By Andrew Baggarly
Sep 13, 2023
50
Save Article
SAN FRANCISCO — So much of the newness and novelty has worn off for Steven Kwan.
His irrepressible debut for the Cleveland Guardians last season? Those 19 times he reached base in his first six games? The much-ballyhooed statistical observation that he saw 116 pitches before he swung and missed, which was the most by any player to start his career in at least two decades? All of that is just part of his Wikipedia page now. He has settled into his second season as the Guardians’ leadoff hitter and starting left fielder — a position that he’s played so well that he nearly laps the field in Defensive Runs Saved. Last year, he was the second toughest hitter in the American League to strike out. This year, with Luis Arraez having departed to the National League, he ranks first.
Kwan’s skills continue to translate. He’s proven he belongs. He is just another workaday big leaguer now, keeping his head down and sticking to his routine and treating road ballparks with all the businesslike tedium of a sales convention.
Until Monday night. That’s when he played his first major-league game in San Francisco. And everything was new again.
“Oh my gosh, just hearing (PA announcer Renel Brooks-Moon) say my name and see my face up on the scoreboard, that was one of those moments that really gave me chills and just put everything in perspective,” Kwan said. “I think it’s easy to get desensitized over the year, being at the ballpark and traveling to big cities, but this was one of those where, like, I got the little tingles and the butterflies again, which felt really cool.”
Kwan, who graduated from Washington High in Fremont, Calif., is hardly having a rare experience. The Bay Area produces big leaguers by the dozen. He’s far from the first visiting player to coast into second base, exchange pleasantries with Brandon Crawford, and drop an “I watched you growing up” on him. But Kwan’s roots are as San Francisco as it gets. His father, Ray, is a second-generation American who was raised in San Francisco near the intersection of Mason and Jackson streets, one block from the cable car barn and museum.
“The house would shake every 20 minutes,” Ray Kwan said.
Ray Kwan grew up going to Giants games at Candlestick Park, often scoring tickets from a cousin as a reward for good grades. His wife, Jane, grew up a Giants fan in Sunnyvale, Calif. Some of their best family memories involve taking their sons, Steven and Ryan, and daughter Christine, to games at the Giants’ waterfront ballpark. Garlic fries were an essential part of the experience. Steven would seek out clam chowder in a bread bowl from the stand behind the center field scoreboard. There was the time when former Giant Rich Aurilia was sitting in an adjacent row and Steven took a picture with him.
Steven never stayed in his seat for any length of time. He was obsessed with the fan zone at the base of the Coke bottle slide above the left-field bleachers. He and Ryan would pelt Wiffle balls in the kids’ play area. Then they’d wait their turn to throw their hardest for the radar gun.
Steven Kwan is a 5-foot-9, 170-pound big leaguer. So you can imagine how big he was as an 8-year-old.
“I was just happy to hit the catcher’s mitt, but all the staff was super supportive,” he said. “They made me feel like I was throwing the heck out of it.”
They didn’t have to pretend. Steven usually put himself on the leaderboard for his age group.
“That was the biggest thrill — checking back every inning to see if anyone beat you,” he said. “If you still had the fastest throw in the seventh inning, you got a baseball card. That was, like, a big achievement.”
Now 26 years old, Kwan’s eyes still light up when he thinks back to winning those cards. He got Shea Hillenbrand one time, Ryan Garko another. It didn’t matter that those players weren’t Giants’ franchise stars. In a sense, those cards were his first bits of validation in what would become a high-achieving career that took him to Oregon State and into pro ball.
Kwan delivered a predictable result in the seventh inning of the Guardians’ eventual 5-4, 10-inning loss Monday night. Giants right-hander John Brebbia had an 0-2 count on him and tried to overpower him with a 95 mph fastball above the top of the zone. Kwan flicked a hard groundball into center field for an RBI single that tied the game. When he jogged to left field in the bottom of the inning, the fans in the bleachers were all over him.
“They definitely let me hear it, which is funny, because I remember a day game when I had tickets out there and the fans were heckling the left fielder,” Kwan said. “I thought it was the funniest thing ever. And now to be on the other end of that was definitely something to experience.”
Kwan’s cheering section here at Oracle Park is much more modest than last year’s first visit to Oakland, which came just a few weeks into his rookie season while he was still being treated like a national sensation.
“It’s all a little more normal now,” Jane Kwan said. “But we still get nervous when he’s at bat. You’re always nervous as a mother.”
If there’s any disappointment, it’s that fellow Oregon State product and Giants rookie Wade Meckler isn’t here after getting sent down to Triple A earlier this month. Meckler is a contact-hitting grinder who had to overcome similar doubts because of his size. When Kwan first arrived at Oregon State, he so doubted his place that he took a two-month break and spoke to a sports psychologist. He went on to hit .355 while leading the Beavers to a national championship in 2018. The year after Kwan started his pro career, Meckler arrived as a redshirt freshman. And Kwan was held up to him as proof of concept.
When Kwan would come back to Corvallis, Ore., to work with his former teammates and Beavers hitting coach Tyler Graham, Meckler often slotted into the cage after him.
“I was always rooting for him,” Kwan said. “We’re the same kind of player. And he hurt his hamstring a couple times, which was something I had to deal with as well. So I was able to counsel him about that. I could tell right away that the guy grinds. If you tell him something, he’ll drive it into the ground until he gets it.”
Kwan recalled hosting a house party one night with a bunch of current and former Oregon State players when Meckler showed up late.
“I want to say it was 1:30, maybe 2 in the morning, we’re all kind of hanging out, talking about whatever, playing games,” Kwan said. “And Wade comes in and you could tell he had something on his mind from hitting earlier in the day.”
Meckler had a TAP ball cradled between his elbow and ribs — a training aide to help maintain posture and body position during athletic movements.
“And you look over and he’s in the corner with the TAP ball feeling out a (swing) load he worked on earlier in the day, just repping it out,” Kwan said. “A few guys were making fun of him, like, ‘Wade, what are you doing?’ Wade was like, ‘T-Graham told me I gotta get 100 of these to really imprint this feel.’ I couldn’t believe it. I think that was the first time that I said to myself, ‘Wow, this guy is really serious about hitting.’”
Kwan looks forward to the day when he and Meckler can oppose each other in a big-league game. For now, there’s plenty of other moments and jogged memories in this series for Cleveland’s visiting left fielder to appreciate.
Before he leaves town, Kwan hopes to reenact one more experience. He’s made inquiries about sliding down the Coke bottle one more time. He was disappointed to learn that the Giants no longer allow guests over 14 to use the slide. There was a lawsuit or two, and you never know how much an adult has had to drink. But perhaps they’d make an exception. It’s unlike Kwan to try to do anything and strike out.
Besides, he more than meets the height requirement.
