When Danny Met Salvy: How longest-tenured Royals grew together after awkward meeting
Mere months after Dayton Moore took over as general manager of the Kansas City Royals in 2006, the club was on the verge of signing an intriguing 16-year-old prospect named Salvador Perez they were observing yet again at a camp on a military base in his native Venezuela.
For all his evident gifts and the magnetic personality that would become such a part of his future, speed wasn’t his forte. At least not until this particular 60-yard dash time was enhanced by a German shepherd breaking loose from its handler and chasing the terrified Perez.
“The dog was coming from nowhere,” Perez said with a laugh the other day. “And I got super-scared and I just started to run as fast as I can.”
Recalling that he ran that particular 60 more than a second faster than his typical time of around 7.5 seconds, Perez jokingly added that he figured that’s why the Royals signed him.
About eight months later and approximately 3,700 miles away in Lompoc, California, Danny Duffy was in his cap and gown shortly after his high school graduation when the call came: The Royals had made him their third-round pick in their first draft officially under the watch of Moore.
Their first meeting
Elated as Duffy was to be drafted, his longtime dream had been to play for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Enough so that his mother, Deanna, tried to cheer him up and suggest he “just squint” to blur together the Royals’ jersey script and colors with those of the Dodgers.
As it happens, Duffy likely was squinting again a few weeks later when he met Perez for the first time at a Quality Inn in Surprise.
Well into the wee hours before the first day of rookie ball in 2007, Duffy was awakened in his room by a particularly booming voice as music played in the hallway.
Fuming upon exiting his room and making the approach, Duffy barely had blurted out whatever words he used before regretting it in the sudden presence of an “enormous” person turning towards him.
With an edge, Perez said, “Que fue, Papi? Que fue?” (Meaning “What’s up?” or “What’s happening?”)
“I was like, ‘Nothing. Nothing. Sir,’” Duffy recalled. “ ‘You’re good. Carry on.’”
Whether immediately or the next morning in the clubhouse (Duffy has recalled it with slight variations the couple times we’ve spoken about it), that prelude to their improbably enduring connection ends with Perez promptly laughing and reassuring Duffy that he was joking.
Weeks later, on July 25, 2007, Duffy and Perez were battery-mates in a game for the first time. Duffy struck out six in two innings while allowing three unearned runs against the Brewers’ rookie team.
And they’ve carried on together virtually ever since, including now as the longest-tenured players in the organization in the wake of Alex Gordon’s retirement after last season. (While Jarrod Dyson and Greg Holland go back to 2006 and 2007, respectively, each was gone for several years before returning.)
Put another way, few in franchise history (such as Dennis Leonard and Paul Splittorff to Darrell Porter) have delivered more pitches to one catcher than Duffy has to Perez, who has caught 601.1 of Duffy’s 1,111.1 innings in the major leagues (for an estimated 10,071 pitches, based on Duffy’s career average of 16.75 pitches per inning).
And there were plenty more in their largely overlapping rise through the minor-league years before each debuted with the Royals 10 years ago this summer.
To say nothing of all the bullpen sessions and warmups between what by all appearances is the longest-running pitcher-catcher relationship in Royals history.
They’ll likely begin to add to that total Monday night in Cleveland, where Duffy is scheduled to make his 2021 debut in the last season of his current contract, and with no assurance of what’s to come even as Perez recently signed the biggest contract in club history.
So it’s a fine time to pause and appreciate them individually, but also as a tandem.
And in this part of the journey, they’ll hope to extend their distinct and substantial roles in franchise history: from part of the first wave of a magical surge to, suddenly, elder statesmen (Duffy is 32, Perez will be 31 in May) hoping to be part of a more lasting revival.
They’ve seen some things
As they’ve spent their adult lives, and increasingly close to half their entire lives, as Royals, they’ve basked in the glory days and endured deep anguish.
In their time, they’ve won through the minor leagues and were part of back-to-back American League championships and the 2015 World Series triumph. They’ve contended with injuries and hard personal matters. And they shared in the profound loss of Yordano Ventura to a car crash in 2017, something that still binds them.
After Duffy gave up his No. 41 jersey a few weeks ago for newcomer Carlos Santana, Perez was among those he consulted when he was asked to consider being the first to wear Ventura’s No. 30 since his death. As he spoke about telling Duffy “of course” he should wear it, Perez pointed out the goosebumps on his arm.
All of which speaks to how they’ve endeared themselves to countless thousands with their compelling personas and affection for their adopted hometown and organization with which they are entwined.
“Bury Me A Royal” has been Duffy’s mantra for years now. And Perez, who is tied for sixth place among active players in consecutive years with one franchise, says there is no easy way to summarize to what degree being a Royal simply is part of who he is.
“It’s a lot of words,” he said, laughing.
Each certainly has closer friends, and they are plenty different from each other, with Duffy tending to be more introspective and Perez ever-animated.
But each also is an only child with a generous nature, including a desire to put others at ease and make them laugh. And each considers this a lifelong relationship, as Duffy put it.
“I love him like he’s my brother,” Perez said. “He cares about people; he cares about you. Danny Duffy has a great, great heart.”
If for all that it seems like they ought to be able to read each other’s minds by now, well, they can.
There’s little language barrier between them: Perez learned English well before he even reached the major leagues, and Duffy understands Spanish well enough to know what’s being said directly and around the clubhouse even if he’s more comfortable responding in English.
But as he considered the dynamics of their work relationship and the trust between them, the first thing Duffy said was, “We can communicate without saying anything. We can communicate without motioning anything. I feel like I know what he’s thinking. … You can’t teach that. It just comes with time.”
Case in point: That very day in a spring training game against the Angels, Duffy and Perez each separately noted part of what went into Perez picking off Juan Lagares at first base.
Conscious of Lagares’ big lead and ahead in the count, Duffy sensed Perez wanted to “take a stab” at picking him off and threw a pitch he called “transferable to his arm side” that led to the pickoff.
“I’m not in any way taking credit for his cannon of an arm,” Duffy said, smiling. “I’m just saying stuff like that, you know, we click.”
The relationship is a charming through-line on Moore’s tenure with the Royal, a microcosm of his belief in the game’s capacity to make the world smaller and more united.
After all, the two young men grew up in vastly different circumstances geographically, culturally, socio-economically and … about every which way, really.
By way of one example, Duffy is the son of parents who met in law enforcement jobs and Perez was raised by his mother and grandmother (who died in 2013) after his father left and offered no financial support. Each arrived in Surprise in 2007 via practically contrasting routes, and surely had precious little in common when they met.
All these years later, they speak a language of their own and will be connected forever by countless vital shared experiences … starting with seemingly inauspicious first impressions.
This story was originally published April 2, 2021 at 5:00 AM with the headline "When Danny Met Salvy: How longest-tenured Royals grew together after awkward meeting."