William Contreras picked his head up from the piece of computer paper in front of him at the sound of the bellowing voice from across the room.
“Si or no bueno?” asked a Southern drawl, pointing to the paper in Conteras’ hand.
Contreras nodded affirmatively at the Mississippian with a poor excuse for a Spanish accent.
“You know I typed it in Spanish,” Brandon Woodruff said back to his catcher.
In Contreras’ right hand was a note from Woodruff, the 33-year-old with the broken Spanish. He had left one on the chair in front of each player’s locker in the Milwaukee Brewers clubhouse the morning of opening day March 26.
“Fellas,” it read. “This is what we’ve worked for. Every early lift. Every bullpen. Every swing when nobody was watching. It all comes down to right here. There’s no more waiting, no more talking about what we can be – we’re here. We don’t need to be perfect.
“We need to be us.”
The note wasn’t the only thing the Brewers found in their lockers for opening day. Woodruff, for the fourth straight year, gifted custom belts for each player.
It’s a custom that Woodruff picked up from Kolten Wong in 2021. Andrew McCutchen, who also used to do the same thing during his many years with the Pirates, did the same in 2022. Since then, Woodruff, who deems himself a good gift-giver, has taken the reins – or, rather, the loops.
To Woodruff, it’s more than just a belt, too. It’s a gesture, a message.
“They’re not team issued. You gotta go out and do it on your own,” Woodruff said. “Some guys do that but I like for everyone to kind of have the same belt. If they want to wear it, wear it. If they don’t, that’s fine. For me, it’s just something I like to gift the guys and put a little note together and explain, whatever you want to call it. It’s a note for the year.
The belt works in tandem with the note, a way to say, “We’re all in this together” through some ballplayer aesthetics.
“We’re going to go through our ups and our downs,” Woodruff said. “We need to pull for each other. This is kind of a symbol from me for the guys, like, everybody as one. We’re gonna do this together. It’s a marathon. It’s a thing I like to do.”
The girdles, made by Nikona, are blue with gold trim, each adorned with the player’s jersey number and their country’s flag. Most players, who at their core are really no different than kids on Christmas morning, wore their belts in the Brewers’ 14-2 flattening of the Chicago White Sox – though Contreras stuck with his shiny, flashy chrome belt.
“It just speaks to the culture here,” Jake Bauers said. “I think he does a great job being a leader in this clubhouse and someone I certainly look up to in that capacity. We appreciate it – and him – a lot.”
It’s right in line with the leadership style of Woodruff, who is a quieter, show-by-example elder statesman in the Brewers clubhouse. With such a young starting rotation surrounding him, one of his key roles this season is showing the inexperienced arms how things are done on a team with good culture.
“It’s definitely his way of leading and his way of showing what’s right and how to do things,” right-hander Quinn Priester said. “Eventually, I think, that’s his way of passing it on to myself, to Miz all these guys when it’s on us. And we want to do the same things.”
For Woodruff to choose to send his words via note was intentional. It’s something that’s been done occasionally in the Brewers clubhouse – Pat Murphy passed out a heartfelt message during last year’s National League Championship Series. But timing is important with it; you can’t overdo it.
For Woodruff, he felt a few words were more important than any sort of team meeting against the White Sox.
“I mean, you can’t get through a season without the guys,” Woodruff said. “I think this is what we try to set an example of, is getting the guys to come together as one and be together. It’s a start for that. It’s a cool thing.”
Woodruff’s words matched a common theme you’ll hear around the Brewers, who truly believe in the value of off-field dynamics and proselytize this rampantly. They are not the most talented team, yet the target in the division is on their back. It got there in part by a day-to-day approach, a commitment to winning and, moreover, a commitment to each other.
The words on the page matter. But what matters more is showing up for Game 2 with the same attitude as the opener – and that’s the message that matters most.
“There’s a lot of different ways to win a baseball game,” Bauers said. “I think for us to be successful, we have to be able to win in every way that we can. The only way you can do that is by taking it pitch to pitch, day to day. That’s what we talk about and what we preach. And like Woody showed, it’s what we do.”
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Brandon Woodruff sent his team a message before the opener. Then they sent one of their own.
Reporting by Curt Hogg, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
