TAMPA — Unlike his father, Cody Bellinger isn’t one of the last players on the roster.
Still, the new Yankee says he takes pride in treating the game like he is — a lesson taught to him by his father, Clay.
Clay Bellinger spent parts of three seasons with the Yankees and won a World Series title in each year from 1999-2001.
After he retired and became a firefighter in Gilbert, Ariz., he coached his son’s Little League team.
“Me and my buddies who I played with knew if we messed up, we’d get the ‘Clay stare,’” Bellinger said Friday before the Yankees faced Toronto at Steinbrenner Field. “No one wanted that.”
The lessons worked.
“It was instilled in me early on: Play the game hard, run everything out. If you didn’t, you’d know about it. It was funny.”
And it worked?
“Oh, it worked,’’ Bellinger said.
But it wasn’t just his father’s influence that caused the younger Bellinger to play with maximum effort.
“Until junior high school, I was the littlest guy on the field,’’ Bellinger said. “I was tiny, so I had to play hard, I had to swing harder, I felt like. I had to throw harder to match up with the big boys.”
When he grew into a prospect and then began to play professionally, his style didn’t change.
“Sometimes he would remind me,’’ Bellinger said. “If he saw something he didn’t like at a showcase, he would tell me, ‘That looked terrible. Don’t be dogging it. You never know who’s watching.’ ”
So it’s no surprise that the first person Bellinger called after getting traded from the Cubs to the Yankees in the offseason was his father.
“He was excited,’’ Bellinger said. “We both knew I’d probably be traded, but we didn’t know where. To have it be the Yankees is cool.”
Bellinger said his father will be at Opening Day on March 27 in The Bronx, across the street from the previous Stadium, where the younger Bellinger used to roam the clubhouse.
Now, Bellinger hopes to be part of a championship team with the Yankees, just like his father.
Cody Bellinger, though, will enter his first season as a Yankee with considerably more pressure on him than his father did.
“I’m just looking forward to getting there,’’ Bellinger said. “For me, it’s all about winning and I think we have a great chance to do that here.”
