Few of us are born with all five tools. You remember the ones that were: Mays. Griffey. Trout.
It requires little time to learn which ones you lack. It takes longer to realize you don’t need them all.
Start small. Own moments, the minutiae, the underserved and overlooked aspects of the game.
Tickets to “The Show” are available well beyond the first few rows.
“I always spoke [to my son] about how I transitioned to the big leagues just by pinch-running,” said Homer Bush, a member of the Yankees’ iconic 1998 World Series team. “They found value in that. Then another team saw me get a few hits, and it took off. You find out what’s gonna get you in the door, and you take advantage from there. Not everyone is gonna be Derek Jeter, first-round pick, all the time to get it right. You gotta know what’s gonna make you successful immediately and then allow them to give you more to do.”
Bush spent nearly seven full seasons in the minors before making his major league debut in The Bronx in 1997. When his career was finished, he had played the equivalent of less than three full seasons in the majors (409 games).
Baseball is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.
“It wasn’t until I got older that I understood what he went through to get to that level,” said Homer Bush Jr., now 21 and a projected Day 2 pick in next month’s MLB Draft. “I didn’t understand what it meant to play six years in the minors and finally make the major leagues.”
Patience is paramount.
Junior learned that as a standout athlete often limited to pinch-running appearances in high school. And as a college freshman given six plate appearances. And as the son of a well-traveled former major leaguer whose path provided endless inspiration.
“So much of what he talked about is the stuff you can control from a mental aspect, how you handle failure, playing the game hard, which I feel like I’ve become known for and is one of the things he was known for,” Junior said. “He wanted to instill things in me that would make me different and help me stand out. What is gonna separate you from the group?”
Bush found everything in baseball. It gave him a World Series ring, financial security and stories that will never go stale.
He’s gained years of recognition from 50 games with the record-setting ’98 title team, parlaying his bit part into countless appearances on behalf of the Yankees, including numerous fantasy camps and attendance at virtually every Old Timers’ Day.
He stretched a blooper off the end of the bat into a three-bagger.
“Not everyone is gonna be Derek Jeter, first-round pick, all the time to get it right. You gotta know what’s gonna make you successful immediately and then allow them to give you more to do.”
Homer Bush Sr.
“It’s been an awesome run considering I was a pinch-runner,” Bush said. “It’s the gift that keeps on giving.”
Bush, 50, was selected by the Padres in the seventh round of the 1991 MLB Draft. At the tail-end of a frustratingly slow climb up the rungs of the farm system, he was traded to New York — along with Hideki Irabu — in 1997 and made his Yankees debut as a pinch-runner for Darryl Strawberry. Bush made 10 appearances with the club that year, and looked unlikely to make many more in 1998.
Entering spring training, Bush was considered a trade chip. Then, Luis Sojo broke his hand, giving Bush the 25th spot on the roster. He made the most of his 71 at-bats (in 45 games), hitting .380 while also recording 17 runs and six stolen bases.
“Everyone knew their job,” Bush said. “When they put me in, the game was on the line. The bulk of my responsibilities were important times of the game, and I had to be on.”
He beams discussing his first career home run at Yankee Stadium on national TV. He laughs at his naivete believing his teammates’ silence in the dugout was ignorance of David Wells’ perfect game in progress. He remains astonished recalling the millions of fans crowding the Canyon of Heroes.
Bush missed the ’99 parade after being sent to Toronto in the offseason trade headlined by Wells and Roger Clemens. But leaving one of the best teams in baseball history became one of the best things to happen in his life.
“It was an opportunity,” Bush said. “Now I can build a career, build a résumé, make a little bread.”
As the Blue Jays’ starting second baseman in 1999, he hit .320 with 26 doubles and 32 stolen bases in 128 games. Bush, who earned $227,000 that season, was rewarded with a three-year, $7.375 million contract. Hip injuries prevented him from achieving such success again.
He remained with Toronto until 2002, then had a 40-game stint with the Marlins. After missing the ’03 season with injuries, Bush rejoined the Yankees in ’04, but made only nine appearances in pinstripes. He was invited to Yankees’ spring training in ’05, but left without a roster spot.
He quietly retired at 32, a career .285 hitter.
“I would’ve started at the bottom,” Bush said. “I went to Triple-A with the Yankees in ’04, so that wasn’t a problem. But there were no takers.”
The checks kept coming, deferred compensation from his Blue Jays contract, which included a $1.5 million lump sum and payments of $320,000 for each of the next 10 years.
Still, Bush almost immediately began a new career as a financial advisor at Merrill Lynch, where he remained until the Great Recession of 2008. He then partnered with some of his clients to create a real estate investment trust, which the group sold in 2018.
“When they put me in, the game was on the line. The bulk of my responsibilities were important times of the game, and I had to be on.”
Bush Sr. on making the most of his MLB career
Bush returned to professional baseball in 2014, as the hitting coach for the Eugene Emeralds — then, San Diego’s Single-A affiliate — which featured Trea Turner. He later served as the director of the Texas Rangers’ youth baseball programs and a hitting coach for the USA Baseball Prospect Development Pipeline League.
“Since I owned my own company, I could take off for months, working with MLB, the Blue Jays, Perfect Game, USA Baseball,” Bush said. “For the last eight years, I’ve seen all the top draft picks up close and worked with them.”
Bush, who also wrote a book on hitting titled, “Hitting Low in the Zone: A New Baseball Paradigm,” was named manager of the Mahoning Valley Scrappers of the MLB Draft League last year. This year, he became manager of the independent Staten Island Ferryhawks, which replaced the affiliated SI Yankees in 2022.
Back in New York for the first time in a quarter-century, Bush often thinks about how his manager led a championship clubhouse.
“It was like Joe Torre was playing ball with 25 of his sons,” Bush said. “He just garnered that respect. He let guys play. He didn’t try to change them. I do see myself taking some of the things Joe did with me.
“I’d get a spot start and take too many pitches, and he’d come over to me and be like, ‘Listen, I don’t know the next time I’m gonna get you in there, so you might want to swing.’ … Near the end of the season, I made a pinch-running blunder … and the next day, Shane Spencer hits the ball off the top of the wall and it came back, but I thought it was a home run and I’m trotting. I get in the dugout, everyone’s dapping me up and Joe’s sitting in his seat. He said, ‘What happened there?’ I said, ‘I thought it was a home run.’ He said, ‘Well, it wasn’t. Get it together.’
“We win the game, we’re walking on the field and he put his arm around me and said, ‘Hey, kid, now’s the time I need you.’ Like, hey, the postseason is right around the corner. I thought that was a really cool moment in my career. He really did feel I had value.”
Bush’s championship ring is with him on Staten Island. He may want to flash it to his players. He may want it for a Yankees-related appearance, such as Old Timers’ Day, which is scheduled for Sept. 9, hours before the Ferryhawks play the Long Island Ducks during their final homestand of the season.
“I’ve already gotten the OK,” Bush said. “I can get a fill-in.”
Junior grew up a Yankees fan. He was born on the basepaths.
“My first gift I got when I was born was a baseball glove with my name on it,” Junior said. “The way I was raised, being around the game, I played other sports, but I knew from a super young age that baseball was gonna reign supreme.”
Junior was 4 when his father retired. He has pictures, but no memories of his time in clubhouses as a young child in Toronto and Florida. It is as if his father was always with his family in Texas, coaching him from tee-ball until high school, providing the idyllic childhood his father was denied.
Bush, the fifth of eight children, was raised by a single mother, Charlene, on a fixed income in East St. Louis, Ill.; his father, Max, was a police officer, killed in an off-duty shooting.
“That definitely inspired him to take on such a big role in my life,” Junior said. “Who knows what raising me would’ve been like without that experience? Obviously, it stinks he had to go through that, but it shaped him as a father and being so great at it.”
Unlike his father, Junior wasn’t drafted out of high school. He struggled at the plate at Carroll High School in Southlake, Texas, a little-used utility player who missed virtually his entire senior season in 2020 due to COVID-19. Then he rode the bench as a freshman at Grand Canyon.
“That freshman year was really tough for me,” Junior said. “I thought coming to college was gonna be a new beginning for me, and then I got here and I wasn’t playing, and I’m like, ‘What’s happening?’ But it was big for my development and allowed me to grow in a lot of the small aspects of the game.”
Junior spent his sophomore season at the bottom of the order. As a junior, he became the Antelopes’ leadoff man, unexpectedly emerging as one of the nation’s most electric players.
While helping Grand Canyon win its third straight conference championship, he hit .370 with a .978 OPS, scoring 69 runs and stealing 25 bases in 58 games. He was named to the midseason watch list for the Golden Spikes Award, given to the top player in college.
“It has been really interesting because I didn’t know what the year was gonna hold,” Junior said. “I thought I was gonna have a really good year — my experiences in the Cape [Cod Baseball League] gave me the confidence — but I hit .270 last year and didn’t play my freshman year. I hadn’t really produced.
“Then you come out and have all this success that you’re not necessarily expecting at this level. It has been really cool, but it’s also tough to balance all these different emotions. It’s been really fun to turn some of that potential people have been looking for into something productive.”
Junior shares many similarities with his father, but stands five inches taller. Initially, the 6-foot-3, 200-pounder’s speed and defense in center field made him an intriguing prospect. His ability to slice his strikeout rate from 19.9 percent to 9.2 percent this season has elevated him into a projected second-to-fifth round pick in the MLB Draft, beginning July 9.
“Coming into this year and knowing what can possibly happen with the draft, it’s always gonna be in the back of your mind,” Junior said. “You can say I’m not gonna pay attention to the draft and what people are saying about me, but it’s gonna happen. You’re human, there’s social media, so having [my father] to help me balance out this whole process has been huge for me mentally.
“I feel like I compete at such a high level, and if I go to a pro ball club helping in my development, the sky’s the limit for me. I’m not concerned about where I go or how much I get paid. That’s fun, but in the long run, say you make $500,000 or $1 million right now, if I plan on having a long career, that money is insignificant to what I’m trying to do and the impact I’m trying to have over a decade or two.”
The dream is big. The focus stays small.
“As a player, I just wanted to play solid defense, get on base by any means necessary and steal bases,” Bush said. “I kind of shrunk the game to understand what I needed to do. Junior has an understanding of what he needs to do to be successful, where you bring value, what’s gonna allow you to have the biggest impact on the game. The rule change with the bigger bases, the desire for guys to get on more, a more exciting product, it’s almost like perfect timing for him.”
Father and son always found time to watch baseball together. Often, they traveled back in time.
“He busted out the VCR all the time, and sat me down on the couch in the living room showing me highlights,” Junior said. “I remember once where he hit a home run in Toronto and Ken Griffey was playing center field and he tried to rob it — unsuccessfully.”
Now father and son rarely spend much time talking about the game that remains central to their lives.
“I’m not concerned about where I go or how much I get paid. That’s fun, but in the long run … if I plan on having a long career, that money is insignificant to what I’m trying to do and the impact I’m trying to have over a decade or two.”
Homer Bush Jr.
“He’s doing just fine without me,” Bush said. “Him changing to widening his stance, two-strike approach, I was against it. I didn’t say anything because him and his coaches they’re together every day, and it’s working out great. Can you imagine if I stepped in? It probably would’ve gone terribly wrong. That’s why I stay back, and very rarely do we talk about baseball.
“The cool thing about when Junior was not playing is he was still working. He was looked over so many times, and he knew the next time he got an opportunity, it was gonna be a very small window, so he was preparing. You gotta strike. This could be it.”
His son recently finished his third season in Arizona. His wife and former high school sweetheart, Monica, lives there, too. His daughter, Jailyn, lives in Texas.
Bush will spend the summer on Staten Island, living on his own like a minor leaguer, like the collection of unknown players attempting to make the most of second, third and final chances.
Five-tool players don’t fill Atlantic League rosters. But no one needs them all.
“I feel like a lot of young guys get overlooked,” Bush said. “I’m living it with my son. That’s not a fluke. There’s millions of kids out here that don’t get a chance because there’s limited spots. So, I’m always positive. They know I got their backs.
“My wife wants this more for me than anything. She’s like, ‘This is what you do. You make kids better.’”