James Wood, who has been billed as “the next face of the Washington Nationals’ franchise,” certainly lived up to that billing in his debut with the Nats this past week.
During his first seven games with the team, the 6-foot-7 21-year-old had checked pretty much all the boxes, his “firsts” including a home run, a double, a multi-r.b.i. game, a multi-hit game, a walk, and a stolen base.
Wood’s father, Kenny, led East Hampton High School to a state basketball championship in 1989 before starring at the University of Richmond and playing professionally in South America and Spain. His uncle Howard, a former N.B.A. and Spanish premier league basketball player, still lives in East Hampton.
“It seemed all of Bonac was watching!” Michael Sarlo, East Hampton Town’s police chief, said in an email. “We had a group of texts flying around among Bonac alums and teammates of Kenny’s, including Billy Barbour, Jason Menu, and the McKees. There was so much excitement and anticipation, so for him to get a base hit in his first Major League at-bat was just incredible. I was so happy for James and the entire Wood family. I know how hard James works, and how much pride the family takes in what a great young man he is. It was surreal to see Kenny and [his wife] Paula and the girls [Sydney and Kayla] in the stands watching such an incredible moment.”
“It’s no surprise that he has handled himself with such poise and looks so at ease breaking into the Majors,” Sarlo said. “He has that inner calm and trusts the work he puts in to translate onto the field.”
Jessica Camerato, in a story that appeared on the Nationals’ website Monday, added that “Wood is batting .320 and has reached first base safely in his first seven games, the second-longest streak by a Nats’ rookie in their history (2005-present).”
On July 1, the day he was called up from the Triple-A Rochester Red Wings, Wood received a rousing standing ovation by the some-26,000 fans at Nationals Park — a crowd that was said to have included more than 50 members of the Wood family — as he walked to the plate. Moments later, he had his first Major League hit, a line-drive single.
The Woods live in Olney, Md., just 35 minutes from the Nationals’ ball field. “I’ve been in touch with Mike . . . we’ve been getting so much support from our friends in East Hampton,” Kenny Wood said by phone Friday. It was, he added, much appreciated, especially considering that his friends here were Mets fans, whose loyalties from here on undoubtedly will be divided.
Kenny Wood, who was a very good pitcher in his high school years here, said he never pushed his son to play baseball. He’d been told it was more healthy for a youngster to grow up playing a variety of sports. James, he said, had played basketball into his junior year in high school before transferring to the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., to play baseball exclusively.
Drafted by the San Diego Padres, Wood was among several top MajorLeague prospects traded for Juan Soto in 2022, a trade that the Padres presumably regret.
Oh, yes, he was proud of his son, Kenny Wood said, adding that he was “proud of all my kids — they’re all doing well.” His daughter Sydney, a former star guard and captain of Northwestern University’s women’s basketball team, is with the San Antonio Spurs’ basketball operations department, and Kayla, his oldest child, is an environmental scientist.
In related – literally — news, Sarlo and Scott Rubenstein, who manages the East Hampton Indoor/Outdoor Tennis Club in Wainscott, are proposing
that Howard and Kenny Wood be inducted into Suffolk’s Sports Hall of Fame in acknowledgement of their high school, collegiate, and professional basketball careers. The brothers are members of their colleges’ Halls of Fame — Howard’s alma mater being the University of Tennessee — and of East Hampton High School’s Hall of Fame.
Such accolades were, said Sarlo, “obviously long overdue — Kenny and Howard’s teammates want to make sure that this gets addressed.”
