Written by Tom Schreier
Josh Willingham had a brief stay in the Twin Cities. In 2012 he signed a 3-year, $21 million contract, the richest free agent contract in Minnesota Twins history at the time, and hit 35 home runs that year, but saw his production drop in his last two years in Minnesota due to injury and age. The 35-year-old outfielder was shipped to Kansas City for a pitching prospect right before the Royals came to town to face the Twins, seemingly gone as soon as he came following an injury-riddled 2013 season. But in his brief stay he made a significant impact on Brian Dozier and Trevor Plouffe, two of the Twins’ core players.
“He was a guy that was obviously an established big leaguer,” says Plouffe, whose locker was in the same corner as Willingham’s in the Twins clubhouse. “He’s done a lot of good things in the game, but he was so grounded, and he showed up every day with a great attitude. He was willing to help young guys like myself, which he didn’t have to.”
At the time Willingham was signed, Plouffe’s career was in flux. He came up as a ground ball hitter in 2010 and failed to produce at the major league level during his limited stint with the Twins. In 2011 he reinvented himself as a fly ball hitter, but again did not put up the numbers expected of him. The No. 20 overall selection in 2004, Plouffe was drafted ahead of teammates Glen Perkins and Phil Hughes and shot through the Twins’ minor league system. He reached Triple-A by age 22 and put up good numbers in Rochester but was looking like a Quad-A player that couldn’t quite make the leap to the majors. He was moved from shortstop, the position he was drafted as, to the outfield. Eventually he landed at third base, where he had to learn a whole new position. Still, in 2011 he was not putting up the power numbers that earned him the nickname Babe Plouffe in the minors.
While he worked extensively with two hitting coaches in the Twins organization, Joe Vavra and Tom Brunansky, on the technical aspects of hitting, it was Willingham who he calls his mentor. “He had a bunch of guys like me that he kind of mentored through the process because he obviously came up and paid his dues and understood how it needed to be done,” he says. “And that’s a big thing, you need guys like that in the clubhouse.”
Dozier, whose locker is situated between Willingham and Plouffe in the team clubhouse, was another player that Willingham took under his wing. “When I got to the big leagues, he was under the first year of his contract,” says Dozier. “I consider him one of my best friends, to be honest with you. Within the game, he plays the game the way it’s supposed to be played. He is probably one of the true professionals in the game as far as showing up to the field and work ethic and that kind of stuff, so he taught me a lot.”
The connection came naturally for Dozier, even though Willingham is eight years older than him: Dozier is from Tupelo, Miss., and Willingham is from Florence, Ala., two small southern towns in nearly identical states. “The exact same,” says Dozier, who lives an hour and a half away from Willingham. “It’s mirrored states that are pretty much exactly the same, just different names I guess.”
In addition to being raised in a similar culture, they both are very religious. “I come from a Christian background, raised in a Christian family, and so does Josh, so our morals are pretty much the same,” says Dozier in his southern drawl. “I think that’s why we hit it off so good and why we call each other one of our closest friends. When it comes to that kind of stuff, which is by far the most important thing in life to us, it trumps anything you do in the game of baseball, and having that together to talk about and share with our family and kids and everything makes this game a lot easier.”
Plouffe, 27, is also significantly younger than Willingham, and saw him as a role model both on and away from the diamond. In 2012, Plouffe hit 24 home runs, establishing himself as a major leaguer while emulating Willingham, a dead-pull hitter. “A lot of it had to do with him,” he says. “I kind of got on his workout schedule, we were always in the gym together and we’d talk about hitting and what we wanted to do, and pitchers kind of pitch us similarly, so we’d talk about the pitchers and how to gameplan together. That was a really fun summer for us, and he’s a guy I look to as one of, if not the, biggest influences of my big league career.”
Plouffe also married his wife, Olivia, in January of 2013 and sees Willingham as a model when it comes to being a husband and father. “The one thing I respect the most about him is the way he is off the field,” says Plouffe, who could often be seen holding Willingham’s children in the locker room and speaking with them in an avuncular fashion. “He’s such a great family man. He’s got the picture-perfect family, an All-American family. He’s got a great wife, beautiful wife, who’s just amazing with the kids, and three awesome boys.
“My wife and I, we always talk about if we could have a life like theirs, we’d be doing pretty good for ourselves.”
Willingham’s wife, Ginger, and his three boys, Rhett, Ryder and Rogan, were a fixture in the Twins locker room after games. They would wrestle in the hallway while they waited to be let in and, once in the locker room, two of them would occasionally sit on the massage chairs and turn them up all the way in a contest to see which one lasted longer. Occasionally they would have to be told to hush while their father was interviewed. They also spent a lot of time around Plouffe and Dozier, so much so that Dozier called himself “Uncle Bri.”
“They loved it here,” says Dozier, “and I’m as close to Ginger as well [as my wife, Renee], and she absolutely loved everything about Minnesota. I know they didn’t want to leave, but that’s the sucky side of the game, the business part of it, that we have to deal with. But I know they enjoyed their time here.”
Like Plouffe, Dozier is a newlywed, and he holds Willingham in high regard when it comes to being a father and husband as well. But it will be a while before he has kids of his own. “[Plouffe] has been married for over a year now, and I was married in January. No kids or anything yet, so offseasons are kind of wide open and stuff, traveling and that sort of thing, and that’s what I expect to do for the next couple of years when we don’t have kids,” Dozier says. “I know with Josh, he’s got his hands full with three youngsters, and that’s why with hunting trips and stuff, I’ve gotta ask Ginger before I ask him.”
The three of them have plans to get together in the offseason for Willingham’s charity golf tournament, however, and it will be Plouffe’s first time visiting the south outside of baseball roadtrips. Willingham and Dozier plan to break him in by handing him a rifle and some camouflage. Willingham, who took up hunting five years ago, owns a significant amount of property in Florence and has hunted with Dozier before. Dozier, who has hunted his whole life, and was featured with Willingham in his Fox Sports North Spotlight video in a segment filmed in Florence. “Josh has a bunch of land with a bunch of stands,” says Dozier. “We might try and film it too; have Trevor kill his first deer or something like that.”
“I expect there to be a lot of talk about hunting and all that stuff,” says Plouffe, who grew up near Castaic Lake, which is north of downtown Los Angeles. “That’s one of the cool things about baseball is that people come from different places. The way that I grew up is way different than Dozier or Josh growing up in the south. There will be some things I don’t understand about them and they don’t understand about me.”
Plouffe says that although Willingham played for the Oakland Athletics and has visited Los Angeles to play the Dodgers and Angels during his career, he has never visited him in Southern California. “I think he’d come; I just think it’s tough with all the boys. Tough traveling.” Still, he plans on keeping in touch with him through texting and phone calls. In fact, he was texting Willingham before being interviewed for this story.
Dozier is obviously closer by and speaks with Willingham on a regular basis as well. “This is the first time we’ve been away from each other during the season, but during the offseason we talk.” He says the conversations are usually about football, hunting and religion, but he says the two of them are willing to speak about just about everything. “I talk to him about as much as any other friends back home,” he says. “We developed a relationship, and it’s one of those things, players come and go and you keep in touch with some and don’t keep in touch with others, but I can safely say Josh is probably my closest friend I’ve had within the game.”
“The biggest thing for me is the way he handled himself of the field,” says Plouffe. “He kind of strived to be a guy who can come and do your work at the field and go home and be a great husband and dad. That’s something I really saw from him, and something that I’m aspiring to be.”
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Tom Schreier can be heard on The Michael Knight Show from 2-3:00 on weekdays. He has written for Bleacher Report and the Yahoo Contributor Network. Follow him on Twitter @tschreier3. |