Veteran minor leaguer Cody Decker loosens up 51s clubhouse

Cody Decker sat on the floor in the hallway just outside the 51s’ clubhouse posing for pictures on an August day with a plush Mensch on the Bench on one side of him and a cardboard cutout of Brad Ausmus on the other.

As some teammates filtered out of the clubhouse and on to the field to begin their afternoon work, it caught their attention. A few laughed. Others shook their heads.

None questioned what he was doing. At this point, they’re used to it.

“That’s one of his things,” hitting coach Jack Voigt said of the two props. “It’s like, ‘Why that?’ But you just sit there and you don’t really need to know why. You just say, ‘Why?’ That’s part of the humor.”

In a tough season for the 51s, one in which they have been out of contention for months, Decker helps loosen up the clubhouse just by being himself.

The 30-year-old first baseman doesn’t

want to take credit for being solely responsible for loosening up the clubhouse — he joined the 51s in mid-June after starting his season in Double A and said the guys in the clubhouse were good at doing that without him.

But there’s no doubt he’s helped play a role in it.

“He’s a great clubhouse guy,” Voigt said. “It comes from him never really being upset. He’s always positive. He’s always ready to go to work, and his energy and his character just kind of spreads around with guys.”

Decker, who has been in the minors since 2009, has seen an increase in playing time since the New York Mets called up first base prospect Dominic Smith. Decker has 11 major league at-bats. He’s still searching for his first career hit.

After debuting with the San Diego Padres in 2015, he bounced around in 2016, playing in three organizations before latching on with the Mets this season.

“I had plenty of years where I was silently (cursing) the world for my situation,” Decker said.

No more. With experience came a shift in attitude.

“The only thing I can handle is that at-bat, that next pitch, that fly ball, that ground ball. That’s it,” Decker said. “Where my career goes from there is not remotely up to me.”

There are other things he can control, as he learned from a former manager, that he tries to focus on:

1. Prepare to play good.

2. Play good.

3. No matter what the outcome is, treat yourself good.

Step three is the hardest to do, but Decker has been working on it. After a bad game, it would be easy to be upset. He tries not to be. The best thing, he’s found, is to laugh it off, make fun of himself and move forward.

“He loves the game. He plays the game hard no matter what,” teammate Donovan Hand said. “No matter what else he does, you know when he’s out there, he’s going to give you 100 percent.”

He works hard. He trains hard. He leads active minor leaguers in home runs with 187, a sign he’s been around for a while.

He first reached Triple A in 2012. It’s difficult. He knows that as well as anyone.

He compared it to being a kid with fingerless gloves standing in the snow outside the window watching as everyone had a nice Christmas dinner while clawing outside on the window.

“I want food. I’m hungry, too. It’s like that, and it can be like that if you let it,” Decker said. “What’s important is to enjoy yourself (and) remember it’s baseball. … Any time you take an adult approach to baseball, you’re wasting your time.”

Decker the filmmaker

As a student-athlete at UCLA, Decker minored in film. It’s something he’s always been interested in.

When he was growing up, he and the twins next door made a series called “Daddy No,” about a murderous father who terrorized the town. It was based off a Little League teammate’s dad.

He was part of a theater program in high school in Santa Monica, California. He grew up around the industry. He has family and friends in the industry. He appeared in an episode of “State of Affairs.” He was a mall security guard who got blown up. He has his Screen Actors Guild card.

He prefers comedy because, as he says, “I’m a funny guy. Extremely charming and all that. It’s super easy. It just exudes out of me.”

Decker’s most popular film, “On Jeff Ears,” came a few years back when he convinced El Paso Chihuahuas teammate Jeff Francoeur that fellow teammate Jorge Reyes was deaf for a month. It went viral. More than 1.5 million people have viewed the video.

Recently, videos have featured his Mensch on the Bench and Brad.

He got his Mensch during a World Baseball Classic qualifier. It came with Team Israel into the tournament. It was the team’s Jobu. Players gave it offerings of gelt, gefilte fish and Manischewitz.

The cardboard cutout of Ausmus, his former Team Israel manager, is a few years older. Sometimes he likes to hide it in the bathroom and wait for a teammate to walk in the stall.

In his first short clip from this year, “The Meeting,” Decker sat between the two in the clubhouse and told them their feuding needed to end.

His second, “The 4A Team,” a play on the “A-Team,” starred Decker, Brad and Mensch and allowed Decker an opportunity to showcase his creativity and have some fun.

“It’s important to just kind of keep it loose and remind yourself that this is a kid’s game,” Decker said. “It’s made for 12 year olds. It’s made for the Little League World Series kids. It’s not made for us. We just happen to be lucky enough to keep playing.”

Contact Betsy Helfand at bhelfand@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BetsyHelfand on Twitter.