WASHINGTON -- Michael Bourn was awake at 7:30 a.m. on Sunday in his Milwaukee hotel room when the call came: He had been traded to the Braves.
Astros general manager Ed Wade didn’t have to say much before it started to click in. Bourn was leaving his hometown team and his day was about to get crazy, but for the first time in maybe 24 hours, he was able to relax a little.
“It’s one of those things where you want to know one way or the other,” Bourn said a few hours before making his debut in center field and hitting leadoff for the Braves on Monday night. “The anxiousness builds up. Once I found out, I was relaxed. I’m fine now. And I’m here.”
It took a full day of traveling, an impromptu schedule that didn’t leave time to go to Miller Park and say goodbye to his Astros teammates.
Bourn didn’t find out who he’d been traded for until he saw it on an airport TV monitor, learning it was center fielder Jordan Schafer and minor league pitchers Juan Abreu, Paul Clemens and Brett Oberholtzer. He had a 2 1/2 hour wait in the Atlanta airport Sunday before he met his new teammates. The introductions came on the Braves’ charter flight to Washington.
“That’s when it got weird to me a little bit because you don’t know anybody,” Bourn said. “[But] they all welcomed me on like I was one of them, [and] tried to make me feel comfortable talking to me the whole flight.”
This was the second trade in Bourn’s career, the other coming when he was traded from the Phillies to the Astros after the 2007 season, his first full season in the big leagues. He said he was caught off guard at the time.
“I was just in the offseason chilling, doing whatever and all of a sudden, bam, I get traded,” Bourn said. “But this time I was prepared for it a little bit more.”
He’d heard the speculation. He watched Astros teammate Hunter Pence get shipped to the Phillies two days before. He’d been deciphering the options.
“I heard about Washington, I heard about Cincinnati, a little bit about San Francisco and here,” Bourn said.
His reaction to “here” when it finally happened? Bourn flashed two thumbs up and smiled.
“It’s a situation I’m glad to be a part of if I couldn’t be in Houston,” said Bourn, who went from the team with the worst record in baseball to the NL wildcard leader. “That’s my first choice because that was my home. But they were going in a different direction. With them sending me here I had no problem with that.
"We’ll see if it will be a good fit, but I’m looking forward to going out there and playing with everybody on this team.”
He’d made a good impression on his manager before he even arrived. Fredi Gonzalez put in a call to Astros hitting coach Mike Barnett, who also happens to be a close friend, to find out what he thought about Bourn.
“He goes, ‘You’re going to absolutely love him,’” said Gonzalez, who played with Barnett in the minors and coached with him at Tennessee. "Everybody knows the numbers -- let’s not even talk numbers but work ethic, the way he plays the game, teammate -- those are good qualities to have. I think he’s going to fit in right away with our group of guys.”
Bourn brings instant credibility to the top of the Braves lineup, where there hasn't been a natural leadoff man since Rafael Furcal in 2005. Bourn's .303 average, his .363 on-base percentage and NL-leading 39 stolen bases impress his new teammates.
“You show me an offense that scores a lot of runs; I’ll show you a dynamic leadoff hitter,” Chipper Jones said. “If you show me three and four hitters that have 100 RBIs year in and year out, I’m going to show you a dynamic leadoff hitter."
Bourn singled on the second pitch he saw from the Nationals’ Livan Hernandez before getting doubled off first on a Martin Prado line drive.
One thing he’s learned from going through a trade before is not to show up and try to do too much.
“They already have a great team. ... I’m just trying to learn how they do things and try to fit in the best way I can,” Bourn said.
