Toronto Blue Jays

Kaitlyn McGrath Jun 22, 2023

TORONTO — The Blue Jays charter plane had tried to land twice. The weather was bad in the Boston area, wet and foggy. If the third attempt failed, they were going to have to land somewhere else.

Nobody wanted that, especially not after the day they’d had. The mood inside the plane was tense following a disappointing loss to the Seattle Mariners and the aborted landings. Everyone was just about fed up.

Thankfully, on the third try, the plane landed safely. The whole team cheered, all relieved, happy and ready to get to their hotel. But they had to wait to disembark. For an hour.

So, Matt Chapman grabbed a microphone. He turned on the team’s stereo and kicked off a karaoke show right then and there. The Blue Jays third baseman belted out a few songs. The reviews? “He can sing pretty well,” said outfielder Daulton Varsho. (Chapman’s mom, Lisa, and sister, Haley, are singers, so carrying a tune is in his DNA.) After Chapman’s performance, the microphone was passed to center fielder Kevin Kiermaier and pretty soon the entire team — and even, at one point, an airport security guard — was involved. The karaoke party continued onto the bus until the team finally reached the hotel in the middle of the night.

“We could have totally all just been super pissed off,” Chapman said of the travel mishap. Instead, the Blue Jays ended up having a blast. It was no surprise that Chapman was at the center of it all.

“He knows how to lighten up the mood,” Varsho said, “and have a good time.”

Chapman is the team DJ, hype-man and comedian rolled into a 6-foot, 215-pound package. His one-liners keep the clubhouse loose, but games are no joke.

“He’s night-and-day different once the game starts,” said Toronto starter Kevin Gausman.

Once an energetic kid from Southern California, “Chappy”— a nickname he’s had since college — found his place on a baseball field early and grew from an undersized, undrafted high schooler to one of the game’s premier third basemen, all while accumulating praise for being the teammate everyone wants beside them.

Chapman spent five seasons with the Oakland A’s, transitioning from a talented rookie to an All-Star. He was part of a successful core, which included the ultra-serious Marcus Semien and the laid-back Matt Olson. “There had to be some times where I had to pull the reins on Chappy,” said Olson, now with the Braves, “and he had to fire me up, but it was a good little combo we had.”

As Chapman’s former team visits Toronto this weekend, the Blue Jays are entering a crucial time to try to gain ground in the standings. It’s been an inconsistent season, but with the club still in the mix for a wild-card spot nearing the season’s halfway mark, they’ll be looking at Chapman to help lead them through a playoff push with his leadership both on and off the field.

“He’s not like any other teammate I’ve ever had,” said Blue Jays second baseman Whit Merrifield. “He’s off the wall. You never know what he’s going to say but he just keeps it fun, keeps it light — and, at the same time, he’s a hell of a player.”

All Chapman ever wanted to do as a kid was play under the sun in the cul-de-sac he grew up on in Lake Forest, Calif. And, inevitably, after every intense round of outdoor play, the energetic Chapman would come back into the house sweaty and exhausted.

“We used to always say he’s not sleeping, he’s recharging,” his dad, Jim, said.

Baseball, hockey, lacrosse, whatever game he was playing, Chapman was intent on winning, even when he was with friends and his mom, Lisa, tried to explain that these games were just for fun.

“He would have a fit if he wasn’t winning,” Jim said. “He was just playing so hard. These other kids, they couldn’t keep up.”

Baseball was the game he loved most and on the field, he said, he could always find his focus. He dreamed of one day being a professional player, so from a young age, he wanted to look the part. Before games, he’d borrow his dad’s sunglasses to put on top of his hat. He wore eye black, had sweatbands on both of his wrists and wore chains around his neck.

“It was like he was dressed up for Halloween to be a professional baseball player,” said Mike Gonzales, who first met him when Chapman was 12 years old and later coached him at El Toro High School.

Chapman was a skinny kid, but he excelled on the field. He started out as a catcher, but by the time he was 11, his dad, who doubled as his coach, moved him to shortstop, typically where the most talented players go. On his elite travel ball team, he played second base. While he didn’t hit for much power back then, he got on base and could run a little. His edge, though, was his defense.

“He became such a good defender that you couldn’t take him out of the lineup. He was too valuable,” his dad said.

While at El Toro High School, Chapman famously played alongside fellow future MLB third baseman Nolan Arenado. (Both their numbers — No. 12 and No. 6 — have been retired and hang on the school’s outfield fence). Chapman was two grades younger, so he was a backup shortstop and would DH when Arenado started, and play shortstop when Arenado pitched. Chapman took note of how dedicated Arenado was, coming to the field early to hit or take extra ground balls with him. Naturally, their drills would sometimes turn into a friendly competition.

“To see the way those guys work, they weren’t very happy if they made a bad throw or missed a ball,” Gonzales remembered.

Even as a high schooler, Chapman was serious about his craft, preparing and playing with a professional-like intensity. But outside of competition, he was known for ribbing his teammates as a form of friendly motivation. “He always wanted to get the last word in,” said Gonzales, who added his teammates knew the trash talk was good fun. “When the game time came, he was 100 percent behind his own teammates, and they knew that.”

When Chapman was a senior — and the starting shortstop — he got exposed to plenty of MLB scouts. After years of being a wiry kid who couldn’t grow a moustache like the rest of his buddies, he finally hit his growth spurt heading into his junior year and started filling out his 6-foot frame. But while talented, Chapman wasn’t quite “physically ready” to be in professional baseball, said Eric Martins, the Oakland A’s third base coach who scouted Chapman and has known him since he was a child.

Chapman’s dad knew he wasn’t ready, too. So, unbeknownst to his son, Jim shooed away MLB offers. After Chapman wasn’t drafted, he said he felt overlooked by MLB scouts and carried that with him for a while, but he had a scholarship to play at Cal State Fullerton, a local Division I program, where he was once a bat boy. It was a dream alternative.

In college, Chapman learned to take care of his body, eating right and lifting weights. Finally, he looked like a man, not the “twig” he used to be, he said. He also met some of his best friends at college, many of whom would go on to be groomsmen at his wedding. “We had a blast,” Chapman said of those years. Meanwhile, on the field, before his junior year, he switched to third base, a career-making move.

“I don’t think that I was mature enough to go off into the minor leagues (after high school) and be a professional right away. I needed to be a kid still and mess up a little bit,” he said, admitting that he’s now grateful for what his dad did. “I’m just super glad it worked out.”

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