, with 190), extra-base hits (573, fifth), runs batted in (749, sixth) and games played (1,749, sixth).
“He did what the very best leaders and the most successful people do,” Moore said in the speech. “They take their situation, their circumstances, whatever event that they’re presented with, and they take it as the very best thing to ever happen to them in their life.
“They take that challenge, that hardship, and they use it to their advantage to shape them and mold them and make them better.”
There’s that word again, “mold.” His distinct one was cast back in Lincoln, Neb., where he was born in 1984. A few weeks after his father, Mike, died in 2018, we spoke at spring training about his upbringing and the impact his parents had on him.
He emphasized he wouldn’t have been here without his mother, Leslie, whose example as a night-shift nurse and antique-store owner and cancer survivor set a tone of its own.
But his father, who was 63 when he died after five years of being afflicted by Alzheimer’s disease, also had an enormous influence on his resolve and a more specific role in his love of the game.
On a crude baseball diamond near their home about every day they could, Gordon and his three brothers awaited their father’s daily return from his sales manager jobs with soda and beer companies — jobs he’d take them along for on occasion to help load trucks and do other heavy lifting to demonstrated that the grunt work was important in itself.
Long as his days were, Mike Gordon always had the energy to come to the field and throw to all four of them for two hours at a time. Never mind that he didn’t have a protective L-screen to work with.
“It was incredible. Never complained, never fussed about it,” said Gordon, the second-oldest, recalling that his father frequently got drilled on comebackers. “He’d get right back up and say, ‘Hey, here we go.’ ”
If that sounds familiar, it should. Gordon embraced examples of his father, including typically using his words sparingly in public and around teammates.
Instead, he usually let his work speak for him, a point of pride that also reflected his father’s influence. That day as he spoke of honoring Mike Gordon, he said: “I would expect people would say you’re playing for your dad (this season). But, you know, I’ve been playing my whole life for my dad.”
In a perfect world, of course, his dad and the rest of his family and a stadium full of fans would be here and able to watch him play one last time on Sunday instead of anticipating a day to celebrate him next year.
But it’s not a perfect world, and there’s so much we can’t control around us, so all we can do is the best we can. Alex Gordon defined what giving it all means, especially when so much was going against him.
And his lasting legacy, thankfully in nothing but a Royals uniform, will stand as perfect testament to that. And something to celebrate again and be seized by the next generation.
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