Francisco Lindor.Photo: Adam Hunger/Getty
“It’s very important to keep it fun,” Lindor, 27, tells PEOPLE. “I spend more time with my teammates than I spend with my family throughout the year, so it’s very important to keep it loose, to have fun, to enjoy the ride every single day.”
Lindor, who on Wednesday surprised Gatorade’s National Baseball Player of the Year Dylan Lesko with news of the teen’s big win, is rarely seen without a smile on his face, and is frequently seen hugging his teammates or visiting the mound to give his pitcher an energizing pep talk.
“At the end of the day, what we’ve got is each other,” he says of his teammates. “We’re going to go through a lot of ups and downs throughout the year, so why not come up with different things to make it fun throughout the process?”
Francisco Lindor.Eric Espada/Getty
“I’m human, so I’m far from being invincible, far from being perfect,” he says. “I will always show my emotions, I will always laugh, I will always enjoy the game. Am I going to be the one throwing stuff and doing all these crazy things? Probably not, that’s not the way I play the game.”
And for those whodoplay that way, the four-time All-Star sees no issue.
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“For me, it’s okay if a guy hits a home run and he throws a bat. What are you gonna do man?” he explains. “You celebrate your dream as a little kid to be able to flip a bat, to be in a big moment and realize you’re in a big moment, and you’re not going to celebrate it? I don’t agree with that.”
Though the Puerto Rico-born star recognizes that playing the game less than stoically isn’t exactly the old-school style, he says now is a “different era” — one that Lesko, 17, will eventually enter.
“No disrespect to people that set the stones for me and created a path for me and the guys that are playing now, ‘cause they did an outstanding job, but now it’s our turn to set the path for all of them, the ones that are coming behind me like Dylan,” he says.
Dylan Lesko and his family.Gatorade
Lesko, a junior at Buford High School in Georgia, joins an impressive list of athletes who also claim the title of Gatorade National Baseball Player of the Year, including Alex Rodriguez, Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw and Astros star Lance McCullers Jr.
It was Lindor who was on hand to (virtually) clue Lesko in on his big win Wednesday, while the teen’s friends, family, coaches and teammates joined in person to hand him his trophy at his school.
“It was very cool to surprise Dylan,” says Lindor. “He’s a good kid, and very smart, and definitely a very, very good baseball player at his age. I told him to continue to work, continue to be himself, to be a great ambassador of the award. To just enjoy the ride, and hopefully, he gets the opportunity soon to start his journey as a professional baseball, and hopefully, I get to meet him in person and see if one day I can help him through his journey. The baseball family, it’s a very, very big one, but we try to keep it as close as we can.”
Lesko, a pitcher with a 0.35 ERA and a student with a 4.0 GPA, was selected from nearly half a million high school baseball players across the country, and was recognized for his athletic ability and his character off the field. He is the first underclassmen to ever win the award.
He has verbally committed to play on scholarship at Vanderbilt University in the fall of 2022.
“It means everything,” Lesko, an Atlanta Braves fan, tells PEOPLE. “Everything about it is great and I’m so thankful for it. It was pretty cool to see [Lindor] pop up on the screen. I was a little confused at first, but when he told me I won the award, it was pretty sick. It’s just awesome.”
source: people.com
