From a onetime rookie of the year to a potential one, Fred Lynn tips his cap toward Padres center fielder Jackson Merrill.
“Whatever he is doing, he is doing it really well,” Lynn said. “And the league hasn’t caught up to him yet.”
Merrill was playing Double A baseball last summer. Next week he’s bound for the Midsummer Classic in Texas, the first Padres rookie to be named an All-Star after batting .288 with 12 homers, 46 RBI and 10 stolen bases through 90 games.
With Merrill being selected alongside Jurickson Profar and the injured Fernando Tatis Jr., it’s a trio of Padres All-Star outfielders, which is as unlikely as one expecting cool temperatures in Arlington, the site of the July 16 game.
Profar and Tatis are good stories. But they can’t match Merrill’s tale of transitioning from being a shortstop in spring training to patrolling Petco Park’s vastness with such ease, grace and production.
Lynn, a 17-year major-leaguer and a Carlsbad resident, acknowledges all that but notes how Merrill carries himself. That’s not a surprising observation from Lynn, a former American League batting champion.
Lynn set the gold standard for rookie seasons with his remarkable 1975 with the Red Sox. A year before the nation’s bicentennial, Lynn lifted New England with a historic season.
No one in Boston ever eclipses Paul Revere’s popularity, but for one summer, Lynn didn’t trail him by much.
Lynn, now 72, led a peach-fuzzed bunch, with a splash of veterans, to the World Series where the Red Sox fell in seven games.
In an instant in Lynn’s eye, it’s a crowded, noisy day outside Fenway Park, with him reciting teammates’ names like one long glorious chorus: Carl Yastrzemski, Jim Rice, Carlton Fisk, Dwight Evans, Rick Burleson.
“It was a young group of guys, with Yaz, that had a lot of firepower,” Lynn said. “And with Boston being filled with colleges and having so many young people downtown, the team really resonated with the younger fans.”
Don’t discount Lynn’s year for the ages when he batted .331 with 21 home runs, 105 RBI and won the first of his four Gold Gloves.
When Lynn was selected as American League MVP and rookie of the year, it was a major league first.
Lynn went to his initial All-Star game that July, and if Merrill can match Lynn’s nine honors, that’s a win.
At Merrill’s age, Lynn had recently signed after winning three national titles at USC. The left-handed hitting Lynn was itching to prove he could handle the majors.
“In my mind I had seen the best amateur players in the country, played in the Pan American Games and against Japanese all-star teams,” Lynn said. “I had always been able to hit. So I thought why would it be different just because I was in the big leagues? They still have to throw it over the plate.”
The Giants’ Atlee Hammaker tempted fate by doing just that when facing Lynn in the 1983 All-Star Game. Lynn made history again by smacking the first, and so far only, grand slam in an All-Star Game.
Hammaker’s third curveball to Lynn cleared the fence.
“I saw it pretty well,” Lynn said, “and the rest is history.”
Merrill’s baseball canvas is just being filled in. If it nears the masterpiece that Lynn painted, Merrill’s future is all-star bright.
