Party at Napoli’s? Indians fans hope he brings the celebration to them
CLEVELAND — When you talk to Mike Napoli, it is hard to avert your eyes from the top of his left hand. On it is a tattoo of spindly fingers crawling out of an eyeball. Napoli, the good-time first baseman for the Cleveland Indians, explained that he had to fill that space somehow.
Well … fair enough. But why a hand crawling out of an eyeball?
“Hand-eye coordination,” Napoli explained, and that seemed plausible. Quite clever, really, for an athlete who needs those skills. Napoli laughed. He was just kidding. “That’s what everyone thinks, though,” he said.
The tattoo might as well stay a mystery, just like the phenomenon of “Party at Napoli’s,” the unofficial victory cry for the American League champions, who took the opener of the World Series from the Chicago Cubs on Tuesday night.
What really happens at a party at Napoli’s? Don’t ask Indians manager Terry Francona. He’s never been.
“I don’t want to get injured,” Francona said.
Napoli, who turns 35 next week, would allow only that he throws a good party, which makes sense for a player used to celebrations. He has now helped three AL teams reach the World Series in six years, including the 2011 Texas Rangers and the 2013 Boston Red Sox.
Napoli celebrated the title the Red Sox won by roaming shirtless through the streets of Boston. Everybody loves a party animal, and his reputation followed him to Cleveland, where he signed a one-year, $7 million deal in January and then belted 34 homers and drove in 101 runs this season.
“There was a guy with a sign this year, he had a big old sign out in the outfield,” Napoli said, referring to a fan named Nate Crowe. “He made two shirts, and I wore it in a postgame interview. The team came to me, and they were like, ‘We want to make the shirts.’ I said: ‘Yeah, that’s cool, you’re probably going to make some money off it. I don’t want any, but let’s try to spin it off and get some money for charity.’ It just blew up.”
Koji Uehara, left, celebrates with Mike Napoli, right,after pitching in the ninth inning against the Texas Rangers to lead the team to a 5-1 win at Fenway Park in 2014.
The “Party at Napoli’s” T-shirts, made by 108 Stitches, have raised more than $120,000 for Cleveland Clinic Children’s hospital. Napoli said he does not try to play up his zany side, but accepts that it comes naturally.
“I have a fun personality,” he said. “I’ve been single my whole career. I like to have fun on and off the field.”
Jason Kipnis, the Indians’ second baseman, said he was not sure at first what to make of Napoli, a former catcher who is 6-foot-1 and 225 pounds. After a spring training outing at a golf tournament in Scottsdale, Arizona, Kipnis said, he knew he would have fun.
“You see this husky human with a big chest and a big beard, and you’re not sure how he is,” Kipnis said. “And then you talk to him and you’re like, ‘That guy is not fitting his appearance.’ He’s a good guy, he’s got a lot of jokes, he’s fun to be around and he’s just got the right attitude about a lot of things.”
Napoli had to scrap his way to his decade in the majors. He was the 500th player chosen in the 2000 draft, by the Los Angeles Angels in the 17th round out of a high school in Pembroke Pines, Florida. Despite his low profile, managers were drawn to him.
“He was a guy you really rooted for,” said the Indians’ hitting coach, Ty Van Burkleo, who was then the Angels’ minor league hitting coordinator. “There was always someone in the system that was a higher draft pick, considered a better prospect, but coaches were always like, ‘This guy may be better than all of them.’”
Van Burkleo continued: “A lot of it was the intangibles. He’s a student of the game. He really soaks up any knowledge he can get, and it’s turned him into a winning player. He’s been to the playoffs eight times. It’s not luck.”
Napoli helped the Angels reach the playoffs three times. He hit .350 with two homers and 10 RBIs for Texas in the 2011 Series, and might have been named the most valuable player had the Rangers won.
Two years later, with Boston, Napoli homered off Detroit Tigers’ Justin Verlander for the only run in Game 3 of the AL Championship Series. He has not hit much this postseason (3 for 31 through Tuesday), but he came up big again in Game 3 of the ALCS, with a homer and two RBIs to lift Cleveland to a 4-2 victory.
“During game time, he’s one of the best competitors I’ve ever seen,” right fielder Lonnie Chisenhall said. “He’s 100 percent locked in. He doesn’t say a whole lot in the clubhouse; it’s just leading by example. He doesn’t have to say a word.”
Napoli is not fast but is considered one of the game’s best base runners; Francona, a baseball lifer, said Napoli moves up on balls in the dirt as well as anyone he has ever seen. His instincts come from his years as a catcher, which ended in 2013 because of a hip condition but still influence how he watches a game.
“Oh, 100 percent — I’m at first base saying in my head, ‘Throw this now,’” Napoli said, adding that he missed that part of the game. “The chess match, remembering how I got guys out before. But the physical part, I don’t miss that.”
Napoli has settled into his role as a modern version of 1980s Don Baylor, a slugger who helped three AL teams (Boston, Minnesota and Oakland) reach the World Series in consecutive seasons. He gets to the ballpark early, puts in his work and has his fun — as shown by the open locker he shares with Kipnis at Progressive Field.
It is a shrine to the voodoo god Jobu from the slapstick film “Major League.” Really, Napoli insisted, it is not a big deal.
“It’s nothing crazy,” he said. “We just have some bobbleheads in there, with some incense and some rum, everything involved in that movie. Things get added to it here and there. There’s Champagne bottles from celebrations, party hats.”
Nothing crazy. At least not for Napoli, the life of the party, who could soon host a Cleveland baseball bash for the ages.
