Brad Ausmus

Mac can take credit for being the first person to put Brad Ausmus on a surfboard sometime in the early nineties. Mac was, and still is, a carpenter at then Jack Murphy Stadium and a shaper of longboards for himself and his friends. As a Padres catcher starting his 14-year career in the Majors, Ausmus was also Mac’s friend. The board Mac shaped for Ausmus was a nine-foot single fin. His first year as a surfer was an El Nino year and the learning curve was as steep as the faces he dropped into that winter.
Now Brad takes out an insurance policy created specifically so that he can paddle out for the off-season winter swells, despite being a Major League ballplayer.  In the event of a career-ending injury from surfing, his contract with the Houston Astros - the team that took him to five postseason appearances and one World Series - would be worth no more than the paper it was printed on. That special insurance policy makes certain that his Major League salary will still be paid.  Imagine the premium required.
To Brad, it’s a small price to pay (metaphorically speaking).  “I can’t live in a bubble,” he explained. “I love playing baseball but I’m not going to avoid fun.  The risks of surfing are outweighed by the enjoyment.”  In describing the lesser-known sport he is passionate about, Brad is quick to illustrate the benefits in spite of the gamble involved with having such a high profile job. “There’s the camaraderie with my friends, being able to keep myself in shape and it helps clear my mind.”  
The therapeutic nature of the ocean, as he has grown to know and covet, helped Brad deal with one of the toughest aspects of being a ballplayer: getting traded. “I was at home in Del Mar and heard through the grapevine that I just got traded from Houston to Detroit, and I wasn’t pleased. Instead of waiting for my GM [General Manager] to call I just went and surfed pipes for two hours. I remember the water being crystal clear that day and the waves were really clean.”
At the other end of the spectrum, when nature is in a furious mood and lets loose unforgiving sets and taunting waves, Ausmus finds the same adrenaline pumping through him as he would crouching behind the plate in a playoff game.  There isn’t much difference in the focus and concentration of the moment, only the consequences. On the playing field there are teammates, coaches, and 45,000 fans to fail but in the face of a double-overhead cleanup set there’s only himself to let down.  
It is safe to say Brad takes his surfing with him from Spring Training until October.  All the cardiovascular work and mental rehabilitation transfers from the surf sessions 4 to 5 days a week in the North County winter swells to the 162-game regular season.  And literally, he carries a photo of himself surfing on his phone that he’ll turn to despite being landlocked in a clubhouse.
Perhaps all those moments spent looking at that photo, escaping the marathon grind of a baseball season, is why Brad now checks the surf from his 15th Street bedroom window. He chooses not to travel excessively having been away from his family for six months out of the year during the season; settling his family down in San Diego is a vacation in itself.  By 8:30 a.m. the kids are dropped off at school, the morning crowd has scattered, and Brad will be in water. That is, after he makes sure the premium on his insurance policy is paid.