LAKELAND, Fla. — “Riley!” a fan screamed from behind the fence. “Riley!”
Riley Greene, the Detroit Tigers center fielder, came off the practice field, stopped and signed some autographs.
Sgt. Dale Deas, a member of the Lakeland police department, stood a few feet back, watching the scene unfold. He was on a special duty assignment, stationed behind the practice field, protecting the Tigers. In place, just in case.
Greene came up the steps, saw Deas and gave him a bro-hug.
“Hey, how’s it going?” Greene said, flashing a smile. “How you been? How things going? You’re still here?”
“Oh, absolutely still here,” Deas said. “You had a great season. How did you spend your time in the offseason?”
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They started some small talk. They’ve known each other for several years, and Greene looked genuinely happy to see Deas.
“You are all over the pro shop now,” Deas told Greene.
Greene smiled.
Maybe you can learn the most about a person by how they treat others and the relationships they develop. The kind of people they gravitate toward.
Maybe you can learn the most about a person through the eyes of others.
And if you want a different perspective on Greene, you should know about Deas.
‘A genuine interest in the fans’
A while later, I came out of the Tigers’ clubhouse and headed toward the parking lot.
I happened to walk by a police officer and a woman.
“Hey, are you the cop who hugged a player today?” I asked.
Deas nodded his head.
“Who?” asked Tiffany Steele, his girlfriend who works for the City of Lakeland.
“Riley,” Deas said.
They broke into smiles.
“It’s refreshing to see these young guys have such a genuine interest in the fans,” Deas said.
Deas has been around Greene for several years. On some days, he works security at practices. Other times, when the Tigers play games in Lakeland, he works a security post near the Tigers dugout.
“You get to see these guys behind the scenes, what they’re really like,” I said. “What would you say about Riley?”
“Just an all-around good person,” Deas said.
“He’s just a young go-getter,” Steele said. “He wants it. You can see it in him.”
Steele does accounting for Lakeland, specifically for the parks division. That means she is at TigerTown all the time, picking up stuff at the administrative building or working parking for games.
“He’s down to earth,” Steele said.
“One of the things that I see with a lot of these guys, some of them don’t take a genuine interest in the fans,” Deas said, making a general statement about pro players, not the current Tigers.
“Yeah,” Steele said.
“Riley seems to understand that without the fans being here, supporting him, supporting the Tigers, supporting baseball, he is not here,” Deas said. “I really like to see his interaction with the fans.”
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Keeping him humble
Steele has developed a relationship with Greene’s family as well.
“How did you meet Riley’s dad?” I asked.
“I work parking for the games,“ she said. “He pulled in and said, ‘Where does the family park?’ ”
“I told him, ‘Families park right back there. Who you here with? And he said: ‘My son is Riley Greene.'”
“Really?” she responded. “All right, cool. Well, I’ll keep an eye on him.”
So they started following Riley, started talking with him, starting cheering for him and following his progress through the minors and to Detroit.
“That kid’s got something,” Steele said.
She started to develop a relationship with Greene’s family.
“Every time his parents come in, they remember you,” she said. “I always tell Riley’s dad, ‘Just tell him to stay down to earth.’ ”
“Stay humble,” Deas said.
“Riley’s dad told me, ‘Trust me. I drive it in him every day,’” Steele said.
Yes, that’s something important to know about Riley, too.
As Greene has made his way to Detroit, as more and more jerseys hang in the pro shop, as his profile increases, his parents are drilling him with one thought: Stay humble.
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Small talk with cops
“What is it like during a game when you’re talking to him?” I asked.
“They talk about Xbox, the newest game that just came out, like children do,” Steele said. “It’s hilarious. It’s spring training and it’s supposed to be fun.”
“I think they are as genuinely interested in my job, being a police officer, as I am kind of in awe of them being a baseball player,” Deas said.
“They’ll be like, ‘What’s the last time you tazed somebody?’ ” Steele said.
“They ask questions about my job all the time,” Deas said.
Ultimate respect for cops
The next day, I saw Greene in the Tigers clubhouse.
“You seem to have a special relationship with the police,” I said.
He nodded.
“Every single day they wake up, they leave their families, their kids, and they go out and protect us,” Greene said. “So, I mean, I have nothing but respect for them. They’re normal people like us. They’re just doing their job.”
Don’t gloss over that statement. In some ways, that quote reveals everything. Greene sees himself as a normal person. Just somebody going to work.
Just doing his job.
“We are always talking in (the) dugout during games and stuff,” Greene said. “He’s just a cool guy. Really cool guy. He respects us, we respect them. So I think it’s a pretty good relationship.”
“They said you will ask questions,” I said. “Like, what’s the last time you tazed somebody?”
“We do ask them questions,” Greene said. “Like, ‘You pull up on to two guys who’re racing. Turn your lights on. One takes off and one stops, which one do you go after?’ ”
Greene laughed.
“He said, ‘the one that stops, because it’s easier,’ ” Greene said, smiling.
Several hours later, after another workout, Deas was back at his post.
Greene walked off the field, came up the steps, walked directly at Deas and gave him a fist pump.
Then, Greene gave fist pumps to two other security guards sitting in a golf cart.
It was a small moment at spring training.
But it actually revealed everything about this young center fielder.
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Contact Jeff Seidel at jseidel@freepress.com or follow him on Twitter @seideljeff.
To read Seidel’s recent columns, go to freep.com/sports/jeff-seidel.