San Francisco Giants third baseman Evan Longoria joined the team after a trade from the Tampa Bay Rays, the organization Longoria had spent his entire career with prior to this season.
With Longoria’s departure to his new home, it was to be expected that it might him take him a while to settle in and feel comfortable in his new surroundings after leaving a team he had been with for 10 full major league seasons.
Longoria joined Tolbert & Lund Tuesday, and explained how he wanted to turn the page from his days with the Rays.
“For me, I really wanted to put my old history in the past, and try and come here and build something new,” Longoria said. “So although it’s nice to have those numbers already on the back of your baseball card, the fans here haven’t seen me play. There’s a lot of things that have been new. So I really just kind of wanted to try and forge a new path.”
He also discussed how his adjustment period with the Giants was longer than he expected it would be.
“It’s taken a lot longer than I thought it was going to,” Longoria said. “I mean, I thought that it was going to be easy. And of course everything has been great, I can say nothing negative, other than personally, I thought it was going to be an easier transition for me to just come in and play baseball and feel like it’s the same old thing, but I guess I took for granted how comfortable I was over there, and just being in the ballpark and being in that division and seeing the same players and pitchers over and over, year after year, you just kind of take that for granted. And now, I’m just now starting to kind of get back into that groove.”
Listen to the interview below. To hear Longoria on his transition to the Giants, skip to the 4:25 mark.
