CLEARWATER, Fla. -- It isn't often in baseball that you can watch the generations converge before your eyes. But when you see it, you know it's special.
So we now present a tale of two shortstops. One is J.P. Crawford. For the team that employs him, the Philadelphia Phillies, he represents the ultimate symbol of what they dream will be a beautiful future, lying just over the horizon.
The other is Larry Bowa. For the Phillies, he is a symbol of one of the most glorious periods from a past that hasn't often been overflowing with glory.
And now, the forces of baseball have brought them together. To the same time. To the same place. To the same franchise. Where past, present and future can intertwine. Where each can leave a powerful impression on the other.
So two or three or four mornings a week, depending on the schedule, they meet on a back field, before the rest of their team begins working out. There, Bowa pounds ground balls in Crawford's direction, one after another, passing along wisdom with every wave of the fungo bat.
"It's a great honor just to be able to be around him," Crawford says, respectfully.
"It sort of excites you when you watch him," Bowa says, that excitement throbbing in his voice. "He gives you that extra little adrenaline rush."
Crawford is Keith Law's No. 4 prospect in the entire sport. A 21-year-old blend of consummate shortstop tools who has arrived in his first big league camp with a .382 career minor league on-base percentage, a .790 OPS and almost as many walks (160) as strikeouts (163). And bear in mind, as you process those numbers, that Crawford has always been one of the youngest players in every league he has played in.
Bowa, meanwhile, is a Philadelphia legend. A guy whose never-ending bravado was the fuel that never stopped burning through a 16-year big league career. An undersized fireball who came up hearing that he would never hit -- and wound up as one of just 34 shortstops in history to record at least 2,100 hits.
On so many levels, they have nothing in common. But on the level that matters most, they share a bond that will always connect them.
They are shortstops. So no one has to explain to either of them why that unites them in a way that the outside world may never totally understand.
Asked if Bowa's words carry extra weight, just because of the position he played, Crawford nods his head.
"Yeah, just because he's one of the greatest shortstops and he knows what he's talking about," Crawford says. "And he's been there. And it's an honor to have him be the one to teach me the way."
"You know what?" Bowa admits, almost guiltily. "I watched him yesterday."
He is supposed to watch, of course. Except that on the day he's referring to, his primary gig was managing a Phillies split squad in Tampa. So once he pointed out J.P. Crawford to play shortstop at George M. Steinbrenner Field, well, it caused Bowa's mind to wander.
"I'm sitting over there, and I'm in charge of the game," Bowa says. "But there were two innings where I didn't watch anything that was going on, and I just watched him. How he reacted on foul balls. Was he moving that way? And I had to catch myself. I said, 'Damn, I keep watching J.P.'"
A decade and a half earlier, he recalls, he did the same thing in his first season as the manager of the Phillies, when another kid shortstop caught his eye. That would be a kid named Jimmy Rollins,
"I did the same with Jimmy when he first came up," Bowa says. "I guess it's because you played that position. And it's such an important position out there that I just wanted to see him. And I finally said, 'I've got to quit watching Crawford and watch the game.'"
So what does Bowa see when his eyeballs become so transfixed by this guy? The thoughts come pouring out of the Phillies' turbo-driven bench coach in stream-of-consciousness bursts. So fasten your seat belts firmly. Here they come:
"I see a kid who's got a lot of confidence. ... He's got very soft hands. ... His first step is very quick. ... I love his swing. ... He's got a nice backhand. He's still working on that. ... But his set-up and everything, he's got quick feet. ... There's really not a play, just doing fundamentals, that he's not going to be able to make. ... The slow-hit ball, he probably needs a little work on, but other than that ... his exchange on double plays is very good."
These thoughts come rat-a-tatting out of Bowa's mouth the way ground balls propel off his fungo bat. So many observations to pass along. Sentence form optional. Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.
But then there are other thoughts, deeper thoughts. Larry Bowa needs to share those, too.
"There's no panic whatsoever in whatever he's doing," Bowa says, actually pausing to take a breath. "And it's not a cool look. It's a look of confidence. He believes he can play up here. I think right now, he believes he can play up here. And he probably could. But let's let the maturation process play out a little bit."
Nevertheless, Crawford already has a natural swagger. And it reminds Bowa of a great infielder from his past -- but probably not of the guy you'd think. It reminds him, he says, of the third baseman who played next to him for so long, Mike Schmidt.
"Now I'm not comparing him to Mike Schmidt," Bowa explains. "I'm just saying he knows he's a good player. And he handles himself in a way that tells you he's never going to be in awe of any situation he's going to be in up here. Even in spring training, the big leagues, anywhere. I think, if you ask him, 'Can you play in the big leagues?' he's going to say, 'Are you serious? I can play in the big leagues.'"
But Bowa says he hasn't asked Crawford that question yet. So we took over from there. Here's what we asked J.P. Crawford: How much thought has he given to the possibility of making it to Philadelphia this season?
"I hope so," Crawford replies. "I mean, who doesn't hope to be in the bigs? But wherever I'm going to be at, I'm going to be at. And I just want to play my hardest wherever I'm at, and try to help my team win a ball game. And I'm not going to worry about being anywhere. Wherever I'm going to be at, just live in the moment. And when my time comes, it'll come."
But if all goes as expected, his time figures to come sometime this summer, before he even turns 22. And Bowa finds it interesting that Jimmy Rollins was exactly 21 when he got his first late-season taste of the big leagues. Then, the next spring, Rollins arrived in camp and discovered he had a mentor. That would be his new manager, Larry Bowa.
"Now I'm not comparing him to Mike Schmidt. I'm just saying he knows he's a good player. And he handles himself in a way that tells you he's never going to be in awe of any situation he's going to be in up here. Even in spring training, the big leagues, anywhere. I think, if you ask him, 'Can you play in the big leagues?' he's going to say, 'Are you serious? I can play in the big leagues.'" Larry Bowa on J.P. Crawford
We'll get back to the connection between Bowa, Rollins and Crawford in a moment. But first, let's stop and reflect on the fascinating paths that lives can take. It may feel as though Bowa has spent the past half-century as a Phillie, but that's not how it worked in real life.
He was a player, then got traded. He was a coach, then got bypassed for the manager's job and exited unhappily. He was a manager, then got fired. And it was only in 2013, after a nine-year gap, that he returned, for a fourth time, to the team that first signed him.
So all told, there have been 19 seasons when Larry Bowa WASN'T a Phillie, which means he very easily could have been elsewhere at a time when Rollins and Crawford were arriving on this scene. Instead, when the earth rotated, it somehow rotated in such a crazy way that Bowa could have an impact on each of those two multi-talented, young shortstops.
Life can be cool that way. Can't it?
Crawford says he's well aware of Bowa's role in Rollins' career, because "he brought him up a couple of times when we were taking ground balls."
"He said, 'Me and Jimmy did this drill when he was your age,'" Crawford says. "It made me want to do the drill. I hope I turn out like him."
From what Bowa has seen, he believes Crawford is already as advanced a defender as Rollins was at the same age. And that's high-end praise, because "Jimmy was at the top for me," Bowa says.
"When that ball was hit to him (with two outs), I could drop my head and say, 'That's three outs,'" Bowa goes on. "I haven't seen J.P. enough. But he gives me that impression that I'm going to want the ball hit to him with two outs in the eighth inning with the bases loaded."
When Bowa was 21, he was still three years away from the big leagues, hoping to make it to Double-A. So ask him how he compared with Crawford and Rollins at the same age, and he waves his arm, as if to say: Don't even go there. "Not even close," he says. "Jimmy and J.P., they know they're good. I always said, 'Man, I have to fight. I don't know if I'm good. I think I'm good, but I don't know if I'm good.' But these guys, they know they're good. And you can't teach that, either."
Yet it means something to Bowa that he left his mark on Rollins' career, and now he has a chance to help shape the journey of another young shortstop with a chance to be a star.
"It gives you satisfaction," Bowa says. "Let's face it. It doesn't matter who's coaching those guys. They're going to be great players. But the fact that you were part of their maturation process, that means a lot when you're a manager or coach. Obviously, you don't want credit for that. But you want them to have a great work ethic. And you want them to understand how the game's supposed to be played. If they do that, you know what? You can walk away and say, 'I did my job.'"
Well, Larry Bowa did his job. Did it then. Keeps doing it now. But he and his latest protégé both seem to have an innate understanding that those early-morning fungo sessions are more than just another class at shortstop school. They're a slice of baseball life that doesn't come around too often -- as generations converge.
After they first met, Crawford says, he Googled the name, "Larry Bowa," and "learned a lot about him. So it's cool that hopefully, he'll be one of my coaches this year."
But it's just as cool for the guy doing the coaching, because he knows talent when it appears before him -- and especially when it happens to be standing out at shortstop.
"I don't want to make this kid a Hall of Famer yet," Larry Bowa says of J.P. Crawford. "But he's got some great tools. And hopefully, we'll see it unfold before our eyes."