Pick a sport, any sport, and Mookie Betts does it at 100 percent.
It’s fairly well known the Boston Red Sox outfielder has the bowling skills to be a professional, but he doesn’t know exactly why he loves it so much. But that doesn’t stop Betts from practicing during the offseason, which is what he was doing when Rolling Stone recently interviewed him.
“I have no idea what it is about bowling,” Betts told writer Ben Watkins. “It’s just a love I have for it. I can’t even explain why. Bowling is just fun for me.”
It’s not just bowling, either. Both Betts’ high school basketball coach and high school baseball coach told Watkins the 23-year-old was the best player they’d ever coached.
“He had ice running through his veins,” John Overton High baseball coach Mike Morrison said of Betts. “Nothing rattled him. Ever.”
Betts has broken through as one of the best players in Major League Baseball in a very short period of time, something he attributes to hard work and good minor league coaches. But the truth is, he’s been a star since he was young.
“I’ll never forget this,” Morrison said. “We were down in Gulf Shores, Alabama, during Mookie’s junior year. Hueytown, Alabama, was playing in the game behind us. I knew Hueytown had (Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback) Jameis Winston. Jameis comes into our dugout and goes, ‘I just want to meet this Markus Betts everybody is talking about.’
“Mookie got along with everybody. He was never a showboat. Everybody liked him.”
Really, what it comes down to is Betts has a “go big or go home” philosophy about everything he does. That was abundantly clear in his explanation why he tweeted about wanting to go moose hunting.
“I don’t know, I just got this urge,” Betts said. “I’m going to go deer hunting or whatnot, but might as well do a deer and a moose. I’ve never been hunting before, but I might as well start with a big dog.”
Might as well.
Thumbnail photo via Brett Davis/USA TODAY Sports Images
