TOMS RIVER, NJ — The biggest question of the night, of course, is the one on the minds of most local baseball fans: Where is Todd Frazier going to play next year?

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'We're looking for the best fit right now,' Frazier told sportscaster Russ Salzberg, who sat down with the Toms River native at the Grunin Center for the Arts at Ocean County College for the conversation. The sold-out event featured the two sitting on stage having a conversation not only about Frazier's run last season with the Yankees but also looked back on his Little League days and the lessons he's learned over the years.

'At the end of the day we just gotta keep on rolling and figure that out hopefully pretty soon,' Frazier said. He refused to give even a hint of what might be happening in the free agent negotiations, though industry rumors have had the 31-year-old third baseman in talks with the Yankees and Mets, and even the Boston Red Sox.

Frazier said he loved his time with the Yankees and acknowledged Salzberg's comment that the Mets could use his veteran leadership, but refused to say anything that might tip his hand.

Frazier did, however, talk about a number of topics, from the experience of playing in Yankee Stadium after having been there with the Toms River East American Little League All-Stars in 1998, to his thoughts on Pete Rose and the Hall of Fame.

'I think he should be in the Hall of Fame,' Frazier said of baseball's all-time hits leader, who was barred from the Baseball Hall of Fame in the wake of the discovery that Rose had gambled on baseball games, including games involving the Cincinnati Reds, during the 1980s while he was a player and the team's manager. Rose, who finished his career with 4,256 hits, has been barred permanently since 1989. Frazier said he met Rose a few years ago and Rose gave him some tips on his swing. 'When he talks, you're all eyes and all ears. You listen.'

'He's the hit king,' Frazier said. 'He deserved that penalty but he's paid his dues, he's done his time.'

Frazier, who helped put Toms River on the map with the 1998 Little League World Series championship, said he attributes much of his success to his parents and his two older brothers, Charlie and Jeff, who helped him stay grounded.

'My parents told them to kick my rear end,' he said of his brothers. 'It took a few times before I realized I needed to stop acting like a crazy animal.'

He loved growing up in a baseball crazy town, where both the Little League games and his games at Toms River High School South drew big crowds.

'There were thousands of people,' Frazier said. In Williamsport, where there were 40,000 people in the stands, he got his first dose of pressure. Now, it's not something that bothers him.

'If you strike out with the bases loaded you know you will have other chances to get the job done,' he said.

Frazier, who started his career with the Cincinnati Reds in 2011 and finished third in the National League Rookie of the Year voting in 2012, said he was upset with the trade from Cincinnati to the Chicago White Sox in December 2015, but welcomed the trade to the Yankees this year, and went in with the desire to just help the team. He quickly found himself in a leadership role, offering advice to the youngsters, including Aaron Judge.

'I tried to lead by example,' Frazier said, noting he didn't want to step on anyone's toes when he first arrived in the Bronx. 'You go into this clubhouse and see a guy like Aaron Judge and you think, oh, man, I gotta lead this guy, and you're like wait a minute, I gotta tell this guy what to do?' he said, joking about the physically imposing Judge. Frazier is not exactly short at 6-foot-3, but Judge, who's 6-foot-7, seemed to tower over everyone in the dugout.

Frazier talked about Didi Gregorius, who was drafted at the same time Frazier was, and how much Gregorius had grown. His favorite player and best friend on the team, however, was pitcher C.C. Sabathia, Frazier said, drawing cheers from the crowd that was largely Yankees fans.

Frazier also talked about that Little League summer 20 years ago, which came on the heels of his Pop Warner football team winning a national championship in Florida the previous December.

'How many people do that?' Salzberg said.

'It was a lot of luck,' Frazier said. But it was a lot of fun, too: He told of the day before the World Series championship game against Japan, how he and his teammates practiced very loosely. 'We were playing Home Run Derby, messing around, laughing. We looked like the Bad News Bears,' he said. 'But 200 yards away, there was the Japanese team, and everything was pristine. Every time they made a mistake they had to run a lap.'

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That whirlwind summer ended, of course, with the trip to Yankee Stadium that resulted in the now-infamous photo of Frazier, who was a shortstop and pitcher at the time, next to famed Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter.

'The next day we were back in school,' he said.

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Frazier shared his thoughts on several other topics as well.

He said kids should be encouraged to play multiple sports because it helps avoid burnout and injuries from overuse of one set of muscles. Playing another sport works other muscle groups and makes them all stronger, he said, adding that he's hearing too many instances of kids who are in 6th, 7th and 8th grade having Tommy John surgery for an overuse injury.
He believes parents need to walk a very fine line when it comes to pushing their kids to play a particular sport. 'I plan to sit down with mine and ask how's it going' and make sure the kids are really enjoying the sport. He said it's important for parents to be realistic about their child's skills and abilities.
He doesn't work out obsessively or try to be overly muscular, but he makes sure he's ready to go physically when spring training arrives. 'I don't worry about my swings because I know I'll get my swings in spring training,' he said.
When the team has a day off during the 162-day season, Frazier's favorite way to spend it is sleeping in and watching movies. 'I'll get up, have something to eat, go back and doze off again,' he said. 'I'll even go to the movies by myself.'
His pregame rituals are few. He said he makes sure he's out on the field warming up at least 30 minutes before game-time so he can take 10 minutes and sign autographs for kids. 'It's relaxing,' he said. 'You're out there telling stories, joking around.' He also eats four Otis Spunkmeyer cookies. But they can't be burnt. 'If they're burned, I have a bad game. I went 0-for-3 when I got burned ones,' Frazier said. The signing autographs is important, he said. 'I was that kid once,' Frazier said. 'I see it as part of the job.'
The day his foul ball hit a young girl in the face was devastating. 'Thankfully she's doing OK now,' Frazier said. 'To be honest, I thought she was dead.' He said the move by all major league teams to put up netting is an important change, and one the players will have to get used to because they'll no longer be able to reach oer the wall to catch a foul ball. 'At the end of the day, it's just a game. You want everyone to go home healthy and happy,' he said.
If he hadn't been a baseball player, he would have wanted to be a special education teacher, he said. It was something he considered into while he was at Rutgers.

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His favorite memory? 'Hitting my first home run,' Frazier said. 'When you're a kid you're thinking hitting a home run in Yankee Stadium or Mets stadium. When I finally hit my first home run, I was running and I couldn't feel my legs,' he said, 'It was so cool.'

And for the folks who packed the Grunin Center to hear their hometown superstar — both the adults who watched him electrify the crowds in Williamsport and at Toms River South and the kids who are watching him with dreams of someday being just like him — it was a pretty cool memory as well.

Photo by Karen Wall, Patch staff

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