By Jim Allen, KYODO NEWS - Aug 30, 2017 - 18:52 | Sports, All

Perhaps the last thing slugging corner infielder Casey McGehee hoped for or expected this season was to be a success at second base and batting second -- a lineup spot Japanese teams reserve for fleet, light-hitting glove men who rarely strike out.

It's a situation dripping in irony, both for McGehee and his team.

After all, the Yomiuri Giants, the most dogmatic and tradition-bound of Nippon Professional Baseball's 12 clubs, haven't had a No. 2 hitter go 20-plus games without a sacrifice bunt since 1966.

For McGehee, his second base serendipity comes just two seasons after he got exactly what he dreamed for -- only for everything to go horribly wrong.

McGehee, who is from Santa Cruz County, California, an hour's drive from the San Francisco Bay Area, had long dreamed of playing for either the San Francisco Giants or the Oakland Athletics.

In 2013, when a chance to play at home didn't materialize, he came to Japan and was a key to the Rakuten Eagles' Japan Series championship along with Andruw Jones and Masahiro Tanaka.

After a big season back in the bigs in Miami in 2014, McGehee got his wish, when he was traded to the San Francisco Giants.

"That was always my dream, to play at home, in front of my friends and my family and people that I grew up with," McGehee said recently.

"I'm playing well. I had a good spring and then the season starts and the first series we're in Arizona. I had a good series (4-for-12), hit a big home run."

"Toward the end of the last game in Arizona, I go for a ground ball down the third base line and it takes a funny hop. I end up turning and catching the ball, but in the process, my leg sticks in the ground and I felt something pop."

With a long history of minor knee issues, McGehee was unfazed. He shook it off until the final game of the next series in San Diego, when he hit a ball to the warning track in the first inning.

"I take one step out of the batter's box, and it feels like someone took an ice pick and just stabbed me in the knee. I made it to the edge of the dirt and I was flat out," he said.

McGehee came out of the game, and having never been on the disabled list, he did his best to look like he could run without a limp.

"Now I'm hitting and I'm trying to figure out ways to hit to where I can actually hit and it doesn't hurt too bad. That's the third terrible idea I've had in a span of 48 hours."

"I cannot get the ball off the ground to save my life. I cannot get any kind of legs under me to drive the ball. I'm grounding out like a champ... The fans are all over me. They just lost (popular 2012 World Series MVP) Pablo Sandoval. I'm getting booed mercilessly."

"I never experienced this before. It's getting to the point where I'm thinking, 'These are the people I grew up with,' and it started getting in my head pretty bad. My wife would want to go get something to eat and I don't want to leave the house."

His "dream" season began taking on an unearthly quality as he drove to Giants' ballpark from his home in the East Bay across the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.

"You could see AT&T (Park) sitting next to the water, and it got to the point where there is a buddy of mine I would call and he would literally have to talk me into the stadium. I did not want to go. Seeing that stadium was like, it looked like the creepy castle in the old cartoon movies up on top of the hill. That's what it was to me."

"It just didn't work out. It took a lot of my enjoyment out of it. That was the first time I ever felt like I was working."

But as much bad as things were in his darkest hour, one fan never gave up on him.

"There was one homeless guy who was at all the games," McGehee said. "I don't know if he actually got in the games, but he was always there. He would hitchhike down to L.A. and San Diego and see us. Among everybody, it was kind of a running joke, 'Hey, there's Dave the drunk.'"

"I'm coming out of the field one day, and he calls me over. He's the only one standing there. We were playing the Dodgers, and he said, 'I know you're going through tough times, but you're going to have a good day tomorrow.'"

"It got to the point where I'm coming to the field and the only guy I want to see is this homeless guy, Dave the drunk. He was the one person who I was like, 'OK. This person's got my back.' Me and this homeless dude are going to get through this together."

Is there a moral to the story?

"Be careful what you wish for," said McGehee, who finished 2015 back in Miami with the Marlins and played last season for the Detroit Tigers, before Japan's Giants came calling.

Although McGehee had played well this year at third and hit well in the middle of the order through July 11, the Giants were not clicking.

Since the switch, both McGehee and the Giants have prospered. From July 12 through Aug. 25, he was batting .360 with power, while the team was 19-12 with one tie.

"I would never have guessed in a million years, but I've found myself really enjoying it," McGehee said.