At 8:09 p.m. Mountain time on Nov. 1, Corey Seager smiled.
He had smiled before, of course. His teammates hate the idea—which, in fairness, Seager perpetuates—that their shortstop is a collection of wires and gears programmed to mash baseballs and mutter monosyllabically. Seager smiled before Game 5 of the World Series when Rangers backup catcher Austin Hedges told him, “We’re going to win this game. And then I’m going to get you so drunk on tequila that I can take all your fantasy football players from you.” Seager smiled when the final out of the 2023 World Series settled into catcher Jonah Heim’s mitt, when Seager received his second World Series MVP trophy, when he drenched his teammates in beer.
But even when all that was done, he could not quite relax. He still had to attend to his obligations as the $325 million face of a franchise that he joined two years ago, fresh off a 102-loss season, and helped drag to the first title in its 62-year history.
