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Prince Fielder, Baseball player
After only two full seasons in baseball's major
leagues, the first-baseman Prince Fielder of the Milwaukee Brewers
has established himself as one of the sport's most fearsome
left-handed hitters. In 2007 he supplanted Willie Mays as the
youngest player in the history of the game to rack up 50 home runs
in one season. He also joined his father, Cecil Fielder, an All-Star
power-hitting first baseman who played for 13 seasons—most notably
in Toronto, Detroit, and New York—as the only father and son to each
hit 50 home runs in a single season. Fielder’s 2007 home-run total
also led the National League and was instrumental in the postseason
push by the Brewers, their first since 1982. Despite his team's
second-place finish in the National League Central Division,
Fielder, who ended the season ranked second in the league in
slugging percentage and third in runs batted in (RBIs), was voted
third in the contest for the league’s most valuable player. Although
his home-run hitting power has earned him the inevitable comparisons
to his father, Fielder has defined himself as more of an all-around
hitter. “I don’t even consider myself a power hitter,” he told Wayne
Coffey for the New York Daily News (July 28, 2002). “I just
try to get hits. When I’m hitting doubles, that’s when I know I’ve
got my stroke.”
The older of two children, Prince Semien Grant
Fielder was born on May 9, 1984 in Ontario, California, to Cecil and
Stacey (Granger) Fielder. At that time he and his family lived in a
trailer while his father played for the Kinston Blue Jays, a
minor-league affiliate of the Toronto Blue Jays of Major League
Baseball (MLB). Fielder was around four or five when he first tried
hitting a baseball, and his father soon advised him on his batting
stance. “I came home from a road trip and saw him batting
righthanded, and I said, ‘Hey man, turn around,'” Cecil Fielder told
Coffey. “You go back in history, from Babe Ruth to Barry Bonds, and
most of the great hitters were lefthanded.” Young Prince had a
prodigious appetite, and, like his father, he was unusually large
from his earliest years, according to Albert Chen, writing for
Sports Illustrated (May 28, 2007). In 1990, after his father had
played for five years with the Toronto Blue Jays and one season for
the Hanshin Tigers of the Japanese Central League, Fielder and his
family settled in Detroit, Michigan, where Cecil Fielder had signed
a five-year deal with the Tigers, the city’s major-league ball club.
During those years Fielder's mother entered beauty contests, winning
the Mrs. Michigan title and becoming first runner-up in the Mrs.
America pageant. By age 11, meanwhile, Prince Fielder had become a
fixture in the Tigers' clubhouse, and he accompanied his father to
every road game during summers. He first showed a hint of his
power-hitting potential at age 12, when he launched a ball into the
upper deck during a batting practice at Tiger Stadium. He left
Detroit the next year, when his father was traded by the Tigers to
the New York Yankees, in exchange for Ruben Sierra and Matt Drews.
During the 1996 season Fielder attended batting
practices and regular-season games at Yankee Stadium and witnessed
firsthand the Yankees’ championship run, which made a huge
impression on him. “I remember how much fun they were having, grown
men playing baseball, laughing, really enjoying it,” he told Peter
Kerasotis for Florida Today (November 7, 2002). “How many
other jobs do grown men have where they can have that much fun?”
Fielder’s father ended his major-league career in 1998, after a
season in which he divided his playing time between the Anaheim
Angels and the Cleveland Indians. Prince Fielder and his family
eventually settled in Melbourne, Florida, where he attended the
Florida Air Academy, a military and college-preparatory school, for
three years before enrolling at Eau Gallie High School, playing for
both schools' baseball teams. By his sophomore year Fielder had
fully demonstrated his raw power, once hitting a ball that soared
beyond the playing field and shattered the window of a gas station
across the street. He also drew attention for his weight--more than
300 pounds. “I realized I had to lose some weight to be a serious
baseball player,” he told Albert Chen. He lost 50 pounds between his
sophomore and senior years; in the latter, while playing first base,
he hit .524 with 10 home runs and 41 RBIs in 82 at-bats. Baseball
America ranked him as the 24th-best overall baseball prospect in
the nation and as the top prospect among first basemen for the 2002
MLB draft; he was voted All–Space Coast Baseball Player of the Year
(2002) by Florida Today. Fielder’s weight, however, was a serious
concern for major-league scouts, who viewed him as a designated
hitter, not a position player. Determined to participate in the 2002
draft, he began working with a personal trainer hired by his father.
After losing another 60 pounds, Fielder, who had accepted a
scholarship to attend Arizona State University, became the
seventh-overall pick in the draft when he was signed by the
Milwaukee Brewers. With his father serving as his agent, Fielder
signed a contract for an undisclosed amount that included a $2.4
million signing bonus.
At age 18 Fielder made his professional debut with
a Brewers’ minor-league affiliate, the Ogden Raptors of Utah, in the
Pioneer League. He made an immediate impression by hitting a
game-tying, ninth-inning grand-slam home run against the Idaho Falls
team, whom the Raptors defeated. In his first season with the
Raptors, Fielder hit .390 with 10 home runs, 12 doubles, and 40 RBIs
in only 41 games. He was promoted in 2003 to the Brewers’ Class A
affiliate, the Beloit Snappers, in the Midwest League, where he
played alongside two of the team’s other heralded minor-league
prospects—Rickie Weeks and Tony Gwynn Jr., the son of the Hall of
Fame player. After hitting .341 in April, Fielder struggled in May,
with a .242 batting average, then regained his momentum and batted
.330 over the next two months. He finished the season with
impressive totals and was among the league leaders in the major
offensive categories, including batting average (.313), slugging
percentage (.526), home runs (27), runs batted in (112), and
intentional walks (16). The Pioneer League named Fielder among its
top prospects and voted him to its all-star team. Baseball
America named him one of the Midwest League’s highly ranked
prospects, and he was honored as the Midwest Player of the Year, the
Milwaukee Brewers Minor League Player of the Year, and the USA
Today Minor League Player of the Year.
In 2004 Fielder, along with Weeks and Tony Gwynn
Jr., received a promotion to the Huntsville Stars, the Brewers'
Class AA affiliate. After the first half of the season, which saw
him record a .256 average, 14 home runs, and 46 RBIs, he was
selected as the cleanup hitter for the All-Star Futures Game. During
that period his relationship with his father became strained, for
several reasons. Fielder claimed that his father had taken $200,000
of his $2.4 million signing bonus without his permission. After one
game he was served—in front of his coaches and fellow players—with
legal papers naming him as a defendant in a lawsuit against his
father, who owed almost $400,000 to banks and casinos. (The process
server had been unable to find his father.) It was later revealed
that Cecil Fielder had squandered his entire fortune, more than $40
million, on gambling and bad business ventures. Fielder also alleged
that his father publicly slapped his sister when she asked him to
increase her mother’s financial support. (Cecil and Stacey Fielder
divored in 2004.) Currently, Fielder and his father are estranged.
Fielder finished the 2004 season with a .272
batting average and 78 runs batted in and tied for third place in
the Class AA league home-run tally, with 23. The next year he played
for the Nashville Sounds of the Pacific Coast League (PCL), the
Brewers’ Class AAA minor-league team. Fielder was called up in
August to join the team’s major-league ball club, as interleague
play between the National and American Leagues was about to begin.
Serving as the designated hitter, he recorded his first major-league
hit against the pitcher Hideo Nomo of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and
his first major-league home run against the Minnesota Twins pitcher
Matt Cain. In 39 games with the major-league team, he hit .288 with
two home runs and 10 RBIs. Fielder spent the remainder of the 2005
season with the triple-A team in Nashville, Tennessee, ending the
year with a .291 average and 28 home runs, to be ranked as the
number-three prospect in the PCL. He was voted to the All-Star
second team by Baseball America and named the Triple-A
All-Star DH (designated hitter) and the Milwaukee Player of the Year
for the second year in a row.
During the off-season Lyle Overbay, a Brewers
first baseman, was traded, paving the way for Fielder to become the
major-league team’s starting first baseman. After a slow
beginning—he was hitless in his first 11 at-bats and struck out
seven times—Fielder set the team record for most home runs by a
rookie (previously held by the outfielder Greg Vaughn in 1990), when
he hit his 18th home run of the season, against the Pittsburgh
Pirates in July 2006. At the end of that season, he had 28 home runs
and 81 runs in 157 games, with a .271 average. He finished seventh
in the voting for the National League Rookie of the Year; he was
named to the Topps Major League Rookie All-Star team and won
distinction as the Brewers' best newcomer.
In March 2007, during spring training, Fielder
negotiated a new contract with his team. After straining his right
quadriceps muscle in the preseason, he tied a team record when he
reached base seven times (with three singles, a double, and three
walks) in the Brewers’ regular-season opening game, against the
Florida Marlins. From April 30 to May 6 he hit .440 with four home
runs, 12 RBIs, and eight runs scored and was named the National
League Player of the Week. He set another franchise record in May,
when he hit his 12th home run of the month—and his 18th of the
season. Also in May he set a new team record for the most home runs
in a month by hitting his 13th home run—his 19th of the season—to
tie for the major-league lead with Alex Rodriguez of the New York
Yankees. Fielder earned National League Player of the Month honors
in May, during which he hit .321 with 13 home runs and 28 RBIs. In
June he led the National League with 27 home runs and was the
second-leading vote-getter for the All-Star Game, held at AT&T Park
in San Francisco, California; he also took part in the
home-run-hitting contest but failed to advance past the first round.
In August, as the Brewers were battling the
Chicago Cubs for the lead in the National League division race,
Fielder received a three-game suspension, after a heated exchange
with the umpire Wally Bell over Bell’s ejection of Fielder's
teammate Geoff Jenkins, who had argued a call by the umpire; after
an appeal Fielder's suspension was reduced to two games. On
September 18 he became the fifth player in the history of the
franchise to record 100 RBIs and score 100 runs in the same season.
On September 26 he hit two home runs, to become the youngest player
ever to hit 50 home runs—as well as the National League home-run
leader. (His offensive production was not enough to propel the
Brewers past the Cubs, who finished two games ahead of Milwaukee to
win the National League Central Division title.)
Fielder received a slew of accolades for his
record-setting 2007 season. He won the Golden Sledgehammer Award,
given to the player who hits home runs the greatest distance during
the course of the season. He was also voted his team’s most valuable
player by the Baseball Writers Association of America and received
the National League Outstanding Player of the Year Award from the
Major League Players Association; the Hank Aaron Award for the
National League’s best offensive player; and the National League
Silver Slugger Award. (His defensive play has not received equal
praise.)
The five-foot 11-inch, 260-pound Fielder watches
his food intake carefully, as he is highly prone to weight gain.
“The first thing you notice when sizing up Prince Fielder is his
enormous tattoos,” Dennis Semrau wrote for the Madison, Wisconsin,
Capital Times (March 31, 2006). “Somehow, though, they are
appropriate given the size of the expectations that follow . . .
Fielder wherever he goes.” Fielder and his wife, Chanel Fielder,
have two sons, Jadyn and Haven.
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