BOSTON — For those of us baseball observers who possess an East Coast bias because of where we live and what teams we see most frequently, the reaction to watching former Padre Chase Headley play a brilliant third base day after day has been, essentially, “Who knew?”
It turns out we aren’t the only ones with biases. Headley, whom the Yankees acquired from San Diego on July 22, has experienced the same reaction about his new setting.
“If you had told me a couple of weeks ago that I would enjoy playing in New York,” Headley admitted to The Post on Sunday, before the Yankees outlasted the Red Sox, 8-7, at Fenway Park, “I would’ve told you you’re crazy.”
Eight weeks remain in this 2014 regular season, and neither Headley nor the Yankees (57-53) appear likely to put any cart ahead of the horse of the team’s long-shot playoff hopes; their victory Sunday kept them five games behind Baltimore (62-48) in the American League East and pulled them within a game and a half of Toronto (60-53) in the race for the second AL wild card.
However, what looked to be a short-term relationship has gained legs as the impending free agent and the Yankees develop a mutual affection. In Sunday’s dramatic win, Headley poked a fifth-inning double to left field for an RBI, and in the ninth, he snared Brock Holt’s line drive and threw to first base to catch Red Sox pinch-runner Mookie Betts for a crucial, hit-and-run-spoiling double play.
This is affection that Headley, 30, never saw coming.
“Who knows what happens here going forward, but there probably would have been some places that I would have ruled out just based on my thoughts,” he said. “Clearly, I was completely mis-based.”
For clarification’s sake, I asked Headley whether The Bronx would have been a place he ruled out.
“Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah,” he said. “You never say never, but it would’ve been very, very low on the priority list. But I’ve really, really enjoyed my time here.”
The native of Fountain, Colo., elaborated: “I didn’t grow up in a big city. I’d been in San Diego, where everything is real low key. I just didn’t anticipate liking [New York]. It’s just been way different than I expected.
“You don’t know what to expect when you come to a clubhouse with this many All-Stars and established guys and great players. You don’t know how you’re going to be accepted in a clubhouse and be treated. And it’s been phenomenal. Top-notch organization, and then I’ve loved every second I’ve been here and I anticipate that I will as long as I’m here.”
While the Yankees have established third baseman Martin Prado under contract through 2016 and a fellow named Alex Rodriguez signed through 2017, Prado could serve as more of a super-utility guy, given his versatility. And if A-Rod is healthy enough to contribute at all, you’d peg him mostly at designated hitter.
It’s amazing to think Headley, who switched from shortstop to third base at the University of the Pacific and then the University of Tennessee, started his major league career in left field, as the Padres moved him there in 2009 and 2010 to keep Kevin Kouzmanoff at the hot corner. Kouzmanoff went to Oakland in a January 2010 trade, and Headley has played third base since. He won the 2012 National League Gold Glove Award, and if you’ve watched him in a Yankees uniform, you can see it was deserved.
“I hadn’t seen much of him. Obviously we don’t play the Padres much and you don’t ever see them in spring training,” Joe Girardi said of Headley. “… But his defense has been spectacular.”
“For me, a lot of it is instincts,” Headley said. “I really try to read swings. I like to know where the pitch is coming. From the shortstop, I always get location or offspeed. … And then after that, it just comes down to, really, reaction.”
The Yankees’ 6-4 victory over the Red Sox Saturday ended when, with Holt on second base, Dustin Pedroia hit a bouncer toward Headley that took a wicked hop and shot up. Headley speared it and fired to first, where Mark Teixeira made a great scoop for the out.
“It almost took his hat off,” Girardi said of the hop.
“That was a tough one, man,” Headley said. “… On a ball like that, on a chopper, if you put your feet in a good position, then if it takes a crazy hop on you, at least you have a chance.”
Headley surprisingly finds himself in a good position in our big city. So now there’s a chance that he’ll stick around this winter.