REAL TALK WITH BREGGY
Astros' Alex Bregman gets brutally honest about health
Sep 16, 2021, 12:05 pm
Alex Bregman is back in a big way. His new documentary reveals how he got here. Composite image by Jack Brame.
When Houston Astros All-Star third baseman Alex Bregman absolutely crushed a deep-left-field home run on September 7 against the Seattle Mariners, the blast was more than just a game-tying play. It signaled the return of one of the most valuable players in major league baseball.
BRAND. NEW. GAME.#ForTheH pic.twitter.com/C1I8yn5vUq
— Houston Astros (@astros) September 8, 2021
"That homer felt like, 'Yup, that's you. You're back,'" Bregman tells CultureMap. "It felt right. Those are the moments when you're ready to shine the brightest."
Bregman has been shining brightly since being sidelined with a serious leg injury (quadriceps). Gone from the team nearly the entire summer (June 16-August 25), the home-run slugger, ace infielder, and fan favorite rehabbed with the team and in the minor leagues with the Sugar Land Skeeters before making a triumphant return.
Now, in a stark, revealing documentary (not typical in the MLB), Bregman reveals the pain, frustration, and "grind" that the often grueling recovery took in No Sunshine: Reset. Rebuild. Rise.
In the new film, produced by Bregman, his partner Tyler Straub, and Will Stout through PHW Productions, fans can expect a quick-moving, brutally honest tale of work and recovery—not to mention a veritable clinic in what it takes to hit in the major leagues.
CultureMap caught up exclusively with Bregman to talk No Sunshine, his road back, and a season that almost wasn't.
CultureMap: Congratulations on your big return, the homers, and your documentary. Why was it important to you to invite fans and viewers into your personal and professional journey?
Alex Bregman: Thank you. I wanted to show everybody what we go through to get back to form from an injury and how brutal this injury really was—just the realness of the injury.
CM: This was so much more than just a leg injury. Can you take us back to how it all started?
AB: In 2020, I had a hamstring tear on my left side that I came back from, and just this last offseason, I had a hamstring on the other side. I hurt that hamstring again right before spring training ended. I kind of limped into the season this year.
Your body starts to compensate. Next thing you know, a month into the season, I hurt my left quad and we really had to just start from the ground up. We had to address every imbalance in my body — hips, hamstrings, quads, glutes — and start from scratch. That takes time and a lot of grind.
Right when we started out in the initial rehab assignment, I was worried more about running than I was about playing baseball. My second crack at it, I got back and said, 'you know what, my legs are healthy, I gotta trust it. Let's go.'
CM: "Let's go" is definitely an A-Breg motto, but you didn't always feel that way during the filmmaking process.
AB: Yeah, two or three times I was like, 'we're not gonna film this — let's shut it down and focus on rehab.' Somehow, Will kept the camera rolling and I didn't break it. [Laughs.] He captured the good, the bad, and the ugly — and all the people who helped me along the way.
CM: Speaking of all those people, you've been quick to point out that this was a team effort to get you back.
AB: My trainer Jeremiah Randle oversaw the process, but yeah, everybody from our big-league training staff to our Triple-A strength and conditioning staff helped out so much. It was a long rehab, but we made it a lot shorter than it should have been.
CM: Rarely in sports do you see athletes reveal this part of their career — maybe in the NFL with Hard Knocks. But almost never in major league baseball.
AB: I don't really know if this has been done before in baseball. I think baseball is finally opening up to letting the fans and showing them everything: uncut, unfiltered — here's what we go through on a daily basis.
CM: Excuse the pun, but your documentary really goes 'inside baseball' in regards to hitting. Can you describe the importance of lower-body strength in your game?
AB: You want to stay in the ground when you hit. You don't want to feel weak and be moving everywhere and be opening up when you shouldn't be opening up, or zigging when you should be zagging.
You have to be in your legs when you're hitting. It's finally nice to be in my legs again.
CM: Without naming names, many in your position on other teams would've just looked at all the injuries and just come back the next year.
Continue reading on CultureMap to learn more.
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Adding a player of Kevin Durant’s caliber was too valuable an opportunity for the Houston Rockets to pass up, even though it meant moving on from Jalen Green just four seasons after they drafted him second overall.
Durant was officially acquired from Phoenix on Sunday in a complicated seven-team transaction that sent Green and Dillon Brooks to the Suns and brought Clint Capela back to Houston from the Hawks.
General manager Rafael Stone is thrilled to add the future Hall of Famer, who will turn 37 in September, to a team which made a huge leap last season to earn the second seed in the Western Conference.
Asked Monday why he wanted to add Durant to the team, Stone smiled broadly before answering.
“He’s Kevin Durant,” Stone said. “He’s just — he’s really good. He’s super-efficient. He had a great year last year. He’s obviously not 30 anymore, but he hasn’t really fallen off and we just think he has a chance to really be impactful for us.”
But trading Green to get him was not an easy decision for Stone, Houston’s general manager since 2020.
“Jalen’s awesome, he did everything we asked,” Stone said. “He’s a wonderful combination of talent and work ethic along with being just a great human being. And any time that you have the privilege to work with someone who is talented and works really hard and is really nice, you should value it. And organizationally we’ve valued him tremendously, so yeah very hard.”
Green was criticized for his up-and-down play during the postseason when the Rockets were eliminated by the Warriors in seven games in the first round. But Green had improved in each of his four seasons in Houston, leading the team in scoring last season and playing all 82 games in both of the past two seasons.
Pressed for details about why Green's time was up in Houston, Stone wouldn't get into specifics.
“It’s the NBA and you can only do trades if a certain amount of money goes out and a certain amount comes in and there’s some positional overlap or at least overlap in terms of on ball presence,” he said. “And so that’s what the deal required.”
In Durant, the Rockets get a veteran of almost two decades who averaged 26.6 points and six rebounds a game last season and has a career average of 27.2 points and seven rebounds.
Houston loves the veteran experience and presence that Durant brings. Stone noted that the team had arranged for some of its players to work out with him in each of the past two offseasons.
“His work ethic is just awesome,” Stone said. “The speed at which he goes, not in a game … but the speed at which he practices and the intensity at which he practices is something that has made him great over the years and it started when he was very young. So of all the things that I hope rubs off, that’s the main one I think is that practice makes perfect. And I think one of the reasons he’s had such an excellent career is because of the intensity with which he works day in day out.”
Durant is a 15-time All-Star and four-time scoring champion, who was the Finals MVP twice. The former Texas Longhorn is one of eight players in NBA history to score at least 30,000 points and he won NBA titles in 2017 and 2018 with the Warriors.
Now he’ll join a team chasing its first NBA title since winning back-to-back championships in 1994-95.
“Everything has to play out, but we do — we like the fit,” Stone said. “We think it works well. We think he will add to us and we think we will help him.”