Chad Cordero, back working for the Nats, tells G&D why he thought his 'career was over before it started'

The Chief is back, as Chad Cordero is now working with the Nationals as a coach at the Nationals Youth Baseball Academy, which allowed him to join Grant & Danny in-studio on Friday!

And, to him, returning to DC this summer was a moment he waited 16 years for, but felt like forever.

“What brought me back was my desire to really work for the Nationals again, the team that kind of gave me my start,” Cordero said. “The Nationals are the ones that I really was able to make a name for myself with, and I love the community; when I was here, I was always going to schools, whatever events they needed me to go to, and know that and the fact I always wanted to come back, I reached out and said, ‘hey, , if there's any openings you guys have, let me know.’ They forwarded me over to the youth academy here and I applied for a job and got it. It's a chance for me to kind of give back to the community and help out the kids out here, and hopefully help get them where I was fortunate to go.”

Cordero pitched for the Expos and then Nationals from 2003-08, debuting shortly after being a first-round pick in 2003, and he closed out the Nats’ first win back in DC in 2005 – and G&D played Charlie Slowes’ call of that final out prior to the segment.

Chief had a 1.82 ERA and 47 saves that season and was fifth in the Cy Young voting, and at just 23, he looked like the next dominant closer in baseball, but after losing most of 2008 to shoulder surgery and getting non-tendered by then-GM Jim Bowden in a VERY public blowup, he pitched only 9 2/3 more MLB innings (for Seattle in 2010) before he was done.

And despite that ending, there’s a reason Cordero still has reverence for Washington and the Nationals: all of you.

“The reception I've gotten from fans who've reached out or have seen me over at Nationals Park – whenever the Nationals are home on the weekends I'm there pretty much every game and just kind of hanging out and meeting people and stuff – has been great,” said Cordero, who sits in the crowd with the fans these days. “Those first couple years at RFK were special, and to be a part of that meant a lot. It was very intimate and you were able to mingle with the fans a lot more and grow relationships with them. A lot of season ticket holders have been here since Day 1, and I’ve kept in contact with them and will sit with them at games when I can. It’s a pretty special thing.”

Well, it’s that, and the fact that the then-Expos let him live out his dream after three strong years at Cal State Fullerton – almost completely skipping the minors to do it – and he gave G&D the story of how the Expos decided on that path.

“They drafted me, and I think a lot of people were shocked I was a first-round pick, because I didn’t look like it – I was 5-foot-11 and didn’t throw very hard – but they flew us out to New York to watch the Expos play the Mets and asked me to throw a bullpen,” Cordero remembered. “It’d been about two weeks since I picked up a ball, because I took some time to rest my arm, and I was a nervous wreck.”

So there’s Cordero in the bullpen at Shea Stadium, being watched by manager Frank Robinson, pitching coach Randy St. Claire, and some of the front office…

“I think I threw 20 pitches and 19 of them were in the dirt, and my dad overheard Frank Robinson saying, ‘this is our first-round pick?’ And I thought my career was over before it started,” Cordero laughed.

But there he was a couple months later, in Miami, relieving ex-Marlin World Series hero Livan Hernandez late in a loss to the Marlins, making his MLB debut – and the rest, as they say, is history.

Take a listen to Cordero’s entire visit above, which includes thoughts on leaving Montreal and playing at RFK, the reason arm injuries are so prevalent now, and much more!