ALTOONA, Pa. — Shortstop Cole Tucker, one of the youngest players on the Class AA Altoona roster, has a locker just a couple of spots away from the team’s oldest member, Tyler Gaffney.
But age isn’t the first thing that comes to Tucker’s mind about the 27-year old left fielder who was called up to Altoona on June 2.
“When I think of Tyler Gaffney, I don’t think of ‘Oh, he’s the old guy in the clubhouse,’ ” Tucker said. “I think, ‘Oh, that’s the guy that hangs out with Gronk and Tom Brady and stuff.’ So yeah, he’s older, but he fits right in. He’s a good addition.”
Gaffney spent the past four years as a running back in the NFL, winning a pair of Super Bowls with the New England Patriots before returning to the Pirates organization that drafted him in the 24th round out of Stanford in 2012. His age and football background make him an asset in the minor-league environment, which aims to develop players’ maturity and competitiveness as much as their fastballs and batting eyes.
“You can learn a lot from just perspective. I was around all-time greats: Tom Brady, Bill Belichick,” Gaffney said. “I learned from them more than just football. I learned how to go about your business, how to be a professional, how to be successful. I’d like to think that I act like that in this locker room.”
Gaffney played both sports at Stanford, taking handoffs from future NFL quarterbacks Andrew Luck and Kevin Hogan and patrolling the outfield with Stephen Piscotty, who’s been starting in the major leagues since 2015.
Gaffney hit .297 in 38 games for low-A State College in 2012. The next fall, he returned to Stanford for his final year of football eligibility, and in 2014 the Carolina Panthers drafted him in the sixth round of the NFL draft.
Over the next four seasons, Gaffney battled injuries and bounced around the NFL waiver wire. Though he never played a regular-season snap, Gaffney was on a roster in some capacity — mostly practice squads or the injured reserve — nearly every week.
“I couldn’t let that opportunity pass in life. You don’t get drafted in the NFL every day,” Gaffney said. “I was all-in for football, [but] over the years, I missed baseball. I had a couple of injuries, and they all just came pointing back to this.”
Last year, one final injury persuaded Gaffney to return to baseball, which he described as his first love. Gaffney began the year at high-A Bradenton and earned a promotion to Altoona after 38 games. In 16 games with Altoona entering Thursday, Gaffney is batting .257 with a .341 on-base percentage. He lost 25 pounds to return to baseball, he said, but kept the aggressiveness he learned on the gridiron.
“He’s diving for balls in the outfield, he’s running the bases all-out all the time,” Tucker said. “He definitely brings that football mentality.”
Tucker’s conversations with Gaffney, a married father of two, often go beyond reminiscing about his football career. Tucker, who turns 22 in July, was only half-joking when he said he simply asks Gaffney about “being an adult.”
“He’s got a family that he’s supporting. He’s just a grown man,” Altoona manager Michael Ryan said. “It’s good for our guys that don’t have that yet or that want that, to show what a man is. And the presences that he has, the work ethic that he has, it’s a blessing for us here.”
Gaffney’s roller-coaster athletics career has opened his and his wife’s eyes to the world and taught them to “enjoy the journey,” he said. In the past eight years, he estimated, he’s lived in more than 20 places.
That type of perspective is why his newest team is glad Gaffney’s winding road took him to Altoona, somewhere he admits he never imagined he’d end up.
“He brings a wealth of knowledge; he’s been all over the world,” Tucker said. “He’s done something that we all obviously kind of marvel at. We all play fantasy football, [but] he’s in that world. It’s cool to pick his brain on stuff like that.”
James Crabtree-Hannigan: jhannigan@post-gazette.com
First Published: July 5, 2018, 3:19 p.m.
