Column: Nelson Cruz says Padres’ Fernando Tatis Jr. needs to outwork, not outrun PED stain
Tatis #Tatis
Nelson Cruz has been where Fernando Tatis Jr. finds himself, mired in the humiliating purgatory of a lengthy performance-enhancing drug suspension due to wreckage of his own making.
He’s faced the boos, the uncomfortable stares, the unspoken words of wounded teammates. He’s looked out at an uncertain, cratered road without a discernible horizon.
Cruz, double dipping as a player and GM for the Dominican Republic’s World Baseball Classic team, understands that putting your head down while producing again and again and again represents tiny first steps.
It’s just the beginning, though, of an unending journey to earn back as much credibility as the baseball world will allow.
“You have to do it the right way after that,” Cruz told the Union-Tribune on Tuesday during Day 2 of the Winter Meetings at the Manchester Grand Hyatt. “Even when you’re doing good, there’s going to be a question mark about it. That’s what it is. That’s life. You make a mistake, you have to embrace it.
“To move on, you have to understand that people will have judgment about it. You can’t control what other people think. You just try to keep moving forward.”
In addition to missing 80 games for a failed PED test revealed in early August, Tatis must salve another self-induced wound piled atop an offseason motorcycle accident that fractured his wrist.
Tatis will not play for a loaded Dominican team that could include Padres stars Manny Machado and Juan Soto. Instead of pride pouring from his pores while representing heart and home, Tatis must square the fact that the 2023 tournament is a door he bolted shut himself.
It’s another clear-as-crystal reminder that Tatis stands in the spotlight for far more than the man buttoning up the jersey. He stands for the Padres and the massive $340 million investment from an owner and GM dreaming of it all. He stands for a city that has waited generations for a transcendent talent to give it the championship that has eluded since a franchise was born.
Now, he will not stand for his country.
“He was a huge piece of the team,” Cruz said. “It definitely hurts that he’s not with us. We all understand the process and we have to respect that.”
Rewind to 2013, when Cruz was suspended 50 games for his link to the Biogenesis scandal that also lassoed Alex Rodriguez, Ryan Braun and former Padres shortstop Everth Cabrera.
Cruz began the work of regaining reputational footing a swing at a time, while avoiding another whiff of trouble. He hit at least 37 home runs the next six seasons while averaging 105 RBIs.
Since the unceremonious fall from grace those suspensions rightly deliver, Cruz collected five of his seven All-Star Game appearances and four Silver Slugger awards.
Some never will forgive. All never truly will forget.
So, you walk — not run.
“You have to go and play, that’s the only thing you can do,” Cruz said of Tatis, who turns 24 on Jan. 2. “Be the best player, from now on. Be the best person, too. That’s the only thing you can control. He’s a really young guy. He’s just a baby. He’s career just started.
“Imagine if he has an incredible 15-year career.”
Cruz paused before adding: “He’s the only one who can control what’s going on after this.”
Never truer words, those.
Cruz said he has talked to Tatis once in the aftermath of the suspension and tried to set up a conversation with the player and his MLB-veteran father of the same name.
“To talk about life and baseball,” said Cruz, an 18-year veteran and current designated hitter for the Nationals. “I love him. He’s a great kid.”
Padres teammates did Tatis a massive favor by sawing through the Mets and Dodgers to come within a few games of the World Series. That ratcheted down some of the blame for unrealized potential that certainly was headed his way.
Tatis spoke to the team before an unemotional dugout meeting with the media on Aug. 23.
“I have let so many people down,” Tatis said then. “I’ve lost so much love from people that I have failed. I have failed all of them. … I’ve seen how my dreams have turned into my worst nightmares.”
Can that begin to mend clubhouse fences?
“It’s hard for him, or myself when I was in that situation, to know what people are going to think or what they’re going to say, you know?” Cruz reasoned. “You’ve got to go and be yourself. That’s all that you can do.”
As for heckling and jeers? They’re coming, park after park — at least at the start.
“My situation and his is different” Cruz said. “I mean, he’s a really big star. I was a good player, but I wasn’t at his level. He was the face of MLB.”
There’s a road back. Cruz has traveled it. But it’s not an easy one.
And it shouldn’t be.
This story originally appeared in San Diego Union-Tribune.