Years after high school tiff, Trevor Bauer, Mike Montgomery land in World Series

CLEVELAND – Trevor Bauer’s suffer-no-fools mentality has always been his best weapon, from his days as a high school underclassman, through a dominant stint at UCLA and into a major league career that’s been solid, if statistically unremarkable.

Now, the cerebral right-hander has arrived on baseball’s grandest stage, which provides him both a platform for his skills and  reminders that he didn’t get here by being polite.

That mentality has cost him allies. It also ensured that he will start Game 2 of the World Series for the Cleveland Indians on Wednesday.

“I think everybody wants to be accepted. I don’t think he’s going to do things just to be accepted,” says Indians pitching coach Mickey Callaway. “I’m so glad he’s like that and that we have a prepared pitcher every night he pitches.

“I think he’s going to do whatever it is to make himself the best pitcher possible - whether it makes somebody accept him or not.”

And this World Series provides Bauer an up close reminder of the occasional collateral damage resulting from him merely being himself.

Mike Montgomery, a key member of the Chicago Cubs bullpen, was a teammate of Bauer’s at Hart High School, a California athletic powerhouse that’s produced six current major leaguers. They pitched on a 2008 team that went 23-7.

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Montgomery was a year ahead of Bauer, and was the 36th overall pick in the 2008 draft.

Bauer also did not pitch again for Hart – in part because of a hostile environment fostered by older players on the team who did not take to Bauer’s brash attitude or his unusual training techniques.

“It was enough to make me decide not to play my senior year, regardless of if I had a chance to go to college or not,” Bauer said Monday. “So, I’ll leave it there.”

Instead, Bauer enrolled early at UCLA, where he majored in mechanical engineering and dominated Pac-10 hitters; after three seasons, he was picked third overall by the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Leaving high school early was the right decision for Bauer. Montgomery understands.

“We had a lot of seniors,” Montgomery said of his 2008 squad. “We probably gave him a hard time. But he handled it pretty well and we had a lot of fun with everybody.

“Everybody on that team was getting made fun of, just normal stuff.”

Yet it was Bauer who stood out, thanks to a give-no-quarter mentality that Montgomery says extended even to mundane tasks like batting practice or shagging balls. A bit intense, sure – but characteristics that came to define Bauer.“From the beginning, I could see how ultra-competitive he is,” Montgomery says. “It was always a big competition.”

Bauer promised Montgomery he would strike out more batters than him in 2008.

“I did,” Bauer said Monday, an icy grin on his face. “We had our struggles, but have kind of mended the fence since then.”

Indeed, there have been some awkward moments between the two. Oddly enough, they did not meet until Montgomery’s senior year, although they grew up just a few blocks from each other amid the sprawling housing tracts of Santa Clarita, a Los Angeles exurb just down the road from Magic Mountain.

Now, their fathers often run into each other when Montgomery’s dad walks his dog.

The passage of time has allowed some of the tension to deflate. So, too, has Bauer’s success.

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An early proponent of unusual training methods such as the use of weighted baseballs, arm bands and extreme long toss – throwing up to 360 feet before a game – Bauer has long been viewed as an iconoclast.

As a brainy 15-year-old tossed into the alpha environment of a successful high school program, those methods served as a virtual kick-me sign. Now, they’re viewed a bit differently.

“The pregame routine and the bands and the blade thing that he does, all that stuff combined - we all looked at each other like, ‘What is this guy doing?” Montgomery recalls. “Then when he gets out there and is pitching we’re like, “Oh, maybe we should be doing that, too.’

“I know he’s definitely hard-headed, and has issues with different things, but that’s part of what makes him good. Good for him for sticking to what he knows.”

Going for what he knows accelerated his departure from the Diamondbacks, who traded him to Cleveland just 18 months after drafting him in 2012. He has settled in with the Indians, his 12-8 record and 4.26 ERA this year evidence that he belongs here.

The stat line suggests an ordinary pitcher. That’s never quite the case with Bauer.

He gained national attention in the American League Championship Series, when stitches on his right pinkie split open during his Game 2 start. He lasted just four batters before blood rushed from the wound, a spectacular bit of televised theater.

That the wound occurred while Bauer was repairing a drone he built only added to his lore. And attracted significant attention at Monday’s World Series media day, a 45-minute session during which Bauer admitted he was miserable.

He patiently, but curtly, answered affirmatively that the wound was now healed and he was good to go for Game 2.

Anything you can’t do?

“Fly my drone,” he replied, deadpan.

And so it went, his words betraying the intensity in his eyes. Bauer’s career may indeed be defined by struggles borne of others not getting on his level.

At 25, he's not about to look back. When asked Tuesday if he consulted former UCLA teammate Gerrit Cole - the Pittsburgh Pirates' ace - for advice on how to attack Chicago Cubs hitters, Bauer did not hesitate.

"I've spoken to him once since we left school," Bauer said. "So, no."

That's a story for another day. Wednesday, Bauer's path will lead him to the Progressive Field mound, and a World Series start.