DJ LeMahieu’s path to pinstripes began, indirectly, on the coast of Massachusetts 10 years before he was born.



In 1978, Jim Hendry was a 23-year-old early in his career in professional baseball who’d landed a summer job as an assistant coach for the Wareham Gatemen in the Cape Cod League. The team’s second baseman, Paul Mainieri, was the son of the manager and in between his sophomore and junior years of college.



Hendry and Mainieri became fast friends that summer, and they’d go on to coach high school baseball together in south Florida.



Mainieri is now the head baseball coach at Louisiana State University, and in 2009, Hendry was the general manager of the Chicago Cubs. Every season, Mainieri gathers his team for a “First Pitch Banquet,” and 31 years after the two men met, Hendry was invited to be that season’s keynote speaker.



Hendry went to watch the Tigers practice the day before the event, and he took...