Adam Hyzdu

Adam Hyzdu was a multisport superstar at a high school known for superstar athletes including Buddy Bell, Barry Larkin, and Ken Griffey Jr. After being selected in the first round of the 1990 amateur draft, Hyzdu went on to have an interesting 18-year career in professional baseball. The slugging right-handed outfielder knocked out 273 minor-league home runs, and in parts of seven years in the major leagues he collected 19 more. Though he never got into as many as 60 major-league games in a season, he had some impressive highlights in the majors, including once being named the National League Player of the Week.

His parents, F. Michael Hyzdu (pronounced HIGHS-doo), a Missourian, and Shelley Dellaripa, from Virginia, met at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.

Mike Hyzdu entered the business of selling stocks and bonds and giving financial advice. Soon after graduation, he accepted a job offer from Westinghouse Electric and the Hyzdu family of three moved to San Jose, California, where their second son, Adam Davis Hyzdu, was born on December 6, 1971. Shelley had a degree in counseling but primarily worked as a homemaker.

Working for a firm owned by H. Ross Perot, Mike was sent to Los Angeles for a six-month training course. He requested to be assigned to Ohio, and before Adam reached the age of 2, he became an Ohioan. In 1978 younger brother, James Marshall Hyzdu, was born.

From a very young age, Adam just seemed to love all sports. His father recalled that when Adam was about 4 years old, he kept bugging the big kids in the neighborhood to let him play with them, but he was just too young. Finally his brother Michael, 4½ years older than Adam, allowed him to take part by “being second base, not playing second base, but BEING second base.”1 That didn’t satisfy him for long and he was soon joining in whenever he could. Once he was old enough to play T-ball, he clearly stood out.

By the time Adam entered Archbishop Moeller, an all-male Catholic high school in the northeastern suburbs of Cincinnati, he had played and excelled in plenty of sports, especially baseball and football. Through undefeated on Moeller’s freshman wrestling team, he chose to concentrate on football and baseball. He was rapidly growing into his eventual professional playing frame of 6-feet-2 and over 200 pounds.2

Adam played quarterback and frequently kicked for Archbishop Moeller’s football team and he helped lead the squad to the Ohio state championship game. Moeller lost, but Adam was named the game’s Most Valuable Player. He set passing records that lasted for decades. Having thrown for 2,239 yards and 19 touchdowns in his senior year at Moeller, he was recruited to play football by many of the nation’s top colleges, including Notre Dame, Duke, Kentucky, Miami, Stanford, and Tennessee. But baseball was his true love. 

It wasn’t only baseball that Adam fell in love with in high school. When a sophomore, he was introduced to Julie Theresa Berling and when they started talking they realized they both happened to have tickets to a  coming Def Leppard concert, so they decided to go together. As Adam put it, “the rest is history” and they’ve been together ever since.3

Moeller High School has produced 31 players who have played professional baseball.4  Hyzdu led the Moeller Crusaders in triples each of his seasons and his total of 14 triples broke the record of 12 that had been held by Hall of Famer Barry Larkin. His 22 home runs remain the school’s career record.5 Hyzdu is also the school’s career leader in walks with 63, eight above the second-place total, which shows that he was patient and knew the strike zone and/or that pitchers were just afraid to throw him strikes. In his last two years Moeller won the league’s championship and in his junior year they were also the state champs and ranked fifth in the nation.6

 Adam also played a key role on some highly successful summer baseball teams, including two that won national championships. In 1988 his Midland Indians team became the Mickey Mantle 16U champs and the following summer his Midland Redskins won the Connie Mack 18U championship. Those stacked teams also included third baseman David Bell, who went on to play 12 years in the majors and catcher Mike Matheny, who played 13 years of major-league baseball and was a major-league manager for 10 years. 

At least as many colleges tried to recruit Hyzdu for baseball as had tried to recruit him for football, and he eventually signed to play for coach Ron Polk and the Mississippi State Bulldogs. Adam’s father said his son might have followed through had he been selected in any round of the baseball draft other than the first. In June of 1990, however, the San Francisco Giants selected him in the first round, and Adam signed a contract, with a $250,000 signing bonus with territory scout Herman Hannah, and became a professional baseball player.7

As an 18-year-old in 1990, Hyzdu played the outfield in 69 games for the Everett (Washington) Giants of the short-season Class-A Northwest League and collected 62 hits, including six home runs. He was promoted the next season to the Clinton (Iowa) Giants of the Class-A Midwest League, which put him about 2,000 miles closer to his Cincinnati hometown. He played in 124 games and helped Clinton end an 11-year playoff drought and win the Midwest League championship. 

The next year Hyzdu was moved up once again, to the San Jose Giants in the Advanced-A California League. He hit .278 and led his team in base hits and total bases. On the troubling side, however, he also topped the team with 134 strikeouts, 58 more than any of his teammates, representing more than a quarter of his plate appearances.

In 1993 Hyzdu split his time between San Jose and the Shreveport Captains of the Double-A Texas League; for each team he struck out more than 25 percent of the time. Before the start of the 1994 season, he had gone to the Cincinnati Reds organization through the Rule 5 draft, was returned to the Giants, and was then traded back to the Reds for two minor-league pitchers. That year Hyzdu played for three teams in the Reds organization, the Winston-Salem Spirits (Class-A Carolina League), the Chattanooga Lookouts (Double-A Southern League), and the Indianapolis Indians (Triple-A American Association). He cut his strikeout rate considerably. 

In August 1994, major-league players went on strike, ending the season and canceling the postseason, including the World Series. The following March, team owners planned to resume games by using replacement players. The very eccentric and twice-suspended racist owner of the Cincinnati Reds, Marge Schott, was fully onboard with her team’s using replacement players. Hyzdu remembered it this way:

“Marge wanted to use me as the poster boy for the major league team in 1995 when they brought in replacement players. They brought 40 of us in and said we were competing for the 25 spots on the major-league roster. I proceeded to tell her I was not going to cross the line after her parading me around to the front office and telling everyone I would do the right thing. When I said thank you for the interest but I cannot play and I would not cross the union’s wishes, she called me a weak little pussy and [said] that I would never amount to anything.8

When the strike ended, Hyzdu was sent back to Chattanooga, where he played well but was nevertheless released shortly before the start of the 1996 season. Late in April he signed with the Boston Red Sox and was sent to their Double-A team, the Trenton (New Jersey) Thunder. There he led the team in almost every batting category with 25 home runs, 80 RBIs, a .337 average, and a 1.042 OPS. The team was easily the best in the Eastern League with a record of 86-56. Hyzdu was promoted to the Pawtucket Red Sox in the Triple-A International League for the 1997 season and led his team with 23 homers and 84 RBIs, and helped the team improve to an 81-60 record. Showing an improved batting eye, he also led the team in walks with 72.

Hoping for a quicker path to the majors, Hyzdu opted for free agency after the season and signed with the Arizona Diamondbacks organization. He split the 1998 season playing for the Tucson Sidewinders in the Pacific Coast League and the Monterrey Sultanes in the Mexican League.???? Is there a story behind going to the Mexican League? He again became a free agent after the season and signed again with the Red Sox. Despite doing well in spring training, Hyzdu was sent back to Pawtucket, where in only a dozen games, he did not do well and was released.

While driving home to Cincinnati, Hyzdu received a phone call from Cam Bonifay, the general manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates. Bonifay asked Hyzdu if he would go to their brand-new Double-A Altoona Curve team specifically because some players there were “kind of headcases and running amok.”9 Altoona manager Marty Brown said he needed a high-character veteran who could take charge of the clubhouse and Hyzdu ended up doing that and a lot more. Brown told him, “Whatever you say goes.”10        

Playing in just 91 of Altoona’s 140 games in 1999, Hyzdu nonetheless became its first star player, leading the team with 24 home runs, 78 RBIs, a .316 batting average, a slugging percentage of .612, and an OPS of 1.003. He also smashed five homers in 14 games for the Pirates’ Triple-A team, the Nashville Sounds. Rather than a promotion the next season, he was sent back to Altoona, where he played in all 142 games and set team records of 31 homers, 106 RBIs, 94 walks, 285 total bases, and a .406 on-base percentage. He was named the team’s Most Valuable Player for the second straight year and also was voted the MVP of the Eastern League.11 

In 2018 Cory Giger, a longtime sportswriter for the Altoona Mirror, wrote of Hyzdu:

“To come through with clutch hit after clutch hit, ninth-inning home runs, pinch-hit homers to win games, the bottom line is he was a sensational player on the field. You don’t become a legend anywhere unless you are first and foremost a great player. But because he was a great player who also accepted his role of being the leader, of being the older, mature guy on the team and of being the face of the franchise, that’s what stood out to me. He accepted and appreciated what he could do for Altoona and the Curve.12  

When Altoona’s 2000 season ended, Hyzdu was called up to the Pittsburgh Pirates. Since Altoona was only about 100 miles from Pittsburgh, many Pirates fans were already well aware of his performance there and were rooting him on. He was almost 29 years old when he started as the left fielder in the second game of a doubleheader at Three Rivers Stadium on September 8, 2000, against the Cincinnati Reds. In his first major-league plate appearance, Hyzdu led off the bottom of the third inning with a single to right field off lefty Ron Villone. He didn’t score, but the Pirates beat the Reds 3-1.13

Hyzdu collected his first major-league RBI on September 19 with a pinch-hit single that helped lead to a win in Philadelphia. The next night Hyzdu again was used as a pinch-hitter. His two-run homer in the 10th inning off righty Chris Brock drove in the final two Pirates runs in a 7-6 win. 

Hyzdu’s only other start for the 2000 Pirates came in the second game of a September 23 doubleheader. He had four at-bats in Milwaukee and got a single and his first two major-league doubles. In a dozen games with the Pirates, Hyzdu had batted .389 with an OPS of 1.056 and things were looking good for the coming spring.

But Hyzdu started the 2001 season back in Nashville and played in 69 games for the Sounds with a .291 batting average and 11 home runs. In early June he was called back to Pittsburgh, where he got into 51 games and hit five homers, but his batting average dropped to .208 so he started the 2002 season back in Nashville. This time he clubbed 10 homers with 50 RBIs before being recalled to Pittsburgh at the beginning of July. He started off well with a two-run home run in his first plate appearance, but it wasn’t until his 10th game back that he caught fire. 

On July 18 Hyzdu started in center field and knocked out two singles in three at-bats. The next day he collected three hits, including a home run, and four RBIs in a 12-9 win over St. Louis. On the next day he had the most productive game of his major-league career. He hit a three-run homer in the first inning, singled to center in the third, smashed another three-run homer in the fifth, and singled again in the ninth inning to drive in a seventh run in the Pirates’ 15-6 thrashing of the Cardinals. Over the next four games Hyzdu got six more hits, including another home run. Those seven games gave him 15 hits, 4 homers, 7 runs scored, 12 runs batted in, a .556 batting average, a .586 on-base percentage, and a slugging percentage of 1.000. It also earned him a new watch as the prize for being named the National League Player of the Week.

On July 30, 2002, Hyzdu doubled in two of the Pirates’ three runs in the eighth inning to beat the Colorado Rockies, 4-1. On August 18 he got a home run and two RBIs in a 3-2 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers. He followed that up on the 23rd with his first grand slam in a 6-3 win against the Brewers. On September 13 he doubled in a run and homered as the Pirates beat the Phillies 5-3.

Though Hyzdu started off the 2003 season driving in two runs and scoring another in a 6-3 win over the Mets and then smacking his second major-league grand slam on the last day of April to beat the San Diego Padres 8-5, things did not go well over the next three months. By the beginning of August his grand slam had been his only homer and his batting average was barely over .200. He performed much better in a starting role, as he mostly did in 2002, than he did when used as a pinch-hitter, a pinch-runner, or a late-inning defensive replacement, as was the case for him with the Pirates for most of 2003. Early in August he was sent back down to Nashville. In 40 games there he did pretty well with half a dozen homers, 18 RBIs, and an average of .282, but was nonetheless a free agent at the end of the season.

Hyzdu signed again with the Red Sox organization and returned to Pawtucket, where he had a terrific year. Of those who played more than a handful of games, he led the Pawsox with a .301 batting average, a .413 on-base percentage, and a slugging percentage of .568. He hit 29 home runs, scored 92 runs, and drove in 79, and his 84 walks were more than a dozen ahead of anyone else on the team. He was officially the Pawsox’ Player of the Month of August.

It wasn’t until Boston’s Johnny Damon dislocated one of his pinky fingers diving back to first on a pickoff throw at the beginning of September, though, that Hyzdu was brought up to the Red Sox. Not wanting to put Damon on their injured list, the Red Sox instead designated pitcher Brandon Puffer for assignment to make room for Hyzdu.14

Hyzdu played in 17 games and the Red Sox went 12-5 in them. It wasn’t until his sixth game of either being a late-inning defensive replacement for Manny Ramírez or as a pinch-runner that he got a plate appearance. It was on September 11 at Safeco Field in Seattle. The Red Sox were leading the Mariners 7-0 when Hyzdu replaced Ramírez to start the bottom of the seventh inning. After David McCarty singled and Pokey Reese walked with two outs in the ninth, he doubled in McCarty with the eighth run. Two more walks drove in the final run of the 9-0 Red Sox victory.

On the 15th at Fenway Park, Hyzdu ran for Doug Mirabelli in the sixth inning of a 6-6 game against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and scored the go-ahead run on Manny Ramírez’s sacrifice fly. The Red Sox eventually won 8-6. On September 29 at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, the Red Sox were losing 5-3 in the fifth inning when Hyzdu ran for Ramírez. He didn’t score, but stayed in to play left and got to bat in the eighth and smashed a home run for the Red Sox’ final run in a 9-4 loss. Finally, on October 2 at Baltimore’s Camden Yards with Boston leading the Orioles 7-0 in the top of the sixth, Hyzdu batted for Johnny Damon and doubled to left, but was stranded. In the nightcap of that twin bill Kevin Millar was hit by a pitch in the seventh inning with the score tied at 5-5. With two on and one out, Hyzdu ran for Millar and scored the final run on Doug Mientkiewicz‘s triple in the second 7-5 Red Sox victory of the day.

Hyzdu’s contributions to the soon-to-be World Series champion Red Sox embraced 11 plate appearances, three runs scored, a pair of RBIs, and an even .300 batting average. He had a .364 on-base percentage and an impressive .800 slugging percentage. His three hits were two doubles and a home run, which gave him an OPS of 1.164. In the outfield he played errorless baseball while collecting six putouts. Though not on the postseason roster, he and pitcher Lenny DiNardo continued to work out with the team throughout the postseason.15

As well as he had played in Pawtucket and Boston in 2004, the Red Sox clearly did not consider the 33-year-old Hyzdu to be a prospect any longer, so before the 2005 season started he was traded to the San Diego Padres for pitcher Blaine Neal. Neal pitched in eight games for Boston with no wins, one loss, and an earned-run average of 9.00. In 17 early-season games, Hyzdu played in 16 games in April for San Diego with only a couple of starts and was just 2-for-16. The Padres gave him one last start on May 2 before sending him to Triple-A Portland, Oregon. In that game Hyzdu came up with two outs and the bases loaded in the second inning. He drove in all three runners with a double to left, helping the Padres beat the Colorado Rockies 5-4. 

For the Portland Beavers, Hyzdu’s 11 home runs, .275 batting average, and .410 OBP were enough to convince the Red Sox that they might have had made a mistake in trading him away. So on July 19, 2005, they traded pitcher Scott Cassidy for him and Hyzdu joined the Red Sox organization for a fourth time. In five July games for Boston he was 0-for-6 before being sent to Pawtucket. He stayed there long enough to hit four home runs and collect 25 RBIs before returning to Boston for the September pennant drive.

Hyzdu played in seven of the Red Sox’ final games and he got four hits and a pair of walks in 10 at-bats. His last game for Boston took place on October 2, the last game of the regular season. He went to center field, replacing Johnny Damon, to start the top of the seventh inning at Fenway Park. While there he made three putouts in center and led off the bottom of the seventh with a double to left. The next three batters struck out. Nevertheless, the Red Sox managed to hold on to a 10-1 win over the New York Yankees, moving into a first-place tie with them and becoming  a wild-card entry in the playoffs for the third straight year. (The Yankees had one more head-to-head win over the Red Sox.)

A few days after the Red Sox were swept by the White Sox in the Division Series, Hyzdu was released. He signed for the 2006 season with the Texas Rangers, but played in only two games for them before being sent to the Oklahoma RedHawks in the Pacific Coast League. He spent the rest of the season there. It was his last season playing professional baseball in the United States. Though now 34, he nevertheless led the RedHawks in many categories, including runs scored, runs batted in, doubles, walks, and homers (19). 

Hyzdu’s Oklahoma numbers were impressive enough to get him recruited by the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks in the Japan Pacific League. One thing he recalled as being different from all his previous years was that when he signed to play baseball in Japan in 2007, it was the first time he knew exactly what team he would be playing for and exactly how much money he would be making. He ended up getting into only 47 games but hit 7 home runs and posted a batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, and OPS that were each significantly above Fukuoka’s team performances. It was his final year as a professional baseball player.

During parts of seven years, Hyzdu had been in 221 major-league games and collected 82 hits, of which more than 45 percent went for extra bases. His 19 major-league home runs in 407 plate appearances meant he hit a homer every 21.4 times he came up to bat. That frequency rate was better than those of Eddie Murray, Gary Sheffield, and Mel Ott, each of whom hit over 500 major-league home runs. It was, however, Hyzdu’s minor-league statistics that were truly impressive. In 17 seasons in a variety of minor-league levels, he played in 1,703 games and had 1,642 hits. They included 355 doubles, 35 triples, and 273 home runs, meaning that over 40 percent of his hits went for extra bases. He scored 951 times and drove in over 1,000 runs. His 838 bases on balls gave him one walk every eight times he batted. His final minor-league statistics gave him a batting average of .276, an OBP of .366, a slugging percentage of .484, and an OPS of .850.

Though Hyzdu was always considered an outfielder, he played at least a little at every position except second base and shortstop in the minors; and in the majors he was an errorless first baseman in five games. In the 155 major-league games he played in the outfield, he was charged with only one error.

When Hyzdu returned from Japan in 2007, he was 35 years old, his baseball career was truly over, and he had to find something else to do. For about a year he worked for Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals (CMNH), an organization that raises money for children’s hospitals.

Meanwhile his father-in-law, Robert Berling, had been in the business of selling cars in Mesa, Arizona, until Adam and Julie gave him money in 2007 to start buying recreational vehicles.  Adam said that “once Julie’s dad sold his first RV, he was hooked. RVs are fun and happy and people love thinking about all the places they are going to go. Cars are cars, but RVs are an adventure.”16 After working for CMNH, he began working at Berling’s dealership and, when Berling died of cancer in October of 2010, Adam took over running it. As of 2023 he was still running it. RVAZ Corral in Mesa is a place to visit, check out some recreational vehicles or tow-along campers, and even get an autograph from a former major-league baseball player.

Adam’s parents Mike and Shelley had divorced, but have both remarried and were both still living in the Cincinnati area as were their two other sons. Adam’s brother, Mike, is chaplain for the Columbus Clippers minor-league baseball team. Brother Marshall in 2023 was the president of Archbishop Moeller High School. The three Hyzdu brothers and their parents established a Hyzdu Family Scholarship, which is given annually for “a Moeller education to a student who participates in a co-curricular activity and displays Christian leadership among his classmates.”17

Because of Adam’s lengthy baseball career, he and Julie had lived in many different places before they settled in Arizona. Adam and Julie’s first two children, Zac in March 1994 and Alexa in November 1996, were both born while Adam was still in the minor leagues. Having a family as a minor leaguer can be quite challenging and it certainly had been for the four members of the Hyzdu family. By the time Luke Hyzdu was born in December of 2000, however, Adam had finished his two outstanding seasons for the Altoona Curve and had even played a dozen games for the Pirates, so things were clearly looking up. His next six seasons were each split between Triple A and the majors, and though he still had to move around frequently, at least it was less of a financial struggle.

Despite the hardships of moving, however, at least the older children didn’t have to worry about constantly changing schools. Until they reached high-school age, Julie Hyzdu home-schooled them in all but gym and math, which Adam handled. (Luke, the youngest, was home-schooled for only a year.) Like their father, both of the boys excelled in baseball during their high-school years. Zac was set to play baseball at Dallas Baptist University, but he suffered a broken back and was unable to do so.18 After rehabbing, he made it on to the Grand Canyon University baseball team, but never quite recovered enough to play. After graduation he began working for his father and now handles financing at RVAZ Corral. Zac and his wife, Kendall, have also made proud grandparents out of Adam and Julie with two daughters. Since finishing college, Alexa has become a clinical counselor, first in California and then back in Arizona. Luke, meanwhile, played baseball at Scottsdale Community College after high school and then, after transferring, became a middle infielder for Texas A&M at Texarkana. In the spring of 2023, he played 44 games for the Eagles, mostly as their leadoff hitter, and batted a robust .344.19 

John Wehner, a teammate of Adam Hyzdu with the Pirates and Altoona, who has since become a color commentator for the Pirates, told a sportswriter that Hyzdu had an amazing reputation with teammates and with fans. “He was also an engaging personality,” Wehner said. “He had a smile on his face. He’d talk to anybody and everybody. He was one of those guys everyone liked.” Wehner added that Adam “had a reputation like none that I’ve ever seen in the minor leagues.”20

In mid-2023, when he wasn’t watching one of his son Luke’s college baseball games, or attending services at Sun Valley Church, where both he and Julie are active members, or going back to Cincinnati for a family reunion, or to Altoona to again be honored and remembered, Hyzdu could most likely be found working with his son Zac selling recreational vehicles at RVAZ Corral. If one went to their website and checked out their “Contact Us, About Us” information, one would find a picture of a Fleer 2001 Adam Hyzdu baseball card and the following sentence concerning his baseball career: “Adam played 18 years of professional baseball with the highlight being part of the 2004 World Champion Boston Red Sox!”21

Sources

Article researched by Andrew Tuetken.

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author accessed a number of sources including Ancestry.com, baseballalmanac.com, Baseball-Reference.com, and retrosheet.org.

Thanks to both Adam Hyzdu and his father, Michael Hyzdu. 

Notes

1 Author interview with Mike Hyzdu on April 1, 2023.

2 Email from Adam Hyzdu on May 8, 2023.

3 Email from Adam Hyzdu on March 11, 2023.

4 https://www.baseball-reference.com/schools/index.cgi?key_school=fab6dbf6#site_menu_link.

5 Another member of the Hall of Fame, Ken Griffey Jr., had been second on that list with 17 homers.

6 Archbishop Moeller Crusaders Athletics, at https://letsgobigmoe.com/documents/2022/10/19/2022_Record_Book.pdf.

7 Email from Rod Nelson of SABR’s Scouts and Scouting Research Committee on August 1, 2023.

8 Email from Adam Hyzdu on March 11.

9 Adam Berry, “This Altoona All-Star Remains a Pirates Cult Hero,” MLB.com, November 14, 2019. https://www.mlb.com/news/adam-hyzdu-a-pirates-cult-hero.

10 Berry.

11 More than 20 years later, Hyzdu still held most of the Altoona Curve’s franchise batting records for both a single season and a career. In 2000 the team announced that Hyzdu’s uniform number 16 would be retired. Long after retiring from baseball, he returned in June 2018 to an Altoona Curve baseball game during which 1,000 Adam Hyzdu bobbleheads were given out. According to Mike Ryan, who played against Hyzdu in 2000 and who was the Altoona manager from 2017 through 2019, the Altoona fans still say “he’s the greatest Curve player that’s ever lived. … He was a man among boys at that time. I could see why this community and the organization was so excited by him.” Berry.

12 Cory Giger, Altoona Curve, June 14, 2018, http://altoona.mlblogs.com/2018/06/14/all-time-curve-team-adam-hyzdu/.

13 Hyzdu’s 1-for-3 outperformed fellow Archbishop Moeller grad Ken Griffey Jr.’s 0-for-4.

14 Puffer had been with Boston for one day and never got into a game.   

15 They were both introduced with the team before the start of the World Series at Fenway Park and would have been available to be activated if someone who was on the roster had for injury or other reason been unable to continue playing. See the full broadcast of the game on YouTube, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rLWrD1ipi0.

16 Email from Adam Hyzdu on June 6, 2023.

17 “Named scholarships,” Archbishop Moeller High School, at https://www.moeller.org/support/named-scholarships.

18 Email from Adam Hyzdu on June 17, 2023.

19 https://thebaseballcube.com/content/stats/college~2023~22495/.

20 Berry.

21 https://www.rvaz.com/about-us.