Origin story: Brandon Crawford becomes the Giants’ all-time leader at shortstop (2024)

Giants shortstop Brandon Crawford will never forget the moment his name was called in the draft. He was on the phone with a scout at the time.

A Minnesota Twins scout.

“He tells me they’re thinking of taking me with their next pick,” Crawford said. “He was asking if I’d sign.”

The fourth round was underway and the Twins had the 14th selection in that round. Before Crawford could reply to the scout’s question, the fifth pick in the round popped up on his laptop screen.

It was Crawford. And it was the Giants.

It came as a complete surprise. Crawford had never spoken to area scout Mike Kendall or Giants scouting director John Barr. He had no idea they had identified him as a potential steal in the third or fourth round after a lackluster junior season at UCLA dented his draft stock.

It was just one of so many crazy, cosmic tumblers that had to click into place for this dream to come true. So many random elements and dice rolls had to line up just so. So much of it was out of anyone’s hands. But there were elements that Crawford could control — his drive and discipline, his durability to avoid the injured list, his determination to play hurt, and the thread that ran through it all, the unending joy he felt while scooping up ground balls. Practice was an obligation, sure. But fielding grounders never stopped being really, really fun.

And now 10 years and two weeks after hitting a grand slam in his major-league debut, Crawford will step on the field Tuesday at Globe Life Field in Texas and break a 138-year-old franchise’s all-time record. He will smooth out the dirt at shortstop for the 1,326th game in his major-league career. No Giants shortstop — from wool flannel uniforms to polyester double knits to customized cleats for every occasion — has ever suited up for more.

Crawford grew up playing T-ball in Menlo Park and Little League in Pleasanton and smearing chocolate malts on his face at Candlestick Park. From the time he could throw across a sandlot on a line, his goal was to become the Giants shortstop when he grew up. Some kids have dreams. His was more of an ambition.

We’ll find any reason to run this classic picture of Brandon Crawford, taken by The Chronicle’s Tom Levy in 1992. It’s part of todays story on @bcraw35 collecting autographs as a kid and why he thinks it’s a bummer he can’t sign them now. https://t.co/mGyCZPykcB pic.twitter.com/Am9fH6Kfd0

— John Shea (@JohnSheaHey) February 27, 2021

But to become the all-time leader at the position? To pass boyhood idol Royce Clayton and Rich Aurilia and Chris Speier, and finally, Hall of Famer Travis Jackson? To not only play shortstop for the Giants but to become the franchise’s embodiment of the position?

“That’s something you never dream about,” Crawford said. “I’ll definitely take a second to appreciate the accomplishment because you don’t ever dream about playing the most games ever at shortstop for the Giants. It’s one of the cooler accomplishments that I’ve had, and I feel like I’ve had a handful of pretty cool accomplishments.”

Brian Green was a newly hired assistant for UCLA baseball coach John Savage in 2005 and his first assignment was to hop a flight to the Bay Area. There was a recruit from Foothill High in Pleasanton that he needed to evaluate.

“Coach Savage sent me up to a tournament in Moraga to see if Crawford could play shortstop,” Green said. “Most people out west thought Brandon was a third baseman. His body profiled at the time to be a little more physical. Maybe an offensive second baseman. But he certainly had the arm to play third. So I went up and sat on him. I had nothing else to do but stare at this kid for 72 hours.

“I went back and told coach: ‘Yeah, I think he could play shortstop.'”

Besides, moving Crawford off the position would’ve meant losing him as a recruit. Green, now the head coach at Washington State, still tells this story to his players each year:

Brandon and his father, Mike, were making the official visit to campus and had finished lunch when Mike got right to the point: “Give it to us,” he said. “How are you going to get my son to play in the big leagues?”

Green pulled out his briefcase full of booklets, folders and glossy literature. He opened up his hitting booklet and was all set to start talking about swing mechanics, hitting philosophies and how Brandon was going to become an offensive star for the Bruins.

“And Mike interrupts,” Green says. “He says, ‘Coach, coach, coach, I don’t mean to disrespect you in any way. But our concern is, where is he going to develop as a shortstop? Talk to me about defense.’

“Mike Crawford is the only dad in the history of recruiting that ever talked about defense. I love sharing that story because that’s where their minds were. When Brandon came to UCLA, he loved defense. He loved catch play, he loved long toss, he loved working on his exchange, how fast he can be. He had that pedigree and it started with having a passion for it. He was a lot of fun to coach, obviously. But his ticket in his mind was always going to be how great of a defensive shortstop he can be. It’s a totally different ticker that you don’t see in the recruiting process or the development process.”

From the time he was Brandon’s first Little League coach (their team was the Giants, naturally), Mike Crawford stressed the importance of defense. They never just played catch in the yard or at the park. Ground balls were always on the menu.

“I realized that shortstop gets a lot of action,” said Brandon, who pitched and caught in addition to playing shortstop in Little League. “Those were the busiest places on the field. I just liked being involved on every play, and I started loving taking ground balls and working on defense.

“When I got to UCLA, it multiplied a little just because we took so many ground balls. That part to me was even more fun than batting practice.”

Green borrowed a drill he learned from legendary Riverside Community College coach Dennis Rogers called “mass fungo.” It was three or four coaches hitting grounders rapid-fire to each position.

“Two minutes of hell per round and three rounds,” Green said. “Throw to first, throw to second, throw to the plate. Then we turn double plays. We would just kill the kids. It would be like 12 minutes, literally two minutes a shot, five stations: double plays, slow rollers, you name it, and we’d do it every day for three straight years. You look up at the end and you’re pretty good.”

Crawford loved it. The faster the pace, the greater the challenge. And on the easier ones, he’d find a way to increase the degree of difficulty: a between-the-legs flip here, a behind-the-back feed there, a sleight-of-hand transfer when the mood struck.

“Most people, their favorite part is trying to hit homers in BP,” Crawford said. “But I loved trying to make different plays at shortstop. I try to treat it like a competition. That started in college: ‘OK I’m not letting any balls get past me.'”

Hitting a major-league pitch is one of the hardest things to do in sports, but it’s a reaction skill and the objective is static: hit the ball hard and on the barrel. Taking infield is a more creative forum. It requires mastering physical skills but it also requires improvisation, and not just to goof off.

“He’s practiced so many different goofy body positions that over time it’s become instinct for him,” Green said. “You have to practice acrobatic plays if you want to be acrobatic. He’s always had a passion for defense and what he’s doing now is on another level. It’s so cool to watch that happen. It’s cool that it paid off.

“I’m so proud of Brandon. He’s such a great person. What an unbelievable career he’s had.”

You’d imagine that hitting a grand slam would be the lasting memory you’d cherish from your first major-league game. But when Crawford thinks back to May 27, 2011, at Milwaukee’s Miller Park, the first thing that comes to mind isn’t the bases-loaded shot off Shaun Marcum that gave the Giants the lead in the seventh inning.

He thinks of a ground ball.

“It was a nice one to have for the first one,” he said.

Crawford began the 2011 season at Triple-A Fresno but a fractured finger sidelined him. When he returned to play, the Giants sent him to High-A San Jose to work himself back into form. He was hitting .322 through 14 games and starting to wonder why he was still in the Cal League. So he called then-assistant GM Bobby Evans, who told him to be patient.

A few days later, the Giants were reeling from the home-plate collision that shattered Buster Posey’s ankle. A forgotten bit of team lore: infielder Mike Fontenot also injured himself in that game and went on the injured list with a strained groin. The roster required a wave of reinforcements. Crawford had just played a game in Bakersfield when Evans called after midnight: did he still want to go to Fresno? Or if not, how would he feel about going to San Francisco?

He made it to the ballpark the next day with two hours to spare, watched the game without making an appearance and found himself on the team flight to Milwaukee. In the series opener against the Brewers, with Tim Lincecum on the mound, Crawford was in the lineup.

“I remember seeing my name on the lineup card when I got there and definitely had some anxiousness, had the butterflies in my stomach and everything,” he said. “Fortunately, in the bottom of the first, Rickie Weeks led off and grounded out to me. After I made that play, I was fine.”

It wasn’t a hard-hit ball. Weeks ran well so Crawford had to charge it and get rid of it quickly. It was the perfect first play — deceptively tough, made to look easy.

“It was a nice first one to get,” he said. “It wasn’t a line drive one-hop and I had plenty of time to think about my throw. I just had to react and do what I’ve done thousands of times.”

It was the first of 5,538 chances and counting. It was the first of 3,634 assists, too.

The grand slams have been much less frequent, of course. Crawford owns four of them, plus a fifth that won the 2014 NL wild-card game at Pittsburgh.

But a shortstop never forgets his first ground ball.

If Crawford’s father instilled an appreciation for defense and Brian Green sharpened his skills with countless mass fungo sessions, then choosing an influential major-league mentor is pretty automatic.

Ron Wotus knows something about longevity. He is the longest-tenured coach in Giants history, now in his 24th season and coaching under his fourth manager. He’s been the bench coach and a third base coach and for most of that time, he led the league in chicken-winging a fungo bat. He’s been with Crawford every step of the way.

“Into pro ball, it’s definitely Wotus,” Crawford said. “At that point it wasn’t physical things I needed to work on. It was mentally not trying to do too much. Early on in my career, I would try to make every single play. Learning the league, learning runners, understanding situations — all of that helps you be a little bit smarter or a little more under control.”

Crawford averaged 18 errors over his first three full seasons, and in retrospect, Wotus considers that a blessing. It might have set up those three Gold Glove-winning seasons from 2015-17.

#ThrowbackThursday to some terrific defensive plays by Brandon Crawford in 2015 when he won his first Gold Glove Award. He went on to win it again in 2016 and again in 2017 to make it 3 in a row.#SFGiants @bcraw35 pic.twitter.com/Zza8zc9t6O

— Brad B ⚾️ (@celeBRADtion) February 19, 2021

“He was too good to have that many errors, and he knew it,” Wotus said. “Young players have to fail more than a little bit before they buy into a change in approach. And there was a little tough love in there along the way. But he learned quick, and my goodness, he’s been such a special player for the Giants.”

There are three unique attributes that stand out to Wotus. The first is Crawford’s lightning fast glove-to-hand transfer, which when paired with his hands, arm, accuracy and footwork, give him the ability to make tough plays look easy and seemingly impossible plays look possible.

Wotus would clown around during batting practice and pinch his nose in mock disgust whenever Crawford would start with the no-look shovels to second base. But secretly, he loved it.

“It’s just a love to play defense,” Wotus said. “To this day I still believe he enjoys catching ground balls as much as he does hitting, even though he gets paid a lot of money to hit. He’s out there like a kid again taking ground balls like it’s a game. He always had the ability but I’ve been impressed with how he’s honed his craft and the longevity he’s shown and not being hurt. That goes a long way.”

That’s the third attribute. Over a seven-year span from 2013-19 under manager Bruce Bochy, Crawford averaged 140 starts per season. He stayed off the injured list, and because his most competent backup over that time was probably Joaquin Arias, he was a better option when banged up than anyone else.

Even in his age-34 season, with every major-league team beset by injuries and coaching staffs embracing load management, Crawford leads the Giants in games played (51 of 59), starts (46) and defensive innings (418 2/3, or 80 percent). Crawford even escaped significant injury last Saturday when he collided with third baseman Evan Longoria while attempting to field a chopper. (Longoria sprained his sternoclavicular joint and expected to be out four-to-six weeks.)

“In today’s game, players are getting hurt left and right,” Wotus said. “And he’s played a lot, you know? When we’d go over lineups with Boch, and even if he wasn’t swinging (well), we never could take him out of the lineup. The second line of defense never measured up to what he could bring to the table.

“He always had that ‘If you can play, you can play’ mentality. That’s why I have so much respect for him and all players who play when they’re not 100 percent. And he did that a lot for us.”

In the meantime, as Crawford fields ground balls among younger and younger teammates, he has taken it upon himself to pass along veteran wisdom. There’s one pointer he shares with anyone who will listen.

Practice with purpose.

“It’s something I’ve said to pretty much any infielder who wants a piece of advice from me,” Crawford said. “I talked to (Marco) Luciano about it, I talked to (Mauricio) Dubón about it, I’ve talked to our infielders as a group: when you’re taking ground balls, treat it like it’s the game. Treat it like it’s an above-average runner at the plate. So when those situations come up in a game, you’ve done it hundreds of times. You don’t need to rush. You know exactly how much time you should have to be able to make this play. That’s how I developed a pretty good clock in my head to where I don’t feel like I have to rush.”

Now that they’ve punched the clock together for more than a decade, what does it mean for Wotus to have shared the entirety of Crawford’s record-setting tenure with the Giants? That’s a question with a tricky hop. Wotus lets out a sigh before he answers, and when he speaks, there’s a warble in his voice.

“Well, it’s very special,” Wotus said. “I’m so glad I had the opportunity to see him as a young man and to see him now, playing for another contract. I mean, this guy’s got a lot of baseball left in him and he’s proving it right now. Even when people say ‘Oh, he’s slowed down,’ he just keeps proving people wrong. So it’s very special for me and I get emotional just thinking about it.”

With his resurgence at the plate along with his uptick in defensive metrics, Crawford might be playing the best baseball of his career. The longer that trend continues, the better the chance that he will have an opportunity to keep smoothing out the dirt at shortstop in a Giants uniform beyond this season.

The Giants could call his name again. They’ve done it before, at the precise moment the Twins were waiting on his answer.

“I don’t know if I would have signed,” Crawford said, reflecting on the Twins’ draft-day offer. “I still don’t know.

“The way everything worked out, I don’t need to.”

(Photo: Lachlan Cunningham / Getty Images)