How a Ken Griffey Jr. giveaway mitt turned Chicago Cubs' Matthew Boyd into a left-hander — literally
The day remains a defining moment etched in Matthew Boyd's baseball life and trajectory.
As a Seattle-area native, the Chicago Cubs left-hander regularly went to Mariners games as a kid. Living only 15-20 minutes away from the Kingdome and then Safeco Field allowed his dad, Kurt, to take advantage of his company's season tickets when they went unclaimed. Kurt would get home around 6:50 p.m. and by the end of the first inning, the Boyds would be at the ballpark.
'It was always something that was really special,' Matthew Boyd told the Tribune.
One game was especially memorable. The Mariners had a Ken Griffey Jr. glove giveaway day, and Boyd, then 5, was thrilled to get a mitt modeled after his favorite player that had the slugger's signature printed on the thumb.
Boyd, naturally a right-handed thrower, went to take the black plastic glove from a Mariners employee who was distributing them when his dad stopped him and instead took a left-handed fielding glove, explaining that's what Griffey and hard-throwing lefty Randy Johnson wore.
'I just put it on my hand, like, oh, that's what they use, well, I could use it, too, that was my glove,' Boyd recalled.
Boyd used that mitt for the next few years, upgrading to a better one when he was 8. Without that giveaway and his dad handing him the left-handed glove, Boyd might not have been a sixth-round pick out of Oregon State and authored a big-league career that, to this point, has spanned 11 years, 197 games and nearly 1,000 innings pitched.
'Oh, completely, he takes credit all the time,' Boyd said of his dad with a laugh. 'But I'm very grateful because it's something that wasn't lost on me. It helped pay for college and a lot of other things, so I'm very thankful for that.'
Those Mariners squads from the mid-1990s through the early 2000s became a defining part of Boyd's life.
'Oh man, they were instrumental in it,' said Boyd, who started against the Mariners on Friday in the Cubs' 9-4 loss at Wrigley Field. 'Watching baseball becomes a fabric of life — it spurs a love for it. You get their baseball cards, then I'd go try to imitate them in the backyard.'
Photos: Chicago Cubs lose to Seattle Mariners 9-4 at Wrigley FieldLooking back, Boyd didn't realize how lucky he was to regularly watch players such as Griffey Jr., Johnson, Alex Rodriguez, Edgar Martinez and Jay Buhner. And now, in a full-circle experience, he gets to witness his kids, — Meira, Isaiah, Judah and Joanna — get into baseball too. Pete Crow-Armstrong has quickly become Isaiah's favorite player, while Judah enjoys watching Kyle Tucker, and as Boyd added with a grin, his son immediately wants to go into the backyard to hit.
'Sometimes it's lost on us until I get to see it firsthand happening in front of me with my kids, like, those (Mariners) really spurred my love for the game,' Boyd said. 'You watch them playing and it's like, 'I want to go do that. I want to go catch a ball like Griffey, I want to go make a play, putting my foot in the fence and coming up and over, and I want to hit a pull-side home run and walk out of the box like that.''
Boyd, 34, has quickly become an integral part of the Cubs rotation. They signed him to a two-year deal with the expectation that he would pitch like the 2024 version that posted a 2.72 ERA in eight regular-season starts for the Cleveland Guardians in his return from Tommy John surgery. Boyd has been everything the Cubs have needed, helping stabilize the rotation following injuries to their two starters left-handers Justin Steele and Shota Imanaga.
Boyd allowed two runs on two hits over five innings Friday and left with a 4-2 lead before the bullpen collapsed, allowing seven runs over the final four innings. Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh hit his major-league-leading 28th and 29th home runs, and Mitch Garver added two homers, off Ryan Pressly and Genesis Cabrera.
Boyd made a sensational catch of a hard liner off the bat of J.P. Crawford to end the fifth, but his left shoulder was bruised on the play and manager Craig Counsell removed him after the inning.
'My glove was up against my shoulder, and it kind of got me in a spot a little bit,' Boyd said after the game. 'It swelled up a little bit, and as the half-inning went on it tightened up. It was more precautionary than anything. … I don't foresee it being an issue.'
Boyd has a 2.84 ERA this year, with his 85 2/3 innings already his most in a big-league season since 2019, when he finished with a career-high 185 1/3 for the Detroit Tigers. His 5.8% BB% is the lowest of his career.
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