Bruce Maxwell, former Oakland Athletic, on relocation, expansion, and the love of the game

Earlier today, we had the opportunity to sit down for an exclusive interview with former Oakland Athletics catcher, Bruce Maxwell, who is currently on the Monclova Acereros of Liga Mexicana de Béisbol (LMB). Maxwell, who played for the A’s for parts of three seasons between 2016 and 2018, was contacted after interacting with a tweet that reported on another former Oakland A, Robbie Grossman’s, harsh words regarding talks of A's relocation.

Per a report from Chris McCosky of The Detroit News, Grossman, after a brief pause to compose his thoughts, remarked: “I hope [the A’s] move to Vegas. Oakland was special to me, but you can no longer play in the Coliseum. And if they can’t build a stadium within a year or two, there’s no reason for them to be there.”

Do Bruce Maxwell and other players feel the same way? We caught up with him, and the interview can be read through below:

JC: I understand that you’ve just made your way back from Tommy John surgery last summer. What was the recovery process like as a catcher coming back and what was it like finally getting back out on the field?

Maxwell: I’ll tell you this, in my ten years—this is my eleventh professional season, first major injury I’ve ever had, it’s definitely the hardest. The recovery process for me, I was shut down from the gym for three and a half months. The process is very slow, very tedious, and I struggled mentally sometimes with the want to get up and work because it does take time. My first major injury and being a catcher, I don’t sit still very well, I never have.

It’s been a grind, and coming down here. I came down here to Mexico in January to start my throwing program and it’s been going great. I’ve been able to be active, I’ve been able to swing a bat this whole time. It feels good to step back out on the field. I’m not fully back on the field yet. I return by May 20th for regular season play, but I did hop into a spring training game a few weeks ago and caught five innings and actually felt amazing so. It’s been a journey for sure.

I’m on track to be better than I was before, to be completely honest with you. Giving my arm a break for nine months of in-game constant catching and the grind has actually done wonders for my arm. I’ve only been catching since I was in professional baseball, I wasn’t a catcher in school or college. So, giving my arm a break and the needed cleanup was a blessing now looking back on it. My throws down to second are a little bit cleaner. I’d like to think I’ve always had a good arm but now my arm is stronger and [my throws are] more efficient. My throwing motion itself has almost corrected itself. I have less inconsistent throws and releases than I used to, so it’s actually helped me a lot with the recovery with the trainers down here—the trainers in Arizona with the Giants—it’s actually helped me a lot to clean up some little things that I never really noticed before surgery.

JC: How long did you notice that something was nagging you before you decided on that surgery?

Maxwell: I didn’t—that was the crazy part. I started in New York last year in Triple-A. My throwing was fine. I wasn’t playing a whole lot, but everyday my throwing was fine. I was long-tossing every day and then a few months go by and I’m traded to the Giants and I go to Double-A. When I got there, I was catching two games, one game off, two games on, one game off. I had just caught the two games prior when I blew out my elbow. I threw two guys out, I was hitting fine, and that third day they were like, “Hey Bruce, you’re not catching today.”

So normally when I’m in season, the days I don’t catch, I try to stretch it out with one of my pitchers. My second to last throw, I don’t know if my arm was in a weird position or just some freak accident, [but] my second to last throw at about 200 feet, 250 feet, my arm just popped and it was all in my elbow. I threw the ball at a 45 angle to my right and I was like, “I just snapped my UCL.” The only thing I was feeling from the two days prior was that I just felt tired because I made a lot of throws in the last two days. There was no pain, there was no discomfort, there was no nagging, there was nothing. It was actually very, very random.

It was nerve-wracking for sure, because I’ve taken good care of my arm over the years. I’m pretty in tune with my body, so that was freaky. It scared me. I was in a panic the next morning because I woke up and I couldn’t bend my arm, like my arm was stuck in a certain position, I couldn’t even extend my arm to put it in my front pocket of my jeans. I was super freaked out for a few days.

JC: Congratulations on making the long journey back. Your current team is a bit of a who’s who of former A’s. What’s your relationship with some of those guys?

Maxwell: When I found out in February that I was coming down here, I was like, “Oh this is a reunion, I love it!” Me and Addison Russell, once he got traded over in the minor leagues, we kind of lost contact but we’ve always been friends. He was in my draft class also. I’ve played with him for a little bit, kind of watched him—I actually told him the other day, it’s been a pleasure watching you grow up. I was one of the few college drafts in that early, early draft in 2012. Everyone else around me were high school kids. Me and him are really good friends. Me and [Josh] Reddick are also really good friends—we’ve been friends for a while.

Obviously, it’s unfortunate to see those types of guys down here in Mexico, but at the same time but I still enjoy lacing up the cleats with those guys again. Pablo Sandoval is down here—I’ve known him for a long time also. It’s cool to share the field with these guys. Through my couple years of my big-league career, I think I only got to play with Reddick a little bit before he was traded, Addison was already traded so I always saw him on the other side of the field. So, to be down here in an environment like this and to be surrounded by their leadership and their experience, it’s going to be great for this team, it’s going to be great for this city, and it’s definitely going to be great for our young guys.

Reddick and I talked to Khris Davis as soon as he got to Mexico City. I think we go to Mexico City in a few weeks, so I told him I couldn’t wait to see him. You have [Roberto] Osuna who’s the closer for Mexico City. We also have a few other big leaguers on our team in Monclova, Keon Broxton, Francisco Peguero. It just goes down the line. It’s crazy how every year, this league down here gets more competitive. Like you said, it is surreal to see all those guys, especially the guys on our team playing together. At the same time these guys love the game and they just want to keep playing.

We all share stories about where we played in the states. Pablo has fourteen years, Reddick has like twelve, Addy has a little over five. We all talk about the old times, the good times back then. We still bring it up and everything, but it is part of the journey. Good, bad, or indifferent, it’s still part of our careers. It still has a footprint in our lives and it’s a stepping stone to get wherever the hell we got to. It’s never frowned upon by any means, but it is part of the past. Whenever we do bring things up, it’s comical and fun. We enjoy talking about them, but then we refocus on the present.

JC: You saw your best MLB seasons with the Oakland Athletics just a couple years ago. How would you describe your experience in Oakland compared to some of the other professional clubs you played with?

Maxwell: Honestly, playing in Oakland, I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the history. I enjoyed the Coliseum for the most part. I enjoyed the fans. Coming up with Oakland for me though, and I can tell you this from talking to other guys that come from other places, it’s an adjustment period playing at the Coliseum and playing in Oakland. But for me, I only came up with Oakland, so I never really got to experience other big-league clubs or environments really. It was all I knew, so I honestly didn’t think Oakland was that bad. But then when you go on the road and you talk to other players on other teams, they used to always joke that Oakland was Four-A compared to everywhere else in the big leagues, just from a [standpoint of] facilities, the stadium, the locker room. Personally, I never really had any issues playing in Oakland.

When I was in the Mets organization, I was in Triple-A the whole time. I never got to experience the big-league side of their organization. With Covid and everything, there were a lot of complications in the minor leagues. My time with the Mets was very complicated. It was difficult, the years I was there, with the Covid guidelines and the injury reports, and being restricted on who could be brought up from where. It was a circus—it really was—last year.

When I got traded to the Giants, out of the three organizations I’ve been with, the Giants developmental program and how they pour into their youth in the minor leagues, I really, really enjoyed my short stint in Double-A with those guys. Everybody that they brought in, our coordinator, they were really invested in the younger guys. They added me to that mix because I’m an older player. Being able to help, to pour into the young pitchers and young position players and show them how to work like a professional, like a big leaguer, that’s what I felt their organization was about. I genuinely really enjoyed being part of the Giants’ program.

That was the first situation I’ve been in where I’ve been one of the older guys. It felt good, I felt like the guys and the coaching staff appreciated me in Richmond. I think the guys in my short stint there really did absorb some things and learn some things. When I was in Double-A [at the beginning of my career], I was surrounded by high school drafts and maybe a few guys that were my age, but I didn’t learn anything from anybody. I wasn’t learning how to be a big-leaguer, I was just trying to play my hardest and play my best. So, to have that type of experience, it felt good to be able to be the person who players come ask questions—“How do you go about this?” and “What do you do here?” It felt really good, because I do love instructing and I do love sharing my experiences that I’ve had with other bonafide, prominent big-leagues that taught me along the way. It felt good to share and give that back to younger guys where I once was.

JC: How much have you followed the stadium situation in Oakland, both during the time you played with the A’s and now as you’ve settled into your new stint in Mexico?

Maxwell: I haven’t followed it in depth, but there’s been talks about a new stadium since, hell, before I got to the big leagues with Oakland and still kind of nothing. It’s not a topic that I’m super keen on because at the end of the day I’m not [an A’s] jersey. But at the same time, there’s been talks for a long time about getting a new stadium and renovations and still nothing’s happened.

JC: Is that frustrating from a player’s perspective or is it something that players don’t really care about since it feels like a whole lot of nothing?

Maxwell: I feel like it’s both. I feel like as a player at that level, when you’re constantly hearing from other teams that your place is subpar—I was talking to one of my guys about how they’re still having septic issues, how they still haven’t upgraded any dugouts, any locker room, any stadium amenities. That stadium’s been the exact same for lord knows how long. We know that place could use a nice facelift. You don’t even necessarily have to move the stadium really, you really don’t. Oracle’s not in use anymore. You can either expand or damn near it looks like—I don’t know the legalities on all that—but it seems like the space and the footprint is perfect for the fanbase in Oakland. It’s easy to get to, there’s a lot of parking, there’s a lot of accessibility in that area. You can either build the new stadium or renovate the hell out of the stadium that’s there right now in the same exact space. At the end of the day, they are the Oakland A’s, not the San Francisco A’s. It would be beneficial to the city and beneficial to the youth and the history of the game to remain in Oakland.

JC: One of the reasons that I wanted to interview you was to go over a tweet you liked that reported on another former Oakland A, Robbie Grossman, saying “I hope the A’s move to Vegas” among other things. What’s your reaction to his sentiment?

Maxwell: To be completely frank with you, if the A’s were able to stay in Oakland obviously in a new ballpark, I think it would be awesome. I think every now and then, doesn’t matter what team we’re talking about, everyone needs a facelift every now and again. It’s just how it is. The Coliseum is awesome, but now the Raiders aren’t there. The Warriors aren’t there. It’s just time for some renovations.

I feel like if they can’t do it in Oakland, where it should be done, where it needs to be done for the history and the city itself, then I think the best move is to move somewhere you have the space and you have the potential to—well, not only the potential to piss off some Oakland fans—but the potential to rejuvenate a fanbase in an area that’s very popular. You have the space to build pretty much whatever the hell you want. I don’t know the pricing of it, but put it in an area that has the Raiders and the A’s in the same vicinity like it has been, except that they’re separate.

I feel like Oakland and Oakland’s fans deserve a new stadium, they deserve an ownership that really pours into their players, which you and I both know that’s not how it works. It would suck to see them leave from a history standpoint and from a city standpoint. I still have great friends from Oakland from my days of being over there. If they can’t make it happen where the stadium is or keep it in the Oakland limits, then yeah, I think the next best thing is for them to move. That would destroy the Oakland camaraderie around the A’s as it’s kind of already going downhill at the moment. I think that would really kill the environment out in Oakland also.

JC: Do you see Vegas as the number two in this if things don’t work out in Oakland? Or do you see other places getting equal consideration?

Maxwell: I think Vegas is a lock just because if the A’s move, they don’t want to move from out west. They don’t want to go too far. You can’t go to Seattle. You can’t really go to San Fran. You can’t go south because that would just defeat the whole purpose of [the team]. There are limited places for you to go to continue being in your “region” of the country. I feel like Vegas is a lock because it’s easy to get to. You get main flights out there, it’s popular out there. You also still have the Raiders. I feel like moving there and being teamed up with the Raiders once again, over time—depending on the business world of how baseball works—I feel like you can still [replenish] the Oakland fanbase especially when both of those teams are in the same area. But regardless of where they move, they’re still going to lose a lot of love in Oakland—it’s just going to happen.

JC: Is what Grossman had to say about hoping the A’s moving to Vegas something that other players generally agreed with or is that kind of the minority opinion?

Maxwell: I wouldn’t say it’s the minority. A lot of the people I talked to over the years, it was more of the take of, “If they’re not going to renovate, then they need to move, because if you move, you have to get a new stadium.” It’s been more of a very simplistic answer just because guys are like, “If you move anywhere, you need to build a new stadium because there isn’t a stadium there for you.” I think, from a player’s standpoint, they’re looking forward to the new amenities, the new stadium, the new look. The Coliseum is outdated. Even from my personal experience, I don’t think it’s up-kept very well. It’s a new stadium for the players, a new stadium for the fans, and it’s almost like a new start.

JC: With expansion likely coming for MLB in the next decade or so, what’s your opinion on the league expanding into Mexico?

Maxwell: I don’t think it’ll happen and here’s why: we play in a summer league down here, so if you’re going to expand into Mexico, it would have to be, logistically speaking, relatively close to the United States. From a money-making standpoint, the big cities that are somewhat close to the United States border—closer to Cali, Texas, whatever—most of those big cities that would draw fans and revenue, they already have teams for the summer.

You can’t really just move those teams because summer baseball down here is a big deal. If you’re Tijuana, Monterey, even in Sonora—Sonora plays in the winter—the border-town teams that are big cities already have our summer leagues, so they’d have to physically remove them in the league in their own country to expand and benefit from that expansion. It would be really complicated to do that down here. You can expand obviously in Canada because they don’t have a big, countrywide league in the summer. Down here, they still play baseball year-round. I feel like it’ll be complicated for sure.

I think instead of expanding into Mexico, they’ll expand elsewhere in the United States. It’ll be easier to do from a logistics standpoint, from a business standpoint. Like I said, you can’t put a team in Tijuana because Tijuana has a very prominent team in the summer league. You can’t just take them and kick them to the curb. Monterey has a huge team in this league and in the winter. Our city that we play in isn’t really big, so [MLB] isn’t going to come down here. It’s a difficult place to get to from a fan standpoint because we don’t have an international airport in our city; we fly out of Monterey. I think the logistics on that are going to be a lot harder than people think.

JC: Do you think that if MLB was adamant about moving to a major city in Mexico, that the fans of your league would be at all receptive or do you think the idea of dividing the attention or uprooting an established team would have them turn on MLB?

Maxwell: I think they’d be receptive just because this country and this culture as a whole love baseball. These are some of the most intense fans I’ve ever been around, and I love it. But at the cost of losing one of their teams, I don’t know how that would go. Mexico City has been a big talking point with expansion, but they have a big-league stadium and their team is the focal point of Mexico City. I don’t see their owner or their management forgoing their own team to bring an MLB team down here. I don’t truly see that happening. Now, could I see two teams? Not really because that would be a conflict of interest for the local team, the Diablos, but I don’t see them putting two teams in the same city in different leagues, at the same time.

Not to mention, you also have to think about the safety precautions too. I’ve been down here long enough, I’ve heard, I’ve had my shares of cartel run-ins and I know a lot of other people have too. So bringing an MLB sanctioned team down here with guys making twenty, thirty, forty million dollars a year—you have to think about everything. This still is Mexico. For that to be a thing, there would have to be a ridiculous amount of security for those guys, because shit happens, and it does. I’ve heard stories from a lot of players who came down for the winter or even visited and things got a little weird. So [if] you bring a sanctioned team down here where this is your home field, there are a lot of logistics and red tape that needs to be laid out to be organized for it to be a secure and beneficial decision.

Especially over the last eight or nine years, the border is a touchy subject. In [MLB], when we fly with teams, you go through your own security, you get on your own plane. Down here for that to happen, you have to get permission from the government to move and operate that way. It’s not as simple as people might think, especially when we’re talking about private [flights]. Everything you do down here—especially when you’re not a native—everything has to be approved by the Mexican government. And it also has to be up to standards of everywhere else in the United States where you go to play other teams. There can’t be any differentiation in the way you move because you’re going to be potentially putting other teams and players at risk. You can’t be subpar; everything has to be at a specific level and it can never go below that.

JC: I wanted to wrap up this interview by touching on something you had recently mentioned in another interview—that you have interest in eventually starting or joining a baseball academy. Firstly, what draws you in to focusing on youth baseball, both in the states and out?

Maxwell: Personally, I just love kids. I love the game of baseball. When I was growing up, my dad made sure I learned the game and learned it the right way. I’m a very fundamental individual and I truly enjoyed the work and the preparation it takes to do what I do at the level that I do it. I’m not a showboat—I never have been. I don’t really do much extra stuff on the field when it comes to the “look at me.” I feel like nowadays we need more guys who have played at the highest level and truly do love the game, we need more of those old-school teachings back in youth baseball. Everything I see nowadays is kids trying to do was [Fernando] Tatís, trying to do what [Craig] Kimbrel does, trying to do what Aaron Judge does.

I feel like we’re losing the youth, when it comes to actual fundamentals and the respect of the game of baseball. Everyone thinks it’s really cool when somebody bat-flips on TV, but we’re talking about a guy who just bat-flipped and he’s making $30 million and he’s an adult. I love to teach at the kids’ level. I love to teach the various things I’ve learned from pro ball from a catching standpoint and hitting standpoint. I just feel like nowadays, coaches are going out that are dad’s first that are just putting money together with a group of their kids’ friends’ [parents] and they’re slapping a name on their team like, “Oh, I just made a travel team.”

It wasn’t like that when I was growing up. I was fundamentally sound. My dad drilled the fundamentals. If I did anything outside of the normalcy of the game, my dad made me believe and drilled into me that that’s not how you play the game. He was like “when you get on TV and you’re making millions of dollars a year, yeah, if you want to hit a homer and showboat then go right ahead, but until that day you’re gonna bust your ass and do everything the right way.”

I feel like our youth deserves that. I feel like the game of baseball deserves that. At the end of the day, I truly enjoy instructing and I truly enjoy kids. To be able to give kids those nuggets of how the game really works and them truly receiving it and seeing it applied, I personally think it’s one of the best feelings in the world. I want to instruct, I want to coach, whether it be with me or a group.

Obviously, I haven’t thought of the logistics since I’m still playing, I’d love to get together with a group of guys who have that old-school mentality of the game of baseball and respecting baseball, to put together a facility or an academy that teaches those kids that taps into youth nowadays whether it be in America or elsewhere.

JC: Lastly, if the Oakland A’s were to relocate from Oakland, how do you think it would affect the roughly 100,000 children in the immediate area in terms of their love of the game and interest in playing the game?

Maxwell: It would definitely affect them in a negative light. If [the A’s] move, you kind of take that history with it. The history of growing up and watching your Rickey Henderson’s, your Bash Brothers, Dave Stewart—any of those guys who have come through there and set history in the game of baseball on and off the field—as soon as you move, you kind of take that environment away from the locals. You also take away that environment from the players.

To be honest with you, there was nothing like walking in on my debut and seeing the Stewart, the Rickey Henderson, the [Dennis] Eckersley [retired number tarps on Mount Davis], there’s nothing like that. Seeing the hall of fame reunion in ’17 or ’18 and all those guys coming back on the field, it won’t be the same doing it in another location.

I think the die-hard A’s fans out there, which I know a few, I think it’ll deeply hurt them if they move because of the things going on right now where the fans are struggling to support, just because year after year, the A’s decide not to invest in their team, so it's hard for the fans to invest in the team as well. I feel like it would really damage the city of Oakland because they’re going to be the last. Once [the A’s] leave, there’s nothing else there. They’re the last team in Oakland.

I think there’d still be a lot of people that still support the A’s, but at the same time the history and the mantra of the Oakland A’s and the Oakland community would take a really, really big hit. And I don’t see that recovering anytime soon. That would be upsetting because that place has so much history and the locals have poured into that team and that franchise so much. It would just be detrimental to that city’s survival and that city’s camaraderie when it comes to the A’s.

JC: Before we wrap this up, is there anything else that you wanted to touch on? Anything that you want to pass onto A’s fans?

Maxwell: To pass onto A’s fans, I would have to say I know the situation in hand is rough and it has been for a while, but don’t let the management and the decisions being made take away your love of the game. At the end of the day, this is a business and these things suck—I know they do—especially for the lifelong A’s fans and the born-and-bred Oakland fanbase. But, at the end of the day—I know it’s hard to do—but don’t let the business side of the hometown team take away your love of baseball.

Once you take that away, it’s very hard to get back. That’s coming from a player who was at that point a few years back. I had to do some soul searching to find my love of the game again. I know it sucks and it’s hard, but stay in it. Stay hard. And just try and find the little bit of bliss while you can, because the game of baseball is special.

Once you lose the love of it, it’s very, very hard to get it back.