CONYERS, Ga. — We’re driving out past the pines, where the Atlanta cityscape begins giving way to the countryside. There are towering trees and leaves scattered around the ground bordering a long two-lane road. We pass big houses and small houses, Rockdale Alliance Church, fire station No. 3, a country club. This is where Akil Baddoo is from. Conyers, Ga., population 15,986. It’s the place that shaped him and the place where, after a transformative year in the big leagues, he returned to sort through all the changes in his life and chart a new path forward.
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The road winds until finally the right blinker starts clicking, and we turn toward Salem High School.
Keep going to the student parking lot and then down a small hill, and you arrive at the Salem High baseball field. Or what’s left of it. This is the field where Akil Baddoo would play in front of 40 or 50 scouts as a high-school senior, when he first realized the big leagues might one day be a reality. “Where it all began,” he said. Look around, though, and it does not feel like the type of place that could ever produce a big-leaguer.
Salem was never a very big baseball school, certainly not in a state where baseball talent grows off the vine, where plenty of kids transfer or move their way into playing for powerhouse programs. But the field now is, well … depressing. Overgrown with weeds. The grass is unkempt, now dead and yellow in the thick of winter. Rotting wood and shredded nets. There is no dirt down first or third baselines and barely any proof that Salem still has a baseball team. There’s a sign noting players who went on to play in college or the pros, but they stopped updating it a while back. Baddoo’s name is not on it.
He is 23, and it has only been about six years since he graduated. Baddoo admits it does not feel all that long ago. At least not until he starts thinking about it.
He stands at home plate and looks out at the chain-link outfield fence and the trees in the distance. Baddoo considers the dimensions, which are not marked. He pictures his past self roaming around the outfield and belting doubles in the gap. “The field is kind of big,” he said. Then he twists his head and reconsiders. “Actually, kind of small. Definitely not Comerica.”
In the heart of downtown Detroit, Comerica Park measures 420 out to center field, the longest dimension in all of baseball. Its outfield is vast and green and is now where Baddoo calls home.
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“Coming from here and playing in Comerica,” Baddoo said, “it’s humbling.”
Baddoo strolls over to the batting cage and grabs the ruined nets. He looks at an L-screen that collapsed and lies on the ground. He begins wondering how much it might cost to fix up the place. The gears in his head start turning. If he ever gets a big payday in his career, he said, finding a way to fix this place will be a must.
A few minutes later, we walk inside Salem High School. There’s a basketball game going on, and the district’s new athletic director is taking tickets outside the gym. Baddoo introduces himself. The woman is new around here. She has never met Baddoo, but she knows who he is right away. “Oh, baseball, right?” she said.
They start talking about the field, which the AD admits is a wreck. She’s trying to find the best way to improve it, but that means a lot of work. Not long ago, she says, they were going through the equipment sheds when some students gawked at a hair-raising discovery. There in the old shed lay a snakeskin, several feet long.
Baddoo turns his shoulders sideways and grimaces at the mere thought.
One year ago, though, he was living in his parents’ basement and had never played a game above High A. Now he has a full year of MLB service time and owns a home in the greater Atlanta area.
The past year has been about shedding parts of his old life, and now, becoming comfortable in this new skin.
Baddoo writes down his number on a slip of paper and hands it to the athletic director. He doesn’t need to wait for a payday. He is already a person with the recognition and resources to help make things happen.
First pitch swinging … deep left field … way back … storybook home run!
That was the call from Tigers television broadcaster Matt Shepard when Akil Baddoo first introduced himself to the baseball world. It was April 4, when Baddoo was making his first MLB at-bat. The previous winter, the Tigers had selected Baddoo from the Twins organization in the Rule 5 draft. It seemed like a curious pick at the time. He was a long shot to make the roster. Baddoo, though, impressed in spring training. He started hitting and never stopped. He connected on the very first pitch of his big-league career and parked it over the opposite-field wall. That was one of the moments his life began changing. There was also the grand slam the next day, the walk-off single the day after that and a first month that became one of the best stories in baseball.
Nine months later, we’re watching the video of that first home run, sitting inside a chain pizza joint on the north side of Atlanta.
Baddoo makes little noises as he watches himself connect with the ball — bam! — then flip his bat, slap hands with his first-base coach — yep! — and point to the sky at home plate. The camera turns to his family in the stands, where his mother, Akilah, was jubilant, practically pushing his father over.
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“That’s Momma ’Doo,” he said.
The memories of those magical moments persist. But what Baddoo did after all that is arguably just as remarkable. He endured a long slump, but rather than fade into oblivion like many a one-hit wonder before him, he battled back. He became the Tigers’ primary leadoff hitter. He finished his rookie year worth 1.9 Wins Above Replacement. He had a .330 on-base percentage, and his overall offensive contribution was 8 percent better than league average.
That’s a foundation to build on. And now, with the Tigers adding players and payroll, with their window for contention beginning to crack open, Baddoo is hungry for more.
“We’re not a team that’s on a rebuild,” Baddoo said. “No. We want to win, and we want to win now.”
For Baddoo, the work starts here, in his hometown of Conyers. After a grueling morning speed and agility workout, Baddoo begins his afternoon meeting with a small group of other ballplayers inside the Team 3 sports complex. This is a small, nondescript facility across the street from a hardware store, next to an auto parts warehouse. It also happens to be sizzling with baseball talent. Baddoo is here with Cedric Mullins of the Baltimore Orioles and Will Benson, a first-round pick now in Triple A with the Cleveland Guardians’ organization. He’s known these guys a long time, Benson since they were maybe 8 years old.
Today the players are trying out a new training device, the X-Zack Swing Trainer. They strap cables around their bats and their bodies and mimic the motion of a swing. Each swing comes with 60 pounds of resistance. No movement comes unearned.
This time last year, Baddoo was just another guy trying to make it. Now he’s a big leaguer trying to sustain success at the highest level. The journey was remarkable to watch for those in Baddoo’s hometown. People at his gym gathered around the TV to watch his at-bats and old principals followed his games on the radio. Benson watched with everyone else as Baddoo’s almost daily exploits were on SportsCenter and MLB Network, blowing up Twitter and Instagram.
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“The first month, every day I was on my phone like, ‘Wow,’” Benson said. “The level he was doing it at, he was with the cream of the crop.
“To see him doing that, it was surreal.”
Shocking as it was, Benson thought back to the day the Tigers selected Baddoo in the Rule 5 draft, which meant the minor-leaguer would instantaneously get a shot to make the big-league roster.
“He called me and said, ‘I’m going to big-league camp,’” Benson said.
Rule 5 picks, generally speaking, do not amount to much.
“What was crazy, he sounded so calm and so confident,” Benson said. “I could just tell. I was like, ‘All right, he’s about to do something.’”
Akil Baddoo is driving an all-black Jeep Wrangler. Black rims, black tinted windows, the works. He pulls up outside The Fade Lounge ATL in east Atlanta, part passion project and part business venture.
Baddoo — who received a $750,000 bonus when the Twins drafted him in the second round in 2016 — put down the money to help start The Fade Lounge along with Yankees farmhand Isiah Gilliam and Terrell Frazier, Baddoo’s barber and also one of his close friends. Baddoo has interests outside of baseball, and in The Fade Lounge, he and Frazier envisioned creating a high-quality barbershop that also serves as more. There are plush leather couches and a big-screen TV. The voices of Lil Wayne and Rick Ross blare over the speakers when Baddoo walks in, dabs up a couple of barbers and shows off the place. It’s set up to allow people to hang out and talk, whether they’re getting a fresh cut or not. The Fade Lounge has started hosting after-hours game nights. People can go there to watch football on the weekends or play video games.
“I feel like most conversations with men, when they leave the house, happen in the barbershop,” Baddoo said. “So we said, ‘Why not make it comfortable? Why make it just a barbershop only?’ It’s open to have conversations and relax and have a good time.”
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Baddoo envisions The Fade Lounge, mostly, as a place where people can be themselves.
Fitting, because from the day Baddoo arrived in the Tigers system — from the first time he walked in and shook hands with manager A.J. Hinch — he has carried himself with magnetic ease.
“The person and the personality and the outgoing nature has been there since Day 1,” Hinch said back in September.
That’s the Baddoo we saw on the outside, the charismatic figure who would dart around the bases with his helmet flying off, the exciting athlete who won over the hearts of fans in an instant.
You can look at the stat line — a .259 average, 13 home runs, 18 steals — and come away impressed with Baddoo’s rookie-season success. But here now, with the storm finally settled, Baddoo admits the past year was not exactly easy.
“Not at all,” he says.
After the Hollywood start, there was a 5-for-50 slump that began in late April. He hit just .200 in August and posted only a .306 on-base percentage after the All-Star break. He had to grind in at-bats against lefties, and he missed 10 days with a concussion after a devastating collision with outfielder Derek Hill. (After that collision, when both players were inside, Hill turned and said something like, “Damn, Akil, you’re playing the wrong sport. The Lions need you!”)
Through the ups and the downs, Baddoo found comfort in routines and wisdom from his teammates. Some of this, no doubt, stemmed from the Tigers’ culture under Hinch and the coaching staff, which made a palpable difference in Detroit last season. But the process and the knowledge also came from Baddoo’s innate curiosity.
“Everyone is different,” Baddoo said. “Each person has a different story. I’m always curious, always eager to learn something new and see what I can apply to my life.”
During the season, Baddoo would pepper his teammates with questions.
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“I try to get a nugget from each person,” he said. “I try to get a nugget and see, Robbie, what made you successful? Miggy, what is it that made you Miguel Cabrera? I grab that nugget and see what works for me.”
This all lines up with something Bobby Link, the former baseball coach at Salem, said in an interview last spring. Link coached Baddoo as a junior and senior, did his best to fix up the program. He would buy steak dinners for any player who hit an opposite-field home run.
“He’s a very good student of the game,” Link said. “He’s not worried about asking questions. He’ll ask: How do you approach this pitcher? How do you approach this? And he’s got a great demeanor. Very patient. Sometimes it’s hard to be patient when you’re young.”
Baddoo said all these traits stemmed from the way his parents raised him. Throughout the year he often thought back to things his mother said shortly after learning Baddoo was going to the Tigers. You were made for the moment. Don’t feel like you don’t belong, because you do and they wanted you for a reason.
John and Akilah Baddoo are both the children of U.S. immigrants, Akilah’s side of the family came from Trinidad and Tobago and John’s from Ghana. They are people who have carved out their own slice of a dream. John is a railroad engineer and Akilah works as a project manager for ADP. John became engulfed in baseball while growing up in New York. He shared a love of the game with his son, started shuffling through baseball cards with him when Baddoo was about 4 years old. Baddoo’s parents are big influences in his life, people he mentions all the time, well aware he is here largely because of the sacrifices they made on his behalf.
“My parents always looked out for me and always kept me focused and locked in,” Baddoo said. “Leaving home wasn’t really a struggle. It was like, ‘All right, I’m in the real world, now it’s time to become your own man and pay the bills and experience life.'”
And that’s where we start to see another side of Akil Baddoo. There’s the speedy outfielder and the friendly face, sure. But Baddoo at his core is more contemplative, hungry for knowledge, self-aware and focused. This is a guy who spent last offseason digesting video and studying heroes like Barry Bonds and Ken Griffey Jr., who quiets his mind by meditating each morning, who quotes the likes of Kobe Bryant and Will Smith and can often talk like a motivational speaker.
“It’s a lot of pressure and a lot of outside noises when you’re in the big leagues,” he said. “I feel like being in the big leagues made me become a man. You have all these outside noises and other distractions. How are you going to handle that? It’s staying focused on what you really want to do.”
When he was rehabbing for his concussion last season, he began browsing on Zillow, planning ahead for the offseason. Back in Georgia, he dispatched his mother to look at a few homes. He trusted her with the final decision, and eventually, Baddoo closed on a place of his own just a few minutes from Atlanta’s Truist Park. He has spent the offseason overseeing renovations, decorating the place with his own style.
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Living on his own for the first time has been a journey in itself. Part of Baddoo’s ascension into manhood has also meant thinking longer-term. He and those close to him have a strong understanding of how to market Baddoo and build a brand. Soon after his firecracker start, he was selling NFTs. Now, there are T-shirts for sale on his website.
“It’s just about always being dedicated, always having a vision and being open to exploring different things,” Baddoo said. “It does not have to always be baseball. It can be on the business side. I kind of navigate through other things and just let my brain work and see what works for me and apply that to my every day.”
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He owns the Fade Lounge but also says he’s not certain about any long-term business goals. He doesn’t exactly want to be portrayed as some budding entrepreneur — not yet, at least. Because if he’s being honest, baseball is very much at the center of everything this offseason. Baddoo is expected to have a role on the 2022 Tigers, but he also knows he still has much to prove.
“My main focus is winning in Detroit,” Baddoo said. “It is baseball. I’m 23. I just finished my first year and know the things I need to work on, know what it takes to be successful and just want to build off of that.”
The 2022 season will be about proving he can stick, about hitting left-handers (against which hit only .214 last year) and improving his fielding (he was worth -2 defensive runs saved) and his throwing arm. Last season was his first year back from Tommy John surgery. He says his arm wasn’t always 100 percent. He’s done a lot of stretching and a lot of workouts he thinks will help.
Away from the field, though, Baddoo talks about trying to grow into a Great Man. Part of that, in his mind, means being someone who can influence younger generations. He’s enjoyed getting to know young players around his communities and has worked at a couple of camps this offseason. Along with Benson, he plans on starting a mentor-mentee program. He wants to help get more young Black athletes into baseball. He also wants to share all he has learned and is still learning about life.
“I feel like becoming a great man means being someone who always likes to give and share knowledge,” Baddoo said. “I’m an open book. I tell everyone everything about the game of baseball. People always ask: ‘First at-bat, you hit a home run? The next day you hit a grand slam, and then you hit a walk-off? That’s unheard of. How’s you do that?’ And I try to tell them as best as I can.'”
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For all this budding wisdom, every now and then you still get a glimpse of Akil Baddoo, the 23-year-old. Scheduling lunch can be a bit of a guessing game — we were supposed to meet at 12:30, then 12:50, then we had to scrap it altogether. He admits communication isn’t always his strong suit. He has a lot going on in his head. The same tunnel vision that has spawned his success can have drawbacks outside of his career.
Sometimes growth seems sudden, like when a Rule 5 pick homers on the first pitch of his major-league career. But in reality, it is more gradual.
“When we were walking around the field earlier,” Baddoo said, “I was really picturing myself, just seeing myself five years ago, six years ago. I was just here. It put it in perspective, to see where I came from and where I’m at now.”
In the Salem High gym, with a basketball game going on, Baddoo calls down to an old coach standing on the court level. The man’s face lights up when he sees Baddoo standing in the upstairs bleachers. As the sound of dribbles and cheers echoes through the gym, Baddoo yells his phone number down to the coach. They’re going to catch up later.
“Hey,” the man said just as Baddoo is about to walk away. “I’m proud of you.”
As we head out of the school, we pass through the cafeteria. Baddoo points to the table where he used to sit. He strides through the room and looks up at the ceiling. There’s light cracking through the windows in an atrium-style opening high above. It’s a cool architectural feature in an otherwise average, older school building.
“I didn’t realize that was there,” Baddoo says, somewhat in awe.
Makes sense. Baddoo says he likes to stay in the moment, engrossing himself in the here and now. He’s building a life and career with big goals and long-term plans. That doesn’t always leave a lot of room for reflection.
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One thing he’s still learning: Every now and then, it’s OK to stop and take in all that is happening, to appreciate the journey from a different angle.
He keeps gazing at the atrium, chin tilted toward the ceiling.
“I never even noticed that before,” he said. “I never looked up.”
(Top photo: Cody Stavenhagen / The Athletic)
