This story was excerpted from Steve Gilbert’s D-backs Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
On the rare occasions when Merrill Kelly has a rough outing, the Diamondbacks right-hander will walk out of the Chase Field home clubhouse and into the service tunnel feeling frustrated and disappointed.
He will look up and his 3 1/2-year-old daughter, Hadley, will break out in a huge smile and run toward him. In that moment, the intense competitor can’t help but feel like all is right in the world.
“I know it’s a cliché, but it’s true,” Kelly said. “She doesn’t care if I gave up 12 runs or no runs. It helps me step out of the baseball bubble.”
Fatherhood, it turns out, is a great elixir for dealing with the stress and pressure that comes with being a Major Leaguer.
“For me, at least, it kind of lightens the load a little bit,” Kelly said. “I think with the grind that we go through and how much effort and how much time that we put into what we do, it’s obviously natural for us to think that baseball is the end all be all of our lives. And when you have kids, it changes that in a good way. It reminds me that, at the end of the day, baseball is my job and it is a game.”
Kelly and his wife, Bre, have two children -- Hadley and a five-month-old son, Hayes.
When Kelly is at the ballpark, his focus is completely on baseball, but when the game is over and the long day is done, his focus is 100 percent on his family. That he’s able to do that, he thinks, helps him keep the game in perspective and recharge for the next day.
Last year when a shoulder issue kept him on the injured list for months, the thing that kept his spirits up was the fact that he got to spend more time at home.
“It definitely was a blessing in disguise,” Kelly said. “My daughter and I were able to grow a bond a lot more than we had before, just because the first two years of her life I was gone so much. To have the summer together, that’s the part that meant the most to me. I could have been ticked off that I’m hurt and at home, but being with her allowed me to step back and realize that this time I was getting to spend with her is something we normally never would have had.”
And leaving for road trips these days is still one of the toughest parts of the job.
“That part hurts, walking out the door and her getting sad and holding on to my leg and saying, ‘I don't want you to leave!’” Kelly said. “That part obviously gets you. In that moment, I’ve got to remember that I’m sacrificing something now for something much greater afterwards.”
That reward will come when Kelly’s career is over and he’ll be able to be at home on a full-time basis. When that will be remains to be seen. Kelly would like get three more years in, which would bring him to 10 years in the big leagues, a noteworthy accomplishment.
If he gets there, Hadley will be just over 6 and likely starting more extracurricular activities that Kelly can be there for.
“That part I'm looking forward to, especially with how much my wife has sacrificed, how much my kids are going to have to sacrifice, how my daughter, you know, looks at me every time I leave right now and gets sad,” Kelly said. “She can’t wrap her mind around what it means, but I tell her that in a few more years that Dad is hopefully not going to have to go anywhere other than, you know, maybe the golf course.”