Sal Perez was mocked for turning into 'fun police.' But what he did worked for Royals
When a burly baseball player, often clad in his catcher’s gear, shoots out of the Royals dugout with a Gatorade cooler gripped tightly in his hands, no one blinks.
It’s just Salvador Perez, the Royals’ 28-year-old catcher, being himself and celebrating victories with ice baths the way he has for years.
There’s nothing earth-shattering about it. He's just having fun.
But when Perez called out White Sox shortstop Tim Anderson nearly two weeks ago for enjoying himself too much after homering off Eric Skoglund, Perez was thrust under a microscope.
He was a hypocrite, some contended. The man behind the Salvy Splash shouldn’t take exception to a 24-year-old’s celebration — much less when his argument was based on Anderson not having earned the right to be excited by a home run.
“He didn’t even play a (freaking) playoff game,” Perez said after that game on April 28. “He doesn’t know about getting excited or not. He’s gotta be in the playoffs to be excited, like us.”
But as Perez drew scrutiny for becoming the latest arbiter of baseball’s unwritten rules, his teammates rallied. The Royals went 7-4 after the benches cleared on that late April night in Kauffman Stadium. They went from losing 10 of 12 to winning their first series of the season and climbing out of the American League Central Division cellar.
The offense clicked. In 11 games prior to Thursday's series finale in Baltimore, the Royals hit .294 and scored 65. They improved that mark Thursday night, scoring six runs on seven hits in five innings. Perez started the early shellacking with a first-inning grand slam, giving the Royals an early lead that pitcher Ian Kennedy eventually blew.
The Royals batted .240 with 79 runs in the first 25 games of the season.
Asked this week in the visiting clubhouse at Camden Yards if he’d meant to spark a momentum shift, Perez wouldn’t take such credit.
“It was about him disrespecting my teammate,” Perez told The Star in Spanish. “We were playing badly at that time. So you’re going go pile on and disrespect us? That’s not OK.
“Have fun, yes. That’s the point. … There are a lot of us who have fun, laughing and cutting up. But we never disrespect the other team.”
Yet Royals quality control and catching coach Pedro Grifol, who has worked closely with Perez since joining the organization in 2013, wondered if Perez wasn't only sticking up for a teammate.
“It was just a wake-up call for everybody,” Grifol said. “I think he was like, ‘You know what, we need to get our (behinds) in gear here.’”
Regardless of his intentions, Perez has naturally become one of the Royals’ de facto leaders. As long as he’s not traded in the midst of the club’s rebuild, Perez will continue to be that person for the Royals.
If part of those duties means dusting up with a division rival, Perez won’t hesitate to speak his mind.
“I don’t care (about the fun police label),” Perez said. “It’s what I said. It’s my opinion. I don’t care what others think.
"You get to the dugout. That’s where you can motivate your team."
This story was originally published May 10, 2018 at 8:45 PM with the headline "Sal Perez was mocked for turning into 'fun police.' But what he did worked for Royals."