ATLANTA — Buck’s name had eight exclamation points after it, which struck Showalter straight away.

The former Orioles manager had texted Manny Machado, his former pupil in Baltimore, to congratulate him on reaching 2,000 career hits this month. Showalter also reminded Machado of the long-ago day in Aberdeen, when an 18-year-old Machado played for the IronBirds. After the Orioles finished a Saturday game at Camden Yards, Showalter hopped in the car and drove north on Interstate 95 to see this wunderkind in person.

Showalter didn’t introduce himself that day, but Machado noticed the skipper in the stands anyway. They didn’t talk; Showalter figured he’d be seeing Machado in Baltimore soon enough for conversation. With that history, the rise of Machado into this — a Cooperstown-bound third baseman in the 2,000-hit club — doesn’t come as a surprise to Showalter.

So, in his text to Machado, he reminisced on that journey, which took Machado away from Baltimore to the San Diego Padres. He congratulated Machado. And he didn’t hold out hope for something much in return, expecting that the 33-year-old’s phone would be overheating from the number of well-wishers.

Instead, Showalter read, Machado led off with: “Buck!!!!!!!!” He then continued with: “Long way. Lots of learning and growing up from those nights. Thank you for being a part of this journey with me.”

It was more than Showalter expected, yet knowing what he knows about Machado now, the longtime manager only smiled.

“If you told me Manny was going to write me that text in 2012, I would’ve said, no way,” Showalter said. “But now it doesn’t surprise me, because he gets it, and I think he takes on the responsibility of being one of those guys.”

What does being one of those guys mean?

Machado is in rarefied air. Among active players in Major League Baseball, he has the fifth-most hits (2,007). Across 14 seasons, he has been an All-Star seven times. He’s a Platinum Glove winner, a Silver Slugger, a future Hall of Famer.

And yet Machado gets lost in the conversation of the game’s best players at times because of a narrative that built around the Baltimore phenom that labeled the generational talent as a lightning rod for attention, good and bad. To those closest to him, the negative side of that narrative is wrong — even when he was young, a 20-year-old debutant for the Orioles, those who shared a clubhouse saw what they describe now as a pure heart.

“When you ask a teammate, ‘Hey, what do you think of Manny Machado?’ they’ll always give him the vote of confidence, I feel like, because Manny was really invested in other players and the team’s success,” said Ryan Flaherty, who played with and coached Machado. “Those two things always stood out for a young superstar.”

The journey that Machado has taken since Baltimore selected him with the third overall pick in 2010 is one of duality — of growth on and off the field. When asked in what ways he has developed, Machado said there are too many to count.

“It’s the beauty of this game, right?” Machado said at the All-Star Game. “Over the years you learn a lot, and it’s been a nice journey.”

But to pretend this is straightforward would be putting a bow on a fairy tale. There have been times when Machado was at the center of controversy and, in some cases, the criticisms have merit. In just as many cases, if not more, they were overblown narratives of immaturity, of a lack of hustle. They conflicted with the grace those near Machado saw, and perhaps they still color the outside perspective of a player whose name belongs among the best in the game.

Machado does not care much for outside perspectives. His circle is tight. He cares about his loved ones and his teammates. Joe Schmoe on social media does not matter.

To Showalter, Flaherty and Machado’s longtime trainer Nick Soto, the light shining on Machado deserves a more positive hue. Since he joined the Padres in 2019, his public perception has improved. He’s known as “El Capitán” in San Diego. But, long before the storyline shifted to one of maturity and veteran leadership, a young Machado in Baltimore showed some of those same values.

So, when discussing the legacy of Machado, begin there. Sure, he has grown. He is “El Capitán” for a reason. But this trajectory was more expected than exceptional to those who knew the young man.

“When he was a younger guy, he just went about his business,” said Soto, who began working with Machado about a decade ago. “I felt he went about his business the right way. But you know, whatever stigma he had, he had. The leadership that he’s shown, that’s probably one of the things that I’m proudest of, watching him grow as a man.”

Great imagination

Yonder Alonso, Machado’s brother-in-law, talked up the kid before he met Soto for the first time.

“Listen, man, this kid is the real deal,” Soto remembers Alonso saying. “He’s the best third baseman in the game. He’s just really young, but you’ll see, it’s crazy what this kid has.”

Soto didn’t think anything of it. He had heard hype before as a personal trainer in Florida who has worked with players from across sports, including football and basketball.

But, when Machado arrived and began an in-depth conversation about offseason training plans, how to improve various parts of his game and how Soto’s football background could help a baseball player, Soto was immediately impressed. Machado hadn’t even lifted anything yet, or run, or swung a bat. But Soto could tell he was different.

“All this talk about how immature he was early on, from my perspective, he was super mature,” Soto said. “He and I could have a full-on conversation about what the offseason needed to look like, what he wanted to get out of it. He understood the concept behind it, and he tackled it from day one with more hunger than people would realize, or think that he would, based on kind of the persona that the media has made out of him — or had made out of him at that point in his career.”

There has always been a fluidity to Machado’s game that underscores the ease with which he finds certain things. Take the play Machado made on July 7, 2013, as an example. New York Yankees infielder Luis Cruz hit a chopper down the third-base line. Machado knocked it down but didn’t cleanly field it with his glove. As the ball trickled into foul territory, Machado picked up the ball and flung it to first off his back foot. He was unbalanced, throwing blindly, and yet the ball reached Chris Davis on the fly and beat Cruz for the out.

Moments such as those stand out in Showalter’s mind.

“The last thing you ever want to do with a player like Manny is put a thumb on him,” said Showalter, who admitted he and Machado “bumped heads” at times. “You don’t want to suppress their individuality and, in Manny’s case, his imagination. Manny’s got great imagination. He’ll catch a ball and you’ll go, how in the world can he complete the play from that angle he caught the ball?”

That fluidity, at the same time, could be viewed by some as nonchalance. To those close to him, they realize how much Machado cares. But Soto remembers a video cropping up from a Perfect Game high school showcase, in which Machado made each play look routine at shortstop.

“People started making comments like, ‘Look, even back then, there was no hustle in his game,’” Soto recalled. “And I don’t usually get involved in this, and the whole back and forth, especially on social media, but I was like, ‘Go back and watch the entire video and tell me if there was one ball that he missed.’ He got every single one with efficiency, with ease, and he made every single fricking throw. What does that tell you? It tells you the game’s just easy for him.”

Be that as it may, Showalter emphasized to Machado and Adam Jones and other players the importance of playing the right way.

For Machado, that meant working on his feeds from third base to second base on double play balls. Early on, Machado’s cannon of an arm could make the turn more difficult for a second baseman. He learned to take something off the throw, to place it just so, to improve the chances of turning two.

“I told him, ‘Sometimes you don’t have to be sexy. You just have to stick your nose in there and get something done, and you don’t care about how it looks aesthetically,’” Showalter said. “Manny always wanted to present that it was smooth and easy for him.”

In Machado’s first season in the majors, he helped the Orioles clinch a postseason place. In his first postseason game, he came to the plate in the ninth inning with runners on second and third. There were two strikes, and right-hander Joe Nathan threw a down-and-away slider.

Machado reached out and pulled it through the draw-in infield for an RBI, extending Baltimore’s lead.

To Showalter, that showed him everything he needed to know about the 20-year-old.

“I remember in the dugout going, ‘OK, that’s what I’m talking about,’” Showalter said. “He didn’t care how it looked. He got it done.”

Still, there have been instances in Machado’s career when he came under fire for a perceived lack of motivation. In 2018, after the Orioles traded Machado to the Los Angeles Dodgers, he was asked why he doesn’t run out ground balls as hard as possible. His response hovered over him for years.

“I’m not the type of player that’s going to be ‘Johnny Hustle’ and run down the line and slide to first base,” Machado said at the time. “That’s just not my personality; that’s not my cup of tea; that’s not who I am.”

“That backfired on him,” Soto said. “But, if you go back and actually watch the tape, does he sprint out every pointless first-base sprint? Maybe not. But at the end of the day he’s trying to save his body. If it’s a close one, you’ll notice, he’s going to sprint every single one of them.”

And, Soto pointed out, Machado’s availability and consistency are two of his greatest assets. He has appeared in 150 or more games in 10 seasons. Since 2012, his rookie year, Machado has posted an OPS of .746 or higher — including an .898 mark in 2022, when he finished second in National League MVP voting.

That consistency has ingratiated him to his home fans. His antics, at times, make him a villain on the road. In Oakland, for instance, a 2014 incident in which Machado claimed the bat slipped from his hands onto the infield after reliever Fernando Abad nearly hit him with two pitches led to a five-game suspension and a rain of boos at the Coliseum for years to come.

It never seemed to bother him.

“There’s a part of Manny where he’s OK playing the villain, and he’s OK being the guy — part of it fuels him, I think, to be honest with you,” Flaherty said. “I think he enjoys it when he walks into a stadium and people boo him. He feels like it gives him an edge, and he’s OK playing that role.”

Flaherty said Machado deeply cares what his teammates and family think.

“But outside of that he thinks it’s going to fall where it’s going to fall,” Flaherty added. “I think he was OK going to Oakland and getting booed. I think he enjoyed going to Milwaukee and getting booed. He certainly loved what has become the Dodger-Padre rivalry, and him being at the center of that. I feel like he plays his best games in those environments, and it’s just something he’s OK being, and OK playing that role. If you’re around him, you know that’s not really him, but it’s just something that fuels him.”

‘A book of knowledge’

In January, Flaherty — who is the bench coach for the Chicago Cubs after working with Machado and the Padres for four seasons — received a call from a friend, wondering if he could ask a favor from Machado.

In Miami, a 19-year-old Texas Rangers prospect named Sebastian Walcott hoped to meet Machado. Walcott, a shortstop and third baseman from the Bahamas, is 6-foot-4. With his long, lanky figure, he resembles a young Machado. So Flaherty made a call, and along with Soto, Machado and Walcott worked out and hit together for two hours.

“I think he’s just a book of knowledge for a younger player. There’s not a lot of older players who necessarily do that with a younger player,” Flaherty said.

That was only one of several examples Flaherty could pull from his time with a veteran Machado. Even now, Machado isn’t one to deliver a fiery speech to the whole clubhouse, Flaherty said. But in the batting cage sitting alongside Jake Cronenworth and Jackson Merrill, or in the clubhouse preparing for the game, young players can look at Machado for leadership.

“When he first came up, right away, he was our best player from the day he arrived,” Flaherty said of Machado in 2012. “But a leadership role, that was never really required of him. He was just a guy who was there, and I think that’s something that’s developed. He’s become a leader, and he’s had to become a leader when he went to San Diego and kind of took over the team there.”

Those quiet moments, when Machado leads by example or provides advice out of the public eye, can be as critical as his 2,000-plus hits.

“There’s a part of you that wishes people could see this other side of him that he doesn’t always show,” Flaherty said.

Showalter and Soto have seen it, too, even as other parts of Machado stay the same.

While Soto figures Machado has many years left in him, from a training perspective, the intensity of their winter workouts hasn’t changed. Each offseason, Soto wonders, “is this the year we have that talk?” Do they take it a bit easier? Lighten the load?

So far, it hasn’t arrived.

“The conversation is the opposite, like, let’s push,” Soto said.

The same mentality showed up in the immediate aftermath of Machado’s 2,000th hit. After expressing his gratitude for the opportunity to become one of 11 players in major league history to reach 2,000 hits and 350 home runs in their age-32 season or earlier, Machado turned his eyes to what comes next: 3,000 hits.

Even if he doesn’t reach that milestone, Machado’s case for a place in the Hall of Fame is strong. He’ll almost certainly enter it with a Padres hat on his head. But Flaherty often joked with Machado during their time in San Diego that he’ll always picture Machado as a Baltimore Oriole.

Flaherty likely isn’t alone. Machado’s journey started there, a 20-year-old making his debut in 2012. When he collected his first knock — a triple — the Camden Yards crowd stood and cheered for a star they called their own. Over parts of the next seven seasons, Machado was an integral piece of Baltimore’s success.

“It certainly wouldn’t have been a playoff team in 2012 had they not called him up and he didn’t do what he did, and certainly in the ’14 and ’16 seasons as well,” Flaherty said. “Without him there, those teams just don’t make the playoffs.”

And, without him, years went by before the Orioles did so again.

“It’s not fun when your window’s closing and you have to cut bait,” Showalter said. Calling Machado to let him know of the trade, Showalter said, was an emotional moment. In the years since, they have reflected on the “tough love” Showalter gave Machado, and their relationship has remained strong even from afar.

For much of Showalter’s time managing Machado, he was aware of the responsibility at the feet of the coaching staff.

“I felt like we had been handed this precious commodity, and it was up to us to make sure it was given a path to be great,” Showalter said.

Showalter can guess he wasn’t perfect in every decision, every interaction.

But watching Machado now eases some of that stress. Machado is a superstar — the type of player whose name is immortalized past his playing days. That path began in Baltimore, with a manager who drove to Aberdeen one Saturday night in 2010 to see the future of the sport.

“He’s a big part of my journey,” Machado said, “and I’m very grateful he was a part of it.”