David Price describes himself as a "pretty open guy." As the latest subject in our "Burning Questions" series, the Boston Red Sox ace opens up about why MLB should allow players to express themselves through their cleats and the effectiveness of the drug-testing policy.
Who was your favorite player growing up?
Price: David Justice. He was No. 23, he's left-handed, married to Halle Berry. I could relate with him.
Who is your favorite player to watch today (not a teammate)?
Price: I'm going to take it a step further and go with not a guy that I've ever been a teammate with [in Tampa Bay, Detroit, Toronto or Boston]. I've got to say Mike Trout. He does it all. And for me, as good at baseball as he is, I feel like he's a better dude than he is a baseball player. That's pretty special. I've talked to him quite a bit, been over to his house whenever we go to L.A., and what not. He's just good people.
Who is your most underrated teammate?
Price: Brock Holt. I mean, I don't think he's underrated or undervalued or whatever. But guys that are as versatile as him, a guy like Ben Zobrist -- to be able to put a guy in at any position and not make your team worse -- that's special. It takes a really good athlete.
What's the most annoying question you are asked by the media?
Price: I don't think there's anything that really annoys me. Probably something postgame that [reporters] could know the answer to if they paid attention to the game. Like what pitch did you throw [for a home run]. It was 94, what did you think it was? A changeup? It was a fastball. Something like that.
One rule you would change?
Price: I think the shoes. Let guys express themselves. As much talk as the All-Star Game gets about the players and the Home Run Derby and all that, the guys' cleats is what everybody talks about. It doesn't matter what brand you're with or whatever it is. To me, it's the cleats. That's why I want to go to All-Star Games so bad, because of the cleats I'm going to get. To me, that's the one way everybody could express themselves on the baseball field. It's all kids care about -- cool gloves and cool shoes and cleats, stuff like that. Let the Dominican guys put a Dominican flag on their cleats. Let guys express themselves. It's not going to distract. If a pitcher has on whatever cleats, it's not going to mess with the hitter or anything like that. Let us express ourselves. I don't see how you could do it wrong.
Who is ultimately responsible for policing the game? Players, manager, umpires, the league?
Price: Players. The players have to be able to police it. You don't want the umpires to do it off of their judgment or their discretion because they might not have been the umpiring crew that was there in April. It could be something that happens in September and they don't know everything that went around. Me growing up, you could tell that players policed this game, and that's why there was the amount of respect for one another like there was back then.
How big of a problem are PEDs in today's game?
Price: I don't think it's what it once was, obviously. Is it still here? Apparently so. I love Dee Gordon. I know him personally. He's a great kid. Made a bad decision. But I think that kind of opens the eyes to not just looking at the guy that's hitting 40 homers. You're not just looking at the guy that's 6-2, 250 and just shredded out of his mind. It'll help anybody. When I heard that, I was like, 'Wow, this completely changes the way that I looked at PEDs.' I guess I was stereotypical with it. I would've never thought Dee Gordon. He's not the home run guy. He's hitting the ball all over the field and running wild, stuff like that. I think that opened the eyes to a new realm of PEDs.
You feel like there's certain things they could do. If you're on getaway day and you have an off day the next day, it's a perfect time to take whatever you need to take that's going to be out of your system in 48 hours. You can't get tested on getaway day, and that's going to give you two full days to do whatever you need to do.
[Editor's note: MLB does, in fact, conduct tests on getaway days, according to a league source.]
I know they're doing everything they can. They don't want it in our game. They're putting a lot of money into the tests and all of that stuff. We've seen a ton of it this year. I think we had seven straight days with, whether it was pee tests or blood tests. We've seen a lot of it. And I know every other team has seen it as well. As random as they say that [testing] is, I don't think it's that random. But I think they're doing everything in their power to clean the game up. I think they have done that for the most part. But there's still going to be guys that are going to do it.
See, I could never do it because I don't want to disappoint my family. Period. I wouldn't want that bad publicity. Not just for myself. If I get it, so what? That's a part of it. That's the nature of the game. But I don't want that to leak to my mom and to my dad and to my nephew. That would crush me. I could never do anything like that. But there's some guys that might not be very close with their family or they're on the fringe of being a big leaguer or they're tired of being an average or below-average guy and they say, 'I can do this. Ball out for a year. If I get popped, serve my 50 games, continue to work the way I have when I'm on them. And I'm going to make these strides, and I'm not going to get weaker. I'm going to be stronger than I was, serve 50 games, make some money,' and they're OK with that. I understand that. I get it. They have one chance. That's what it is.
If you get popped, you can't play baseball anymore. Period. I think that could be the only thing they would do that would scare guys away from it.
What is something that people don't know about you or have wrong about you?
Price: I feel like I'm a pretty open guy. I'm a big kid. I think people know that. I don't think there's any wrong perceptions of me. Maybe because I don't show emotion on the mound as much as I used to -- I matured from when I was 22 years old or 23 or 24. I've matured tremendously out there on that field. It's not that I don't care. By no means. I have a tremendous amount of pride, and I care deeply about what I do. I think sometimes it can be taken as, 'I'm over it and I don't care,' and that's by no means the case.