MARYVALE, Ariz. -- Hey, kids. New school got you down? Having a tough time getting to know folks at your new job?
Here's a tip from new Milwaukee closer Trevor Hoffman on a sure way to ingratiate yourself with a new group of people: Doughnuts.
Not quite like you think, though.
"Our training people only allow doughnuts once a week, on Sundays," new Brewers manager Ken Macha was saying the other day. "So I run through the clubhouse the other morning and see a plate of doughnuts."
Pause. Grin.
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| It's a smooth transition in Milwaukee for Trevor Hoffman. A few doughnuts help. (Getty Images) |
"Aw, that's, like, his trademark," Brewers outfielder Tony Gwynn Jr. says. "He's been doing that a long time. Unless he buys the doughnuts, then there's a good chance they'll all have a bite out of them."
We don't always get to pick our path in life.
But we sure can choose how we cope with it.
At 41, Hoffman's raw, emotional winter has given way to sunshine and éclairs. There are no outward scars. There is no discernable bitterness. Starting anew with the Brew Crew, Hoffman's spat and then split with the San Diego Padres is packed away out of sight, like a box in the corner of his closet.
"There's starting to be some familiarity here," says Hoffman, whose scheduled appearance in a Cactus League game this weekend has been pushed back because of a mild strain in his right rib cage area. "Your understanding of people's idiosyncrasies, your understanding of their personalities. The flow of the clubhouse. The lay of the land.
"I haven't been in a situation like this in awhile. So it's a situation where I had to take it a little slower.
"I just want to blend in, put saves under my belt and move forward. It's going to be a neat transition."
Strange? Yes. Baseball's all-time saves leader, Hoffman earned 552 of his 554 career saves with the Padres. The game's best-known, ninth-inning routine, Hoffman entering to the rocking strains of AC/DC's Hells Bells, was birthed in San Diego.
He was Mr. Franchise. And then he wasn't. Seeing him in anything but a Padre uniform, for awhile, is going to be akin to seeing Shamu painted turquoise and fuscia.
Except in Milwaukee, where the ease with which the ever-classy Hoffman has assimilated himself into the clubhouse has removed much of the awkwardness.
"I think the weirdness has kind of subsided now," says Gwynn, 26, who was just a tyke in the 1990s coming to the park with his future Hall of Famer father and watching Hoffman building his reputation in earnest. "It's been a blast.
"I'm sure having me around makes him feel older. But him having his kids around makes me feel older, because they're the same age I was when I was coming to the park with my dad."
Really, Hoffman says, the transition has been fairly simple, all things considered.
"I wouldn't say anything has been all that difficult, to be honest with you," Hoffman says. "I just have to pay more attention to how things work.
"I could close my eyes in spring training in Peoria and know exactly where I was at with the Padres. I could close my eyes on a Tuesday at 10:30 and know exactly where I was supposed to be and how to get there.
"The easiest thing, I think, has been the fact that you can't reinvent the wheel. It's the game of baseball. You can only do the bunt plays so many ways."
He converted 30 of 34 save opportunities in 2008, getting intermittent work with a club that lost 99 games. His 48 appearances were Hoffman's fewest over a full season since 1994. Yes, there's less sizzle on his fastball now, and the difference in velocity between that and his vaunted changeup isn't as dramatic, which means he works the high wire with even less margin for error now than he's ever had.
But the Brewers, coming off their first playoff appearance in 25 years, weren't looking for a wing and a prayer. Despite losing CC Sabathia and Ben Sheets from the rotation, they're quite confident that Yovani Gallardo and Manny Parra will emerge and they again will be a contender. And they're quite confident that Hoffman will remain one of the game's premier closers and help push them toward another October.
"He's everything we thought he would be, and better," Brewers general manager Doug Melvin says. "He's a stand-up guy. He knows what he has to do to get ready, and that rubs off on the other guys.
"I'm here at 7 every morning, I go downstairs to get a cup of coffee and, son of a gun, the coaches are down there working out and Trevor's already down there with them."
He's all about the now, not the past. He steers questions away from his time in San Diego, and especially away from the split. Yes, he will continue to make his home there with his wife and three sons (Brody, Quinn and Wyatt). Yes, he is looking forward to getting a summertime place in Milwaukee.
No, he does not wish to chew yesterday's breakfast.
"I don't think it's a question that deserves too much thought," Hoffman says of the details of his split with the Padres. "It's over and it's done. We're professionals. We're grown men. We might not see eye to eye on everything, but it's an organization that meant a lot to me for a very long time.
"Hopefully, I'll be a part of it in a different capacity some day. I don't think you want to look at it as bridges burned. Emotions got into it. Feelings got into it.
"Nobody gives a s--- about people's emotions in baseball."
He shoots a self-deprecating smile as he says this. Wallow in the past, or charge into the future. To him, it's not even a choice.
Though, truth be told, his transition to Milwaukee has not been completely seamless.
"We made the mistake of playing Hells Bells one time down here," says Tyler Barnes, vice-president of communications for the Brewers. "He let us know not to do that."
No, that's always been a song best saved for regular-season situations, when the games mean something and the adrenalin is authentic.
"Hopefully, we'll be playing it on opening day [in Milwaukee]," Barnes says. "It'll be great. You try not to openly copy other teams, but something like this is just built in."
And if there are a few more doughnuts to chew on during the interim, so be it. Macha's mock horror regarding that partially used plate of doughnuts on the clubhouse table earlier this spring?
"I think he had his eye on a particular doughnuts, so he made a point to ask in a meeting who did it," Hoffman says. "So I brought in a couple of doughnuts and put them on his desk a day or so later.
"He made sure I knew he liked the old-fashioned ones, not the maple logs. He's in the same boat as me here. We're both new."
Greg Bromberg 
