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| Will Stewart (right), image- Jay Floyd |
I talked at length with Will and much of the interview didn't make it into the article, so I am publishing excerpts from out chat here. Read ahead for more of what the Phillies' 20th round draft pick from 2015 had to say.
-What would you want fans that are just starting to hear about this guy Will Stewart who is posting great numbers in Lakewood to know about you?
I would say to learn more about me,
not just the stat line, because there’s going to be times when the stat
line does not reflect how I pitched and there’s going to be times where
the stat line tells you I got crushed.
Trust that I’m going to work as hard
as I can to be here. We’re not heroes. We’re regular people that go
play a game that’s a lot of fun. When we do good, people want to make
us heroes and that’s great, but when we do bad you got to
keep in mind we will come back. That’s how it is.
-Have you found that some of you success is related to facing some competition that you are familiar with or have seen (at lower levels)?
There’s a few guys on every team that
you know, that you’ve heard of, that you can see the stat line and you
know what kind of player they are so having the scouting reports on
these guys is huge because you never go into a game without
knowing what you’ve got to do, so that’s a big deal.
-I know the scouting reports you mentioned are hand delivered and you guys can study them. Is that helpful for you?
Yeah, definitely. And we have meetings on it and we get
pulled into the office and we talk about it. It’s you, the catcher and
the pitching coach and we sit there and it’s kind of a more intimate
conversation about how we’re going to attack the day and everything
like that.
-Who are you rooming with?
Damon Jones. He’s huge and he’s
awesome. Okay, actually, honestly, he’s a gentle giant. You look at
him and you’re like, “Wow the guy’s huge!” And then you room with him
and you say, “Wow, you’re just too nice!” So, it’s awesome.
-Thoughts on Lakewood and the region thus far?
It’s definitely different. I’m from
the south. I’m from Alabama, so the people are different. The way they talk, the way
people react to different situations are really different. Being in the
stadium, because that’s the only place you get to see
the region as a whole, because there’s people from everywhere around
here, I feel like the only thing that kind of gets me is that they are
brutal. They are ruthless. They don’t care what’s going on. If our
team’s not doing good, then we’re gonna be pissed.
It’s kind of like, I feel like Phillie fans are very passionate. Like
they are like, “We’re going to win, or we’re going to lose, but you’re
going to know who we are either way!” But, I like Lakewood. The
weather’s been a lot better than I thought it was
gonna be.
-Have you been to the boardwalk or anything like that?
Yes,
we went over to the board walk and I was a little disappointed. There
was nobody there and I was like, “What are we doing?!” I got to see the
beach. The beach is nice and that was cool, but it kind of reminded me
a little bit of
Florida, but there it’s not as cold.
-Before you were drafted what was you knowledge of the Phillies?
There’s these pictures of some of the
guys with Phillies jerseys as kids and things like that, but I was not a
Phillies fan growing up and I didn’t know any culture of the Phillies.
So, getting here, getting drafted by them was a huge culture
shock. Like, (the fans) are worse than Yankee fans. You know how you
hear Yankees fans are crazy? Well, Phillies fans are HUGE fans. I’m
talking diehard fans, like kind of like Alabama football fans.
-After spending time in Florida at the complex, I imagine you know many of the Phils' biggest names, who the fields are named after. Carlton, Ashburn, Schmidt. Did you know who those guys were before becoming a Phillie?
No,
none of them. I didn’t know any of them. I knew guys like John Smoltz
and Albert Pujols. Guys that are kind of from my era. I was not a big
huge history buff for baseball. I didn’t really care. But now that
I’m in here, I get
to see how much they appreciate those people and how much they mean to
the organization as a whole, I feel like I should have done my homework
before I got drafted by them.
-It’s
amazing to me that you already have these impressions of the fan base
because at the lower levels guys usually don’t get to much exposure to
the really passionate fans. That might come later, when you arrive in Reading
and are playing in
Pennsylvania in a region where all the fans grew up with the Phillies,
so there you might get more of the venom, if it’s needed. Not that it
would be for you.
You mentioned not being into baseball history. Did you play or was there interest in other sports?
No,
not really. I did when I was really young, but I feel like when you’re
young you do that. I picked one sport once I got to middle school. I
picked baseball because I knew that was the only one I was going to be
good at. I could
not play basketball to save my life. I didn’t want to play football
because I didn’t want to break my arm. And we didn’t have soccer and
lacrosse like they do up here, so I played baseball and that was it.
-And no hockey either?
God
no! We don’t even do hockey. Nashville (Predators of the NHL) is the
closest thing to us and I still don’t understand it. I don’t know the
rules of hockey. I don’t know who half the teams are. I don’t know how
it works. So, I’m
not a hockey fan.
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