Padres Press Clips Friday, March 8, 2019 Article Source Author Pg. Padres prospect Logan Allen knows a few things about motivation – thanks The Athletic Lin 2 In part to his friend John Cena Padres hit five homers in victory over Rangers SD Union Tribune Acee 13 Padres bullpen experiencing change, growing pains SD Union Tribune Acee 15 Padres roster review: Aaron Loup SD Union Tribune Sanders 19 Padres look to improve rotation from within MLB.com Cassavell 23 The latest news on Fernando Tatis Jr. MLB.com Staff 26 Padres prospect Mejia continues to hit, work on his defense Associated Press Staff 28 Today in Peoria 3/7 FriarWire Lafferty 30 Andy’s Address, 3/7 FriarWire Center 32 1 Padres prospect Logan Allen knows a few things about motivation — thanks in part to his friend John Cena Dennis Lin, The Athletic On a Friday night last January, three childhood friends, now entering their 40s, sat down in an upscale Tampa restaurant. One had flown in that morning from Texas. Another had caught a red-eye from California. The group’s third member, the owner of a local gym, was hosting a spontaneous weekend. It already had been a busy day. An airport pickup. Breakfast. An invigorating workout with a world-class trainer. A detour to shower, hit some golf balls and change for dinner. Around 7 p.m., the trio walked through the doors of an Ocean Prime steakhouse. By the time they vacated the premises, it was approaching 3:30 a.m. The marathon quality of their patronage spawned an inside joke: A running text chain includes mentions of #3checks, a reference to the number of times they thought they were closing out. More than a year later, another hashtag remains in circulation. That same January evening, inside the same establishment, the #OneDollarBet emerged from a chance meeting with a Padres pitching prospect and a conversation that stretched into the early hours of the morning. The amount was trivial, the stakes life-changing. The memory is so indelible that the gym owner agrees to take a phone call on short notice. Never mind that he is shooting a movie in Canada. Speaking from Vancouver, John Cena launches into an account of how he came to make a friendly wager with Logan Allen. The opening question prompts an eight-minute response from one of the most famous people in North America. “If it can be a nice fuel in the back of the fire of Logan’s head to be like, ‘You know what? Eff that John Cena. I’m going to make him pay me that buck and I’m going to stuff it down his effing throat’ — that, to me, is just great,” Cena says. “He is the type of guy who, at the end of the night, when you’re shaking hands, you walk away and say, ‘Man, I really hope 2 that kid makes it.’ Because he’s a bright, wonderful young man with a great head on his shoulders who has a genuine gift, realizes he has a gift, and you want to see nothing but good things happen for somebody like that. Those who witnessed the #OneDollarBet still laugh at the randomness of it all: Three companions went to dinner to catch up and reminisce. Later, as the hours flew by, they sat enthralled by a new friend half their age. “It was just one of those weird things in life where the stars align,” Colin Young says. The origin of this story can be traced to the 1980s and a quaint town north of Boston. Young was a kindergartener in West Newbury, Mass., when he met Cena and Rob Vetere, who lived next door to each other a short bike ride away. The three of them became inseparable, attending classes together, playing baseball and football together, rooting for the Boston Red Sox together. From Little League through high school, Young starred on the mound as Vetere crouched behind the plate. Once, Vetere remembers, Young sweated through a 103-degree fever to deliver a complete game and a state title. The left-hander went on to play at Fordham University before the Colorado Rockies selected him in the ninth round of the 1999 draft. Cena, meanwhile, displayed an aptitude for weightlifting, eventually dropping baseball for football. Like Young, he tackled his endeavors with uncommon zeal. At Springfield College, he molded himself into a Division III All-American center. After school, he worked his way from an unknown to the pantheon of professional wrestling. Along the way, Cena learned to play the piano and how to hold entire press conferences in Mandarin. “Those two guys,” Vetere says of Young and Cena, “have got a drive that I’ve never seen in other people.” Vetere wound up on the other side of the country, enrolling at Arizona State and bartending in the area. The move proved fortuitous, allowing Vetere to host his friends on multiple occasions. Young logged two stints as a prospect in the Arizona Fall League. Cena debuted in the ring with 3 Ultimate Professional Wrestling, which took him to such places as Mesa, Ariz. But as they continued pursuing separate careers — Cena as a burgeoning star in what became World Wrestling Entertainment; Young as a professional pitcher and, later, a family man; Vetere as a manager in the food and beverage industry — they started to see less of each other. It wasn’t until two years ago that they truly reconnected as a group. The texts started to flow again. They widened into a constant stream, built around what Young and Vetere say is Cena’s genuine ethos. “We motivate each other, or we can bounce ideas off each other,” Young says. “We can just reach out to each other and be that support for one another.” “I hear from them every day,” Vetere says. “Sometimes you wake up to 30 missed messages.” So, when Cena invited his friends to Tampa for a guys’ weekend, Young and Vetere did not hesitate to book flights. A few hours after they landed, they were at Hard Nocks South, a private training facility. They shrugged off the jet lag as Cena’s personal trainer, Rob MacIntyre, tested their pain tolerance. “Some meathead stuff,” laughs Vetere, who credits a program scripted by MacIntyre and Cena for helping him overcome back problems. By the end of the weekend, Young had set personal records in the squat and deadlift. “It’s the motivation aspect of who John is,” says Young, who retired from baseball more than a decade ago. “He always had super hyperfocus on accomplishing goals and setting goals. In that sense, he hasn’t changed at all. “Honestly, I would say he’s pretty much the same guy I knew back then, just on a grander scale.” That night at Ocean Prime, between bites of steak and sips of red wine, Young noticed something unfolding at an adjacent table. He saw what appeared to be two minor-league baseball players sitting with what appeared to be two baseball agents. The agents appeared to be selling something. Alarm bells went off inside Young’s head. 4 Without officially tasting the majors, the former pitcher had acquired extensive knowledge of the inner workings of the sport. He compiled strong numbers on his way to Double A. He met his wife at a ballpark in Frisco, Texas. (The cute blonde’s father, it turned out, was four-time All- Star Jack Clark.) Young landed on Colorado’s 40-man roster, only for a sports hernia and groin surgery to reduce him to a spectator for a season at Coors Field. When the Rockies tried to demote him to Single A, he requested his release. He ended up signing with the Red Sox organization, but his dream of playing in Fenway Park never came to fruition. More injuries pushed him to independent ball and, in 2007, retirement. He and his young family settled down just minutes from the Frisco ballpark. Today, Young is a biotech consultant, an insurance agent and a youth sports coach. A father of three, he visits Disneyland roughly twice a year. Vetere, now the general manager of Volcano Rabbit, a restaurant in downtown San Diego, often drives up to join in these excursions. “They’ve welcomed me in,” says “Uncle Rob,” who sheds his fear of heights for Space Mountain rides with the kids. Leaning on personal experience, Young also counsels young athletes and their families about the complex world of collegiate and professional sports. He once strove to reach the highest level himself. Health was not the only obstacle. Agents, often harboring ulterior motives, presented another. Now, his radar was going off. “Having sons, I went into dad mode,” Young says. Young alerted Cena of his suspicions: At the next table over, two agents seemed to be courting, and possibly taking advantage of, two young baseball players. “Really? You think that?” Cena asked, his interest piqued. “I’ve been in that situation, I know what it feels like, I know what it looks like. I think that’s what’s going on,” Young replied. “OK,” Cena said. “We’re going to find out.” Springing into action, Cena silently paid for the supposed baseball players’ bill. Then he strode over to their table and politely asked if, after dinner, they would come sit with him and his friends. Starstruck, the 5 young men agreed. The older of the two later recalled that Cena passed by a second time and “he’s like, ‘Hey, just wanted to make sure you’re still going to come over.’” Soon, Allen and Ryne Stanek, a pitcher for the Tampa Bay Rays, were introducing themselves to Cena, Young and Vetere.