On a cold December morning, still a little before 8 a.m., Harrison Bader drives up to Slave to the Grind, an old-school coffee shop in Bronxville, New York. He gets a parking spot in front of the busy establishment and then walks into the small building filled with the aroma of coffee and fresh-baked goods. He peers toward the back of the restaurant, where just a few tables are in place. There are more than a dozen flavors of coffee to choose from, but Bader knows exactly what he wants prior to leaving his parents’ house. Before relocating to Manhattan, these early morning stops in the bustling downtown area of his hometown were a part of his routine.

Beginning when he was traded from the St. Louis Cardinals to the Yankees, and most notably during the offseason, Bader could regularly be seen at the coffee lover’s paradise in the early mornings. From there, he would usually travel about 10 miles south to Yankee Stadium, where he would begin his workout regimen.

The August 2022 deal that brought the National League’s 2021 Gold Glove center fielder to the Yankees also took him back to his roots. The full-circle moments meant almost as much to Bader as his play during a dramatic postseason last fall.

Born and raised in Bronxville, Bader graduated from the prestigious Horace Mann School in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, and his return makes every day feel like a trip back in time.

“Baseball players are very routine based,” Bader says as he takes a seat near the back of the coffee shop, far enough from the line of people at the counter to remain unnoticed. “From the second I wake up, my days are mapped out. Same coffee shop, same breakfast place. I’m grabbing a cup of coffee and a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich and throwing it in my car and then driving to Yankee Stadium. The only difference from 15 years ago, when I was playing summer ball, is that my dad was driving me from here to some field in New York. But everything else is virtually the same, and it feels so reminiscent of my younger days.”

As Bader -- who was drafted by St. Louis in 2015 and played for the Cardinals for parts of six seasons -- takes his first sip of coffee, he realizes that there’s one other significant difference between the two eras of his life.

“I wasn’t wearing a Major League uniform back then,” he says. “But this has been a really cool, almost surreal experience.”

***

While most, if not all, of his Yankees teammates spend their offseasons scattered around the country and the world, Bader found the atmosphere he put himself in not only to be nostalgic but also perfectly serene.

“I spent a lot of offseasons in New York, but this was a little bit different because I get to work out at Yankee Stadium,” he says. “I get to literally roll up to Yankee Stadium, and that is something that I will never take for granted. Whether there’s a game going on with 50,000 people in the stands or I’m wearing sweatpants for a workout, it still doesn’t feel real.

“It’s the most relaxing thing ever. There is something eerie about being in a massive building with only a few other people. There’s a solitude to it, and that’s really nice.”

If Bader’s recent offseason seemed surreal, then his first few months with the team he grew up passionately supporting must have felt like an out-of-body experience.

After putting together his most productive season with the Cardinals in 2021, a campaign in which he batted .267 with 16 home runs and 50 RBIs while also taking home the first Gold Glove Award of his career, Bader developed plantar fasciitis -- a frustrating condition that causes inflammation in a thick band of tissue that runs across the bottom of the foot, connecting the heel bone with the toes -- during Spring Training last year. He was able to start the regular season on time, but the injury flared up again in late June.

Bader was sidelined indefinitely following the Cardinals’ June 26 game. Without much to do but rest, the next two and a half months felt excruciatingly long for the energetic outfielder.

“We were trying a lot of things in St. Louis, and nothing was really sticking,” he says. “You build up, you gain expectations, feeling like what you’re doing is going to work and you’re going to be fine in a few weeks. But that keeps happening, and you’re not fine. The toughest part about all of it was that it wasn’t a matter of being able to work hard and overcome the injury. It was just a waiting game, and it was totally debilitating in the early stages.”

Still in a walking boot, Bader was visiting his parents’ house last August when he learned that he had been dealt to the Yankees in exchange for left-handed starter Jordan Montgomery. Unable to show up to his new team ready to play, Bader’s emotional reaction ran the gamut.

“There was a lot of unknown,” Bader says. “As happy as I was to be on the New York Yankees, I just didn’t know what was going to happen. I didn’t have my normal level of comfort anymore because of the injury. But if there’s ever a place where I would want to be uprooted to, it would be New York City and playing for an incredible organization like the New York Yankees. So, I was very happy once I got over those initial nerves. Being born and raised in New York, you just become very familiar with what it all means.”

***

A few months later, while having lunch at one of their favorite restaurants in nearby Eastchester, Bader’s parents reminisce about the early August evening when their son was traded to the Yankees.

“Harrison came home for what he planned to be just a few days,” says his mother, Janice Baio Bader, a former Sports Illustrated marketing executive. “From a mother’s perspective, I felt like what he was dealing with was the emotion associated with one team no longer wanting him and another team really wanting him. While he was nervous initially, it didn’t take him long to feel that he was made for New York.”

“Within an hour of the trade happening, Aaron Judge called him,” Bader’s father, Louis, a retired attorney, says from Ciao restaurant. “He invited Harrison to a dinner with about 20 teammates at his apartment. That really made him feel great right away. That was a nice first night with his new teammates.”

Bader continued to rehab and work his way back to full strength before his late-September big league return.

Wearing a seafoam green glove that matched the Statue of Liberty’s patina -- a tribute to his New York roots that he first used in 2021 -- Bader made his Yankees debut on Sept. 20, collecting two hits and three RBIs in a 9-8 victory over Pittsburgh that will always be remembered as the night that Judge hit his 60th homer, becoming the first American League player to reach the mark since Roger Maris in 1961.

As September turned to October, Bader’s focus remained on helping his team win. But, inevitably, memories of watching big games in the Bronx as a child permeated his thoughts.

“Thinking back to when I was a child, the one thing that stands out the most is that everybody in the seats was standing a lot of the time,” Bader says. “I remember standing on my seat, hanging on my dad to look over people’s shoulders and heads so that I could see the play. I didn’t understand it back then, but now as a player, you feel the energy. Now, I get why all of the fans are standing during big moments.”

In his first postseason game on the field at Yankee Stadium, with his family watching him from the seats, Bader authored a moment much like those he once witnessed with his father. With the Yankees trailing the Cleveland Guardians in the third inning of Game 1 of the American League Division Series, Bader stepped to the plate for the first time. As he worked the count full, the capacity crowd rose in unison. Seconds later, Bader launched a sinker from 15-game winner Cal Quantrill over the left-field wall.

Bader practically sprinted around the bases, enjoying a moment that represented so much more than just one contribution to an eventual victory.

“I felt like I was home,” he says. “The atmosphere in the Stadium that night was incredible. Not that I needed anything to recharge my love for the game, but if ever there was a moment to bring you back in and remind you that this is the greatest thing on earth and it’s incredible to be part of, that swing was it. It came after a very long return to the field.”

A few nights later, the ALDS moved to a hostile environment in Cleveland for Games 3 and 4. Bader hit home runs in both games, including a two-run shot in the latter that proved to be the difference in a 4-2 Yankees victory that forced a Game 5 at Yankee Stadium.

“You love the cheers, but there’s nothing like the silence I heard when I hit those home runs in Cleveland,” Bader says. “Our backs were against the wall, but my mindset was all about putting together winning at-bats. You never know when the game is going to present you with an opportunity to help your team win. I got a chance, and I’m glad it worked out in our favor.”

Bader became just the third Yankees center fielder to hit three homers in a single postseason, joining Hall of Famer Mickey Mantle and legend Bernie Williams.

“I didn’t know that!” Bader says. “Incredible company; I don’t belong in the same sentence as those guys. Besides the statistics they amassed in their careers, they were both winning players. Being on a winning team that expects to win, that makes me better. This place fosters winning players.”

The Yankees won Game 5, and although the team would fall to the Houston Astros in the American League Championship Series -- during which Bader hit two more home runs, finishing the postseason with a .333 average and five long balls -- the outfielder’s ability to perform on the biggest stage made a lasting impression on even his most accomplished teammates.

“He’s an impact player,” says perennial All-Star pitcher Gerrit Cole. “Whatever situation he was in last year, he made an impact. He can do it on the bases, in the outfield or at the plate. Whether it’s with power, or by stretching a single into a double or going first to third in a big spot in the game, he consistently finds ways to create runs.”

“He carried us in the ALDS,” says Judge, the 2022 American League MVP. “Things didn’t work out after that, but looking back on what he did when we needed him, it makes me excited to have him here this season.”

***

With the sun beaming and the temperature hovering around 40 degrees, Bader decides to add a little more nostalgia to the December day, taking a detour to the field where he first played baseball competitively.

Wearing a hooded sweatshirt featuring an image of the Statue of Liberty, a Yankees winter hat and a heavy jacket, Bader makes the three-mile drive to the Eastchester Little League field where he first played in a baseball game as a 5-year-old.

Like the home diamond where Bader plays now, Francis X. O’Rourke Memorial Little League Field sits in front of a train track. Behind a padded wall that spans the entire outfield, there is a black metal fence. Bader’s name and the No. 7 that he wore when he played there are featured on a baseball-shaped sign. The sign recognizing Bader, along with the same accolade for fellow Eastchester Little League alum and former Major Leaguer John Doherty, was dedicated in 2022.

“It’s always special to come back here,” Bader says while walking out to the center-field wall. “Even though it’s winter, this field always looks amazing.”

When Bader gets out to the sign bearing his name, he reflects on his first memories of playing baseball.

“I took the normal route, playing Little League and then going to a slightly bigger field and then to a normal-sized field,” he says. “We played local teams when I was in Little League, and I joined the New York Grays travel team when I was a sophomore in high school. My baseball upbringing was really in New York, playing mostly in Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx.”

Bader is also quick to recognize the commitment his parents made in supporting his passion for the game, as well as the way they allowed him to make his own decisions without undue pressure. That wasn’t an accident. Louis Bader remembers the happiness his son got from playing baseball and how much more enjoyable the boy’s smiles made every part of the experience.

“As a parent, to be able to do something with your child that he loves doing, to see that utter joy in your son’s face when you’re doing something with him, that’s great,” Louis says. “I probably took him out just about every night after work when the weather was good. We would find a field; sometimes we would have to drive around to several different places before I could find one that had a backstop. I started pitching to him when he was 4 years old, and when he got to be about 13, he started hitting the ball back too hard. I couldn’t pitch to him anymore, but it was fun watching him develop over that time.”

Even though Bader stood out among his peers at a young age, his parents didn’t allow him to get ahead of himself, refusing to let Harrison’s future expectations take away from his journey.

“You knew which players were leaps and bounds ahead of the others at an early age,” Janice says. “You would also hear the feedback about Harrison. But, like anything else, we knew it was a process. It’s a gradual thing. We would tell him, ‘You’re doing well at this level. Let’s see what you can do at the next level.’ We didn’t jump too quickly from one level to the next or fill his head with lofty expectations right away. We treated the process with patience.”

***

At some point, though, talent begins to dictate the journey. When the process took Bader to the Grays travel team and to the varsity squad at Horace Mann, his star began to rise. And the road he took from Bronxville to Gainesville, Florida -- where he attended his father’s alma mater, the University of Florida -- featured a healthy dose of good luck.

Bader wanted to play for a big-time baseball program in the South, where he could be on the field 12 months a year. But despite putting up monster numbers in high school and travel ball, he wasn’t getting onto enough coaches’ radar screens. That all changed at a tournament in New Jersey during the summer before Bader’s senior year of high school.

“I just happened to be sitting next to Danny Lopez, an assistant coach from the University of Pittsburgh, during a game,” Louis says. “I didn’t know who he was, and he didn’t know me. As we are sitting there, a pitch almost hit Harrison in the head. Then, Harrison absolutely smoked the next pitch into center field. Danny looked over at me and just marveled at what Harrison had just done.”

Thinking out loud, the Pitt coach expressed his desire to talk to “that kid,” and naturally, Louis informed him that he was Harrison’s father. Lopez explained that the word on Bader was that he intended to pursue an Ivy League education and, he said, elite college baseball programs tend not to get in the way of players following that path.

“That was news to me!” Louis recalls telling the coach. “Ivy League would be nice, but Harrison wants to play baseball.”

That changed everything; eventually Pitt offered Bader a spot on the team and Bader committed, but because he did not receive any scholarship money, he wasn’t locked into the Panthers’ baseball program.

Although he was excited about having a landing spot in a Division I program, Bader entered his senior year at Horace Mann with some trepidation about going to the Steel City. When two of Bader’s high school teammates were recruited to play at the University of Maryland, the outfielder decided that attempting to walk on to the Terps’ baseball team made more sense than heading to Pitt. As the case was with Pitt, there was no formal commitment at Maryland for Bader, because he was not given any scholarship money. He could leave without any repercussions.

A month later, with the 2012-13 school year rapidly approaching, a fateful turn of events changed the trajectory of Bader’s career. Still playing for his summer travel team, Bader found himself at the same tournament as a coach in desperate need of an outfielder.

“Harrison was playing in his last tournament with the Grays that July, less than two months before he was set to start school at Maryland,” Louis says. “Two outfielders had left Florida when they were drafted by Major League teams. When that happened, Craig Bell, an assistant coach with the Gators, went to the tournament we were at in Fort Myers, Florida, to see if he could find an outfielder. He saw Harrison in one of the games, and he called the head coach, Kevin O’Sullivan. When he got Coach O’Sullivan on the phone, he started to tell him that he really liked Harrison. It just so happened that Erik Bakich -- the Michigan head coach, who had just left Maryland, and was, of course, very familiar with Harrison -- was standing right next to Craig. Coach Bakich told him, ‘If you can get that kid, sign him.’”

O’Sullivan greenlit a scholarship, and a few days later, Bader was enrolled at Florida and given an opportunity to play for one of the premier baseball programs in the country.

“I was in the right place at the right time,” Bader says. “That was truly my break. That was my moment; that’s when everything kickstarted.”

***

When he arrived in Gainesville, Bader formed a connection with assistant coach Brad Weitzel, a baseball lifer who by that time had already worked at just about every level in the game.

“I walked into Brad’s office on the first day I was on campus,” Bader remembers. “Very calmly, he said, ‘I don’t know how you got here, but you have an angel in your back pocket. So, take advantage of it.’ I truly believed that; I was grateful for the opportunity. I wasn’t even sure if I belonged there at first, but I wanted to become the best version of myself every day on the field.”

That was only the first of many impactful conversations that Bader had with Weitzel.

“He taught me how to be a professional before I was a professional,” Bader says. “When you’re playing at that level in college, everyone wants to get to the Major Leagues. Even if you’re winning national championships, it’s still a stepping stone. But Brad helped me understand that in order to achieve what you ultimately want, you have to conquer this first. Without his leadership and coaching, I don’t know where I would have ended up.”

With his focus on the current time and place, Bader proved that he belonged on the field from his first day in Gainesville. As a freshman, the outfielder led the team with a .312 batting average and 15 stolen bases while playing in all of Florida’s 59 games (and starting 57). The following season, Bader paced the team with a .337 average, and in his third and final season with Florida, he batted .297 and finished second on the team with 17 home runs and 66 RBIs.

“My first impression of Harrison was that he was immensely talented, and that he wanted to improve,” Weitzel says from his home in Georgia. “He was very sure of himself. I found out right away that he was what I call a ‘one-timer.’ A ‘one-timer’ is a player who when you tell him something once, it’s locked in. He was in my office every single morning, and I can’t really say that about any other player I worked with. He wanted the good feedback, the bad feedback and everything in between. He wanted input every day on how to get better.”

Bader racked up plenty of statistics and achievements and was even named an All-American as a junior, which he called “the gold standard,” recalling the walls in Florida’s athletic complex that featured all the student-athletes who had achieved the distinction. But beyond the accolades, Weitzel was also impressed with the outfielder’s toughness and commitment to the game.

“I remember when a pitch ran up and in on him, hitting him in the mouth,” Weitzel says. “He was spitting blood, and the trainer wanted to take him out. But he wouldn’t leave the game. Most players I’ve coached over 40 years would have come out of the game, but what Harrison did on that Tuesday night showed that he had extraordinary mental toughness. At that level, all of the players have ability, but what separates the great ones from the good ones is mental toughness and work ethic. He was already very high in both of those categories.”

The Gators didn’t get to the College World Series in either of Bader’s first two seasons, but with a lineup that also included current Mets first baseman Pete Alonso, the team made it to Omaha, Nebraska, in 2015. In that tournament, Florida advanced to the semifinal round, and in five games, Bader batted .348 with two home runs and five RBIs.

“That was a one-of-a-kind atmosphere,” he says. “People travel from all over the country to watch the College World Series. As a college baseball player, you’re thinking about going to Omaha all year. Finally getting there was rewarding. That was the first time I had ever played in front of 30,000 people. For me, it was never about, ‘What if I don’t do well in front of all of these people?’ I felt that if I got one hit each day in front of that crowd, that was a win. That mindset helped me down the road.”

***

Bader’s junior season and clutch play in Omaha set him up to be drafted that June, and with the 100th pick, the St. Louis Cardinals selected the 21-year-old. Starting his professional career in Short Season A-ball, Bader hit two home runs in his debut with the State College Spikes. From that point forward, he climbed upward through the organization quickly.

Two years later, while playing for Triple-A Memphis, Bader got the call that he would never forget.

“My dad was visiting me in Memphis,” he remembers. “The Cardinals called me at 10 in the morning and sent a car for me. The drive from Memphis to St. Louis takes you along one road for four hours. It was great to experience that with my dad, the person who had been pitching to me since I was 4 years old. Without him, I’m not a Major League baseball player. I can’t even imagine what he was thinking that morning.”

Several hours after Bader’s whirlwind day began -- during which time his mother and several other family and friends scrambled to get to St. Louis from New York -- the rookie outfielder led off the bottom of the ninth inning with a double off Colorado’s Jake McGee. With the score tied, Bader advanced to third on a sacrifice bunt and then scored the winning run on a fly ball.

“That was a day that was as exciting as any we have ever had,” Janice says. “I remember how nervous I was for him. There was a moment when I was getting ready, and I was literally just circling the suitcase without putting anything in it. For that game to end the way it did, that was like a fairy tale.”

Bader returned to Memphis after two series, and then was called back up to the Majors in September 2017. Beginning in 2018, he became a mainstay with the big club. Bader’s time in St. Louis culminated when he established himself as one of the game’s elite center fielders, taking home a Gold Glove Award in 2021.

“It started in Little League,” Bader says. “I played shortstop at that time, and I took a few balls off my head because the fields in New York were so bad. My dad bought me an outfield glove, and that’s all I ever played after that. If you start to do something at a young age, you get a lot of repetition, and it becomes natural to you. Defense is all about how badly you want to be good at it and how badly you want the ball.”

With the Yankees in need of an outfielder last season, general manager Brian Cashman and his staff felt strongly that Bader, a career .246 hitter with 58 home runs, would provide the team with a major asset defensively and that he could also add a spark to the lineup.

So far, the trade has paid dividends for the Yankees.

Although the 29-year-old missed some time at the beginning of this year with an oblique injury and then hit the IL again in June with a hamstring strain, he has shined whenever he has been on the field. From the time he made his 2023 debut on May 2 through the game in which he suffered the hamstring injury at the end of that month, Bader hit .267 with six home runs. More notably, perhaps, Bader, who returned to the lineup for the second time on June 20, made one diving catch after another that most big league center fielders wouldn’t even attempt.

Bader’s story is far from over, but to this point, it has been a journey that has brought him back to the place where his dream of wearing pinstripes first began to take shape, having been fueled by a belief in himself that only got stronger over time.

“My goal was always to play baseball in the Major Leagues,” Bader says. “My dad would always tell me that I had no control over who drafted me or traded for me, but that I could control how I carried myself and how I played on the field. Back when I was coming to the Stadium to watch the Yankees, the likes of Derek Jeter, Tino Martinez, Bernie Williams, Mariano Rivera and Jorge Posada were larger than life, and the idea of playing for the Yankees seemed out of reach. But that kind of shifted once I started focusing on my own game and just trying to make it to the Major Leagues. As a kid, I wanted to be a Yankee, so to come full circle, it really is a surreal experience.”

Alfred Santasiere III is the editor-in-chief of Yankees Magazine. This story appears in the July 2023 edition. Get more articles like this delivered to your doorstep by purchasing a subscription to Yankees Magazine at www.yankees.com/publications.