{"id":3096,"date":"2024-07-06T18:17:02","date_gmt":"2024-07-06T18:17:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jack-donovan.com\/sowilo\/?p=3096"},"modified":"2024-07-06T18:19:27","modified_gmt":"2024-07-06T18:19:27","slug":"aubrey-huff-alpha-american","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jack-donovan.com\/sowilo\/2024\/07\/06\/aubrey-huff-alpha-american\/","title":{"rendered":"Aubrey Huff – Alpha American"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Aubrey Huff photographed by Jack Donovan. 2021.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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This interview was originally published online in 2021 as part of the Chest Magazine project.\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Aubrey Huff wants to be a good father to his sons. He wants to set an example for them.<\/p>

He wants to show them what it means to be a man, and what it means to be an American.<\/p>

Lately, he\u2019s been selling t-shirts through his patriotic brand, Alpha American\u00a0. As an outspoken advocate for both freedom and masculinity, he\u2019s had his verified accounts banned on both Twitter and Instagram.<\/p>

But if you knew about Aubrey Huff before all of that \u2014 you knew him from baseball. Huff played 13 seasons in Major League Baseball. He finished his career with the Giants, and won two World Series with them. He loved being part of that team and speaks fondly of those times and told me that he still keeps in touch with some of his teammates. However, as a Trump supporter and masculinity advocate, the San Francisco-based Giants organization has tried on several occasions to distance itself from him.<\/p>

Huff reached out to me after reading The Way of Men<\/em>\u00a0, and after watching the big tech establishment collude with political organizations to target and silence outspoken voices like his, I decided to fly out to San Diego to interview him for CHEST. As a former Major League Baseball star, Aubrey Huff is a well-known, mainstream figure who is remembered and appreciated by millions of baseball fans across America, but he presents as a friendly, down-to-earth guy who could just as easily be a general contractor. I brought the guy I live with along with me, because he is a lifelong Giants fan, and Aubrey happily offered him a baseball card from his drawer and signed a Giants baseball for him. We sat down at Huff\u2019s kitchen island to talk about his past, the present state of masculinity, and the future of America.<\/p>

I\u2019ve noticed over the years that there is a tendency and even a strong desire among many to believe that particularly masculine or accomplished men simply emerged from the womb or from the smoke from some lightning strike exactly as are now or as they were in their prime. We want our heroes to be divine and there was a tendency even in the ancient world to mythologize the lives and even the childhoods of men who rose to prominence or who did great deeds. Many women and homosexual men want the truly masculine man to be some alien \u201cother\u201d who is and has always been unshakably confident, firm, and certain. They want to believe that he simply \u201cis\u201d and that he never had to create the man that they see before them from some confused or hesitant boy.<\/p>

It is also true that men want to believe that the men who they follow are special and gifted. The word hierarchy itself essentially means holy order, or rule by the divine order. When someone\u2019s at the top of the hierarchy, we want to believe that there\u2019s some magical reason why.<\/p>

While there has always been a desire to believe that these men are some kind of supernatural \u201cother,\u201d I believe that the reality of their personal transformations is far more inspiring. While some men do seem to be guided into a confident masculinity by strong father figures, and I believe that\u2019s how it should<\/em> be, many of the most vocal advocates for masculinity are men who corrected something that they found lacking in themselves. They create a light in response to an internal void or perceived void. Their confidence is a response to self-doubt. We could call it the \u201cRoosevelt Effect,\u201d after Theodore, and it came up recently in my interview with Ian Smith, who described himself as a \u201cfeeble\u201d kid who avoided challenges. Detractors would say that they are motivated by \u201cinsecurity,\u201d but I\u2019m inclined to wonder in response what motivates the kind of people who would say that, and indeed, what their preferred motivator might be. Many of the men I\u2019ve met who have achieved something notable have confided that they\u2019ve always felt they had \u201csomething to prove\u201d in some way or other.<\/p>

Aubrey Huff \u2014 who grew up to become a successful Major League Baseball player and one of the few well-known men today who is risking revenue and reputation to stand up against big tech \u2014 that guy<\/em> told me that once upon a time, he thought of himself as a \u201cmama\u2019s boy.\u201d Aubrey\u2019s father was murdered while trying to stop a domestic dispute as a bystander in Texas when Huff was only 6 years old. He and his sister were raised by his hard-working mother, who encouraged them in athletics. Still, growing up without a father, Huff told me that he was uncertain and lacked confidence and didn\u2019t even manage to find a girlfriend until he was in college. When he made it to the major leagues, he said, he had to \u201cgrow up quick.\u201d<\/p>

Huff said he learned a lot about being a man \u201cin the clubhouse,\u201d which taught him about leadership and building relationships and learning how to work together with other men as part of a team. He said it\u2019s something that he missed a lot after he retired, and we compared it to some of the challenges men face when they leave the military and lose that kind of camaraderie \u2014 though Aubrey was quick to point out that \u201cthose guys are heroes\u201d and that he was just \u201cplaying a kid\u2019s game.\u201d<\/p>

Huff said his marriage and divorce also taught him a lot about being a man. When he was playing baseball in the major leagues, he had that alpha energy and that\u2019s what his wife signed up for. When he retired, though, he decided to encourage his wife to \u201cgo pursue her dreams\u201d and he stayed home to \u201ccook and clean and do the shopping and take the kids to school and fold the laundry.\u201d He did that for a few years, and said that he felt,\u201dlike a caged lion.\u201d He went through some depression, and even though he was doing what progressive society says that men should do, he wife was less attracted to him. Eventually, they drifted apart, and he says that, looking back, he blames himself for allowing himself to become a \u201cbeta male.\u201d<\/p>

\u201cShe signed up for an alpha male.\u201d<\/p>

He said he did a lot of research into men\u2019s books and referenced Rollo Tomassi and Richard Cooper.<\/p>

\u201cKill the beta before it kills you.\u201d<\/p>

As he came to understand what happened, he realized that helping other men understand that became part of his mission.<\/p>

\u201cDon\u2019t allow yourself to become feminized by this pussified society that is trying to assassinate men\u2019s character and their strength.\u201d<\/p>

Huff\u2019s boys are in public school now, and that\u2019s where he sees a lot of the programming start. He tells his kids to listen to their teachers when they are talking about math or science, but when they start to spew their \u201cpolitical bullshit\u201d or tell them that they\u2019re being \u201ctoo aggressive or competitive, I want you to pretend like they are the Charlie Brown teacher. \u2018Wah-wah-wah-wah-wah.\u2019\u201d<\/p>

\u201cI talk to my sons like they\u2019re men. I don\u2019t tell them that the world is full of puppy dogs and ice cream, because it\u2019s not. You\u2019re not a special snowflake. The world\u2019s not going to be fair. But when you figure out what your gift is and what you want to do \u2014 I don\u2019t care what it is \u2014 you go out and do it with everything you have. At the end of the day, you can lay your head down knowing that you did your best.\u201d<\/p>

And that is Huff\u2019s primary concern now \u2014 preparing his boys for life. He said that as a Christian man, he always wanted marriage and family life, but his divorce taught him a lot about the court system. \u201cIt\u2019s become a business.\u201d He said a lot of men have very little to gain and everything to lose by getting married, so while he\u2019d like to find another woman to spend his life with, he doesn\u2019t see himself getting legally married again.<\/p>

\u201cI believe in marriage the way it was when Jesus talked about it back in the day, right before the government got involved in marriage and fucked everything up like they always do.\u201d<\/p>

POLITICS<\/h2>

Today, Aubrey Huff is known \u2014 and sometimes hated \u2014 for supporting conservative causes, but he told me that while he was growing up and even while he was playing baseball, politics wasn\u2019t really on his radar. As a baseball player, he went to The White House and shook Barack Obama\u2019s hand and his thought at the time was that it was a great opportunity and something he was looking forward to telling his kids about. \u201cI got to meet the President of the United States.\u201d He wasn\u2019t paying much attention to politics in those days \u2014 he said he was too busy \u201chitting bombs and cashing checks.\u201d But after retiring from baseball, he started paying more attention \u2014 especially to the way that the media fawned over Obama and then switched to trashing Trump. Huff remembers that the media seemed to love Trump and treated him like the American Dream when he was known as an entertainer and a celebrity, but as soon as he was elected, he was portrayed as a \u201cracist\u201d or a \u201cjoke\u201d or a\u201cpiece of shit.\u201d Aubrey slowly came to the conclusion that \u201cboth parties were playing us,\u201d and it seemed like Trump was being strangely targeted and disrespected because he was \u201cin the way.\u201d He said watching the media bias throughout the Trump presidency really \u201cred-pilled\u201d him.<\/p>

Naturally, the biased media coverage of COVID-19 and the censorship of anyone who questioned the official narrative on any issue surrounding it made him even more concerned.<\/p>

We talked about the obvious relationship between weapons confiscation in Australia and the gross human rights violations and overt oppression that is occurring there now. Huff believes the biggest attack right now is on \u201cpatriotic, Alpha male American men\u201d and the women who support them. \u201cIf you can take out the alpha male[s] as a government, then you have all the control.\u201d He said that there has been all kinds of overreach, and a lot of men are tired of it, but they\u2019ve been waiting for something \u201cbig\u201d to happen. In the case of masks, a lot of people have just been ignoring it and going about their business. But for Aubrey Huff, the vaccine coercion is the last straw. \u201cWhen you start coming at me saying I have to get the vaccine to go into a store, or you\u2019re coming at my kids with a vaccine \u2014 you\u2019re putting a lion in a corner.\u201d He believes, and from what I can tell, I agree, that there are thousands of men ready to die on that particular hill. Huff says he isn\u2019t necessarily anti-vaccine or anti-all-vaccines, but he is anti, \u201cyou\u2019re telling me I have to take the vaccine.\u201d As he put it, we don\u2019t know the long-term effects, and \u201conce you put that in someone, there is no way to take it back out.\u201d<\/p>

A lot of men are being forced into a tough position right now, and many have written to Aubrey asking for advice about making the choice to refuse the vaccine even if it means losing their livelihood. Huff is sympathetic to that, because he knows he isn\u2019t in the same situation financially. But he asks them, \u201cis it worth sacrificing your beliefs, values, morals, and freedom?\u201d<\/p>

He reminds men that, \u201calone, you\u2019re weak, but together, you\u2019re strong.\u201d If a company has a hundred people in it, it\u2019s easy to fire one, but it\u2019s a lot harder to fire half of the staff. Aubrey tells people they need to work together to push back.<\/p>

So many of the old labels and expectations about \u201cleft\u201d and \u201cright\u201d and \u201cRepublicans\u201d and \u201cDemocrats\u201d seem outdated and inaccurate in this new political environment. This unification of workers against big corporations was once the domain of the left. Today, those who claim to be \u201cliberals\u201d support mandates and draconian regulations and firing anyone who doesn\u2019t comply \u2014 while it is those who would have once been associated with the \u201cright\u201d who now represent \u201cthe people\u201d banding together and standing up to big business and totalitarian state interests.<\/p>

Huff said that sometime during 2020, he was watching the riots on the news with this boys, and they asked what he was going to do if it kept going on. At the time, he joked that, \u201cif this keeps going on, dad\u2019s going to get up off his ass and we\u2019re gonna go full John Connor.\u201d (The leader of the resistance in The Terminator films)<\/p>

Months passed and California politicians started to talk about lockdowns and masks again, and one of his boys asked, \u201cDad, are you ready to go full John Connor, yet?\u201d<\/p>

His boys remembered that, and he felt like he had to stand up and do something, so Aubrey Huff held his own political rally with a few other speakers. He said about 1,000 people showed up.<\/p>

\u201cYou can only post and tweet for so long.\u201d<\/p>

ALPHA AMERICAN<\/h2>

A few months into the pandemic, Aubrey Huff decided to start a t-shirt brand named \u201cAlpha American.\u201d He said that he\u2019d been kicking it around for a year or so, inspired by guys like Sean Whalen, who converted his \u201cLions Not Sheep\u201d message into a successful apparel brand. In part it was his Texas born-and-raised response to the \u201cman buns and soy lattes and skinny jeans\u201d he was seeing everywhere. He remembered his time in baseball and said that \u201cin the clubhouse, every one of those guys was an alpha male.\u201d He came up with the name for the brand by combining his belief that men should strive to become more masculine with his love for America. Huff is concerned about the future of his country, and like Anthony Dream Johnson (though he didn\u2019t phrase it this way or quote him), seems to believe that a \u201crevolution in masculinity\u201d is required to right America\u2019s path.<\/p>

Aubrey Huff sees \u201cAlpha American\u201d as his response to what he sees as the \u201cvictim mindset\u201d and the \u201cparticipation trophy\u201d mentality.<\/p>

\u201cThere was never a guy I met in baseball who had that victim mentality \u2014 and if he did, he was\u00a0 gone the next week. You grind your way up there and work your ass off and it is kill or be killed. You look at that pitcher in the eye and you\u2019ve got that killer instinct and you think \u2018you are not taking food off my family\u2019s table, I don\u2019t give a shit.\u2019 It\u2019s a badass attitude every athlete has. It\u2019s a confidence and belief in yourself that you\u2019re going to make it happen.\u201d<\/p>

\u201cThat\u2019s why I love what I\u2019m doing now with Alpha American \u2014 It\u2019s a dying breed in today\u2019s society. Everyone wants free shit.\u201d<\/p>

\u201cThe Alpha American\u2026you live your life and don\u2019t ask permission.\u201d<\/p>

Aubrey took me downstairs to show me his operation. His boys help him fold the t-shirts, and right now, he still ships them himself. That may change at some point, but right now he is enjoying the challenge of running a business and connecting with his audience.<\/p>

He offered us both t-shirts, and showed us his paintings. Aubrey likes drawing superheroes digitally, using Procreate. He has his illustrations printed in high definition and mounted on canvases, then adds three dimensional elements like broken wood or glass or chicken wire to add interest to the composition. He seems to really enjoy the process and was proud to show us what he\u2019s been working on. I particularly liked his \u201cjacked Jesus\u201d painting. I decided to photograph Aubrey in front of his paintings, because it shows an unexpected side of his personality.<\/p>

I\u2019m glad I made the trip to meet him, and was struck by how similar the conversation we had was to the conversations I\u2019ve been having with other men around the country from totally different backgrounds. I believe that there\u2019s a strong, sensible middle position rising among American men despite our differences, and Aubrey Huff is right \u2014 we sure do need a lot more \u201cAlphas.\u201d<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jack Donovan interviews former SF Giant baseball player Aubrey Huff.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3098,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interviews"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t