This story was excerpted from Kennedi Landry’s Rangers Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
LOS ANGELES -- Corey Seager walked up to the top steps of the visitors’ dugout at Dodger Stadium -- a place he had never stood before -- and tipped his cap to the crowd of 51,416 fans.
Seager did not play in Tuesday’s series opener due to a left hamstring injury, and may not play in the remaining two games either, but he did receive a rousing ovation after a tribute video was shown to mark his return to L.A. In typical Seager fashion, he was calm and subdued as the crowd welcomed him back, but it was a special moment nonetheless for the former Dodgers infielder.
A first-round Draft pick by the Dodgers in 2012, Seager would go on to be a core piece for Los Angeles over the first seven years of his big league career. He won the 2016 National League Rookie of the Year Award, as well as the 2020 NL Championship Series and World Series MVP Awards for helping the club break a 32-year championship drought.
“I spent a lot of time here,” Seager said pregame. “Obviously not on that [the visitors’] side, but I'm excited about it. I’ll see some people and catch up with some old friends, you know? It’s a lot. This organization kind of raised me. They drafted me and kind of made me the man I am today. They taught me the game of baseball. I made a lot of friends and had a lot of good times out there. So all those memories kind of flash back.”
“Superstar,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said of Seager. “Just a heady baseball player. Great competitor. And has performed really well on the biggest of stages. A very good Dodger. I’m happy I got the chance to coach him.”
Seager was called up at the age of 21 and thrived in a clubhouse full of veterans like Clayton Kershaw, Zack Greinke, Jimmy Rollins, Justin Turner and Chase Utley. It was his time as a young player that made him into someone who could lead the Rangers all these years later.
“It’s pretty much everything,” Seager said. “Like I said before, the Dodgers taught me everything I knew: how to win, how to do things the right way. It's a first-class organization. You try to bring that to another first-class organization. So it's all those little things that you've learned throughout the years that you try to spread and talk about. That clubhouse over there is pretty impressive. There are guys that know what they're doing. They’re trying to do less harm than good.”
Seager still keeps in touch with his former Dodgers teammates. He spent his off-day in Los Angeles hanging out with Chris Taylor. He’s often talked to Mookie Betts via text or phone call. But despite his friendships off the field, Seager is about being where his feet are.
In the season leading up to Seager’s free agency in 2021, the shortstop was continuously peppered with questions about his thoughts going into it. He would rather not talk about that.
“You're always hopeful,” Seager said of potentially re-signing with the Dodgers that offseason. “That's a long time ago, though. I can't really remember how it went.”
No, he’d rather reflect on the Rangers and where he is now.
“Going into that offseason, listening to [general manager Chris Young’s] plan and how he thought it’d go and the players they had and how they felt [it would] develop -- he did an extremely good job,” Seager said. “I don't know if you ever thought it'd be that fast. We just kind of got into the playoffs and it turned into that, but that was always the plan moving forward. So credit to them to have the ability to be able to see that and get the right people and have it actually play.”
Despite his superstar play on the field, Seager has never been one for attention. He’s rather stoic, both on and off the field, though teammates have noted his sense of humor many times. He even joked at the Dodger Stadium podium that while he may seem more comfortable in front of the media these days, he definitely isn’t.
But if there’s one thing the Dodgers learned long ago that the Rangers also learned this past October, it’s that Seager is at his most expressive when winning baseball games.
“I think winning is fun,” Seager said. “I think any time you win, it’s fun. To be at the top is what you're always trying to accomplish. So, in a lot of ways, there's a lot of similarities [between the World Series runs with the Rangers and Dodgers]. How you got there, things like that were different, but at the end, winning is all the same.”