Sea Dogs pitcher Christopher Troye always tries to remember his mother’s question to him after every game when he was young: Did you have fun? Ben McCanna/Portland Press Herald
Whether he enters a game in a pressure situation or if he’s just sitting in the bullpen, Christopher Troye tries to remember the most important thing his mother always said about baseball. Kym Troye’s word are a guiding tenet to his career.
“My mom, she always would just ask, ‘Did you have fun?’ After every game, good or bad. It didn’t really matter how I did from a results perspective. She asked if I had fun today,” said Troye, a relief pitcher with the Portland Sea Dogs. “I think of that. It’s something I’ve carried into my career, even post college and into my professional career. Judge it based off of, am I enjoying it? Am I having fun? Am I keeping it a game? That’s something that’s always stuck with me.”
All of the Sea Dogs are far from home, chasing the dream of putting on a Boston Red Sox uniform and playing in the major leagues. On Mother’s Day, it’s good to remember and appreciate how much Mom helped on this journey. By the time players reach Portland, they’re just a few steps from The Show, tantalizingly close but still millions of miles away.
What did Mom mean to Troye’s baseball journey?
“Everything, man. Her and my dad sacrificed a lot for me to play travel ball, to get me to college, and even after that,” Troye said. “My mom was a stay at home mom, always, which I thought was very valuable to the way I was raised, and my siblings. She’s been my unconditional love, my unconditional support. Without her, I definitely wouldn’t be where I am today.”
Troye’s father was more a little rough around the edges when it came to discussing his son’s baseball fortunes. Mom was the good cop in their good cop/bad cop routine. For shortstop Mikey Romero, the opposite was true. His mother, Melissa Romero, was there to give him the kick in the butt he now knows he needed to improve and become Boston’s first-round draft pick, No. 24 overall, in the 2022 draft.
Sea Dogs infielder Mikey Romero said his mother gave him tough love during his early years as a ballplayer, but now that he is playing professionally, she is a little bit softer. Derek Davis/Portland Press Herald
“A lot of people would say, oh your dad’s the tough one and your mom’s the one who’s like, super-loving if you had a bad game. If I had a bad game, my mom would also be a little hard on me. She’d give me some tough love. She’d be, ‘You need to figure it out,’” Romero said. “Now in pro ball, she’s a little softer. ‘That’s OK, honey, you had a good game.’ But when I was younger, she was hardcore. She was like, ‘Hey, that 0 for 4 isn’t going to do it. You’ve got to figure it out.’”
Portland’s regular leadoff hitter, Romero entered Saturday’s scheduled doubleheader at Delta Dental Park at Hadlock Field against the Chesapeake Bay Sox tied for the Sea Dogs lead with five home runs, and first on the team in runs (20), hits (26), triples (2), and slugging percentage (.521).
Mrs. Romero, you’d be pleased to know your son is figuring it out.
Left-handed starting pitcher Hayden Mullins was promoted to Portland from High-A Greenville on April 29. He struck out 10 in his Double-A debut, a 5-3 win over the New Hampshire Fisher Cats on May 1. Every day, he reaches out to his mother, Rachel Mullins, to let her know how things are going.
Hayden Mullins
“We text every day. I don’t FaceTime or call her as much as I should, honestly. We talk on the phone once or twice a week, and text every day,” said Mullins, who landed on the injured list on May 5 because of an undisclosed injury.
It was Mom who often drove him to the big travel team tournaments, or flew with him when the tournament was across the country. Mullins said with his father at work, his mother was chaperone and chauffeur for those trips to LakePoint, a baseball training campus outside Atlanta. Mullins and his mom traveled with his friend and teammate Matthew Dorris, and Matthew’s mother, Carmen. So now Mullins has another mother to thank for his baseball success.
“We would just stay together because we were pretty close. We would call them our two moms. Anything we needed, they would be on it. Whether it was his mom or my mom, they would take care of us,” he said.
Troye’s mom visited Portland multiple times last season to watch her son play. Mullins and Romero said their moms plan to come later in the season. Standing outside the Sea Dogs dugout Friday afternoon, after the night’s game had been postponed because of impending rain, the wind and gray sky felt more like March than May. Romero looked around.
“I told her I want her to come when it warms up, but I don’t know if it’s a true Maine experience without it being cold right now,” he said.
If Melissa Romero were here, she’d tell her son to put on a sweatshirt.
Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there, and a special Happy Mother’s Day to Mrs. Troye, Mrs. Romero and Mrs. Mullins. Portland will take good care of your boys while they’re here.
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