DENVER — Eric Young Sr. was on his way to Shea Stadium with the Brewers in 2003 when his son broke the news he planned to pursue a professional baseball career.
“Going to a Mets game,” Young Sr. recalled Thursday as he sat next to his son, Eric Jr., at Coors Field before the Mets faced the Rockies.
The elder Young, who played 15 years in the major leagues, is now the Rockies’ first-base coach. His son was absent from the Mets’ starting lineup as manager Terry Collins began juggling his four outfielders, with Juan Lagares back from the disabled list after missing two weeks with a pulled right hamstring.
But Young Jr., a New Brunswick, NJ, native, has been a key contributor in the Mets’ early success, leading the team with 20 runs scored and 12 stolen bases.
And he’s having the kind of career his dad, who played at Rutgers, envisioned when Young Jr. told him on the trip to Shea Stadium that day 11 years ago he would sign with the Rockies as a 30th-round draft pick, instead of accepting a football scholarship to play cornerback at Villanova.
“I think every dad would love for their kid to do the same thing that they do and be able to talk about the same things, and to be on the same field,” Young Sr. said.
The two realized a dream of sorts during spring training 2006, when they played two exhibition games against each other. Young Jr. was still on his way up through the Rockies’ system, and his dad, then with the Padres, would soon call it quits with 465 career stolen bases.
Even if it wasn’t Ken Griffey Sr. and Jr. participating in the same major league game with the Mariners, the two exhibition games will never be forgotten by father and son.
“For [Senior] being on defense and hearing my name called up to the plate and I’m walking up and he’s like, ‘This kid that came in hanging with daddy the whole time, here he is in the same lineup playing in the same game,’ ” Young Jr. said. “I can only imagine what was going through his head, but for me having my hero and my idol out there on the field — and then he’s got to go catch my ball — so those two moments right there were special.”
Young Sr. planned to excuse himself from the Rockies’ pregame meeting at the first mention of his son’s name. The last thing he wanted to be asked about was the best way to pitch Eric Jr.
But the Rockies already have a good idea what Young Jr. is all about: He spent parts of five seasons with the club before he was traded to the Mets last June 18 for Collin McHugh.
The elder Young played for the Rockies from the franchise’s inception in 1993 and remained with the team through 1997.
“The 1993 Opening Day was New York and the Rockies, so I knew I wanted to put on one of the uniforms and I got to put on both of them,” Young Jr. said. “It’s funny how things happen. But everything happens for a reason.”
Young Sr. recalls the discussion he had with his son after the 2003 draft as one of the first “man-to-man” talks they had.
“I had to see where his heart was as far as which sport he wanted to do,” Young Sr. said. “He made the statement, ‘I want to be a major league baseball player,’ and took the necessary steps to go in that direction.”