![\"Ernie](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/GettyImages-2279778379-scaled.jpg\")
<\/p>\nTORONTO \u2014 Ernie Clement wasn\u2019t supposed to be there. The prospect infielder, just two years into his professional career, was a late invite to Cleveland\u2019s big-league spring training in 2019.<\/p>\n
Clement was called in as an injury replacement for young shortstop Francisco Lindor. With Cleveland in need of another body days before spring drills began, clubhouse attendants ushered Clement over to the big-league locker room and pointed him to the office door of manager Terry Francona.<\/p>\n
\u201cIntroduce yourself,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n
Clement had played just 147 minor-league games to that point, peaking in Double A. He hadn\u2019t yet been designated for assignment, released, refound and beloved. He was raw and, admittedly, naive.<\/p>\n
Francona was in the back room of his office, Clement was told, so he walked into the small room and opened the wooden door beside the manager\u2019s desk. There was Francona, pants around his ankles and sitting on the toilet of his office washroom. Clement was aghast. He still doesn\u2019t know why his initial instinct was to walk up to Francona, hold out his arm and shake the manager\u2019s hand, but that\u2019s what he did. It was all a blur.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh my God, I was mortified,\u201d Clement said. \u201cHe was dying laughing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Francona instantly fell in love with the young infielder\u2019s inexplicable confidence. It\u2019s something Clement, through three MLB stops and years of failure, never lost. It\u2019s what\u2019s led him from cast-off bench piece to key contributor and postseason hero for the Toronto Blue Jays. It\u2019s led him, now, to his first All-Star Game, where he\u2019ll start for the American League on July 14 in Philadelphia after earning more votes than Yordan Alvarez, Aaron Judge, Bobby Witt Jr. and every other AL star.<\/p>\n
\u201cBelieving in myself the way I do,\u201d Clement said, \u201cI\u2019m always ready for these opportunities. My mindset\u2019s never changed.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n As Ernie Clement put it, \u201cI\u2019ve been released, I\u2019ve been optioned more times than I can count.\u201d (Kevin Sousa \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Clement, then a 22-year-old fourth-round pick with mediocre minor-league results, had essentially no shot of cracking Cleveland\u2019s roster. Yet he took every practice rep with his \u201chair on fire,\u201d minor-league teammate Mike Papi said, and \u201csprinted all over the ballpark.\u201d In 29 spring at-bats, he notched seven hits, hit a homer and stole a base. He struck out just once.<\/p>\n
Francona told Cleveland reporters at the time that Clement was \u201cplaying like he\u2019s got a jet up his ass.\u201d The manager, then 59, had a crudely photoshopped picture printed and taped to his office door to motivate the team. It didn\u2019t feature Lindor, Carlos Santana or Shane Bieber. It depicted a grinning Clement, with a massive plane lodged up his \u2026 well, you can probably guess.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was pretty much saying, \u2018I want all of my players to play like Ernie Clement,\u2019\u201d Papi said.<\/p>\n
It didn\u2019t work out for Clement in Cleveland. He struggled to hit in 103 MLB games across two seasons, was designated for assignment and then claimed by the Athletics. After six games and another two DFAs in Oakland, Clement was released.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think Ernie always knew how good he was,\u201d Blue Jays hitting coach David Popkins said. \u201cOther people can doubt themselves at times in those positions. But, for Ernie, he got an opportunity to show exactly who he feels he\u2019s been his entire career.\u201d<\/p>\n
The rest of the story, you probably know. He was signed by the Blue Jays in March 2023, entering another spring training he wasn\u2019t supposed to be part of. The Jays, just like Cleveland four years prior, needed another infield body.<\/p>\n
He mashed in Triple A Buffalo, hitting .348 with a .945 OPS. He earned his way onto his third MLB team, went from utility infielder to everyday starter, notched more hits in a postseason than any other player in MLB history and earned the screaming affection of a fanbase. Over 3.2 million votes later, Clement bested all other AL players by more than 300,000 votes, earning an automatic starting spot alongside NL vote leader Shohei Ohtani.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s a deserving All-Star, leading the AL in doubles and hitting nearly .300. But, manager John Schneider said, the voting support Clement earned is clearly a product of performance and personality. The infielder\u2019s path from discarded to stardom, Schneider said, is something fans connect with.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s kind of just like a man of the people,\u201d Schneider said. \u201cHe\u2019s a normal dude.\u201d<\/p>\n
The fact Clement hasn\u2019t changed amid rising popularity, still walking to and from games and still laughing after successful Automated Ball-Strike challenges, only increases that bond between fanbase and player. In two cities, he was unceremoniously let go; in Toronto, thousands of fans lined up just for a chance to get his giveaway jersey.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been released, I\u2019ve been optioned more times than I can count,\u201d Clement said after he was named an All-Star. \u201cI stuck around long enough to earn more and more opportunity. I\u2019m so grateful.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clement dripped with humility speaking about his All-Star nod in Toronto last week. \u201cThankful\u201d and \u201cgrateful\u201d were easily his most-used words. Still, his self-assurance was there. The Jays, he said, just let him \u201cbe Ernie.\u201d That, it seems, is all it took.<\/p>\n
Before his big-league debut, the infielder probably didn\u2019t know he\u2019d eventually set postseason records and earn almost as many All-Star votes as Ohtani one day. But, with the same unexplainable confidence that drew in Francona eight springs ago, Clement always knew he\u2019d get pretty far. His story may be inspiring for other cast-off quad-A players, but for Clement, this is how things were supposed to go.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve always believed in myself,\u201d Clement said. \u201cI tell myself, if I\u2019m on the field, I\u2019m going to take advantage.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some people wear their confidence on their sleeve. Clement wears it on his head. The infielder has a cycle of hats he puts on before and after games, but none is worn more often than the cream cap with a red brim.<\/p>\n
Three words are written on the front of that hat; three words that sum up the infielder\u2019s consistent mentality, from Francona\u2019s bathroom to the Midsummer Classic:<\/p>\n
\u201cNever a doubt.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO \u2014 Ernie Clement wasn\u2019t supposed to be there. The prospect infielder, just two years into his professional…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":774420,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,85,5161],"class_list":["post-774419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-mlb","tag-sports","tag-toronto-blue-jays"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=774419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774419\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/774420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=774419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=774419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=774419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}