Card Back Questions: Shea Hillenbrand Talks Excelling at Soccer, First All-Star Game, Feeling Like a Rockstar
In our newest Card Back Questions piece, we flip over a few of seven-year MLB veteran and two-time All-Star Shea Hillenbrand's cards to discuss his soccer career, his memorable first MLB All-Star Game and more.
TR-Your 1999 Bowman rookie card stated that you turned down an opportunity to play professional soccer in Europe to sign with the Red Sox. How important was soccer to you as a young man?
SH-Yeah, I love soccer. Not as much as Nomar Garciaparra because Nomar Garciaparra would watch the World Cup in the middle of the night when we're playing. So it's like, dude, what are you up at 2, 3, 4 in the morning watching soccer? And then he ended up marrying Mia Hamm. He was a soccer guy. I love soccer. Soccer's kind of like the reason why Wayne Gretzky was really good. You could anticipate where the ball's going to be. I think that's why only gave me a little bit of advantage of defense. I wasn't really good defensively, but I loved the anticipation. I loved the competitiveness. It's so much easier than baseball. It's not really much failure around soccer other than if you miss a goal or miss pass or something like that. But that's common. It was easier. I had chances to play in Europe at universities out of high school, but I didn't sit at no soccer stadium when I was nine years old. I sat in a baseball stadium at the top saying, "I'm going to do that." It wasn’t even a question. I was the number one soccer player in Arizona in high school. In baseball, I was barely a tick above average in high school. And I was like the top dog in soccer. And I was like, no, I'm going to go play baseball. I walked on at the junior college, and the only reason I made the team is because of my work ethic. Then my career took off from there. Yeah, I love soccer. I've watched a little bit. Now we have horses, jumping horses. We have a few horses in Europe. When I go over there, it's like soccer is everything. It's fun to be able to watch that and be a part of that. And it's cool to see the sport start to pick up in the States now. I saw Joey "Bats" Batista bought a soccer team in Vegas. A lot of these athletes are investing in the ground level of soccer teams. It's pretty cool. The cool thing about soccer is that you could hang out and watch a soccer game. You can converse and stuff, and if there's a goal, its like "oh, there was a nice play." Unlike baseball where it's like a chess match, you have got to be a part of every single thing that's going on. So yeah, I really enjoyed that.
TR-Your 2002 Fleer Tradition Update card simply said "Hillenbrand was voted in as the AL starting third baseman in his first All-Star game appearance. He hit second in the batting order and played three innings." How special was that first All-Star game in the overall experience?
SH-That's when it starts to get out of this world. I flip on the TV in June, and I don't even watch TV. I still don't watch TV. I'm kind of a weird dude. So I flip on the TV, ESPN in June, in my second year in the big leagues, and I'm leading the All-Star ballot for third basemen. I'm beating Robin Ventura, the guy I looked up to all the time. This is crazy. I ended up making the All-Star game. Walking into the clubhouse, It's crazy. It's just crazy. We flew in a private jet. Johnny Damon got us a private jet. We flew with Robin Thicke because we were playing in Detroit the last day before the All-Star Break. You're just like a rockstar, man. You go to the hotel and the who's who's at the hotel. You open up your hotel room and there's bags and bags and bags of equipment, craziness everywhere. And then you walk into the clubhouse and I'm sitting in the clubhouse in the All-Star Game in Milwaukee for the American League. And it's just like, these are the best guys in the flipping world. It's not just whatever. This is the best of the best of the best. And that was the first time in my career where I had an epiphany and I thought, good isn't good enough, man. And great isn't always good enough either. I was always pulled into believing that I was good, and I was great. But until I sat on that bench, and I looked left and right in front of millions of people, I'm like, dude. So that's when I really knew I had to elevate my game, but as an experience, it is so nerve wracking, man. Like sitting there and I hit second, Ichiro hit first, and I think ARod hit third behind me. That was the one where Barry Bonds hit the home run and Torii Hunter robbed it. Bonds picked Hunter up between innings. I was standing right there. There was a picture where I tagged out Sammy Sosa at third. It's just so overwhelming to your senses that you can't even process it. Like my first game ever at Dodger Stadium. I was standing there at third base, looking up to where I used to sit as a kid like "Dude, we did it!" You can't even process it. Its a total out of body experience. I was hitting batting practice before the Home Run Derby at the All-Star Game. We used the same balls. The balls are wound tighter for the Home Run Derby. They go way further. I was hitting bombs. Dudes were hitting them out in the windows of the houses outside the stadium, like 600 plus feet. Just sitting on the field for the Home Run Derby, gosh, just to be able to experience that was special. I was so nervous my first at bat. I faced Curt Schilling. I had a ten pitch at bat and he struck me out. I got a little excited and hit the ball off the end pf the bat. I could have hit a home run my second at bat. That was the gmae that went into extra innings. Man, the impossible is possible if you learn how to take control.
Tony Reid spent more than a decade covering combat sports at the highest level. He has written hundreds of articles and conducted hundreds of interviews about sports collectibles for such publications as Beckett, Sports Collectors Digest, and Sports Collectors Daily. Reid worked full time at a sports card shop in Central Pennsylvania for a number of years. A lifelong collector, Tony treasures his rookie card collection of star players in baseball, basketball, and football. If you want to discuss the greatness of Michael Jordan, Bo Jackson or Ken Griffey Jr., you can reach him at @tonyreidwrites on all social media platforms