It’s a tale as old as time: boy sees girl on Instagram, boy slides into girl’s DMs, boy pursues girl after she initially rebuffs him, and they live happily ever after.
Okay, so maybe there’s a lot in between parts of that statement, but for Alison Kay Bowles, that’s exactly how she came to be the future Mrs. Adeiny Hechavarria.
“I was an ice girl for the St. Louis Blues, and I wasn’t really interested in just kind of a fling with an athlete at all. A couple guys would try to flirt with me on the ice and then I got in trouble!” she told Carton & Roberts as their guest on WAG Wednesday. “But, (Hechavarria) was with the Marlins, asked if I wanted tickets to the Cardinals game when they played, so I accepted – I always accept free tix to take my family to the game! He was with the Marlins.”
That happened in March 2018, a few months before the scheduled Cards-Marlins series in St. Louis, but Hechavarria kept up the pursuit – and as it turned out, getting traded for the second time in his career was the catalyst for Hechavarria’s love life to take the next step.
“I gave him my number, and he would text and call all the time, and I was like, ‘Okay, I think this guy is kind of crazy!’” Bowles laughed. “He even invited me to come see him in Miami, and I was like no! But I forgot all about those tickets, and I had booked a trip to see a friend in Tampa (in June 2017); as it turns out, he got traded to the Rays two days before I went down there, and my friend was talking with his cousin already and they planned to meet. Since he got traded, we all ended up hanging out and that’s where I met him for the first time, and the rest is history.”
Apparently, a friend told Adeiny to be a little less aggressive and “play hard to get a little more before I lose interest,” and Bowles told Craig & Evan she was glad he listened – and a few months later, it all worked out.
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“After we met, he continued to pursue me, and my friends thought I was crazy because he was all about me,” Bowles said. “I liked him when I met him, but I had it in my head that nothing would come out of it because I wasn’t interested in a relationship. But then, I went to Mexico with my family and my phone broke, and I felt like I wanted to text him and couldn’t stop thinking about him. The next week he called me and said, “Hey, I’m off tomorrow, I’m going to come to St. Louis to see you.”
It got serious quickly, and the pair got engaged in Miami, where Bowles is now, in 2019.
“We were at Prime 112 in Miami, my first time there, and he brought his whole family and proposed a champagne toast because he was going back to baseball the next week,” Bowles said, referencing Hechavarria’s soon-to-be departure for spring training with the Mets. “We did the champagne toast, and he was acting weird so I knew something was up – well, there was a ring in my champagne glass. Thankfully I wasn’t going to chug champagne, that’s a sipper, because I could’ve swallowed the ring! But I turned around and he was down on one knee, and asked me to marry him in front of the whole restaurant.”
Bowles was shocked because Hechavarria is apparently a shy guy, which you might not think given how he made the move into her DMs. But, the pair were engaged, and plan on a small wedding sometime in the next two off-seasons, depending on whether Hechavarria returns to MLB after this season or stays in Japan, where he currently plays for the Chiba Lotte Marines.
That’s a distance that might be very hard for many couples, but the nomadic life is something Bowles is getting used to; the pair were separated for all of the 2021 baseball season because of COVID restrictions preventing her from going to Japan, but at least Adeiny was in one place – unlike the period from June 2018 to August 2019 where Hechavarria spent time in five different organizations and eight different actual teams.
“It worked out for us because we don’t have kids and I work remotely so I’m able to travel,” Bowles said. “I was new to the baseball life, so it was fun going to new places. I think now I’d prefer to stay in one place.”
Hechavarria was both a Yankee and a Met in that time, and she revealed that the wives and girlfriends of the players on both New York teams at the time were among her favorites.
“It does depend on the team, and I didn’t go to as many Mets games as Yankees games, I had started my modeling career so sometimes the days were too long to get to Queens – but the Mets WAGs were kind, and the Yankees, their hospitality is among the best,” she said. “When he got traded to the Yankees, I got there and they had a gift bag for me with champagne and team apparel – it was very welcoming to me, and I felt like I would have a good time with these girls in the playoffs. It’s a special time not every player gets to have, and it sucks if you’re not friends and can’t have fun with them.”
Hechavarria was 0-for-6 with a walk in seven plate appearances in the postseason between 2018 (Yankees) and 2019 (Braves), and at age 33, that postseason experience may not come again – especially given that a man who, as Evan Roberts noted is a “light-hitting backup infielder,” was hitting just .183 for Chiba Lotte this year as of the moment his fiancé was chatting with WFAN.
But, it seems, he’s already won the game of life by finding his forever love, all thanks to that nomadic baseball life.
Follow WFAN's afternoon team on Twitter: @CartonRoberts, @EvanRobertsWFAN, @TommyLugauer, and @CMacWFAN
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