About every other week, a "Tex message" arrives on Greg Bird's cellphone. These missives, from former New York Yankees teammate Mark Teixeira, usually emphasize the same point: Trust your talent.
"If he does that, he is going to have a great year and a great career," Teixeira said of his successor at first base in the Bronx.
In 2017, in his first season as the regular first baseman, Bird has struggled, but no one around the team is losing trust in him. After tearing up the Grapefruit League, Bird is hitting an abysmal .100 (6-for-60) with one home run and three RBIs in 19 games.
On Tuesday, the Yankees finally gave Bird a timeout, but not a demotion, placing him on the 10-day disabled list for a bruise on his right ankle he suffered at the end of spring training. Brian Cashman has been asked if Bird should try to fix his game at Triple-A, a suggestion the Yankees GM has shot down.
Bird is just as confident in himself as the team’s decision-makers. Though he has not performed on the field, his beyond-his-years maturity is a good sign.
"In my mind, how you handle failure helps you handle success," Bird, 24, said. "If you talk the talk, you have to walk the walk. I think I owe it to my teammates to keep my head up and keep working and trust that the work will take over."
When Teixeira was on a September rehab assignment five years ago, the two spent a day together. Bird noticed that everything had a purpose in Teixeira’s routine. Teixeira emphasized the quality of the work, not the quantity.
"[What] Tex and I have talked about is, just trust yourself, trust your work, trust your offseason, trust your ability and just keep going and playing," Bird said.
In 2015, Bird was very good while replacing an injured Teixeira and hitting 11 home runs in 46 games. He missed all of last season with a shoulder injury. But in watching the veterans this spring and during his first stint in the majors, Bird developed his own routine to make surviving and succeeding over 162 games possible. It's helped him find a comfort level off the field, though it hasn’t yet translated onto it.
At the moment, Bird lives in a boutique hotel room that the Yankees arranged for him, but he plans on renting a place on the Lower West Side of Manhattan. On game days, he takes it easy in the morning -- waking up around 9 or 10 a.m. After eating breakfast, watching some TV and running a few errands, he makes the 25-minute drive to the Bronx. Bird doesn't mind the traffic; he leaves himself plenty of time for everything.
"I personally don’t like to be rushed," Bird said. "I like to have my space."
When he arrives, Bird does prehab stretching, designed to prevent injuries. Five or so hours before the first pitch, Bird uses foam rollers to free up his muscles for the game. At about 3 p.m., he'll hit in the cage, but he isn’t a guy who spends endless time swinging.
"The message for a lot of young players is that, 'As long as I am in the cage for an hour a day, they will think that I am working hard,'" said Teixeira, now an ESPN analyst. "That is not necessarily the right thing to do."
"In my mind, how you handle failure helps you handle success. ... I think I owe it to my teammates to keep my head up and keep working and trust that the work will take over." Greg Bird
Bird understands this, but it doesn’t prevent him from getting to the ballpark early. On the road, Bird often takes an Uber to the stadium, ordering one a little after 1 p.m. for a 7 p.m. game -- enough to raise some drivers' eyebrows.
"You are going to the stadium for the game?" he's been asked. "It’s a little early."
Typically, Bird doesn’t explain that, well, he plays first base for the Yankees. It's not that he's unfriendly; he's just quiet and focused, a guy who goes about his business with a singular purpose.
"He is always focused on the task at hand," Bird’s buddy Aaron Judge, 25, said. "You see a smile here and there. He is pretty mature for his age. When I first met him, I couldn’t believe I was older than him. He is a mature guy. He takes care of business.
"When I got moved from low-A to high-A [in 2014], he was in Tampa for a couple of weeks. [I thought] this guy must be a 30-year-old, dropping bombs."
Even as a boy, Bird has always hung out with the older kids. Besides Teixeira, Alex Rodriguez and Carlos Beltran, Bird has a long list of Yankees he's shadowed, including Brett Gardner, Chase Headley and Brian McCann.
They've taught him one main lesson, Bird said: "That you have your own routine and whatever it is, it is OK, because it is yours."
The common thread that ran through Yankees greats like Derek Jeter and A-Rod was an almost robotic commitment to routine. Bird has that commitment.
Teixeira thinks the foul ball off his foot messed with Bird's timing, but once he gets fully healthy and finds his rhythm, he'll be back on track.
"Birdie is one of those guys that he is not going to get too high," Teixeira said. "He is not going to get too low. It is who he is. It is what he has to do to be successful."