This story was excerpted from Anthony DiComo’s Mets Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
CINCINNATI -- Bursting out of the Mets’ dugout on Tuesday afternoon, A.J. Ewing glanced to his right, saw his father and stepmother waiting in a roped-off area behind home plate and bounded over to them for hugs. His father, Joe, was wearing a black No. 9 Ewing jersey. His stepmom, Stacey, had painted her fingernails orange while donning earrings of the same color.
This was a homecoming for Ewing, who grew up about 40 minutes north of Great American Ball Park in Springboro, Ohio, and played his final high school game there just three years ago. It was perhaps fitting that Ewing’s first trip to Cincinnati took place less than a week before Father’s Day, considering how much his dad has had to do with his success.
“He’s been blessed with so many great coaches, but [Joe] has always been his No. 1 coach,” Stacey said. “He leaned on his dad a lot for baseball.”
Though Joe Ewing was never A.J.’s head baseball coach at any point, he was an assistant at various youth levels. He was also high school teammates with A.J.’s coach at Springboro High, and as the younger Ewing developed into a legitimate Draft prospect, Joe educated himself on all the ways he could help his son. A pitcher during his own youth baseball career, Joe dove deep on hitting mechanics as A.J. developed at the plate. Stacey would film her stepson’s at-bats, then Joe would break down the video with A.J. after games. Early on, the two worked to mold his left-handed swing after that of Cincinnati legend Joey Votto.
“He studied a lot of hitters. … He was probably the best coach I ever had,” A.J. said. “We definitely had our moments during it but came out the other side better.”
When A.J. made his Major League debut at Citi Field in May, Joe had a viral moment when he popped out of his seat and cheered with gusto, before being embraced by those around him. A chiropractor in Springboro, Joe has been to New York twice now to watch his son play, while also attending all three games this week in Cincinnati. He plans to join the Mets in Atlanta and Pittsburgh later this summer.
But Cincinnati was a special stop on the circuit for Joe, who guessed that there were about 100-200 people from Springboro at every game of the series. There were so many at Monday’s opener, in fact, that Joe missed one of his son’s at-bats due to the constant demands for his attention.
Of course, these are good problems for the father of one of the game’s most exciting young outfielders. Stacey said that Joe “feels like he needs to pinch himself every morning when he’s watching MLB highlights and sees his son, because he watches them all the time anyway. And then he sees his son on there and he’s like, ‘Oh my gosh!’”
“Crazy exciting and exhausting,” was how Joe described the experience. “That’s what I tell people -- it’s just exciting and fun, you know? It’s like a dream come true. … Like, he’s just playing baseball. That’s what he’s done for his whole life. Now I turn on MLB Network and it’s like, ‘Hey, they’re talking about A.J.’ It’s kind of surreal in that aspect.”