I’ll admit, most of the postgame interviews I conduct for Fox Sports, even in the postseason, are not terribly meaningful or revealing. Players, just coming off the field, do not always have time to collect their thoughts. And the topic of the conversation rarely strays from specific elements of the game.
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My interview with Cleveland second baseman Jason Kipnis after Game 4 of the 2016 World Series was different.
Kipnis, playing in his native Chicago, that night became the first visiting player since Babe Ruth to hit a three-run homer during the World Series at Wrigley Field. More important, Cleveland moved to within one victory of its first Series title since 1948, defeating the Cubs, 7-2, to take a three-games-to-one lead.
First, I asked Kipnis what it meant as a hometown kid to be linked like that with Ruth, and he laughed, saying, “Everything.” Then, after he talked about the homer, I popped the bigger question: “You grew up coming to games here. What would it be like to win the World Series at Wrigley Field?”
“I don’t know. I really don’t know,” Kipnis said.
He paused.
“Can you imagine it?” I asked.
“I’m starting to. I’m starting to,” he said. “I’ve got a lot of friends and family here. To be able to do it in Chicago …”
He paused again, his eyes welling with emotion.
“It would mean a lot.”
Of course, Cleveland did not win the Series in Chicago. Cleveland did not win the Series at all. The Cubs reeled off three straight victories to win their first title since 1908, and Kipnis, his teammates and an entire city were left with a what-might-have-been emptiness that has yet to go away.
Kipnis, at least, was in position to get another crack at a championship last season. All 57 players who were on the Braves’ active roster for at least one day received a World Series ring. The list included bit contributors such as infielder Sean Kazmar Jr., and pitchers Jay Flaa and Ty Tice, and even Jasseel De La Cruz, who was active for one day but did not pitch. Such players received lower tiers of ring, but Kipnis did not qualify for even that much. He spent all season with the Braves’ Triple-A Gwinnett affiliate, waiting for a callup that never came.
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And now, at age 35, his career might be over.
During the lockout, Kipnis worked out at Bradley Fieldhouse, a facility on Chicago’s North Side about two miles west of Wrigley Field. The fieldhouse, a place where local youth play basketball and train for baseball, is not the type of building where major leaguers condition themselves to play 162 games. But the regular hitting group at Bradley included Kipnis, the Padres’ Jake Cronenworth, White Sox’s Yasmani Grandal, Angels’ Max Stassi, and Cubs’ Nico Hoerner and Jason Heyward. Elite Baseball Training, run by Cubs director of hitting Justin Stone, is set up within the fieldhouse.
Kipnis, a two-time All-Star, made a particularly strong impression on Cronenworth, 28, and Hoerner, 25, both of whom are also middle infielders.
“We’ve been working out together since 2018,” Cronenworth said. “To have a veteran guy like that, who has had a ton of success in his career, it has meant a lot. We talk about hitting all the time. Just little things, stuff he has learned over his career, in the field, at the plate. You couldn’t ask for a better guy to be around.”
Added Hoerner, a teammate of Kipnis’ with the Cubs during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season: “Kip was someone who was always able to enjoy the games and the relationships within baseball, no matter what situation he was in.
“Obviously, I saw him away from his time in Cleveland. But even being in a new clubhouse during the middle of a pandemic season – a really strange set-up – he was someone who was going to make the most of the situations he’s in. I saw him tip his cap to an empty Cleveland stadium in his return there. That’s a good example of him just kind of making fun of a ridiculous situation, something that should have been awesome.”
Kipnis had a .908 OPS over 228 injury-interrupted plate appearances at Triple A last season, but said it was disheartening that he “really couldn’t get an invite” this spring, not even on the kind of minor-league deal he signed with the Braves a year ago. The lockout shortened spring training, and he noticed teams brought in fewer veterans than usual, knowing their windows to evaluate players would be small.
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Kipnis kept hitting five days a week until late April. He continues to work out with Shane Wallen, the Cubs’ former strength and conditioning coach who is still in Chicago. But he understands that any team that suffers an injury likely would turn to its bench or farm system for replacements before a player who was not even in spring training. So, while he remains open to an immediate opportunity, he believes if his career is going to resume, it probably will not happen until next spring.
“My five days of hitting have turned into two,” Kipnis said. “I’ll be honest, my baseball swing is starting to turn more into a golf swing. If you ask me if I want to go to the cage or if I want to go play 18, my answer is go play 18. I just don’t see the route to get back to a team this year.”
(Nathan Ray Seebeck / USA Today Sports)If Kipnis had just stayed healthy, he might have found his way onto the Braves’ roster last season. But his first injury occurred in early April, during extended spring training. While taking grounders and turning a double play, Kipnis felt a sharp pain in his midsection. He thought someone had overthrown a ball and hit him in the ribs. Instead, he had torn his oblique.
The baseball world did not stop. The Braves began cycling through bench types, as teams normally do. Most were more versatile than Kipnis, who was essentially a second baseman. And, as the season played out, the Braves needed outfielders more than infielders. First baseman Freddie Freeman, second baseman Ozzie Albies, shortstop Dansby Swanson and third baseman Austin Riley each started 153 or more games.
Among the reserves, Pablo Sandoval made the team’s Opening Day roster and hit four pinch-hit home runs by May 8. Abraham Almonte, a backup with Cleveland while Kipnis was a starter from 2015 to 2017, had a 1.176 OPS when he was promoted from Triple A on May 31. Orlando Arcia, acquired from the Brewers in April, had a .932 OPS when he was promoted on July 4.
Johan Camargo endured seven demotions and produced a higher OPS at Triple A than Kipnis. So did Travis Demeritte, who played outfield, where the opportunity was greater, but also never made it to the majors. Like Kipnis, the Braves would have needed to add him to their 40-man roster.
Kipnis finally made his season debut on May 25, and his .828 OPS on July 18 might have warranted him consideration for a callup if he had not suffered another injury, an injured calf that sidelined him until Aug. 11. The trade deadline fell right in the middle of his stint on the injured list. The Braves, needing to replace Ronald Acuña Jr. (knee) and Marcell Ozuna (fractured fingers, then administrative leave while under investigation for violating baseball’s joint domestic violence policy), traded for outfielders Joc Pederson, Adam Duvall, Jorge Soler and Eddie Rosario.
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For Kipnis, the timing for a promotion never was right.
“That being said, at the end of the year, I was hitting again,” said Kipnis, who batted .407 with five homers and four doubles in his final 19 games. “I knew with my history and everything, I figured I was going to get a shot. Atlanta decided to keep guys who weren’t producing.
“I’m not badmouthing anybody, but they weren’t producing, weren’t doing anything. I thought I could have helped the team more than they were. But it’s hard to argue, when a team goes on to win the championship, that they did anything wrong.”
Kipnis possibly was referring to Arcia, the lone position player the Braves promoted when rosters expanded to 28 on Sept. 1. Arcia, who played mostly left field, had only a .625 OPS with the Braves, a figure he has improved to .929 this season. Guillermo Heredia had only a .665 OPS, but offered valuable late-inning defense in center field.
As Kipnis said, it was difficult to dispute the Braves’ choices. But he admits to being conflicted during the team’s march to the Series title.
“A bunch of guys who were on the team had been at Triple A. I became friends with these guys,” Kipnis said. “It was tough. I was rooting for my friends. But am I really rooting against them to not win because of them not calling me up?”
Kipnis in Game 6 of the 2016 World Series. (David Richard / USA Today Sports)So, what would it have been like for Kipnis to win the World Series at Wrigley Field? He remembers my question. He remembers our interview after Game 4.
“Trust me,” he said. “I remember it all.”
Kipnis was in the oddest of positions. He had rooted his entire life for the Cubs to break the Curse of the Billy Goat. Yet his mission during the 2016 World Series was to keep the curse alive.
“You’ve got all these people, familiar faces and teachers in the crowd, and you’re being called a traitor in the on-deck circle,” he recalled. “You’re just like, ‘All right.’ You kind of adopt that villain role.”
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Kipnis, though, knew the final victory would be the most difficult to secure. The Cubs had Jon Lester, Jake Arrieta and Kyle Hendricks lined up for Games 5, 6 and 7. They won all three, by scores of 3-2, 9-3 and, following a momentum-shifting, 17-minute rain delay in Game 7, 8-7 in 10 innings.
Yes, it still hurts. It always will.
“I’ll put it this way: Ninety-nine percent of me was crushed losing that World Series. The 1 percent of me was happy, that if I were to lose it, it would be to the Cubs. It’s my hometown. So when I went to play for the Cubs in 2020, 99 percent of me was excited and so happy I got to play for the Cubs. And 1 percent of me was like, ‘Great, I have to look at all these banners and hear about ‘16 all the time.’”
Which isn’t to say Kipnis dwells on the memories, not when he already is occupied with the post-playing phase of his career.
About four months before the start of the pandemic, he partnered with Cleveland-based chef Jonathan Sawyer to open SeeSaw, a restaurant in Columbus, Ohio. More recently, he opened a country bar in Cleveland with country music star Chase Rice. Plans are in the works for a second SeeSaw in Miami, and Kipnis said he also has invested in a super fruit CBD drink that has received National Science Foundation (NSF) certification.
He lives in downtown Chicago, near one of his three siblings. His parents live in a northern suburb. If his playing days are over, he will finish with 1,147 hits, 126 home runs, 136 stolen bases, a .260 batting average and .750 OPS. But he has yet to reflect much upon his professional career, which began when Cleveland selected him out of Arizona State in the second round of the 2009 draft.
“I’ve never really come up for air to kind of examine it or give myself any credit,” Kipnis said. “Some guys have to believe that they’re great. I always thought I sucked. That kept me pushing. I always had to micro-manage everything just to get to where I was.
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“I think when enough time passes I’ll be very proud. I think I squeezed just about as much as I could out of myself in my career. You can call it overachieving, whatever it may have been. But at the same time, I still have stuff left in the tank and I’m just not being given that opportunity to play, it saddens me. I love the game so much. I want to be out there. I know I can still be out there.”
He worked out all offseason with that goal, not wanting to experience regrets for leaving the game too soon. The end is never easy for professional athletes, particularly those who are accomplished and never fulfill their dream of winning a championship. But Kipnis sounds as if he will be content if no team asks him to play again.
“This is going to be my first chance in a while to have a Chicago summer,” Kipnis said. “The warmer the weather keeps getting, the less likely I will want that phone call.”
The Athletic’s Patrick Mooney contributed to this story
(Top photo: Kim Klement / USA Today Sports)
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