Rockies catcher Chris Iannetta on wiffle-ball homers, landscaping jobs and the acoustic guitar

Ryan Fagan

Rockies catcher Chris Iannetta on wiffle-ball homers, landscaping jobs and the acoustic guitar image

Sporting News writer Ryan Fagan is traveling through Florida and Arizona this spring, stopping at camps and chatting with the players. One of his side projects is a quick-hitter Q/A we’re calling “Two minutes with …”

Up next: Rockies catcher Chris Iannetta.

What’s your first baseball memory?
IANNETTA:
Before I even started playing organized baseball, just my dad and my uncle flipping me baseballs with the wiffle-ball bat in the back of my nonna’s house. I just remember hitting balls over the shed. It was probably only 12 or 13 feet away, but it was the greatest feeling. 

What’s the last show you binge-watched?
IANNETTA:
Ozark.

What’s your favorite free-time activity? 
IANNETTA:
Teaching myself how to play the acoustic guitar. 

What’s one talent you’d most like to have?
IANNETTA:
Everything. There’s not one thing. I just like to be good at everything. 

What was your first job?
IANNETTA:
I worked for my best friend’s dad, landscaping. I started with the bucket, pulling weeds in the flower beds and then moved up to using the blower when they were done, to blow all their grass clippings on the driveways and sidewalks, and then started cutting grass. Worked my way up. 

What’s your most embarrassing injury?
IANNETTA:
Don’t have one yet, thankfully. 

What’s the best purchase you’ve ever made?
IANNETTA:
Don’t know. My house, I guess.

Ryan Fagan

Ryan Fagan Photo

Ryan Fagan, the national MLB writer for The Sporting News, has been a Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2016. He also dabbles in college hoops and other sports. And, yeah, he has way too many junk wax baseball cards.