Keeping up with the Deacs: Mac Williamson
9/16/2013 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
Sept. 16, 2013
By Jenn Leser, WakeForestSports.com
Mac Williamson had a successful season with the San Jose Giants in 2013, the Class A Adavance affiliate of the San Francisco Giants. Williamson led the team in home runs (25), RBIs (89), hits (152), runs scored (94), slugging percentage (.504) and OPS (.879). The Wake Forest, N.C., native played in 136 games during his first full season of professional baseball.
Williamson sat down with WakeForestSports.com to talk about life as a professional ballplayer, living out on the West Coast and what he learned as a Demon Deacon.
What has your career been like since leaving Wake Forest?
I'm out here in California, in San Jose, and I've been dealing with the climate change. [laughs] In terms of baseball, it's been a good adjustment. It's been fun and it's been trying, playing every single day for the last 4 ½ months - since March 1st. It's a little bit different than college; you have mandatory days off in college, you have days that are just practicing. You don't really have that here. You play every day, you travel, and it's not only a physical game, trying to stay healthy, but it also drains you mentally. Overall, it's been a good experience. We have a great team here, and it's been a lot of fun.
As a North Carolina native, what has been the biggest transition to living in the Bay Area for you?
Like I said, the weather for me, playing an outdoor sport, it's the biggest adjustment. The fact that this time of year it's 90-9595 with high humidity and out here it's around 80 with minimal humidity, so that's been the biggest adjustment. It gets cool at night, versus staying warm. As far the people go, most of the people I talk to are from all over the country. Being able to travel, going up and down from here in the Bay Area to down around LA, I actually got to spend some time in Newport Beach which was pretty cool. Everyone out here has been really nice. Everyone in the Bay Area is a Giants fan. The further south we go, we run into Giants fans. They have a huge following around here, so the fan support has been amazing.
What do you miss most about Wake Forest?
I grew up in North Carolina, so I miss some of the weather. Some of my buddies are playing down in Augusta, Ga. They don't necessarily like all the rain out there, but I miss it. I miss a good thunderstorm every now and then. I miss being closer to my family, because they were able to come to some of the games. I live about two hours from school, so they were able to come to games occasionally, because it wasn't that bad of a drive. Now I'm all the way across the United States, so that's a big thing that I miss, being closer to the family and friends back East.
What was it like to face off against former teammates Michael Dimock [Lancaster Jet Hawks] in the minors? It was pretty cool, I got to spend some time with him off the field. There was a situation in the game where he was warming up to come in and face me. If the situation had presently itself correctly - the guy at the plate in front of me, if he had gotten on - Michael would have come in to face me. It ended up not happening, but I saw him warm up in the pen and I knew he was going to face me. It brought up some old memories about intrasquad at school. It would have been really cool.
What has been the best experience so far in your career?
We're so close to the big club that when anyone needs to rehab, they usually rehab with us. We've had Hector Sanchez rehabbing with us. We've had [Angel] Pagan and Pablo [Sandoval] rehabbing with us. I think that's one of the cooler experiences, being close enough to the big club to interact a little bit with the major league players and kind of realize what you're working towards and what the main goal is.
Do you keep in touch with former teammates who are now in the minors, as well as the players still at Wake?
We keep in close contact, whether it's texts, Snapchats or whatever. We keep in touch with the guys who are there just below us, like Pat Blair and Justin Van Grouw, who are playing now. We have some group texts going about what our plans are for the offseason. We've been talking about our offseason plans, whether or not we're going to take classes in the fall, so we've actually been in pretty close contact. When the draft was coming up this past year, I told them if they had any questions or what not, to give me a call. I didn't know what I was doing through the whole process, so if they had any questions, I would try to answer them as best I could. We're all kind of going through the same thing, our schedules are very similar and we get to complain about the same sort of stupid things so it's cool.
What advice would you give to a younger Wake player?
I'd give them advice to pace themselves. Obviously, getting drafted in the middle of the season, you're not playing a full season yet. It's definitely still a grind. They played 56+ games in college, then they jump right into playing games in pro ball. They're going through the culture difference. We've got guys on the West Coast and on the East Coast. I'd tell them to pace themselves, don't blow it all out the first few days. Make sure that you get your rest and take care of your body because the healthier you are, the more you can help yourself and the better chance you have of moving on to the end goal.
What was the greatest lesson that you learned at Wake Forest?
Professionally, in terms of things I learned in college, obviously Wake is a strong academic institution. Having to balance the academics and playing baseball, that definitely helped me with my time management now, knowing what I can and can't do, and how to manage my time on and off the field. In terms of memories, the relationships I've made in the four years I was at Wake, and some of the connections I've made, are priceless. We were such a close-knit group of guys when I was there, and that shows when we stay in touch all the way across the country. Definitely the relationships, living together, playing ball, training - things like that.
