LOS ANGELES — June 8, 2015 was not a day that began like any other, or ended like any other, for the Vanderbilt University baseball team. Game 2 of the Commodores’ Super Regional series against the University of Illinois had been postponed a day by rain. If they were going to clinch a spot in the College World Series, they would have to do so on the day of the Major League Baseball draft.
The timing worked out perfectly. Vanderbilt won 4-2. After their exclamatory dogpile on the field, the players lingered, gathering around a single mobile phone to hear shortstop Dansby Swanson’s name called as the first overall pick. Two once-in-a-lifetime moments were still fresh in mind as Vanderbilt packed into the team bus, then caravaned back to the team hotel. The draft was not over.
Back in the lobby of the Wyndham Garden Hotel, Walker Buehler blended in. The players were still in uniform – white tops, gold lettering, and black stripes running down the outside of both pant legs – filling the room with the aroma of dirt and sweat. The sun had set by the time the Dodgers picked Buehler 24th overall, making him the third Commodore to hear his name called in the first round. Pitcher Carson Fulmer was drafted eighth overall by the Chicago White Sox.
“That was an incredible day when you look back at it,” Swanson said Friday. “What happened that day, for us as a team, being able to win a Super Regional to go to Omaha, then between myself getting drafted on the field, our other best friend Carson Fulmer getting drafted, then (Buehler) had to wait a little bit later, but he got drafted by the Dodgers … it was just a really special moment.”
This week, Buehler and Swanson have been in opposite dugouts, Buehler for the Dodgers and Swanson for the Atlanta Braves. Buehler will start Game 3 of the National League Division Series on Sunday in Atlanta. Win, and the Dodgers will eliminate the Braves and move on to the NLCS for the third consecutive year. Swanson’s season is likely already over; he has missed the entire series with a torn ligament in his left hand.
There are close ties between the two teams. Matt Kemp played for Atlanta last year. He and Braves first baseman Freddie Freeman have been playfully talking smack over FaceTime this week. Kyle Farmer, the Dodgers’ non-roster utilityman, is among the smack talkers invading Charlie Culberson’s phone. Culberson played for the Dodgers until he was traded for Kemp last December. Even the Braves’ general manager, Alex Anthopoulos, isn’t immune to digital jousting with his former colleagues in the Dodgers’ front office.
The strongest bond is between Buehler and Swanson.
“We all came into school together,” Swanson said, “and there’s just something different when you’re going to school there because you’re coming there for a greater purpose. You’re trying to win as a team, and as a program, but there’s a level of development that happens individually that you know will pay off in the end. Going through that whole process together has made our bond, I would say, inseparable.”
Theirs is a remarkably relatable friendship. They met as 18-year-old freshmen and did the College Experience together. The part that played out publicly on baseball fields was enough to forge a lifetime’s worth of memories: One season ended in the NCAA Super Regionals, the next as College World Series champions, the last as national runners-up.
The part that played out privately is what Swanson cherishes.
“Our best memories are when we were just hanging out in our dorms together and being able to just be around each other away from the field,” he said. “We’ve been through so much – the highs, the lows, everything together, it’s a really cool thing to see now.”
Since they both spent the offseason living in Nashville, Swanson and Buehler were able to hang out more than usual last winter. They were both in Fulmer’s wedding last November. Sometimes they golfed, Swanson said, but mostly they talked trash.
While this week presented an occasion for some players on both teams to reach out to their friends on the other side, it was no different than any other for Buehler and Swanson.
“We don’t ever say anything nice to each other,” Swanson said. “We’re just always on each other’s case about anything and everything, you know?”
If anything, the occasion of Game 3 quieted the two friends.
Swanson exited the Braves’ game against the New York Mets on Sept. 25 with soreness in his hand. A subsequent MRI revealed the torn ligament. He traveled with the team to Los Angeles but was left off the roster for the Division Series. Swanson can talk about Buehler all day, but his feelings about not being able to bat against him Sunday were succinct.
“It sucks,” he said.
Two days before his postseason debut, Buehler guarded his thoughts about Swanson like a sentinel.
“I just want to win games against that team,” he said after the Dodgers won Game 2 on Friday. “I don’t really care who’s on that team. He’s not wearing our jersey, so kind of the past doesn’t really matter too much.
“If I hang out with him in the offseason, that’s fine, but we’re in the playoffs, so I don’t really care.”
Maybe it was the playoffs. Maybe it was in keeping with the trash talk between two friends. Maybe it was simply an extension of Buehler’s intensity and command over seemingly every moment. Even while guarding his comments, Buehler might have revealed a deeper truth about his friendship with Swanson.
“It’s obviously very competitive between the two of us,” Swanson said, “but at the same time there’s a lot of, like, love for one another.”