PHOENIX -- What were you doing on your 21st birthday?
Chances are you can’t top budding Brewers star Jackson Chourio, who turns 21 on Tuesday. At the same age a typical college junior is starting to worry about life in the real world, Chourio has already inked a record-setting contract, spent a whole season as the youngest player in the Major Leagues, become the youngest player ever to secure a 20-20 season and garnered votes for the NL Rookie of the Year Award and the NL MVP Award.
“He’s very, very advanced for his age, but, look, the beautiful thing about it is he’s still like a kid,” said Brewers pitcher Aaron Ashby. “It’s like he’s everyone’s littlest brother in here.”
Ashby’s own 21st birthday was not quite as big league. He and Brice Turang were sharing a finished basement in 2019 at High-A Wisconsin, where their host family, the Becks, made enchiladas for Ashby’s birthday. He washed them down with one of Wisconsin’s favorite beers, a New Glarus Spotted Cow.
Other stories illustrate how different life at 21 was for Chourio’s teammates. Brandon Woodruff played blackjack with some buddies at a casino in Philadelphia, Miss., on his 21st birthday in 2014, when he was still months away from being drafted by the Brewers. Aaron Civale was only a couple of days removed from being Cleveland’s third-round Draft pick in 2016 and was pondering what life would be like in pro ball. Sal Frelick was still limited by COVID restrictions when he turned 21 in 2021, so he had a toast at home with his seven Boston College roommates.
Other players were further along in life, if not in baseball. Catcher Eric Haase was already married when he turned 21 in 2013, having wed his high school sweetheart the year before, but he was still five years away from debuting in the big leagues. Rather than brave the Detroit cold in December that night, Eric and Maria marked the occasion by staying in.
Jacob Misiorowski was on a plane bound for Single-A Carolina on April 3, 2023, and he had his first legal drink at 30,000 feet. Freddy Peralta was also with the Mudcats when he turned 21 in 2017, and remembers his teammates surprising him with a cake. It was Peralta’s first birthday party since 2013 – the year he signed his first pro contract with Seattle.
He expects big things from Chourio in year two with the Brewers.
“He told me he’s working on his arm strength,” Peralta said. “I told him all the time, ‘Hey, you better throw some guys out. If I have somebody on third base and there’s a fly ball, throw him out!’ He’s working.”
“It’s pretty cool to be 20, 21 and already have a whole year of service under his belt,” said Garrett Mitchell, who spent his 21st birthday club-hopping in Las Vegas with his dad, uncles and cousins. “And he’s pretty good, right? Better than average.”
Like Mitchell, Christian Yelich’s birthday falls during the offseason, so he was out with friends in Southern California for his 21st birthday in 2012.
The details ended there.
“You don’t want to know,” Yelich said, smiling. “I had a pretty standard 21st birthday.”
So did Rhys Hoskins, who turned 21 on St. Patrick’s Day 2014 and bar-hopped with his teammates on the campus of Cal State-Sacramento. His first legal beer was notable, Hoskins said, in that it was tinted green.
He looks back on that time of his life fondly. He also cannot imagine his 21-year-old self handling all the rigors of Major League Baseball.
“That’s the first thing I think of when I see the league right now,” Hoskins said. “The league is getting younger, right? He’s obviously an anomaly, but this is becoming more and more normal, the further we go in this thing. Not only as a baseball player, but I was nowhere near ready to be on my own in this sort of atmosphere. It’s a huge responsibility. I still needed some guidance on the day-to-day, and I needed the luxury to screw up from time to time and learn from that.
“Chourio is super impressive. You get the right people around you, that makes it easier. But you also have to have a little bit of it figured out upstairs in order to be able to do that.”
Chourio is always quick to credit his teammates and Brewers coaches for their help navigating his rookie season. That group includes Brewers associate manager Rickie Weeks, who has a sense of what Chourio is feeling this week.
Weeks was called up by the Brewers on Sept. 12, 2003 -- the day before his 21st birthday. The team was in San Francisco, but there was no party.
“Man, I was a mute back in the day,” Weeks said. “You had 40-year-old vets in there back then. I walked in, went to my seat and I sat there. Nobody acknowledged it and I didn’t care, either. That whole year, going from college to the championship in A-ball to the big leagues, everything was boom, boom, boom. So I didn’t have a birthday and I didn’t worry about a birthday, believe me.”
Since it’s Spring Training, and he has a whole year of experience under his belt, Chourio should be able to better enjoy his 21st. He was planning a dinner with his girlfriend after the Brewers-Cubs game.
“It’s what I dreamed of, but I have to be honest. I didn’t think it was going to happen as quickly as it did,” Chourio said via Brewers translator Daniel de Mondesert. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s what I’ve wanted and what I’ve dreamed of. It just happened quicker than I thought it would.”
What does he want for his birthday?
“As far as the game, hopefully a little more power comes with age,” Chourio said. “Away from the field, it’s just to continue all the beautiful moments I get to spend with my family. I cherish them and that I get to be around them.
“I feel incredible. I’m just happy that it’s gone that way that it has. I feel incredible about that.”