SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – In the Cubs’ second game of spring training Sunday, Addison Russell stepped into the batter’s box for the first time since September, and into his new normal.
Except it’s anything but normal – at least it’s not supposed to be. The bulk of his 40-game domestic violence suspension hangs like a dark cloud everywhere he goes this spring, his awkward, scripted press conference less than two weeks behind him, his penance indefinite – absolution less definite.
“I totally understand why fans have the negative reaction toward me,” said the 25-year-old shortstop, who heard only a few isolated boos when announced for his first at-bat Sunday in a return to the field conspicuously scheduled for a road game.
“But I’m doing everything that I can to get out there on the field and become a better person and be a guy in this clubhouse that could help this team win,” he added.
When the front office talks about a “conditional second chance” with Russell, and about how early in the process it is before the club decides whether to retain him in 2019, this is one of the so-called boxes left to check.
“It’s going to happen. I’m just trying to prepare myself for when that happens,” Russell said of the boos and heckling he knows are coming, after calling much of the crowd at Scottsdale Stadium on Sunday “supporting” – and somehow surmising “the tough stuff is pretty much out of the way.
“But there’s still some room for growth,” he added. “That’s what I’m looking forward to and that’s what I’m pushing for.”
It’s hard to fathom that if team president Theo Epstein ultimately decides Russell will return the field for the Cubs when it counts that the tough stuff is behind him.
Even Russell admits he expects more tough conversations with teammates as he rebuilds relationships in the clubhouse since being sent home in September when new allegations from his ex-wife surfaced of “physical and emotional abuse.”
“I think it’s good now that he’s actually talked about it [publicly], because now you [media] guys can ask him all the questions, and they’re not really on us anymore,” said teammate Kris Bryant, Russell’s locker neighbor in the spring clubhouse. “That’s what was needed in here to kind of move on for some of the other guys in here. I don’t know about Addison. I hope to see him take those actions that are needed to get himself right.
“He certainly seems to be doing some of those actions. But it’s all left to be seen.”
Russell said that teammates have been “understanding and supportive.”
“We’re picking back up where we left off,” he said, but quickly added: “It’s [about] making myself more available for them and getting to the level where they feel comfortable with me, just at the breakfast table, and go from there.”
Said Bryant: “At the end of the day we’ve got a job to do on the field. We realize that. We’re baseball players. But sometimes it’s hard to take the human element out of it.”
Russell said his ongoing therapy and work on personal growth and awareness is scheduled into his spring routine as fundamentally and rigidly as batting practice and fielding work.
“I consider it taking hacks off the tee. But it’s taking hacks off the tee in my mind,” he said. “It’s not a bad thing to learn more skills about people and yourself.”
Russell singled and hit a sacrifice fly off Madison Bumgarner before leaving Sunday’s game with the rest of the starters. He said it was good to get back on a field again. He’s eligible for full participation during the spring, when the Cubs plan to rotate him into the lineup on a regular schedule.
But if he thinks the tough part is over, or that even the return to the field marks a return to normalcy, he might have a longer road back than he knows.
“Different stadiums it’s going to be a different reaction, obviously,” he said. “But I just get back to my inner thoughts. I’ve just got to stay on course with this process and progress I’ve been showing, and I think that’s going to be a really good year.”
