This story was excerpted from Keegan Matheson’s Blue Jays Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
BOSTON -- Back in the early 2000s, Daulton Varsho was the young kid bouncing around the Phillies’ clubhouse, surrounded by his baseball idols.
Varsho’s father, Gary, a big leaguer for eight seasons and longtime coach, was the Phillies’ bench coach from 2002-06. Daulton would have grown up from 6 to 10 years old in that clubhouse, a young ballplayer who just wanted to be Chase Utley.
What a clubhouse to be in, too. There were veterans like Jim Thome and Kenny Lofton, but also the Phillies' young core coming up around Utley, Ryan Howard, Jimmy Rollins and Shane Victorino, all of whom would one day become cornerstones in the Phillies’ 2008 World Series run.
“They treated me so great in the Phillies’ clubhouse. That was the best part about it,” Varsho said. “When I was in the clubhouse, it was just great. There were a lot of times that Jim [Thome] would take me down to the cage and say, ‘Let’s go hit.’ He had time, being a first baseman and DH back then, we’d just go. It was so awesome, him giving me the time of day. That was the coolest thing. It was such a good clubhouse.”
Varsho is another Blue Jays player with big league bloodlines, and it’s always shown. Just like Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Bo Bichette, Cavan Biggio and others before him, the big leagues were demystified for Varsho long before he made his own MLB debut.
It acted as motivation along the way, too. From the earliest days of Varsho’s baseball life, he had a taste of what it could someday look like. That was an early lesson for him as a kid, one that he didn’t fully appreciate until he grew up a bit.
“I remember shagging fly balls all the time as a young kid, too, and pitchers were so happy,” Varsho said. “This little kid could go run after all the fly balls, so they didn’t have to shag any more. Those times, I didn’t realize how good they were until I got out of it. You grow up in this lifestyle and in the clubhouse, but you don’t really realize that it’s different until you’re out of it and you see, ‘Wow, that was really cool.’”
Throughout Daulton’s career, Gary has taken on different roles. Varsho wanted to be Utley so badly that he even tried to copy his swing as a young player, but Gary has been there from the beginning, watching his son grow into one of the best defenders in the sport in recent years. While Gary played eight seasons, Daulton is in his seventh -- with more career games and a Gold Glove Award to his name.
“He’s still more involved with what I’m thinking about at the plate,” Varsho said. “I won’t say it’s mechanics, because it’s tough when he’s not here every day. In the offseason, he’s my guy that I go talk to all the time. He’s the one who’s throwing BP, soft toss, feeding the machine for me. A lot of it now is actually my defensive work, because he’s been an outfield coach and outfield instructor for a long time. I rely on him a lot.”
Recently, it was Gary’s suggestion for Daulton to “duck” his feet in the outfield, which means flaring his toes out from his heels. Daulton was having some trouble flipping his hips quickly and breaking on certain fly balls, and Gary’s suggestion helped immediately. It’s the wisdom you pick up over decades in the game surrounded by so many players and coaches who have racked up their own decades.
Those old Phillies days still bring back such great memories for the younger Varsho, though. He lights up talking about them, a big leaguer suddenly transported back to being a fan again.
Last year, during the Blue Jays’ run to the World Series against the Dodgers, Varsho ran into some of these old friends. Howard and Victorino were at the World Series, and Varsho even ran into his old coach from the cages in Thome.
“Seeing them again for the first time in probably 10 years? Nothing’s changed,” Varsho said. “I’m still the little kid and they’re still the superstars I was looking up to.”