The Boston Red Sox started their season off strong on Opening Day against the Cincinnati Reds, and they'll be looking to continue that in their next two matchups. One player the Red Sox are excited about is Roman Anthony, who is a young outfielder who has shown leadership qualities early in his career.
There's no doubt that Anthony is embracing this new role, and many have seen him transform as early as last season, such as manager Alex Cora.
“I don’t know if you noticed, man. It started last year,” Cora said via Tim Healey of the Boston Globe. “These guys, they gravitate towards them, to the rookies. Even now, like yesterday, I was looking for Trevor, and Marcelo [Mayer’s] locker is that way [next to Anthony’s toward a corner of the room] — and everybody is that way. They enjoy it. I bet there’s a lot of cool stories. Same thing with Roman. I saw it in the [World Baseball Classic], people around him in a dugout — like, the dudes.”
His teammates even see the strides that he's taken as a leader. Garrett Whitlock, who is the Red Sox's longest tenured player, sees Anthony becoming more comfortable in his shoes.
“Even though it’s not a veteran presence, he can still take command of the clubhouse… There’s a respect to his name… I just think that he’s going to be his own type of leader. It’s good to see him starting to accept that and take that role,” Whitlock said.
That's big for the Red Sox, as it shows that leadership can come from anybody on the team. For Anthony, it probably means even more because of how young he is, but it shows that he's doing the right things on the baseball field. That could go a long way into how successful they are this season.
