Cover Story
A few minutes of Weeks...
Rickie Weeks
Rickie Weeks
As natural as his waking up daily to a breakfast of oatmeal and strawberries, Weeks’ career with the Brew Crew seems to be gaining momentum with each of his three years on the squad.
by Yolanda D. White
Sandwiched between an impending "players only" meeting and pre-game warm up, Milwaukee Brewer star Second Baseman Rickie Weeks recently found a little bit of free time to open up about himself, apart from just baseball.
His heart (his family) and his dreams for the future were among the highlights. Most notably, my discovering that for him, playing baseball came naturally.
It helped that Weeks’ mother ran track, his dad played baseball--both college standouts. Forget about sibling rivalry, his sister also ran collegiate track and his brother shares in the male family bonding, playing his own brand of baseball.
It was this tightly woven, shared fabric of his family that turned 24-year-old Weeks’ childhood dreams and knack for athletics into Major League baseball reality. As natural as his waking up daily to a breakfast of oatmeal and strawberries, Weeks’ career with the Brew Crew seems to be gaining momentum with each of his three years on the squad. Implanted from Orlando, Florida, Weeks has found Milwaukee a homegrown kind of place to live and play.
"Everyone has treated me very well," Weeks says of his Brewers family, fans and newfound friends.
His appearance is as delightful as his down-to-earth personality. Standing a firm, lean and lithe 6 foot, wearing his blue "M" embossed fitted T-shirt. A heavy silver linked chain relaxes around his thick muscular neck, which is as solid as his broad shoulders and granite-like chest that announced his arrival. And sorry ladies, those little white pants were of a loose fitting nature, a far cry from the cute and clingy version seen on television during games.
Nervous, sweating and pressed for time, I’d only been granted 20 minutes of interview time and had already gobbled 5 or 6 of those minutes up waiting for my camerawoman (posing as my best friend Inga). She’s late--again--so I begin, without a photo, seizing the moment.
I sat, rather ungracefully, crossed legged on the floor in front of him, sprawling out my notebook, pen, camera, purse and other interviewing necessities.
I apologize for my sweat, wipe myself (my brow) with the back of my hand and thank him for his time. He nursed a bottle of apple juice, resting it on the floor between us when it was his turn to talk.
More than how hard he swings his bat, or the speed at which he steals a base, his batting average, or whether he was in the middle of a loosing or winning streak for that matter, I was curious about who Rickie Darnell Weeks really was.
The scoreboards and sports magazines reveal those and other details including the fact that he established a scholarship foundation at the Love Tabernacle Church of God in Christ in Altamonte Springs, Florida and finished seventh in the National League Rookie of the Year voting after just three-plus months with the Brewers.
Readers might also learn that he finished third among National League rookies in home runs with 13 and finished in a three-way tie for eighth among NL rookies with 42 RBI’s.
But one still might not know that his father and mother (an ordained pastor) raised him to be more than his statistics.
"My family grounds me, and they taught me that if you played (worked) as hard as you could, you’d know that you had done everything that you could do," Weeks explained.
He calls himself down-to-earth and credits the fact that he was "brought up right and raised by the right parents," for his success. So, his stats don’t sideline him.
"I don’t check them; I am dead serious. I don’t do that and it helps me stay humble."
Only he could tell you that rappers, Young Joc and Lil’ Jon might be having it "going down" for him in his CD player during the off season, while he engages in other favorite past times like working out and eating.
Only in a brief clubhouse conversation with an overly curious and perspiring journalist, could you also learn that Milwaukee’s own Gee’s Clippers gives him the clean cut that graces the Brewer’s promotional leaflets. And that even in his preferred singledom, he knows that the day he chooses a wife, she will be ambitious, a good cook, God fearing and of course physically beautiful.
In general, his way is to "sit back, look and learn."
Surely, his teammates know--if no one else does--that he shows up on the field minus a heavy hitting ego and a know-it-all attitude. His take on that kind of phenomena is simple.
"Baseball is not that kind of game. It’s kind of heartbreaking when people get like that. You have just got too many people on a team and no one person can do or be everything."
Scooping up my belongings, I was reminded by my camerawoman Inga (she showed up mid-interview) to get a photo. After asking his permission, I posed with Weeks not because he was hot (though perhaps that was true) or famous or even an excellent athlete.
But because he seems to have mastered the art of balancing humility with an uncanny sense of respect, admiration and appreciation for his family who has managed to play, pray and stay together. |
