I haven’t read the article as I don’t subscribe to The Athletic. I reckon I should subscribe given all the good stuff I’ve heard.
Anyway, just reading the headline, I had to chuckle a little bit. I think even if Alex Wood hadn’t pitched at Georgia, I’d still like the guy a lot. He doesn’t shy away from saying what’s on his mind, but doesn’t come off as a jerk either… that’s a finer line to walk than a lot of people realize, I think…
I remember in 2011, his redshirt freshman year, he started opening weekend against Stetson on Sunday. We lost that game, but Alex did some good things and you could see that he had really high level stuff. I went way out on a limb and predicted that he’d soon be our Friday nightstarter. He missed the next weekend with some arm soreness. Then Florida State came to town and Alex got the ball, against Sean Gilmartin, on a cold Friday night. You probably don’t want to remember our series in Tallahassee the previous year. I sure don’t… that was as lopsided of a series as you could imagine… James Ramsey killed us that weekend too (although in fairness, pretty much every player for Florida State killed us). So when they come up here the next March, Ramsey gets up to hit and 1st base is open. Alex drills right in the back…. Mike Martin got pretty hot about it as I recall… and it was absolutely intentional, and I’m sure it had been talked about earlier in the week. I remember thinking, Alex Wood has some balls… you just wouldn’t see a lot of younger pitchers (or heck, even older ones) do that.
Then I’m sure you remember him getting into it when he was with the Dodgers with that Padres’ runner on 2nd base who Alex thought (correctly I’m sure) was relaying signs… here is the YouTube video of that…
Alex is a pretty big guy… he’s tall anyway, but he’s not overly thick or anything like that. If you saw him on the street, you probably wouldn’t think “professional athlete”… But he sure doesn’t seem to be afraid of very much or intimidated by anything. I respect that… he’s definitely a throwback player in that respect. He’s a throwback in general. You just don’t see a lot of people who really speak their minds and don’t put up with a lot of nonsense, anymore.
Sure wish he was still a Brave. But man, all those homeruns from Hector Olivera really justify that tra…. Oh wait…
