Motivational speaker breaks cement block on Fredi Gonzalez’s chest
Over the years we’ve seen baseball managers try many different methods to motivate their teams or maintain a loose atmosphere in the clubhouse. New Chicago Cubs manager Joe Maddon pretty much had it down to a science during his time with the Tampa Bay Rays, with ideas ranging from themed road trips to allowing snakes and penguins to slither and waddle around the clubhouse.
With that in mind though, we’ve yet to see Maddon or any other manager give up his body to a man wielding a sledgehammer like Atlanta Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez did on Saturday.
Yes, you read that correctly. Gonzalez and the Braves welcomed motivational speaker Donnie Moore to their clubhouse on Saturday afternoon, and as a part of the assembly Gonzalez laid back on some cement blocks and allowed Moore to break a cement block as it rested on his chest.
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You can see it in the video above at the 1:27 mark. But here’s another quick look at the impact just in case this isn’t sinking in yet.
What was going through Gonzalez’s mind you’re probably wondering. Here’s the response he gave MLB.com’s Mark Bowman.
“He had done it before and he knew what he was doing,” Gonzalez said. “I think the last thing in his mind was to hurt somebody. At the end of the day, if he’s going to hurt somebody, I’d rather him hurt me than one of the players.”
A noble sacrifice, though thankfully Gonzalez walked away without a scratch or collapsed chest cavity.
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That wasn’t the only fun activity Moore had planned though. Before he left, he cracked three baseball bats (presumably over his knee), ran through two 2X4 pieces of lumber and tore two phone books in half. All in an effort to show Braves players they can accomplish anything they set out to do, including overcoming the Washington Nationals in the NL East.
“He was basically saying, ‘I can break these bricks because I know I can,'” right-hander Shelby Miller said. “He’s prepared and trained for it. He uses that toward baseball for us. Because he has trained for it, he knows he can break the bricks. So for us, it’s like, ‘I know I’m going to pitch well because I’ve trained for it and done everything I can to be the best.'”
It’s a great message. Unfortunately, Moore can’t do magic too and make Max Scherzer, Jordan Zimmerman or Bryce Harper disappear. That’s what it will take for a seemingly transitioning Braves team to win the division. But if the exercise helped even one player relax and refocus, well, it was probably worth a sledgehammer to the chest.
Probably.
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Mark Townsend is a writer for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @Townie813
