'My guy': Tatis' bond with father Tatis Sr. 

SAN DIEGO -- An ascendant superstar himself, Fernando Tatis Jr. keeps a sharp eye on greats in other sports -- how they comport themselves, how they handle pressure, how they tune out the noise. Tatis watches LeBron James regularly. He also follows a handful of European soccer stars closely on Instagram.

Two weeks ago, Tatis was asked which superstar he chooses to use as an example for how best to handle his newfound fame and attention.

Tatis steered the conversation. There's really only one professional athlete -- a former professional athlete, actually -- who he takes his cues from. And while this athlete had a nice 11-year career in the big leagues, no one would call him a superstar.

"There's a lot of great examples out there, but my guy to go to is always my dad," Tatis said. "He's the guy that's going to bring me down. He's going to lift me up. He's going tell me the right thing to do. I feel like that's been one of the biggest keys for my success."

Tatis’ success is showing no signs of abating. Few baseball players in history have had as much of it at such a young age. Entering play on Father’s Day Sunday, Tatis hasn't even played 200 Major League games. He already has 61 homers (the fastest in history to that mark), and is among the league leaders in homers, RBIs and OPS.

Tatis is the emerging face of baseball, and the first person to grasp that possibility was Fernando Tatis Sr., who watched his son dominate at every level, despite the fact that he hadn't yet grown into his big league frame.

"From the beginning, no doubt, I knew," Tatis Sr. said earlier this week from his home in the Dominican Republic. "When he was 14, nobody believed what I was saying about him -- that he's going to be a superstar -- because he was so skinny, and he just doesn't have the height like all the other players that were around him. Everyone was taller.

"I was like: 'It don't matter.' That's going to be the kid that's going to be a superstar, because I saw the things that he's been doing from when he was playing in the Little Leagues. No one is playing like him. He can run, he can hit, he can field. He knows how to play the game, and he's smart. From that moment, I realized."

No, that wasn't any fatherly bias talking. Tatis Sr. was seeing perfectly clearly, even if much of the baseball world didn't. Tatis Jr. was unranked as a prospect in the White Sox system when the Padres acquired him before the 2016 Trade Deadline.

Five years later, Tatis Jr. has captivated a city and a sport, and he's the owner of a brand new 14-year contract extension, the longest in baseball history. On Thursday night, he launched his 22nd home run in front of a packed Petco Park, and the place went bonkers. Fans chanted "MVP" for several minutes after Tatis Jr. bat-flipped, stutter-stepped and donned the Padres’ “Swag Chain.”

"[It's] amazing," Tatis Sr. said. "Unbelievable. You know what I see? I see a young kid who put a lot of hard work [in] since he was 7, 8 years old, and now he's living the results. So I feel very emotional, and it makes me feel proud."

Regarding his father’s baseball career, Tatis Jr. mostly remembers his tenure with the Mets from 2008-10. All those days that a young Tatis Jr. spent on the field and in the clubhouse -- evidently, he was paying close attention.

"He was an example of how to manage myself in every single situation," Tatis Jr. said. "I had that example right in front of me, since I was a kid. I've been learning it from a young age, and now here we are."

That's true through the good times and the bad. Tatis Jr. struggled to start the 2021 season, and then he spent 10 days on the injured list with a partially dislocated left shoulder. To an extent, Tatis Jr. was feeling the burdens of a record-setting contract extension and the expectations that come along with it.

His saving grace during that time? Nightly phone calls with his dad. Tatis Sr. even made a trip to San Diego. The message from Sr. to Jr. was usually the same:

"You know all the hard work you've put in for you to get here," Tatis Sr. said. "Go out and put it into the game, and keep it simple."

Another theme:

"You have to have some fun, because you really have to enjoy whatever you're doing. It doesn't own you. You love it. So just have fun. It's a game. That's what it's all about."

Have some fun? Oh man, is Tatis Jr. ever having some fun. It's hard to envision a baseball player having more fun -- whether he's bat-flipping or dancing in the dugout or stutter-stepping around third base.

Where does that come from? His dad has an idea. The culture of baseball, he says, is shifting toward self-expression, and Tatis Sr. raved about how much he enjoys watching Ronald Acuña Jr. and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. among the other young stars in the game.

"All of the young guys that we have right now in the big leagues, it makes you feel better every single game that you watch," Tatis Sr. said.

Still, it feels like it's Tatis Jr. leading that charge, pushing the sport's boundaries and unwritten rules. There might be an organic foundation for his doing so.

The Tatis family is a competitive bunch. They often play stickball at their home in San Pedro de Macoris. This offseason, a video surfaced of a family stickball game, with Tatis Sr., at 46, launching a homer into a neighbor's yard, taking two steps and raising a pair of peace signs.

Evidently, that's been the norm at the Tatis household for years.

"If we put some cameras around the house, and we showed the people some of the things we do, we'd be rich," Tatis Sr. cracked. "We do a lot of things there and we have a lot of fun, and we just enjoy every single day that we have together."

And that's ultimately the bond between Jr. and Sr. and the entire Tatis family -- his mother María, his brothers Joshua, Elijah and Daniel and his sister María.

They don't often get to spend time together. They're a busy family, after all. Elijah is a prospect in the White Sox system. But when the Tatis family does get together, it's a party from the start.

“It's just so important for us when we get together,” Tatis Sr. said. “Whether it's in the Dominican or in the U.S., it's just a very happy moment for us. We just enjoy it, every single moment that we are together. … Family is everything. We've shown him that from the beginning. Family is everything in our life."

Tatis Jr. got the message.

"It's the biggest part of my success,” he said.

A family man through and through. Like father, like son.