A Major League Baseball clubhouse is not the place to find a new best friend.
Itโs about as rare as a triple play and usually twice as dirty.
There are too few roster spots, too few long contracts and too much competition. Itโs cut or be cut. Dog-eat-dog.
Baseball is binary. Youโre up or youโre down, both figuratively and literally. You want to win. You want to play. You want to get paid. You want to stay.
Youโll have your buddies. Youโll have your pals. Youโll meet your fair share of drinking partners.
But a best friend? A groomsman? Someone for whom youโd jump in front of a moving car, even if he was batting below the Mendoza line? Those are rare. Those are special.
A little like Johnny Field and Robert Refsnyder.
You canโt make up a setting like this: A mid-June afternoon and the sky is so blue over Yankee Stadium it looks like a still lake somewhere in the mountains of Vermont. It is a couple hours before the game, so tensions are low.
Refsnyder, the former Arizona Wildcats star, the hero of the 2012 College World Series run, a former Yankee himself, stands behind the batting cage and chats with current Yankee fortress Aaron Judge. Refsnyder is no shrimp โ 6 feet, 200 pounds, strong โ but he looks like a child standing next to Judge. All 6 feet 7 inches and 282 pounds of him.
Then Field walks by, Refsnyderโs once-Wildcat and now-Tampa Bay Rays teammate, 5-foot-10 in cleats, 195 pounds after a workout, and it looks like those Russian Matryoshka dolls. One of them can stack inside the next.
Thatโs always been the knock on Field. Too small. Plucky, feisty, gamer, but too small.
Heโs made a career out of proving them wrong.
He didnโt get drafted out of Bishop Gorman High School, despite hitting .504 for one of the best programs in the country, despite finishing his career with 209 hits, third most in Nevada state history. So he went to Arizona, and, oh, nothing, just was a Louisville Slugger freshman All-American and led the Pac-12 in batting as a sophomore, when he helped lead the Wildcats to the 2012 national championship.
The Rays drafted Field in the fifth round in 2013 โ a year after Refsnyder went in the fifth round to the Yankees โ and his path to the majors was anything but paved in gold. He worked his way up, from the Hudson Valley Renegades of the New York-Penn League in low-A in 2013 to the Bowling Green Hot Rods and Charlotte Stone Crabs of Single-A in 2014, then onto the Double-A Montgomery Biscuits, where he batted .255 in 116 games in 2015 and .272 in 45 games a year later. Halfway through 2016, he bumped up to Triple-A Durham and he spent all of last season with the Bulls, batting .261 with 12 home runs and 57 RBIs.
He entered spring training this year with a snarl on his face and a glint in his eye. This would be the year. And up until March 27, the dream only got bigger. Objects may appear closer than they really are and all.
Mentally, Field was on the cusp of achieving his lifelong wish.
Then the Rays traded for a new fourth outfielder, rendering Field to the minors. He was optioned back to the Bulls.
The guy who took his spot? That low-down, no-good, dirty, rotten โฆ wait.
Meet Robert Refsnyder.
A quick aside: How did Johnny Field meet Robert Refsnyder?
They met when Refsnyder was a freshman at Arizona and Field was a senior at Las Vegas powerhouse Bishop Gorman High. Refsnyderโs fellow freshman, outfielder Joey Rickard, was a high school teammate of Fieldโs. During a trip of Fieldโs to Tucson, they bonded, and when Field joined the team the next year, they became fast friends. That season, 2011, would end in disappointment for the Wildcats, a loss to Texas A&M in the NCAA Tournament regional finals, but a year later, theyโd make a playoff surge and become national champions. That bond lasts forever.
โI liked Johnny from the start,โ Refsnyder said. โHeโs very similar to me. We went through a lot of different stages at the same time. His dating life was similar to mine โ he had a high school girlfriend, and I did, too, and we both broke up at the same time ...โ
OK, so they played the field โฆ and then they went to the ballpark.
โThere are some childish memories,โ Refsnyder said with a wry smile. โHey, I heard Dirtbags isnโt doing that well anymore? Thatโs weird.โ
Years later, on Dec. 12, 2015, Field would watch one of his best friends walk down the aisle, standing by Refsnyderโs side as a groomsman as he married former Arizona swimmer Monica Drake.
โThat was really cool for me,โ Field said. โThat was my first time being a groomsman. The offseason before Iโd had a couple chances, but Iโd been in Australia for winter ball. So it was just so cool, not only the wedding, but getting to spend time with him at his bachelor party, meeting some of his other buddies. Seeing him on cloud nine. You could tell he wanted to marry this girl for a while. I remember when she was walking down the aisle, peeking at Robโs face, and Iโve never seen him so happy.โ
A little over two years later, Refsnyder stole his job.
The last day of spring training, March 27, both got the news.
Refsnyder thought he was going to be the fourth outfielder for the American League Central division-favorite Cleveland Indians. The team claimed him in November of last year, plucked from the Toronto Blue Jays, who had traded for him just a few months prior.
Refsnyder got his news first.
He was being traded to the Rays, in exchange for cash considerations, ostensibly taking Fieldโs roster spot.
Later that day, Field got called in to the managerโs clubhouse, and was let down gently.
โThat night it hit me hard,โ he admits. โI sulked on it. You know how close you are, and you never know when the next chance will be. But I knew I had to go to minor-league camp for two games anyway, and by the time I got there, I told myself I wasnโt going to be the guy there who was salty, who had bad body language. It took me about a day.โ
Itโs one thing to have a positive attitude, Field said. Itโs another thing to stay ready.
Put it this way: In his last week with Durham, he batted .365.
โAs difficult and trying as that circumstance was, Johnny was genuinely happy for his buddy,โ Rays manager Kevin Cash said. โBut he wanted an opportunity, and he knew the only way he was going to get it was to go down to Durham and do what heโs been doing the last few years. Sure enough, he comes up here and heโs been as consistent as anybody.โ
Cash said they knew Field would be able to handle the setback, โsince Day 1. We saw the way he handled the bus trips. We saw him waiting to play in the seventh or eighth or ninth inning and perform. But he realized, and it quickly popped up that with the way he performed in spring training, that he was going to help this club at some point.โ
That point was on April 13. He got the call.
But not before he was caught off guard.
โBaseball is just weird, man,โ Field said. โIโve heard a lot of buddies say you get called up when you least expect it. I was off to a great start in Durham, and mid-game the day before, I got pinch-hit for against a lefty. I was 1-for-2 with a double, and Iโm thinking maybe. โฆ But I didnโt get called up that night. My friends were asking, โWhyโd you come out?โ I dunno.
โLater that night, I saw the Rays had acquired an outfielder and put him on the 40-man roster,โ he continued. โIn my mind, Iโm thinking, I might be over in this organization. I was thinking about texting my agent that I was done. Iโm not sure what they were doing with this. I donโt think Iโm ever going to get called up. But instead of texting, I went to the field, I was in the lineup, playing center field, it was weird. Itโs 6 oโclock, like an hour before the game, the manager calls me in, โI gotta talk to you.โ He tells me right then and there, โyouโre going to the Trop and playing tomorrow.โโ
Field was shocked. The other Bulls coaches all clapped, and there were high-fives and hugs and handshakes, but Field didnโt quite believe it.
โI didnโt see where they needed me at the time,โ he said. โIt was a whirlwind. I was thinking is this a short-term thing? All those things go through your head. I had to take a step back to realize the magnitude of it.โ
Field called both of his parents, Maureen and John โ coincidentally a player himself for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in his day โ and he shared the news. Mom was at work, and she started bawling. Dad flew into Florida.
โItโs not just me who got called up,โ Field said. โIt feels like my parent got called up, too. The amount of time, effort, money โ theyโve been with me every step of the way. That was the most gratifying thing to me.โ
The Rays hadnโt yet announced the roster move, so Field wasnโt really supposed to tell anyone about the news.
But he got a text.
โRob already found out, and he was the first guy to text me,โ Field said, โCongrats, hurry up and get here so I can see you.โ
Their friendship is well-known in the Raysโ clubhouse. Cash said, โI tell one guy whoโs playing and I expect the other guy to tell the other guy heโs not. In the clubhouse, theyโre sitting side-by-side eating tougher, thereโs a lot of conversation going on. Thatโs pretty special. As exciting as playing in Major League Baseball is, to get to do it with one of your buddies is pretty special.โ
โEverybody in the clubhouse knows it, understands it, and I think itโs really cool,โ said Rocco Baldelli, the Rays major league field coordinator and a former Rays player himself. โYou donโt run into this often. They had a ton of memories together before they showed up here, but being able to spend this time in the big leagues together? I canโt imagine being with my best friend playing in the big leagues.
โIโve never seen it before.โ
Who knows if weโll see it again? They shared a clubhouse again for exactly two months and six days.
This time, the cleat is on the other foot.
Refsnyder has learned the cruel realities of the business in the harshest ways, and once more, his name was called on Tuesday. Refsnyder was designated for assignment by the Rays, who activated outfielder Kevin Kiermaier from the disabled list.
This time, Field remains, despite a .224 batting average and .268 on-base percentage. When the Daily Star caught up with the pair at Yankee Stadium, Field had only just recently taken Refsnyderโs role. Now heโll share left field with Mallex Smith for the foreseeable future.
Refsnyder? He was batting .167 at the time he was DFAโd. His future is uncertain.
It has been uncertain before, though, and heโs prevailed. That left an imprint on his friend.
โRobโs been around, heโs had big league time, he knows how this industry works,โ Field said. โHe knows how cutthroat it can be. Weโre both in the same role. In the back of our minds, is competitive. It doesnโt change anything about our friendship. This game is about production, but outside of baseball, nothing really changes at all. Same dry humor, same jokes we had from college. Outside of baseball, weโre the same two guys.โ
