This is one of those stories that would sound apocryphal except its protagonists, father and son, recall it the same way.
The story spans three generations to link Kris Bryant through his father, Mike, to one of baseball's legendary hitters, Ted Williams.
As a minor leaguer, Mike Bryant got face-to-face hitting instruction from Williams. He treats Williams' classic book on the subject, the "Science of Hitting," as a bible. Mike's favorite verse, the one he recited endlessly to both his sons when they first picked up a bat: hit the ball hard and hit it in the air.
So it was that the first time 5-year-old Kris swung at a hardball pitch from Mike, he hit under the ball, as Williams advised, and lofted it about 130 feet, well into the outfield of a Little League diamond near the family's home in Las Vegas.
"I liked hitting home runs when I was little," Kris said. "To do that, you have to hit the ball in the air, so that's why I caught on pretty quick to the idea of hit it high and hard.
"When I got to high school and college, where you begin learning about angles and stuff, it started to get easier. But I have always had that swing, in terms of a slight uppercut, so I guess I got it pretty young."
That story can fit nicely into the Kris Bryant saga, the one growing around the Cubs' 23-year-old slugger in what has been a singularly successful season for him, which is no surprise, and for his team, which is.
And then there is this story, with some details vague, about the contest Kris lost a year or so after the now fabled fly ball.
Bryant, then 6 or 7, was taking batting practice with kids two to three years older when his dad and five other coaches threw in $20 apiece as a prize for the first to hit a ball over the fence. An older kid won, and Kris was left crying in the dugout.
"That was the first experience where the competitive side of me came out," Kris said. "I was really upset I didn't get it."
Soon after, when the little guy went deep for the first time in a game, Kris got $100 from his dad and used it to buy a bike.
"It was pretty satisfying," Kris said.
Imagine how it made Mike Bryant feel _ and what he feels now, watching his 6-foot-5, 215-pound son launch balls over the walls at Wrigley Field. One homer earlier this season scraped the upper reaches of the new video board above the left-field bleachers. One from Sunday crashed into the board so hard the Statcast system estimated it would have traveled 495 feet, the longest home run in the majors this season.
Kris could wind up as National League rookie of the year. And a team that looks like an amalgamated rookie sensation has grown into a likely playoff qualifier at least a year earlier than expected.
"It's killing me I can't be at the park more," Mike said. "I'm a baseball rat. I'm a lifer."
Mike Bryant, 56, is a chemical salesman who has had a business as a hitting instructor for 13 years. Kris never has read Williams' book but heard an abridged version narrated by his dad.
As Kris would do, Mike spent three years playing college baseball before being drafted and turning pro.
The elder Bryant, who grew up in Acton, Mass., also was a slugger, setting a school career record for home runs at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell (then Division II) that stood for nearly 10 years after he left. In his final two seasons, Mike hit 20 home runs and drove in 88 runs in just 60 games.
The Red Sox picked him in the ninth round of the 1980 amateur draft. An outfielder, he played 121 games over two seasons in the low minors before being cut, hitting .204 with just four home runs in 348 at-bats, according to baseball-reference.com.
While Mike Bryant still expresses frustration over getting what he felt was an insufficient chance to prove himself as a pro, the brief stay in the Red Sox organization would have a lasting impact on his life because of the hours spent with Williams.
Until the mid-1970s, almost no major league teams had full-time hitting instructors. Williams was a roving instructor, and Mike Bryant took full advantage of every opportunity to work with a man whom many consider the greatest hitter in history and who was one of the first to theorize about the many facets of his art.
Mike was 14 when he got a copy of Williams' landmark 1971 book, "The Science of Hitting." During his two years in spring training, Bryant listened to Williams bring the book to life, talking about hip movement, pitch angles, bat path and ball path in a way that made it like learning the calculus of hitting.
He still has a copy in the home batting cage where he spent hours pitching to Kris and older son Nick, a .417 hitter his senior year of high school who played just one fall baseball season in college before deciding to focus on academics. He now is a graduate student as the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy.
Kris, who would be the can't-miss, second overall pick in the 2013 draft, never got the sense has father is bitter over the abrupt end to his playing career.
"I think he was just more excited to teach us and it's more satisfying for him to have a son who is there (in the majors)," Kris said. "He watches me every day, and he couldn't be more proud."
When the two talk or text about hitting now, which is several times a month, it is more about the mental than the technical piece of the puzzle.
"Kris knows how to teach himself," Mike said. "He only calls me when he is struggling and looking for support."
One such struggle occurred in July, when Kris hit just .168 (but still drove in 17 runs in the 24 games he started.) He made some "really minor" adjustments to his technical attack of the ball while concentrating mainly on his thought process at the plate.
"When we start slumping, we start to doubt ourselves, which is human nature," Kris said
In talks during that stretch, Mike focused on positive feedback.
"He told me the same things he always has, just bringing up past experiences of me doing well, having me fall back on that stuff to get me to believe in myself," Kris said.
The most significant change in Kris Bryant's physical approach at the plate came during his sophomore year at the University of San Diego, when pitchers were getting him out on balls low and away.
Former San Diego associate coach Jay Johnson, who became Arizona's head coach this June, suggested Bryant turn his narrow, straight-up stance into one with a wider foundation and a bend at the knees for a slight crouch. Bryant also eliminated the step forward before swinging he used to take with his left foot in favor of raising his heel and letting the toe leave the ground just long enough for a half-step to the right.
"We did it to make it easier to hit the low pitch," Kris said. "I still use that today. I'm glad I did it."
Pitchers still look to get Bryant out that way, especially on called strikes his dad insists are often not in the strike zone. On that subject, Kris wisely was diplomatic to a fault.
"Any dad will say that," Kris said. "I don't complain about that stuff. I think (the umpires) are all fair.
"Strikeouts are part of my game, and they always have been," he said. "Sometimes strikeouts are good because you are working the count and making starting pitchers throw more pitches.
"I guess it's easy for people to look at the strikeout numbers and complain. I don't think about it too much."
Why should he, with numbers like these entering the weekend: 93 RBI, breaking the Cubs rookie record. If he keeps up this pace, he'll be just the second Cub with 100-plus RBIs in the last eight seasons.
Twenty-four home runs. Yes, 19 have been at Wrigley Field, but all have come after he went 20 games and 74 at-bats without a homer after being called up to the majors the third week of this season.
The hype Kris received from two seasons of minor league slugging (55 homers in 181 games) created enormous expectations. Mike Bryant thinks his son's personality _ understated, like that of his mother, Sue, who has shied from doing any interviews _ has allowed Kris to work out the paradox of being under a microscope and acting under the radar at the same time.
"I think that's the way to go, be more quiet," Bryant said. "I'm completely opposite of my dad."
Dad is Type A. Son is, in dad's words, "Total Type B."
It's the old speak-softly-and-carry-a-big-stick adage. The noise Bryant is capable of making with his bat led to an All-Star Game Home Run Derby invitation. That created a big-time father-and-son moment, as Kris asked Mike to pitch to him.
"I was so anxious," Mike Bryant said. "It was kind of like my major league debut _ national TV, I had a uniform on, 50,000 people in the stands."
To Kris, recalling the experience in a clubhouse conversation at Wrigley Field, that was the point of having his dad on the mound.
"I don't think I would be standing here today if it wasn't for him and his guidance in terms of helping me with my swing and pitching to me every day, believing in me, all those phone calls I would give him after games just to lean on him and what he has to say," Kris said.
True story.
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