The Chris Sale interview
NORTH PORT, Fla. - There are differences for Chris Sale these days.
The ride to work is about an hour further up Interstate 75 than he had experienced for the past seven spring trainings. “Basically set the cruise control, keep it between the lines, and then I’m there,” he noted when appearing on the ‘Baseball Isn’t Boring’ podcast.
Where once his locker was at the front of the line of pitchers at JetBlue Park, with the luxury of a wall to his right and the next-most notable hurter to his left, now he is mixed in among a wall of hurlers.
And then comes the ultimate wake-up call. Chris Sale walks around in an Atlanta Braves t-shirt, in the Atlanta Braves home clubhouse, living life as an Atlanta Brave.
It has been two months since Sale got that phone call from Craig Breslow, proposing the idea of a trade from the team he was supposed to start Opening Day for, but the surprise that came with the moment hasn’t left. It’s a memory the 34-year-old can recollect without hesitation while leaning back in his new captain’s chair in front of his new locker.
“Zero.”
That was the first response to the initial obvious question regarding whether or not the idea of being traded was on his radar.
“Why would anybody want me at this point? No chance. No chance. I just had it in my mind I was going to be (in Boston). … That wasn’t even in the realm of possibilities. That wasn’t even a thought that crossed my mind. It was just that I needed to do what I needed to do to help my team.”
In the weeks and days leading up to Breslow’s phone calls, that feeling of anticipation and excitement was building for Sale. Manager Alex Cora had already named him Opening Day starter - (“Talk about having something to chase,” he declared when reminded of the designation) - and for the first time since 2017 the lefty had finished a year healthy, made it through an entire offseason healthy and was ready to start a season healthy.
There was also the optimism that came with working under the Red Sox’ new Chief Baseball Officer, Breslow, who had been unsuccessfully been trying to connect with Sale throughout the holiday seasons.
Then, a few days after Christmas, the pair finally spoke.
“It was actually kind of funny. I have only heard great things about Breslow. Played against him, but everybody I had ever talked to had awesome things to say about him. Seeing him come in, I was excited for it. He calls me, I don’t answer. We actually end up playing phone tag. I called him, he didn’t answer. He called me back, I didn’t answer. I call him back. There are multiple phone calls back and forth and a couple of text messages. Around Christmas time we texted back and forth and said we are playing a pretty serious game of phone tag. He said something funny, like, ‘I’m starting to take it personally.’ It was kind of funny that the first time we connected on the phone was him saying, ‘This is kind of weird, the first time we’re speaking … We’ve got a trade lined up for you.’
Sale’s reaction?
“It was a freaking knuckleball from left field,” he recounted.
For Sale, there was a lot to pick through after getting off the phone, and seemingly not a lot of time to do it.
The starter had control over the situation in the sense he possessed a no-trade clause due to his 10-5 rights (10 years in the majors, five years with one team). It wasn’t a cut-and-dried decision, by any stretch, particularly because of the familiarity and convenience his employment with the Red Sox afforded.
“I get off the phone with them and was like, ‘Thanks, appreciate the call.’ Then the work starts,” he said. “I talked to my wife. I talked to my kids. I called my dad. I called my agent. Just trying to figure out what the deal is and what’s going to work. Just logistical stuff. But on the flip-side of that, let’s be honest where I’m at in my career and in my life, I can’t go out to Arizona for spring training. That’s too far away. I can still pick up my kids from school. I have not missed a practice. I have not missed a game. I can still live my life while being part of this team in spring training. That was probably the most important thing. One hundred percent. My kids play sports. They’ve got school stuff going on. Being able to be there for that, having that for so long … I did that for seven years, even in the offseason. I would drive up to JetBlue Park every day and I would be home at noon. It was important for me to stay here in Florida. The Braves, it’s an hour longer drive, whatever. No big deal. Then you start thinking about what this team is, who they are and what they’ve done and what they are probably going to do. It’s kind of a one-of-one. I don’t know if the Red Sox took that into consideration. I would assume they would have to.
“The next day, at 10 or 11 o’clock in the morning, that was it. I mean, it’s a yes or no question. We don’t need to draw it out for a week.”
Sale was going to the Braves in exchange for young infielder Vaughn Grissom.
“Listen, I have said this to everybody and I will say it to the day I die: The best days of my life were wearing the Red Sox uniform. The worst days of my life were also in that uniform,” he said. “But everybody in that organization, front office, staff, players, coaches, anybody - they treated me the same when I was at the top and I was below the bottom. I will always respect that, always have love for that and I will always appreciate that. So I have nothing to say bad about anybody there.
“It was tough, man. I had some very, very, very (expletive) rough conversations just calling to say goodbye because they were there for me. You build relationships. (Expletive) phenomenal people. That was tough. But on the flip-side of that, you flip the coin and you look at this opportunity, coming into a young team full of excitement and freakishly talented. Look around this place, it’s unbelievable. I have been traded twice and both times I definitely appreciated being traded in the offseason. That definitely makes a little bit easier transition. I was able to meet some of these guys. It was easy as it possibly could be.”
Eight weeks later, Sale has settled in.
For the first time since 2017, he has taken on the task of getting to know a full batch of new teammates. And this time he is doing not as the established star, but rather as the something-to-prove veteran.
All in all, Sale clearly likes where he has landed.
"We’re all baseball players," he explained. "We have all played baseball our whole life. We all know what we want to do, which is to win. We are all, in some shape or form, very like-minded. It’s going from one group of ballplayers to another group of ballplayers. People might be a little bit different, but we’re all kind of the same. It’s been great so far."