This story was excerpted from Ian Browne’s Red Sox Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
BOSTON – Marcelo Mayer will spend Father’s Day doing everything he always wanted – playing baseball at the highest level.
Not only that, but he will be wearing a Red Sox uniform in a rivalry game against the Yankees at Fenway Park.
It is a big stage – one that he doesn’t think he’d be on without his first and favorite coach.
That would be his father Enrique.
When the Red Sox informed Mayer on May 24 that he was being rushed to Fenway Park to make his Major League debut in the second game of a doubleheader, the 22-year-old didn’t even have to think about who the first phone call was going to be with to share the good news.
“I mean, just the work that me and my dad have put in throughout the years, he's been my coach through it all,” said Mayer. “He's kind of created me into the player I am. It was super special for both of us and the whole family.”
Enrique Mayer played baseball up until JUCO but couldn’t advance to the professional level like his 22-year-old son, who is MLB Pipeline’s No. 8 prospect.
But Enrique’s gift was in being able to master the art of being a good coach and a good father at the same time.
That is tough to balance for many fathers and sons.
“I wouldn't really say it was like that for me just because of our relationship and I feel like I've always been a pretty good player, and that was a lot of credit to him,” Marcelo Mayer said. “So I fully trusted him. Obviously, sometimes you don’t want to hear it from your dad, but I do know that he knows what he's talking about. So I always listened to him.”
Of course, it’s not only going to be sunshine and roses. When Enrique got frustrated with Marcelo on the ballfield, he knew it had to be for good reason.
“We’ve always been super close and I think that helped on the baseball field,” Marcelo said. “He pushed me really hard. He made sure that I played the game the right way, and if I didn't, he let me know. There were a few times where, growing up, I'd have a bad attitude and practice with him because it wasn't going the way that I wanted it to. And he'd make me pick all that stuff up and take everything to the house. So, yeah, I think that just kind of created me into who I am today.”
Enrique is an investment banker. But it’s clear the investment he made in showing his son the art of baseball has paid off.
When Red Sox manager Alex Cora speaks about Marcelo as a player, he often mentions his attention to detail and always being in the right spot and playing the game with such fluidity.
That is sometimes lost in this era of amateur showcase baseball where players are trying too hard to impress scouts with their tools that fundamentals can get lost. Enrique made sure Marcelo always stayed true to himself as a player.
“He just knows the game so well,” Marcelo Mayer said of his dad. “And he knows me so well. I think the best coach is someone that knows you the best and someone who has been around you the most. The trust that I have with him is unmatched.”
Marcelo doesn’t remember a baseball moment growing up when his dad wasn’t around.
“He's coached me my whole life, whether that was on a team [he was coaching], or if I was playing for another team,” Mayer said. “Every single practice I had my whole life was with my dad. Even to this day, I still practice with him in the offseason.”
It figures that Mayer’s first two career hits happened to come in his second game – when his dad, mom and siblings were sitting next to the visitors' dugout.
The second hit was a double, and someone immediately delivered that baseball to Enrique, who didn’t bother masking his smile.
Marcelo plans on creating many other special moments on the baseball field over the next many years, and he won’t soon forget the person who put him in such an enviable position.