ANAHEIM — Gerrit Cole pitches on Wednesday, but his workload has been heavy since the Yankees touched down on the West Coast last week. “For the last two series I’ve been quite busy. It’s been a while since I’ve been able to play in front of family in California,” said Cole, who went to high school roughly 15 minutes away from Angel Stadium. “It’s good to be back, it feels good.”
“This is home for me,” added Tyler Wade, who grew up an hour away in Murrieta. “The air is just different.”
Cole and Wade are both products of the Southern California baseball factory that churns out draft pick after draft pick each summer. For the SoCal kids that reach the major leagues, a trip back to the West Coast is always one of the jewels of the 162-game schedule.
“I feel like half of our team is from Southern California,” said Kyle Higashioka, who hails from Huntington Beach and grew up playing showcases with Cole. Both players (and Wade) were scouted by the Yankees’ Dave Keith when they were teenagers. “Gerrit and I played on this field, like, many times. I feel good, it feels more familiar than every other place we go to.”
COVID travel restrictions in 2020 prevented the Yankees from playing out west in the regular season, and even if they did, family and friends would not have been allowed in the building. A year later, though, things are somewhat back to normal, and the ticket requests have started flooding back in.
“Requests are coming in from like three different angles: for me, (my wife) Amy, my dad,” Cole explained. “It’s super familiar, the park, but that doesn’t necessarily guarantee success.”
Cole has pitched well in his four MLB starts at Angel Stadium, though. During his time with the Pirates and Astros, Cole struck out 33 hitters and walked only six in 23.1 innings at the Big A. On Wednesday, he’ll get his first chance to start on this mound while wearing a Yankee uniform.
“This is one of the many things I think I missed last season,” Cole said while standing on the infield dirt before Tuesday’s game, looking up at the massive crowd of autograph hounds and adoring fans that were making their way down toward the Yankees’ dugout. “It’s the hometown park. My folks are still out here. I have a few high school friends still, and I keep in touch with my youth pitching coach. He still coaches me quite a bit. A lot of the guys from college, for sure.”
One of the things the players had to relearn after getting back to the West Coast was how to spot familiar faces in a sea of 30,000 fans.
“I got a lot of people here,” Wade realized during Tuesday’s batting practice. “I don’t know where my family is, I’ve been trying to scan for them but I don’t know where they’re at.”
Fans have gotten creative in their attempts to grab the Yankees’ attention through West Coast iconography. In both Oakland and Anaheim, the red and blue colors of Fresno State — where Aaron Judge played college ball — were on display throughout the stadiums’ lower bowls. One person in Oakland even brought Judge’s jersey from his days as a Bulldog, leading the Yankees outfielder to wonder what he needs to do to obtain one.
also this sweet aaron judge fresno state jersey pic.twitter.com/bT4OI6NATq
— Matthew Roberson (@mroberson22) August 28, 2021
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“I’ve seen a couple of those jerseys floating around,” Judge said after Saturday’s game against the Athletics. “I wish I could get one, I don’t even have one of my own.”
Judge is from Linden, a small town in California’s central valley much closer to Oakland than it is to Anaheim. He went 8-for-18 in the four-game series against the A’s with two home runs and seven RBI, following that up with two hits in each of the first two games with the Angels.
“It’s been great,” Judge said during the team’s stay in Oakland. “I love playing on the West Coast, playing in front of family and catching up with friends and relatives that I don’t get to see often on the East Coast. This is home.”
Home, of course, means nostalgic meetups with people from years and years ago. On Monday, a man with a gray goatee and tan skin had premier seats behind home plate, chatting it up with Higashioka during batting practice.
“Oh yeah, that’s my high school coach!” Higashioka said.
The man’s name is Steve Lambright, who coached the Yankees’ catcher at Edison High School. Lambright is now an assistant coach at Cypress Junior College, just west of Anaheim, and couldn’t miss the opportunity to watch his former backstop play for the sport’s most legendary franchise.
“Just a great kid, solid as can be,” Lambright said of Higashioka, before launching into some classic California English. “Dude, I knew he had potential. For him to just have a minor league career would have been awesome, but to get to the big leagues with the New York Yankees, and this team that he’s playing for? Unbelievable. Unreal.”
One year removed from the extremely unreal conditions of cardboard cutouts and canned noise, the little things about the West Coast have become big for the Yankees that know the region well.
“I drive my truck here every time we play and park in, like, the same spot I used to park in every time I pitched here,” said Cole.
“I love it, bro,” said Wade. “I missed it for sure.”
“It’s just a beautiful place to be,” said Higashioka.