SnogBlogy

When Max Scherzer signed with the Mets last winter, former Tigers catcher Gerald Laird had one thought about his former teammate: He’s going to change the whole Mets organization, just with his presence.

The Mets are indeed better with Scherzer. Major League Baseball is, too. So with Scherzer set to return soon from an oblique injury, The Athletic called up 12 of Scherzer’s former catchers — and a few pitchers and pitching coaches— to help understand the most intense (and surprisingly funny) man in baseball.

Gerald Laird, Tigers catcher: He’s one of a kind. I’ll tell you that right now.

Advertisement

Frank Curreri, Diamondbacks catcher: He’s got that little bit of crazy in him. That’s what makes him as good as he is.

Jonathan Lucroy, Nationals catcher: He’s just nuts.

Bryan Holaday, Tigers catcher: I mean, we had a competition to see who could hold their breath underwater the longest.

Rick Porcello, Tigers pitcher: Just how intense he would get when he was playing “Call of Duty.” He’d be up at 2 o’clock in the morning screaming because he lost a game or missed a shot.

John Hester, Diamondbacks catcher: I think this might have been his first or second start in High A, but we played the San Jose Giants, and he went out and pitched seven innings, had a perfect game. And they pulled him because that was what you did for your huge prospect that had just shown up and had a pitch count. And he went berserk when our manager went out there to get him. They interviewed him after the game: “Hey Max, do you think you would have finished the perfect game?” And I think the answer was: “Abso-fucking-lutely.”

Alex Avila, Tigers and Nationals catcher: The legend of Mad Max.

Laird: When Max is not pitching, you get to know Max. He’s the coolest fucking teammate. He’s one of my favorite teammates of all time.

Porcello: He’s the best.

Laird: But on his start day, he’s a different bird.

Curreri: That’s his drive, that’s what’s inside him. That’s why he’s a Hall of Famer.

Avila: He’s always heavily involved in any of the clubhouse pools, fantasy football, anything like that. He loves it.

Max Scherzer: If baseball brings out the best in everybody, fantasy football brings out the worst in everybody. You get to see everybody’s true side.

Laird: He’s a finagler.

Porcello: His trades would be so lopsided and the way he would deliver them, he’d try to fluff them up to make it seem like this is an offer I couldn’t refuse.

Advertisement

Avila: There was a game in Kansas City. He’s pitching, and early in the game we get into some trouble with guys on base. He was a little erratic. We had just had our fantasy football draft.

Porcello: He never had a very good draft. He’d always get emotional during the draft.

Holaday: He lived for the draft. Just because he wanted to talk as much crap as possible about everybody’s picks.

Avila: Leading up to that game, we had been talking about a football trade. Early in that game he had a couple guys on and he just didn’t seem like he was in sync, so I was like, “OK, let me go out to the mound, see what’s up and try to calm him down a little bit.” I proposed a fantasy football trade to him on the mound and caught him off guard.

Scherzer: Well, we were deep in discussions before the game.

Avila: He does a double-take, looks up at me, and he was all over the place. He starts processing if he should make this trade and agree to this deal. After a few seconds of him processing the offer, he was like, “Let me get back to you. I’ve got to think about this a little more.”

Scherzer: I go, “Alex, I told you already! I’m not doing the deal.” And I was like, “All right, what do we want to throw — a slider? OK, let’s go.”

Shawn Kelley, Nationals reliever: He brought in this thing called the Butt Bowl where, if you finished in last place, you had to repay and double your fee for the whole year. So that kept people at the end grinding on the waiver wire. You had to fight until the end.

Avila: There was one year he was tired of having to track guys down for money. So before the draft, he goes, “Everybody get me the entry money, and if you don’t by the day of the draft, you lose your fourth-round pick.”

Scherzer: When you’re a commissioner, you have to rule with an iron fist.

Avila: Everybody’s like, “That’s so stupid. What are you doing?” We were all like, “He’s being a dick.” I would stir the pot with him: I wouldn’t pay him.

Advertisement

Scherzer: He wanted to prove a point, so I had to prove a point as well.

Avila: We’re literally sitting there getting ready for the draft, and he’s like, “If you don’t give it to me now, you’re losing your fourth-round pick.” I’m like, “Fine, I don’t need a fourth-round pick. I’ll still kick your ass.”… Sure enough, we start the draft and he skips me in the fourth round.

Scherzer: As commissioner, you take a lot of heat. So you have to come up with rules, and you got to stick with them.

Lucroy: He’s definitely the most intense dude I’ve ever caught.

James McCann, Tigers and Mets catcher: As a rookie, it was just: “Don’t make him mad.”

Holaday: When Phil Nevin called me to let me know that I was getting called up, I was like, “Man, as long as I’m catching anybody but Max. That guy is just a psycho.”

Kelley: Our third year in Washington together, Derek Lilliquist was our pitching coach. Davey Martinez was the manager. Davey told Lilli, “Go out there and check on him.” Lilli looked at him and was like, “Are you fucking crazy? I’m not going out there.” They had this conversation about who’s going to go out there and ask him how he’s doing. It was like the seventh inning and he got in a little bit of a jam.

Curreri: He’s an MMA fighter on the pitcher’s mound.

Kelley: So finally, Lilli puts his head down, sets his book down, takes his little reading glasses off. He takes like two steps — he’s not even out of the dugout — and Max is staring a hole through him. He’s snarling, snot is coming out his mouth, he’s drooling and steam is coming out his ears, his eyes are bloodshot, and he goes: “You better get in the fucking dugout right now. Don’t you fucking dare come out here.” Lilli looks at Davey and is like, “Yep, that’s good.”

Rick Knapp, Tigers pitching coach: He did that to me in Boston!

Advertisement

Laird: There were a couple times he was like, “What are you doing out here?” I was like, “Max, this is our pitching coach!”

Knapp: So here I am, trotting out to see Max, and he starts freaking screaming at me: “What are you doing out here?! Get the fuck back in the dugout! I don’t need you to come out here.” I put my head down and was like: “OK, Max, you done? I was told to come out here you son of a bitch! I don’t want to be out here! Fucking pitch better!”

Avila: He didn’t mind if he wasn’t doing well and you went out there as a catcher and said, “Bro, you suck right now. Let’s pick it up.”

Knapp: Max certainly took to aggression better than others.

Avila: He fed off that.

Buck Showalter, Mets manager: He told me one time, he said — about taking him out or whatever — “I’ll ask you who you’re bringing in before I give you an answer.”

Holaday: He doesn’t take himself too seriously.

Kelley: We used to keep mental notes of what we called Dusty-isms the two years we played for Dusty (Baker) together. Dusty would get on these rants, these little fun pep talks … He got on this rant about pitching and when you come into a game. He was like, “You young guys with your hats up and your eyes all big, I’d be in the on deck circle just licking my chops because I knew you’re scared. Now, some of you motherfuckers that come in with your hats down low and throwing your warmup pitches like you just don’t give a fuck, now that’s scary.” Dusty goes: “You know what else would scare me as a hitter? If that motherfucking pitcher didn’t take all his warmup pitches.”So I was down some debt to Max over some bad bets that I made on some NBA playoff basketball and hockey playoffs. He was feeling bad for my poor little reliever self with his big Cy Young money, so he said: “I’ll tell you what, I’ll erase a $1,000 of your debt if you go out there and you just throw one warmup pitch and just say, ‘Fuck it, I’m ready to go.'” I took a bunch of extra warmup pitches in the bullpen and I went out there and threw one warmup pitch and said, “Hey, I’m ready.” The ump was like, “What?” And I’m like, “No, I’m ready, let’s go.” It didn’t go real well, but I did get some of my money back. Of course, I look in the dugout and Max is just grinning ear to ear.

Advertisement

Tim Jamieson, Missouri head coach: He’s pitching against the Mets, and he’s with the Tigers. He’s pitching in a National League city, so Max gets to hit. After the seventh inning, it was pretty obvious the Tigers were going to win. It was a milestone win or strikeout he accomplished. I sent him a text congratulating him. Within five minutes of the text, I get a text back from him. He had attached a video of a double he had hit in the game with the comment: “raking in the show.”

Kelley: This is actually an Al Alburquerque quote, but we used it for years.

Porcello: I forget who Al was facing, but he threw a 3-0 slider and a 3-1 slider and we were in a commanding lead. And the hitter just kind of got out of the box and just kind of threw his hands up.

Kelley: I think the guy basically was saying in Spanish, “Throw a fucking fastball, you baby,” in worse words. Of course, he throws another slider and the guy swings and misses, strikes out, breaks his bat, just mother-fucking in Spanish. And Alburquerque just looks at him and says: “Hey papi, you want a fastball, you go to the cage.”

Porcello: That was quickly Max’s favorite line.

Kelley: So I’ve thrown 3-2 sliders in games, and you hear Max scream out in the dugout, in the middle of the game, in the eighth or ninth inning: “Fastballs are in the cage!”

Holaday: This was a bored quarantine thing we started doing. We acted like we were doing Navy SEAL training, and we would go on four- or five-mile runs, and then swim in the intracoastal (waterway). We were just doing anything and everything we could to stay active. We were watching these Navy SEAL videos, and he was like, “OK, let’s see who can hold their breath the longest.”

Kelley: I used to bring my boat to Jupiter and rent a house that had a dock. Well, Max had a big house down the way. I decided to take some of the young pitchers out, just cruising up and down, hanging out, sandbars, couple cocktails, just responsible stuff. Max was pitching that day so I called him and said, “Hey, I’m doing this little team thing. Do you think we can borrow your jet skis?” He’s like, “Absolutely.”

Advertisement

Holaday: He’s a total nerd. He geeks out over the ocean and all that stuff.

Kelley: We get to the end of the day and Joe Ross jumps off the boat and he’s helping put the jet skis up. I say, “Joe, put the jet skis on the ramp and when you get done, hit the button and raise it all the way up until it stops because it gets high enough to even at high tide nothing can happen.” Joe hits the button, but it doesn’t look like it’s all the way up. So I said, “Joe, you did raise it until it was all the way up, right?” And he goes, “Yes, I did it until it stopped.” The next day, I go to the field and I’m walking through the weight room and some guy goes, “Hey, have you seen Max yet?” No big deal. Ten more steps and someone else goes, “Hey, have you seen Max yet?” I get in the locker room; another guy: “Have you seen Max yet?” Now I’m looking for him. I go in the training room and even the head trainer, Paul Lessard, was like, “Hey, have you seen Max?” I’m like, “Paul, what the hell is going on, man? Did somebody die?” He goes, “Well … I think there was an issue with the jet skis.”I find Max. He woke up that morning and his jet skis were like a mile down the inland, banging up on the rocks. So he had to kayak down, get each one, drive them back and park them on the ramp. He was going to get my keys to my really nice Jeep Rubicon that had a Hemi and was all bit up for rock crawling, and he was going to park it in centerfield during batting practice.

Laird: I’m not lying to you: he was the worst 16-hole golfer I’ve ever seen. Like, hitting shit in the weeds. Like, dude, have you ever played before?

Kelley: Then he’s going to get to the end and he’s going to press. And if he loses that, he’s going to press again.

Laird: You can put this: Max was the shittiest golfer and then the best presser in golf. That means he would lose all his money the first 16 holes and then press all his fucking money the last two holes and he’d look like Tiger Woods. The best.

Kelley: To sum Max up: He’s going to win.

Luke Carlin, Diamondbacks catcher: Doug Davis, a left-handed pitcher for us, had invited some guys that were living in Arizona to his golf outing for the foundation that he had. I’m not in Max’s group, but I walk up to the tee box where he is and he just straight big-leagues the shit out of me. Like, just mean mugs me. We’re all sitting here having drinks; he’s not drinking. He’s locked in like it’s Game 7 of the freaking World Series. I’m like, “What the hell is going on with Max?” His group told me: “Dude, he’s two strokes down. He’s pissed. Don’t talk to him.” I’m like, “It’s a celebrity golf tournament!”

Advertisement

Wilson Ramos, Nationals catcher: To me, that’s why he’s one of the best.

Porcello: There was one time we were playing in Orlando at Reunion and we were all standing behind him and he teed off. He was having a tough day getting out of the box, and he hit like his sixth worm burner. And he just finally snapped. He completely lost it, and on his recoil swing, he lets go of the golf club directly behind him and the thing just hits me perfectly parallel. The shaft bent around my body and bounced off. That’s him.

Brayan Peña, Tigers catcher: He came to me and was like, “When I win the Cy Young, I’m going to give you a Rolex.” I was like, “Come on, man. Stop messing around with me.” And, man, he ended up winning the Cy Young and I became a free agent. In December, I got a FedEx to my door in Orlando. There was this beautiful box. I thought it was a joke from my wife or something. When I opened it: an engraved Rolex.

Holaday: He’s one of the best people in the world.

Peña: He’s special, man.

Porcello: He was one of my favorite guys that I ever played with.

Peña, at the end of an interview: Tell Max to fuck off.

Scherzer, when told of Peña’s sentiments: If I have a teammate that likes me, that’s usually what they tell me. And that’s usually what I tell them.

(Illustration: John Bradford / The Athletic; Photos: Rick Osentoski, Neville E. Guard / USA Today)

ncG1vNJzZmismJqutbTLnquim16YvK57kmxqb2hibXxzfJFrZmluX2eEcLnAsWSsm5iav7ux0WaamqyTnbKzv4ylnKCdnpl8