FT. MYERS, Fla. — They met in 2010 at a Walmart in Chattanooga, Tenn. Dee Strange-Gordon, then the Los Angeles Dodgers’ No. 1 prospect, was about to turn 22. Kristian Campbell, now the Boston Red Sox’s top infield prospect, was 7.
Strange-Gordon entered the giant retail store with a teammate from the Double-A Chattanooga Lookouts, looking to buy furniture for his new apartment.
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Right away, Campbell caught his eye.
“We walk through the door, and I see this little red-headed, light-skinned kid. And his baseball uniform, from neck to toe, is covered in clay,” Strange-Gordon said. “So I look at him, and something told me to stop. I stopped. And I was like, ‘Little man, I like how you play.’”
Campbell’s mother, Tonya, chuckles at the memory. She was at the Walmart with her and her husband Kenneth’s three children — their oldest, Kristian; their daughter, Kennedy; and younger son, Kayden. She remembers Kristian’s uniform being dirty, “which is how he usually looked after every game.”
Strange-Gordon?
“Obviously, we didn’t know who he was.”
Strange-Gordon didn’t know the Campbells, either. But he continued his conversation with Kristian, captivated by the dirt covering Campbell’s uniform, the child who seemed to be a younger version of himself.
“That’s how my jersey looks after games,” Strange-Gordon told Kristian. “Listen, man, I’m with the Chattanooga Lookouts. You can come watch me play any time you want to.”
Strange-Gordon gave Tonya his phone number. The Campbells were his guests at Opening Day. And during the 2010 season, a relationship between a spirited prospect and a starry-eyed young boy formed.
The following year, upon learning of Strange-Gordon’s promotion to Triple-A Albuquerque, Kristian started crying. His father called Strange-Gordon and put him on speaker so Kristian could hear.
The Campbells never forgot what Strange-Gordon told their son.
“I’ll always be your friend,” Strange-Gordon said.
Strange-Gordon, now 36, went on to an 11-year major-league career, making two All-Star teams and winning a Gold Glove at second base. During his one season in Chattanooga, he led the Southern League with 53 stolen bases. Managers named him the league’s most exciting player. And Kristian grew inspired.
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“Dee was my first role model when it came to baseball, my introduction to baseball,” Kristian said. “He was really good to me and my family. He’s still a mentor to me to this day.”
The Campbells moved to Georgia in 2013 so Kristian, then 11, could participate in the vaunted East Cobb youth program. He went undrafted out of Walton High in Marietta, redshirted his freshman year at Georgia Tech and played only one college season before the Red Sox made him their fourth-round pick in 2023.
Today, the 22-year-old Kristian is 6-foot-3, 210 pounds. A swing change the Red Sox suggested so he could hit more balls in the air transformed him into the game’s ninth-best prospect, according to The Athletic’s Keith Law. When Strange-Gordon looks at Kristian, he sees a hitter with the potential to make an impact similar to that of his former Dodgers teammate, three-time All-Star Matt Kemp.
The Red Sox are considering playing Alex Bregman at third and moving Rafael Devers to DH so they can install Kristian as their primary second baseman. Once the Sox decide how they will use Kristian — in the infield, outfield or both — Strange-Gordon plans to leave his Orlando-area home and drive to the team’s training camp in Ft. Myers.
Strange-Gordon, who came up as a shortstop but also played second base and center and left fields, is eager to help Kristian take his biggest step yet.
“Literally when they let him know where he is going, I’m going to come and work with him to make sure he’s comfortable,” Strange-Gordon said.
The Campbells regularly attended Chattanooga’s games during the 2010 season. Strange-Gordon grew so close to Kristian, the family occasionally would host him for dinner. But Kristian’s connection with Strange-Gordon and the Lookouts wasn’t simply as a fan. He became a batboy for the team and befriended the son of manager Carlos Subero, “Little Carlos,” who was about the same age.
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Even on days when Campbell wasn’t a batboy, he would go to the ballpark to hang out with “Little Carlos” and the players. Kenneth would get him to the field by 3 p.m. and sit in the stands. Officials for the Lookouts saw him there so often, they eventually invited him to sit in a private box to escape the heat.
Kristian played ping-pong with “Little Carlos” in the clubhouse and mingled with the players, one of whom was a reliever named Kenley Jansen. Yet even then, baseball was Kristian’s primary focus. He played catch with Strange-Gordon before games and took batting practice with him. Subero also would take him and “Little Carlos” to hit out in center field.
Was Kristian a good batboy?
Kristian Campbell works on an infield drill last month at Red Sox spring training. (Danielle Parhizkaran / The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
“Yes, he was,” said Subero, who later spent four seasons as a coach with the Milwaukee Brewers. “But he was a much better hitter, a much better player.”
Young as Kristian was, Subero saw quick-twitch ability in his movements, explosiveness. Both he and Strange-Gordon also noticed that Kenneth, a former running back at Tennessee, had Kristian on a structured training regimen. Kristian was on a running program and worked out with resistance bands.
Kenneth said Kristian’s work was more a product of the Campbells always being together than a detailed plan.
“If I was working out, my family was close by,” Kenneth said. “Whatever Kristian could do, I would let him do. I definitely had him running hills. We did sit-ups and pushups, things like that. Just things you introduce a young athlete to.”
Tonya Campbell also was an athlete, a basketball player in high school. The Campbells’ daughter, Kennedy, played high school volleyball. Their other son, Kayden, followed Kristian to East Cobb and is a junior infielder at Pope High in Marietta.
In Kenneth’s mind, some of the sons’ physical gifts were God-given.
“When they were born, they both had stomach muscles and back muscles,” he said. “They’ve always been well-built.”
After leaving for Albuquerque, Strange-Gordon kept his connection with the Campbells. Not only did he invite the family to watch him play when the team visited Nashville, but also he asked Kenneth, a 10th-grade world history teacher, and Tonya, an accountant, if he could buy the kids Air Jordans.
“He said, ‘I don’t want to do it unless it’s OK with you all,” Kenneth said. “We said sure. We couldn’t afford Jordans.”
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Strange-Gordon made his major-league debut in June 2011 and continued inviting the Campbells to games whenever his teams — first the Dodgers, later the Miami Marlins — played in Atlanta. On his phone, Kristian keeps photos of himself visiting with Gordon at Turner Field, wearing his East Cobb jersey with a Marlins cap. One of the photos depicts Gordon presenting a beaming Kristian with one of his Marlins road jerseys.
Two schools, Florida International and Georgia Tech, offered Kristian baseball scholarships when he was in eighth grade, Kenneth said. As Kristian ascended from high school to Georgia Tech to pro ball, Strange-Gordon became a sounding board for the family.
“I relied on Dee a lot for a lot of information,” Kenneth said. “Any time Dee was having a camp here in Atlanta, we would drive down just to try to learn about baseball. Any time I got a chance to ask Dee a question, I did.”
Kristian still communicates regularly with Strange-Gordon, who today is CEO of Black Sheep Farms in central Florida. Less than 4 percent of farms in the U.S. are Black-owned, and less than 10 percent use Black Sheep’s hydroponic technique, growing plants using a water-based nutrient solution rather than soil. “Y’all didn’t know I was a little genius playing baseball,” Strange-Gordon said. “And I wasn’t going to tell nobody, either.”
Strange-Gordon, however, is hardly detached from baseball. In addition to Kristian, he serves as a mentor to a number of Black prospects, including Philadelphia Phillies outfielder Justin Crawford, Tampa Bay Rays outfielder Chandler Simpson, Pittsburgh Pirates second baseman Termarr Johnson and Vanderbilt second baseman RJ Austin.
“I know all these kids,” Strange-Gordon said. “I introduced myself to them.”
Strange-Gordon is closest to Crawford and Kristian, whom he calls “1-A and 1-B in my heart.” After all these years, the Campbells’ affection for him is mutual. Strange-Gordon, Kristian said, “helped me grow up.” Kenneth, meanwhile, considers Strange-Gordon practically a family member.
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“Dee,” Kenneth said, “is more of a son to me at heart.”
The original chance meeting at Walmart remains a fond memory for both Strange-Gordon and the Campbells. So does the phone conversation between Strange-Gordon and Kristian a year later, when the rising minor leaguer told the tearful child he would forever be his friend.
Strange-Gordon confirmed making that promise.
“And I’m keeping my word, bro,” he said.
(Top photo of former Marlins bench coach Rob Leary, Kristian Campbell and Dee Strange-Gordon (l-r) in Atlanta in April 2015: courtesy of Kristian Campbell)
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