In November of 2011, then-No. 2 Alabama’s home football game against No. 1 LSU was the talk of the college football world. With Tuscaloosa serving as the sport’s epicenter during that month’s first weekend, lifelong Crimson Tide fan Roger Myers hosted a tailgate ahead of the seismic contest.
Myers is well-known for being a constant presence at Alabama baseball games. He is a fixture of Sewell-Thomas Stadium, and his football tailgate that day was, in his words, centered around baseball. Attendees included (but were not limited to) ESPN’s Laura Rutledge, 2012 American League Cy Young Award winner David Price, future National Baseball Hall of Fame member Fred McGriff and a pair of Birmingham natives: former Alabama All-American Emeel Salem and Desmond Jennings, the latter of whom the Tampa Bay Rays had called up to the major leagues that July.
Salem was in the Rays’ organization at the time, and he put the word out about Myers’ tailgate. Rutledge, whose husband Josh was an All-American baseball player at Alabama, was then working as Fox Sports’ sideline reporter on Rays broadcasts. It was at that tailgate where Myers first met Jennings, who would put him in contact with Atlanta Braves catcher Drake Baldwin almost 14 full years later.
“We became friends, and he went to a few basketball games with me over the next few years,” Myers said of Jennings, who’s now an assistant hitting coach in the Philadelphia Phillies’ system with the Single-A Clearwater Threshers. Jennings called Myers a short time before Alabama faced Tennessee last month, curious if he knew Baldwin.
Jennings and Baldwin are connected through Dan DeMent, a former UAB player who has spent the last two seasons as the hitting coach for the Triple-A Gwinnett Stripers. Baldwin played for the Stripers in parts of the 2023 and 2024 campaigns. Myers knew who Baldwin was; he had not been personally acquainted with him before Jennings’ call.
The young Braves catcher, who turns 25 years old in March, won the 2025 National League Rookie of the Year award after hitting .274 with 19 home runs and 80 runs batted in following a spring performance that earned him a spot on the team’s Opening Day roster. He isn’t a stranger to college football but had only ever seen Alabama games on television, and he hoped to change that.
“I grew up in Madison, Wisconsin, right next to Camp Randall, where Wisconsin plays,” Baldwin told BamaCentral in an exclusive interview Nov. 14. “I’m still a big Badger fan, all that. Those are the only, really, games I’ve been to, is Wisconsin, in college football games. I went to Missouri State. They were FCS when I was there, so it wasn’t as big as, let’s say, a Power Five school [in] football… When I was down here, everyone always talks about SEC football and stuff, and I was like, ‘I gotta get to a game.'”
Drake Baldwin (left), Roger Myers (center) and Desmond Jennings. / Roger Myers
The Braves’ Minor League Baseball teams have a heavy geographic presence in the state of Georgia. All are located there except one. When Baldwin was in Double-A, that team was still the Mississippi Braves (it has since become the Columbus Clingstones). These different stops gave Baldwin plenty of opportunities to hear more about the SEC even before he got to the majors, and Myers hooked him up with tickets to the Third Saturday in October game on Oct. 18.
“Obviously, still a Badger fan, but that game made me a little bit of a Bama fan as well,” Baldwin said. “I saw it on TV and stuff, you see all the tassels [shakers] they’re waving around, and it seems like everyone’s into it, 100,000 people there… Expectations, everyone was saying it was just insane, and I think it lived up to it.”
The Crimson Tide beat the Volunteers 37-20. Baldwin, who had tailgated before the game (including on the Quad and at fraternities and sororities), got to experience fans of the winning team lighting cigars, in keeping with the rivalry’s tradition.
“People care about football so much here, and, I mean, it was awesome… That pick-six at the end of the first half was one of the loudest I’ve ever heard a stadium.”
–Â Drake Baldwin
As fate would have it, after the seeds were first planted for Baldwin to come to Bryant-Denny Stadium all those years ago, he got to see this year’s matchup for himself. The Crimson Tide came back to defeat South Carolina on Oct. 25 before its second bye week of the season, and two of Myers’ tickets for the program’s ensuing meeting with LSU ended up being available.
Myers (whom Baldwin said welcomed him like a lifelong friend) asked his wife, Sherry, about having Jennings and Baldwin come back. They were on board. Once more, Baldwin got to witness a win, as the Crimson Tide triumphed 20-9 against the Tigers in LSU’s first game after the dismissal of Brian Kelly. There were no cigars this time, but that didn’t diminish the excitement.
“Both games are huge. One game you saw yellow walking around, and one game you saw orange walking around,” he said. “And then a bunch of red, or crimson, I should say. They were both awesome.”
Drake Baldwin and Sherry Myers. / Roger Myers
As a professional athlete, Baldwin knows firsthand the pressures that come with expectations of high performance. Such expectations are everywhere for football players at Alabama. That’s true regardless of the source, fans or otherwise.
“Just hearing from how [Nick] Saban before ran the team, and kinda the culture that was created around there, it seems about as professional as you can get… You’re playing in front of a huge fanbase that kinda lives and dies by how you do on the field, so you’ve gotta be prepared for all of that, and it seems like they are every single year.”
–Â Drake Baldwin
One of the things the Braves and Alabama have in common is a large fan following. This is partly due to the fact that the Braves had an everyday presence on national television from 1973 to 2007 on TBS. SEC football has also become one of the most lucrative television endeavors in sports. When those worlds collide and an Atlanta Braves player shows up at an Alabama game, fans in attendance with allegiances to both the 2021 World Series champions and an SEC football program take notice.
“It’s kinda cool. You don’t really expect to be walking around and someone recognizes you,” Baldwin said. “I feel like there’s Braves fans everywhere down there, and a bunch of people just congratulated me on the year and said that they love going to games and stuff, which is pretty special to see how far the Braves Country, it expands. There’s people, there’s fans from everywhere, and they’re diehards.”
Myers believes that Baldwin, who nominated himself and center fielder Michael Harris II as two of the Atlanta players likely to have the most fun at a college football tailgate, has turned into an Alabama fan based on his experience at the games he’s been to. Myers may not be entirely off base, given that Baldwin said he gets the chills when his favorite game-day tradition arrives and “Dixieland Delight” plays in the stadium, also adding that that seeing an Iron Bowl is now on his bucket list.
“He was just very, very personable. Anybody that he met, just great with his time. Pictures, talking, whatever,” Myers said. “You could feel Drake becoming more and more of a Gump, even the first time, but really, really now… He knows all the lingo, and the songs, the whole thing. He’s really, really, really into it. I think we’ve got a Bama fan for life.”
Two days after he visited Tuscaloosa and watched Alabama collect its third consecutive win over the Tigers, Baldwin was announced as the National League Rookie of the Year, with 21 out of 30 first-place votes to his name. It’s an honor Harris won in 2022. Myers sent Baldwin a congratulatory text, and the response shed light on the budding star’s growing affinity for the Crimson Tide.
“He was like, “Great end to a great weekend. Roll tide,'” Myers said.
Drake Baldwin and Roger Myers at Bryant-Denny Stadium. / Roger Myers