Dodgers’ Adrian Gonzalez takes to the ring to fight off the effects of time
Boxing has became a significant part of Dodgers first baseman Adrian Gonzalez’s off-season training program.
The walls of the Wild Card Boxing Club are adorned with images of the champions who have called this place home.
Manny Pacquiao. Miguel Cotto. James Toney. Johnny Tapia.
Under their unmoving stares, Marvin Somodio held out a pair of mitts that absorb rapid sequences of thudding punches.
Somodio has worked with several world champion boxers. On this particular day, he was training Dodgers first baseman Adrian Gonzalez.
From a southpaw stance, Gonzalez delivered two left uppercuts in succession. Then, a left uppercut followed by a right hook. With every blow Gonzalez landed, Somodio’s mitts boomed.
The owner of this Hollywood landmark, Freddie Roach, looked on curiously.
“He’s not at a main-event level yet, but he’s got the fundamentals down,” said Roach, who is best known for training Pacquiao.
Boxing became a significant part of Gonzalez’s off-season training program three years ago. He was living in the San Diego area at the time and worked with Chris Byrd, a former heavyweight champion.
“I find I get more work and better work out of this than lifting weights,” Gonzalez said. “This gets my core strong, my shoulders strong, my back strong, which are three of the things I need most in baseball.”
Gonzalez became a year-round Los Angeles resident last year, but wanted to continue boxing in the winter. He liked the way the workouts prepared his body to withstand the grind of a 162-game season.
“What better place than here?” Gonzalez said.
So Gonzalez dropped by one day and asked if he could hire someone to work with him. He found a trainer in Somodio, who was once the head trainer for former light-welterweight champion Ruslan Provodnikov. This marks Gonzalez’s second off-season with Somodio.
Gonzalez believes these workouts are becoming increasingly critical to him. One month into the upcoming season, he will turn 34.
The left-handed-hitting Gonzalez has already made adjustments to his swing, as he looks to drive the ball to right-center field instead of left-center. He is also making changes to his workout schedule, as he started training less than two weeks after the Dodgers were eliminated from the playoffs by the New York Mets.
“I feel like the older I get, the more time I take off, the more time it takes me to get back into it,” he said. “So if I take a month off, it will take me a month just to get my body back into that kind of shape.”
Gonzalez accepts he is entering a new stage of his career.
“I’m a realist,” he said. “I’m not a guy who’s trying to be something I’m not. I know what I need to do to be the best I can be. A lot of people, they hit a wall and they don’t know how to get over it because they say, ‘This is what I’ve done my whole life.’ That’s why a lot people get to a certain age and can’t play anymore. They only know one way. I can adjust.”
Part of his most recent adjustment is to make two visits every week to the Wild Card. He does everything a professional boxer would do to prepare for an upcoming prizefight except spar.
He can train all day. I’m the one who gets tired.
— Trainer Marvin Somodio on Adrian Gonzalez
Gonzalez works up a sweat.
Somodio acknowledged he was surprised by Gonzalez’s level of conditioning.
“He can last,” Somodio said with a laugh. “He can train all day. I’m the one who gets tired.”
Gonzalez isn’t the only non-boxer who has trained at the Wild Card.
The first that Roach recalled was former USC offensive lineman Winston Justice. While serving a one-year suspension in college, Justice worked out daily under Roach’s watch. He went on to play in the NFL.
Roach also prepared Shaquille O’Neal for televised exhibition matches against Oscar De La Hoya and Shane Mosley.
“He was pretty good,” Roach said.
Roach tried to remember the name of another former Lakers center he trained. He turned to Somodio and asked, “Who was that other guy? The big guy, that guy that’s not doing nothing right now.”
Andrew Bynum?
“Andrew Bynum,” Roach said with a nod. “He wanted to quit basketball and become a boxer. I talked him out of it.”
On this day, Gonzalez shared his training space with a couple of heavyweight prospects, including Trey Lippe-Morrison, who is 10-0 with 10 knockouts. Lippe-Morrison is the son of Tommy Morrison, the late former heavyweight champion
As Lippe-Morrison entered the room, Roach gestured toward Gonzalez in the ring and told him, “Your sparring partner.”
Roach was only half-kidding. While Gonzalez won’t risk injury by trading punches with a professional heavyweight, Roach thinks he would be able to hold his own against fighters of Lippe-Morrison’s experience level.
“He can definitely work with him,” Roach said.
Later in the afternoon, as Gonzalez was nearing the end of his workout, the 7-foot Taishan Dong of China entered the room. Dong often trains side-by-side with Gonzalez.
Jean Pascal is also training here for an upcoming light-heavyweight title fight against champion Sergey Kovalev.
“Watching these guys is fun,” Gonzalez said. “It’s also good knowing I can keep up from a conditioning standpoint.”
Most baseball players can’t.
Everybody says they’re in shape until they step into this place.
— Adrian Gonzalez
Gonzalez, left, works out with Somodio.
Last winter, Gonzalez had Yasiel Puig and Joc Pederson to accompany him to the gym.
“Everybody says they’re in shape until they step into this place,” Gonzalez said. “It’s a different kind of shape. It’s not like running eight sprints in 20 minutes.”
On the subject of Puig, Gonzalez confirmed he spoke to the outfielder after he was involved in an alleged altercation at a Miami bar last month. Gonzalez said he advised Puig to avoid drinking in public.
Gonzalez said he thinks Puig can better handle the avalanche of negative publicity generated by the incident than he would have been a couple of years ago.
“He’s dealt with enough that he can handle it now,” Gonzalez said. “He understands he’s going to get a lot of bad PR for anything he does.”
Gonzalez sighed.
“The problem is a lot of people don’t see all the good things he does,” he said. “They only focus on the bad things. He goes to the hospital and visits kids on his own without telling anybody.”
When an article critical of Puig recently appeared on Bleacher Report — an anonymous former teammate was quoted saying Puig was “the worst person I’ve ever seen in this game” — Gonzalez sent him a text message containing a link to the story.
Gonzalez also added a message in Spanish that read, “You can be whatever you want to be.”
Puig responded: “Thanks, brother, I swear not to let you down.”
The exchange made Gonzalez optimistic.
“He’s got the mind and the heart for it,” he said.
Though Gonzalez acknowledged he was disappointed that the Dodgers lost Zack Greinke to the division rival Arizona Diamondbacks, he also remained optimistic about the Dodgers roster as a whole.
“You lose a Cy Young candidate, you’re not going to replace him,” Gonzalez said. “But you can use that money that you didn’t spend on a couple starters and a bat.”
Gonzalez said he understands why fans are concerned about the Dodgers’ lack of moves this off-season.
“People focus on today,” Gonzalez said. “They don’t focus on what it might look like in February. I tell everyone to be patient. The off-season doesn’t end until Game 1 of the regular season. You never know. These guys could be working on something really big that no one is thinking of. I don’t worry about it. Right now, it might seem slow, it might seem like they’re not doing much, but they could be doing a ton behind the scenes.”
Similar to what Gonzalez is doing here.
Twitter: @dylanohernandez
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