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After a missed season, Birdsong looks to improve in minors at Augusta
“I knew the year off wasn’t going to help my baseball career,” Cody Birdsong said. “I knew I needed to come back and show some people that I had improved.”
After being drafted by the Atlanta Braves in the 32nd round in 2019, Birdsong played 57 games in rookie ball and finished with a .234 batting average and four home runs.
His second year, however, was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. So the Neelyville alum went home.
“That was the longest I’ve been home since I was a little kid,” Birdsong said. “I just love playing baseball, and I needed it back bad.”
After graduating from Neelyville, Birdsong played for Quincy University. There were a couple of times where he thought he might get drafted and wasn’t.
After hitting .284 with a .902 OPS and 13 home runs, second-most on the team, during his senior season, Birdsong got that draft day phone call from the Braves. His phone started blowing up on an emotional day, and things moved pretty quickly after that.
The Braves told him to pack and get ready. They wanted him on a flight soon.
“I think I flew out two days later,” Birdsong said. “If you’re going to sign, they want you there as quick as possible for physicals and stuff.”
He kept his glove nearby as a carry-on item and saw other guys at the airport with their own gloves, everyone flying out to their respective teams. While Birdsong had flown before, it was the first time he’d flown without family, and he was stressed out. On top of the usual concerns about losing luggage and things like that, his flight was delayed.
Is someone still picking him up once he lands? Does he need to get an Uber?
“You’re about one thing getting lost from going over the edge,” Birdsong said. “It ended up working out well. They literally assign guys where their only job is to take care of you.”
He got taken care of by the same guy who picked up Chipper Jones and Freddy Freeman when they got drafted. When Birdsong got to the Atlanta Braves equipment room, he realized being so protective of his glove wasn’t necessary.
The Braves, as one might expect, have some spare gloves lying around.
“Your days get started early from then on,” Birdsong said. “I feel like I never unpack.”
For a while, after baseball got taken away, Birdsong’s days were a steady routine. He’s wake up, drink a smoothie, go to the gym for a while, hit, throw, field some grounders, go back to the gym for an hour, and teach some youth baseball lessons to make a little money.
“Some days, I would spend most of my day at the gym,” he said. “I felt like I got in a lot better shape physically to show up to spring training ... I worked hard on the baseball side of things, hitting and throwing, just being a better baseball player.”
The time off also allowed Birdsong to mature mentally and deal with the perpetual failure that playing baseball entails. He accepted that baseball is just an incredibly hard sport. In high school, he said, you can have a bad game and forget about it because you won’t play for a few days. As a pro, you’ve got games six days a week, and that sense of failure can snowball.
Birdsong learned that you have to let stuff go at the end of the day, don’t let one bad at-bat lead to two.
In his first game for Augusta, with his dad in the stands, Birdsong got an RBI and a triple off the wall. He’s appeared in nine games so far this season and is hitting .125, but that doesn’t reflect the bigger picture.
“My stats don’t really matter right now,” Birdsong said. “There’s a lot of people in the organization who have a ton of confidence in me, and that makes me feel better about it.”
The high draft prospects who the Braves have a lot invested in need to get their playing time. At 24, a more mature Birdsong is a leader for the younger guys, some of whom are on their own for the first time. Earlier this season, Birdsong’s roommate had to get on Facetime with his mom to learn how to do laundry.
“When I do play, I’m trying to have good at-bats and be a professional,” he said. “Things work out the way they’re supposed to.”