The A’s season may be long over, but the baseball field still beckons Marcus Semien.

Maybe it’s because he’s still in play in the ongoing MLB awards season. Maybe it’s because this particular field is where it all began.

The infield dirt at Central Park in El Cerrito crackles beneath his feet. His father, Damien, and 3-year-old son, Isaiah, are chowing sandwiches on the green benches behind him while he shows a curious reporter where his hunt for an American League MVP award all started.

Semien turns toward shallow right field and points.

“As a 9-year-old, we weren’t as good, I remember losing a game and throwing my hat out of frustration. Right there,” Semien said, still pointing.

“I’ll never forget my mom, she was just was so mad. That changed the way I was after that. I was always calm every time anything frustrating would happen.”

He still slips up and lets emotion bubble over occasionally — his first career ejection, for instance, came against the Houston Astros this season. But for the 29-year-old Bay Area native playing ball just 16 miles down the road from where he grew up, maintaining a cool head has helped him shake the dreaded defensive liability designation and catapult into the MVP realm alongside Mike Trout and Alex Bregman.

One of those three will be named American League MVP on Thursday. Semien is realistic about his chances.

“It’s going to be tough to win it,” he said. “But to see those top three and your name between those two guys is cool.”

Which is a fitting way to put it. If there’s one thing his family roots in the Bay Area taught a young Semien, it’s that cool heads prevail.

“Never got too high and never got too down,” said David Esquer, Semien’s coach at Cal. “He never let the game beat him down. He always had the temperament and personality to be a professional.”

* * *

Central Park isn’t the nicest ballpark in El Cerrito, Harding Park’s facilities are a bit flashier. But Central Park was just a half-block away from one of a handful of East Bay homes Semien and his family bounced to and from throughout his childhood.

Summer afternoons, Semien would lug his gear just down the street to play his El Cerrito Youth Baseball League games. His mom, Tracy, poked her head out of the upstairs window to make sure Marcus crossed bustling Central Avenue safely.

It was within these chain-linked fences that Semien learned to love the game. He remembers joking around in the dugout with Zach Babitt, Shooty’s son. He and his best friend Matt Flemer would throw combined no-hitters — Semien would throw four innings, Matt three.

“He made the right choice playing short,” Flemer said. “I think he thought his breaking ball was better than it was.”

Family and friends remember always being taken aback by Semien’s work ethic and poise. He wasn’t always the most talented player on the team, but he kept his head up and worked — starting at age 6, Semien would run wild around the infield scooping up any ground ball that dribbled.

“Same personality at 6 as he does now at 29,” Flemer said.

It was on this field just a few steps from home that a young Semien decided what kind of baseball player he’d be: He’d never let losing consume him. The bounce-back could only make him better.

* * *

Around Semien’s neck are two chains — one gold, one silver with a fingerprint engraved in its pendant.

“This is her thumbprint, my Grandma Carol,” Semien said pulling the necklaces. “I never take these off.”

It only makes sense that Grandma Carol stays so close to Semien. They were partners in crime as Semien grew, first stoking his love of Bay Area sports.

Semien’s parents worked long hours: dad at Juvenile Hall in San Francisco, mom as an insurance representative. So Semien spent most of his childhood riding MUNI with Grandma Carol from the foggy Sunset District suburbs where she lived to the Candlestick peninsula to watch the San Francisco 49ers or to China Basin to watch Semien’s favorite ballplayer: Barry Bonds. Other times they’d take BART to catch an A’s game at the Coliseum.

In his backyard, the right-handed-swinging Semien would often try to emulate the prolific left-hander’s stance — the imposing stare, shifts, swagger and load.

“Just the, ‘I’m the best hitter on this field,’ mentality,” Semien said. “He didn’t get anything to hit and yet broke home run records.”

But, for Grandma Carol, these treks around the Bay Area weren’t just about watching Bonds go yard. She wasn’t just a sports fan.

“She was a Marcus fan,” Damien said.

For every summer ECYB tournament and All-Star game, Grandma Carol would perch on a bench down the first baseline to watch her grandson play. When Semien chose to play baseball at Cal, she’d cross the Bay Bridge to watch him at Evans Diamond.

When the Golden Bears hit the road, Grandma Carol would save up all the money she could to make her grandson’s away games.

It’s not unusual for parents to be at their kids’ games through college ball, but a traveling grandmother was out of the ordinary.

“My everlasting memory of Marcus is how kind he was to his mother and grandmother,” Esquer said.

When the Chicago White Sox drafted Semien in 2011, Grandma Carol would stream his minor league games on her computer — from Wintson-Salem to Birmingham — and call him with feedback and support.

“I probably talked more to my grandma than my parents about my games,” Semien said. “She was always checking in.”

Semien’s 2013 season in Birmingham flamed fast. He was batting .315 when tragic news traveled south: Grandma Carol had died of a heart attack. Semien left the Barons to attend the funeral back in California. But Carol stayed on his mind as Semien slumped to a .250 average.

Heavy heart or not, Semien was not one to let loss consume him for long.

He hit .372 in July and went on to win the Southern League MVP. The White Sox called him up in September and Semien made his debut against CC Sabathia, Alex Rodriguez and his other non-Bonds idol, Derek Jeter, at Yankee Stadium.

“She missed those call-ups,” Semien said. “But you saw how losing her really hurt my baseball game. That’s all I was thinking about was her. I got out of it and felt more motivated to perform.”

* * *

The count was full, the bases loaded with Golden Bears, one out in the ninth inning. Cal was two runs down from completing a seven-run comeback against Max Muncy’s Baylor Bears. One step closer to a 2011 College World Series berth.

Semien came up to bat carrying the confidence of a 4-for-4 day. The pressure of the situation had some baggage of its own, too.

Related Articles A’s unable to find clutch hit in game one loss to Mariners

How the Oakland A’s can clinch the American League’s No. 2 seed today

Chris Bassitt shines, Mark Canha hits walk-off in A’s win

Liam Hendriks: Any team that faces Cleveland in playoffs is “playing for Game 2”

Why the A’s strong bullpen could be biggest advantage in postseason Before the season began, the university decided to stop some budgetary bleeding by slashing the baseball team. Fundraising from a strong network of former Golden Bears kept this team breathing just enough air to shockingly sprint to the Super Regional’s door — that is, if Cal could complete this Baylor comeback.

Semien struck out swinging at a slider, walked back to the dugout and let himself sulk for a half-second before lifting his head back into the game.

“Pick me up, Devon,” Semien shouted at his teammate headed to the plate. He wouldn’t let his pivotal role in his team’s — the program’s — potential elimination on college baseball’s biggest stage consume him.

Devon Rodriguez hit the go-ahead single, the Golden Bears went to the Super Regional and onto their first College World Series since 1992 (eliminated by Virginia). Semien, in the biggest moment, came up short, — but all that knew him best knew he wouldn’t throw his hat in anger.

“He never got emotional,” said Flemer, his Cal teammate. “Lot of kids, if they failed, it would get tough for them.”

Flemer and Semien first met on opposing ECYB teams back in the East Bay, but never played together in Little League. Semien, the local standout, would always get picked first by the previous season’s worst team; Flemer by the team his dad coached.

When Semien wasn’t starting at shortstop for the St. Mary’s baseball team, he tried his hand at basketball, his dad likening his game to Warriors guard Klay Thompson.

“He could shoot 3s and play defense, that’s about it,” Damien laughed.

“Yeah, but I’m not 6-foot-7,” Semien said. One year, the Panthers made it to the CIF Championship, taken down by Jrue Holiday’s Campbell Hall School team.

But baseball was Semien’s game. The White Sox drafted him out of high school but he chose to play alongside Flemer at Cal — where his father played wide receiver, where his future wife, Tarah Murrey, played volleyball, where he spent weekends with Flemer watching the Golden Bears at Memorial Stadium and Haas Pavilion.

But at Cal, Semien started to struggle. As a freshman, he batted .197; he was in unfamiliar territory, manning third base instead of the shortstop ground he’d manned since he was 6 years old.

But Flemer knew — and his college teammates would quickly learn — that Semien would not dwell on his mistakes. By the end of his sophomore year, Semien had won the starting shortstop job and was batting .328 with 34 RBIs. A cool head prevailed, and stood out to coaches.

“He was fearless,” Esquer said. “He didn’t back away, you hit a ball 100 mph he was going to hold his ground. It’s fearlessness that allows him to keep working on his game, he doesn’t let things defeat him.”

The three years Semien spent in the White Sox system were the only ones he’d spend outside of the Bay Area. He was at his home in Berkeley when he caught the news on television that he’d been traded to the A’s in 2015.

First came the realization: He’d had a great game against the A’s recently, hitting a game-winning home run off of Scott Kazmir. But, then came a pang.

“I was nervous, it’s the Oakland A’s,” Semien said. “Your whole childhood it’s A’s and Giants, I want to play for the A’s or Giants when I grow up. You just casually say it, and when it really happened, it made me excited but nervous at the same time.”

Eventually it was just about the excitement. Semien was home, and he didn’t have to leave; now, instead of BART-ing or MUNI-ing around the Bay Area with his people to catch his favorite teams, his people could pop over to the Coliseum to watch him. Who gets this opportunity?

“It’s one in a million,” Damien said, shaking his head. “How’d the guy upstairs pick my son to be that one in a million?”

Semien’s future with the A’s started out hazy, marred by a few underwhelming seasons. He committed 130 errors in his first three years and hit for average with a 3.0-high WAR.

But he didn’t allow those struggles or the outside voices consume him. Failure was just an opportunity to improve. Instead of boiling in frustration, Semien parlayed his skid into extra offseason work with infield wizard Ron Washington — a pairing hatched by A’s president Billy Beane.

“If you’re worried about getting mad, how can you compete at your best?” Semien said.

“Marcus always had a belief in himself,” his father said. “Whatever he was doing, he kind of had the eye of the tiger look. He knew, ‘Keep working, keep working, be better than I was yesterday.’”

* * *

In 2019 it all clicked. With a bounce-back mentality came Semien at his very best. He helped lead a 97-win team to the A.L. Wild Card game, first by playing an ironman gauntlet of 162 games. And then by sprinkling in MVP-worthy numbers along the way — a near league-leading 8.1 WAR and career highs in nearly every offensive statistic.

It is perhaps the ultimate bounce-back. Semien’s manager Bob Melvin has not hidden his near disbelief at the shortstop’s transformation, terming it the greatest turnaround he’s ever witnessed.

For a nudge, the elder Semien urged his son to go back to Central Park, stand on the same infield dirt he first kicked and let it crackle under his shoes again. That’s got to do something to a man who’s traveled so far since the days he was a Youth Leaguer just trying to wrangle any ground ball he could find.

“That’s got to do something to you,” Damien Semien reasoned.

Lucky for Marcus Semien, he doesn’t have to travel far to find his reminders of where it all began.