Trevor Bauer of the Cleveland Indians is evaluated by a trainer in the first inning of 2016’s ALCS Game 3 due to a cut on his pinky finger suffered while repairing a drone. (Photo by Elsa/Getty Images)
Noted technophile and drone pilot Trevor Bauer — who moonlights as a starting pitcher for the American League’s top team, the Cleveland Indians — has lost one of his prized machines and taken to Twitter in search of the culprit.
The 26-year-old former UCLA engineering major spent his off-day on Monday flying one of his two drones around Clague Park in Westlake, Ohio, about a 15-minute drive west of downtown Cleveland. Bauer told reporters that the drone crashed in the park, and he was unable to locate it.
“If I don’t get it back, I’ll have to make a third one,” Bauer said with a smile. “And no Cleveland fan wants me to be building a drone right now.”
Ah, yes, the memories of the 2016 postseason. Bauer lacerated the pinky finger on his throwing hand while doing what he called routine maintenance on a drone last October. He required stitches and, in his first start after the accident against the Toronto Blue Jays, the wound opened and he wasn’t able to finish even the first inning.
Making his first media appearance after that outing, Bauer brought the drone to the press conference dais, joking, “I brought my friend to answer any questions about what happened that I can’t answer.” That particular drone, he said, was one he designed on a CAD program and had 3-D printed some parts.
Later in the interview, Bauer explained the origin of his passion: “I’m a big nerd. And I like ‘Star Wars’ a lot. So in 2013 I saw a video of these drones with the LED lights on the back of them racing through the forest and it reminded me of the scene on Endor where they’re driving the speeder bikes, and I said, That looks awesome, I’ve got to learn how to do that.”
Later in that session, Bauer offered some foreshadowing of this week’s crash, explaining, “I fly them hard. I try to push my limits and learn new tricks, and fly closer to obstacles. So I crash a lot. That’s one of the things I’m most proud about. This one crashes really well and it doesn’t break. Definitely a lot of adversity. I’m always fixing them, repairing them. I have like eight or ten of them in my fleet, and at any given time usually about one or two of them are actually working. So lots of repairs.”
Indians manager Terry Francona, always quick with a quip, excused his pitcher publicly, joking, “I think we’ve all, probably everybody in here probably at some point or another had a drone-related problem.” A few days later, when discussing the World Series roster, Francona said he was glad to have more time to finalize the list: “Nothing’s official [yet], so if we have another drone incident or anything with model airplanes or anything, we reserve the right till we have to turn it in.”
Bauer returned to the mound in last year’s World Series but was ineffective in two starts; as a reliever, he escaped a bases-loaded jam he had inherited in the 10th inning of Game 7.
His hobby has since taken on a life of its own. His former Triple A club, the Reno Aces in the Arizona Diamondbacks system, had a special Trevor Bauer Drone Bobblehead giveaway earlier this summer. For now, Bauer just wants to track down his lost machine.
“I hope I find it,” he said. “If not, it’s a pretty funny story.”
