MILWAUKEE — When the injury to shortstop Corey Seager punched a massive hole in the Los Angeles Dodgers, and the team began gathering intelligence on Baltimore Orioles shortstop Manny Machado as a possible patch midseason, Dodgers hitting coach Turner Ward called his friend and former minor league teammate Buck Showalter.
“All you need to know,” the Orioles manager told Ward, “is that we call him Snow Leopard.”
“Snow Leopard?” replied a stumped Ward.
“Snow Leopard,” Showalter said, “because what this guy does on a baseball field makes him a rare species. There are only a few who can do what he does.