The best example of this is from All-Star weekend in 2007. I was standing in the clubhouse at AT&T Park in San Francisco when I saw Barry Bonds in the corner, sitting at his locker. Now, most players only have one locker. Some guys have two. But Barry? He had like five lockers … and a TV … and a recliner — like a massage chair. He owned an entire corner of the clubhouse. I think a lot of players were intimidated by him just because he was Barry Bonds. He was the best player in the world, and he just had this … presence. And when he was sitting in his corner of the clubhouse, he basically felt unapproachable.
I had never been so wrong.
I thought about Chi Chi’s advice, and I walked over to Barry’s corner, went up behind him and tapped him on the back.
He turned around and said, “Hey, Carlos. How are you doing?”
I felt like a little kid. It was an honor to me that he even knew my name.
Then I said to him, “Barry, when is a good opportunity for us to talk about hitting?”
He paused for a moment to think, and then he got up and said, “O.K., let’s go.”
Then he led me out of the clubhouse and out to the cages.
So there I was, alone with best player in the world, and he was basically giving me a private hitting lesson.
Just because I asked.