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The Summer Read:
Life in the Minor
Leagues
In his light-hearted baseball blog,
Adam Gardner '04 gives an inside look at dugout
slang, surviving long bus trips, clubhouse etiquette and
much more.
Some graduates take a year off to see the world before
launching their careers. Adam Gardner '04 spent three
immersed in a different side of American life, taking part in the
national pastime as a minor-league baseball player.
 A
standout pitcher during his four years on the Pomona-Pitzer
team, he was signed on by the San Francisco Giants
organization after graduating as a politics major. His first
season sent him to the Salem-Keizer (Ore.) Volcanoes as a
relief pitcher, then he joined the Augusta Greenjackets for
2005 and, finally the Class A San Jose Giants for his last
season.
Today Gardner is working as a consultant for the
Federal Aviation Administration in Washington, D.C. In the
fall, he's off to USC for his master's in public
administration. He plans to go into public service, maybe
run for office.
Wherever he winds up, Gardner will bring a duffel bag full
of memories of his time chasing his big league dreams on $20
a day's pay. For his last season, Gardner kept a blog of his
adventures, which we've reprinted in abridged form below.
From the bus trips to the
bullpen lingo, from the thrill of
pitching at AT&T Park to the peculiar scent of the
clubhouse, Gardner offers fun and poignant insights
into minor league life. Batter up?
Friday | March 03, 2006
Welcome to Giants Spring Training
SCOTTSDALE, ARIZONA -- Well, it's finally here ... the San
Francisco Giants 2006 Minor League Spring Training Camp is
underway. The grass is greener, the clubhouse is smaller,
and the players are all ... bigger?
When seeing old acquaintances from teams in years past, we
must spend at least a minute or two talking about each
other's frame -- 'you've gotten a little bigger, man' or
'hey bud, you're getting pretty lean.' Then conversation
moves to other topics: jobs in off-season, girlfriends, the
new Scottsdale Days Inn wireless internet (blazing fast),
video game skills, or how big any other Giants farmhand has
gotten in the off-season.
We all have the same anxious/nervous/confident/awestruck
mindset. In no other job does a company ask all its
employees to come together for four weeks in sunny Arizona
to practice their craft. H&R Block doesn't gather everyone
up in mid-December to psyche them up for the tax season and
see who can rip through a worksheet in under 5 minutes. We
are about to be evaluated, conditioned, hurt, healed,
lectured, taught the new new drug policy (emphasis on the
second 'new'), hurt again, healed again, and sent packing
for some random city we've never been to (hopefully) -- all
in four weeks. Everyone in the Giants organization is here,
and wondering where we'll be calling our girlfriends from in
a month.
So here we all are, re-learning to subsist on $20 a day
living next to a huge luxury shopping mall. We are here
living every young boy's dream--playing on meticulously
manicured green grass, pitching off perfectly shaped mounds,
sliding into dirt watered down each morning specifically for
us to...slide on.
Tuesday | March 07, 2006
Jargon and Close Calls
Baseball has its own jargon—like any other profession,
pastime, or hobby.
Yesterday I was a “ball magnet.”
 I was waiting to throw a bullpen, kneeling in foul territory
down the left field line of our practice field during BP
(battling practice) when I heard someone yell “heads up!”
Usually when this happens, everyone gives an obligatory look
to the sky, and then continues about his business. I looked
toward the field, didn’t see anything, and then turned
around. Then things got weird. I saw about 15 faces
alternating between me and some point in the sky with
increasing rapidity, and growing more concerned. Then,
another “heads up, Gardner!” I still couldn’t see anything,
so I figured the ball had landed somewhere else, feeling
relieved. Looking back towards the practice mounds, I heard
someone running up behind me and then the smacking sound of
a glove stopping a baseball about six inches from my right
ear. Another pitcher had correctly guessed the ball’s
trajectory (as it screamed toward my ear), run over, and
pretty much saved my spring training. He looked at me, I
looked back, nobody said anything, and then our left fielder
said, “Hey, Gardner, looks like you’re a ball magnet today,
huh?” Cue the 4th grade laughing, back slapping, and
pointing.
Once I was proclaimed the “ball magnet,” I knew I had to be
on guard the rest of the day, or face certain pain and
suffering.
Sure enough, I had my next close call during bunting
practice. Our hitting cages at the complex have breaks in
the nets where players enter and exit. The machines are set
up in the back, and pitch toward the front, where the
entrances are, and people wait their turn (in order to
eliminate any unnecessary walking—an extra 60 feet would
really be too much.). So anyway, I was patiently waiting to
bunt, passing the time explaining to someone where Pomona
College is (not actually IN Pomona, CA) and why I went there
(it’s actually a four-year, accredited college—“Really?
Cool.”)— a daily speech I’m now fairly comfortable giving
off the cuff. Then, a white flash tore across my field of
vision, less than a foot from my face. When a baseball goes
by you, it is less a visual sensation and more of an aural
experience. The ball sizzles by you—then slams into
something else, and about five seconds later you realize
that it was close to ruining your day/month/career. And of
course, the “ball magnet” jokes fire back up again and I
felt lucky, ashamed, and still hunted.
Thursday | March 09, 2006
Consistency
We’ve heard the consistency speech over and over again. “We
need you to demonstrate consistency on the mound,” they say,
“and you’ll move up.” Today I finally came around and now
believe it’s the truth. Those who perform are good at
baseball—those who perform consistently will make lots of
money playing baseball.
I think they’re right—the major difference between the minor
and major leagues is not what guys can do, it’s how
regularly they do it. I can go out and throw a curveball
that could probably get major league hitters out (ok maybe,
not probably). It would take me, however, probably 15
pitches to find it. Barry Zito (Oakland A’s) goes out and
throws 95 percent of his curveballs right on the money. Lots of
guys in minor league camp have put up great numbers on the
radar guns…even three digit ones…but they don’t do it
consistently. What you do on Thursday doesn’t matter as much
as what you did in July, or how your 2005 was.
It’s the macro view versus the micro view. Taking this
perspective is especially difficult when you’re only two
years old in pro ball years. Every time I throw, the stakes
are high for me, and every pitch counts, because I’m being
evaluated. Every time Roger Clemens pitches, he has years of
consistent performance to fall back on if things don’t go
well. Consistency begets consistency.
Anyway, that’s what I came to realize today standing out the
outfield during batting practice…which, coincidentally, was
almost two hours long. We pitchers run around, selflessly
‘shagging’ balls for the hitters, demonstrating altruism in
baseball, and they just take hacks, work on their swings,
and spit and stuff. Who gets paid more? The hitters—that’s
how you know it’s an offense-based game. Enough griping,
though.
Wednesday | March 22, 2006
What's it like...
Today I was trying to think of what I’d want to know about
professional baseball when I was like 9 or 10. I would
probably first wonder about the free stuff.
When we signed, we got spikes, a jacket, a fleece, shorts,
hats, a glove, pants, a few shirts, a cool duffel bag, and a
plane ticket out to Scottsdale for mini-camp. Since then,
the free stuff has tailed off. The perception of pro
ballplayers that get everything for free is blown a little
out of proportion. I had a guy ask me for my baseball bag at
a game in Salem. I thought, “Um, yea, I’ll trade it for your
briefcase and we’ll call it even?”
 Next, I’d wonder what the whole deal with baseball cards
was. When do you get one? When do you get a real one made by
Topps or Donruss or Fleer or something.
I had a card made in Salem, my first year, then last year in
Augusta as well. They’re cool because it’s a picture of me
with my name on a baseball card, but not done by Topps or
anything. That will happen when you’re invited to big league
training camp, get called up in mid-season, or when someone
at Topps thinks you’re going to be good enough to merit a
baseball card. Each year, we all sign “contracts” with Topps—the
rep comes into the clubhouse, and cuts us $10 dollar checks.
He explains that this means Topps can make baseball cards of
us without telling us. We think this is cool. We sign the
papers. He leaves. We wonder when our card will come out.
For most, probably never. But it’s cool to officially be
under contract with the Topps Company. The checks are fun,
too.
Finally, every young kid asks for a ball. I think kids’
fascination with the ball, and rightly so, is that all the
balls you grow up throwing around are ratty, nasty,
water-logged, boring leather rags. The balls that we play
catch with at camp are white, dry, new, crisp ‘pearls,’ we
call them. They smell leathery—and the organization
will break out cartons of new ones every week.
So every once in a while at a game, you’ll hear a
10-year-old behind you, with his glove on his head, half a
sno-cone spread all over his little league jersey, whining
“Can I please have a ball? Please?” And then you take the
ball out of your pocket, and before even winding up to throw
it across the fence to him, his eyes get huge, the glove
comes off the head, knees bent, and he’s ready to play third
for the Yankees. You toss it to him, he catches it, and then
looks at it just like you did when you were 11 and caught
one. We all lie and say that we never did it. But still,
part of you knows that you made a kid’s night.
Saturday | March 25, 2006
Baseball Glossary
Today I thought I would offer a beginner’s guide to baseball
terminology. So many words used on the diamond make no sense
in real life. In case you find yourself in the middle of a
baseball dugout anytime soon, keep this guide handy and use
it well. Spanish translations appear in italics.
 Gas, Cheddar, Fire (fuego), Chunder, Thunder, Bringing it,
Fuel (Gasolina), Petrol (or any other flammable liquids or
gases) – A pitch thrown at a high velocity. Example: “Dude,
Whit was throwing absolute thunder yesterday. He broke two
bats. I wish I could bring it like that.”
Bomb, Bam, Laser, ‘Jumping ship,’ ‘Leaving the building,’
‘Saying you will,’ ‘Leaving the yard,’ ‘Losing one,’ ‘Going
yard,’ ‘Dropping Head’ – Home run, or the act of hitting a
home run. Example: “I left a curveball up in the zone, and
he hit a laser over the left field wall. First bomb I’ve let
up this year. That guy drops head.”
Hack, Cut – A swing. Ex. “I was over taking hacks in the
cage with the other pitchers—man, we’re really athletic.”
…or… “Hey, they let the pitchers take cuts yesterday—wow,
they were just flailing at the ball.” You pick.
The Yips – A pitcher has ‘the yips’ when he suddenly becomes
unable to throw strikes. Many times this just happens out of
the blue, and he will miss the catcher entirely. Also used
when describing some pitchers who cannot throw to bases
during routine plays in the field.
Monday | April 10, 2006
The First Outing
So not only have we started the season off, but I actually
got in the game the other night…and got a win. Being a
reliever, this is a rare occurrence. It also calls for
another baseball glossary term: to vulture a win. Vulturing
wins is a fine art. Many do it without realizing it; others
have it down to a perfected science. I fall into the former
category.
 We were playing a seven inning game because it was a
doubleheader from a rainout the night before. Our starting
pitcher went a strong four innings, and came out when the
team was ahead 5-4. The rule is, if you pitch through four
innings in a seven-inning game, and you leave the game when your
team is ahead, you are in position to get the win. OK.
Starter leaves, Adam comes in. Now is when the vulture
starts circling, smelling a potential victim. I (stupidly)
give up an (unearned) run (not that we’re keeping track, but
it was unearned…), and the score is tied. Because we’re no
longer ahead, the decision becomes mine, not the starter’s.
Now Adam is in position to get the decision. I finish two
innings, and after my second inning (the 6th in the game),
we score the go-ahead run. Now, I am the pitcher of record
because there was a lead change in the game while I was
pitching. Our closer comes in, gets the save, and I come out
with a win for throwing two very average innings. So there
it is: A "vultured" win.
Anyway, it was an OK outing—honestly it’s weird pitching
anywhere for the first time, for a new team. You think to
yourself—the plate is still 60.5 feet away, and the catcher
looks the same, and the mound is the same, but still, things
feel different. The funny thing is that being nervous on the
mound feels exactly the same as it did 10 years ago
pitching on my high school varsity team as a freshman. I was
smaller than most of the hitters (still true), I wasn’t
thinking enough about baseball, and was instead focused on
how awesome and scary it was that I was pitching in a
varsity game (read: professional game), and finally, I
wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible. I have
yet to master the art of being relaxed on the mound. It’s
even harder to do as a reliever, because rarely are you
pitching in a mellow situation. You’re always throwing late
in the game, cleaning up someone else’s (or, your own) mess,
trying to slam the door and win the thing.
Thursday | May 11, 2006
Not these Giants, those Giants
Yesterday the pitching coach came up to me as soon as I
arrived at the park, and said “You know you’re going up to
San Francisco tomorrow, right?” After an awkward pause, I
shook my head, laughed, and waited for the punch line.
Nothing. “Yea, you’re going up to throw live to (Giants
infielder Ray) Durham who’s coming off the DL.” Whoa.
Another righty on the team and I were told to be at ‘the
field’ (AT&T Park, in the middle of San Francisco) at 1
o’clock this afternoon. We showed up, parked in the players’
parking lot, and walked in the back entrance of the field. I
could see into the stadium through a little slit in the
fence, and it would’ve been a great slow-motion movie
sequence: Light glinting across the rich green grass, crisp
white lines, and brilliant yellow foul poles.
We walked down a little ways, right to the clubhouse. It was
the first clubhouse I’ve ever been in that smelled good. You
walk in, and first notice that the old gym stools in front
of lockers have been upgraded to leather executive’s chairs
with the SF logo embroidered on them. Dark wood lockers, TVs
mounted on the walls all over the place, and a stereo played
mellow music as the clubbys walked around hanging laundry up
in random lockers. We were actually given our own lockers
for the afternoon, and I just plopped my bag down and tried
to convince myself that I was there to do a job, not
sightsee.
We dressed out, and walked down to the field. We were slated
to throw a simulated game—about 20 to 25 pitches each, so
that Durham could see pitches from both a righty and lefty.
Again, I felt like I was in a movie. You walk down the
tunnel, turn right, past a few cages and hitting equipment,
and then another left, up some stairs, and there’s the
field. You walk up the stairs, and splayed out in front of
you is the stadium. The first thing I noticed was how it
went up. Most of the time when you play catch at a field,
you see trees, the sky, maybe a building in the distance as
your background. Here, all you saw were seats—everywhere.
The upper deck is literally on top of you. I can’t imagine
what it would be like to play there when the place is
packed. Awesome.
I ran a couple sprints in the outfield, and my legs felt
amazing since my adrenaline was pumping so hard. We started
playing catch, and again, my arm felt great. You try not to
smile, try to pretend like you’re used to playing in a
multi-million dollar stadium in the middle of a huge city,
but every once in a while you just shake your head and laugh
at it all.
Pitching was somewhat of a blur. Durham stepped in, the
first pitch the catcher called was an inside fastball, and
my first thought was don’t hit the guy. I put one over the
plate and he slapped it to second base…I think. Everything
went pretty well—Durham got hold of one to left center, but
then again I pretty much served it up right down the middle.
He’s a good hitter—waits until the ball is really deep in the
zone, then slaps it the other way. I threw all fastballs and
changeups—no curves.
About halfway through the outing, I looked over to the
visitor’s bullpen, where it looked like a smaller righty
from the Cubs was throwing a pen. I didn’t focus on it until
the next time I looked, and realized that the guy throwing
was Greg Maddux. Great—first time pitching in a big league
stadium, to a big league hitter, and I have a 300-game
winner throwing a pen behind me. Stay focused?
Anyway, it was a great time, and afterwards the bullpen
coach came out and we worked on some stuff together, still
on the game mound. Basic stuff, like keeping my weight back
when I come set. Coincidentally, we have the same last name.
He seemed pretty positive about my pitching, so that felt
good too. I wasn’t as receptive to coaching as I could have
been, since I was still trying to steal glances at Maddux
over my shoulder. Nuts.
All in all, it seems like the afternoon went by in about a
second and a half, but it was awesome—definitely something
I’ll remember my whole life.
Thursday | June 01, 2006
The Magic Bus
I think one day I’ll look back on bus rides as one of my
favorite parts of playing baseball. During the day, you put
on your iPod and just listen to music and watch America fly
by on the freeways, and at night, sit and watch a movie
before dozing off. We’ve been playing Stockton these last
few days, and because it’s only an hour and a half away, we
bus there and back each day.
In the first 10 minutes of each bus ride, friendships are
ruined and seniority rules, because everyone’s trying to get
his own seat. It might seem trivial, but having two chairs
to yourself on a tour bus is a world away from being holed
up with another guy, possibly drooling all over you for a
torturous journey back home. There are a few surefire ways
to get your own seat on the bus.
1. Be older than everyone else. The older veterans, we’re
talking like over 26 years old, always get their own seats.
Because they’re so old, however, they usually get there
early and stake out their area. We’ve got a few on our team.
Not to be messed with in the ‘awkward time,’ they can trump
anyone’s argument for a seat simply by saying ‘I’m way older
than you are,’ and everyone else agrees.
2. Arrive early, set up camp. This strategy requires
significant material possession and the effective
positioning of one’s personal property. If you can get
seated and spread everything you could possibly need for the
trip all over your two seats, people are less likely to
request to seat next to you. Popular items are fully booted
laptop computers, half-eaten meals, blankets, etc.
3. Arrive early, go to sleep. If you’re able to fall asleep
after claiming a seat and setting up shop, you’re probably
in the clear. Bring a pillow, get under a blanket, and just zonk out. Nobody will mess with you. I have, however, seen
the ultimate awkward interaction, where at one point one guy
sat down next to an already slumbering teammate, only to be
ruthlessly booted from the seat after sleeping beauty woke
up and pulled the seniority card. Some guys will call
bluffs, however, if they don’t think a teammate is really
sleeping. You’ve got to be totally out for this strategy to
pay off.
4. Set up camp ‘for two.’ Also called "The Gardner," I will
frequently place belongings in both seats, so as to create
the appearance of two people already claiming the same
two-seat area. I’ll get there early, put my backpack and
maybe a Gatorade on one seat, and then my laptop back with
another (carefully selected) beverage on the other seat.
Guys walk up, see two drinks and two bags, and continue down
the aisle. I’ve patented the move and it works most of the
time.
Monday | July 03, 2006
Getting an 'F' in Baseball
It’s fun to write funny stories about minor league baseball
and its players, fans, and coaches, but this time I want to
describe one aspect of baseball that isn’t fun—failure.
In a game where the greatest hitters get out 70 percent of
the time, dealing with failure on the baseball field is a
vital part of learning the game. I think this is even more
important in the minor leagues, where players who have
dominated their whole careers may start to struggle against
better competition as they move up the professional ladder.
One major way that great players stand out from all the
others is the way they handle failure in the game. If you
have a .300 batting average, 7 out of 10 of your at-bats
will end in failure, and you’ll walk back to the dugout
unhappy with your performance. Some guys try to focus on the
positives (I hit a breaking ball behind in the count hard,
it was just right at somebody…), focus on the past (I’ve
already got one hit tonight, so I’m ok…), or focus on the
future (forget it, I’ll have three more at-bats tonight).
Other guys accept at the outset that they will fail, and
expect it when it comes, so they aren’t disappointed. And
still others flip out, throw stuff, and expand the
vocabulary of young kids sitting within earshot of the
dugout during games.
When I was 12 years old, I popped out to left field in a
little league all-star practice. A practice! I was so mad at
myself that I kicked first base hard enough to break a toe
in my foot, and I couldn’t pitch until later in our
tournament. In some ways I guess I’ve learned to better deal
with failure since then, but now and then that same 12 year
old comes back and I lose it over this game—because it seems
so easy, and messing up sucks!
Tonight I threw one inning, walked two guys, made a fielding
error, and let three runs score in a close game. When I
walked off the field, I wanted to put my head through the
cement dugout wall.
Tomorrow though, I’ll show up, put my cleats on, and start
the process all over again.
Saturday | July 08, 2006
Way back when ... and an ambush
Sitting on the bus with my iPod on to drain out the sound of
other players talking on their cell phones, flipping through
a magazine and half paying attention to the DVD playing in
the background, I have to wonder what it must have been like
to play on a team 30 years ago when none of this stuff
existed. Well, except magazines…
Were the teams closer-knit as a result of their having to
interact with each other on long road trips? At no
other time is our team physically closer to one another than
when we’re on the bus, but I think it’s when we speak to
each other the least. Those who aren’t attached to their ipods are talking on the phone, and anyone else is watching
the DVD playing on the bus’s entertainment system.
On the way back from our last trip to Southern California,
the bus was having issues, so our driver turned the movie
off, came on the loudspeaker and said, “Well boys,
headquarters told me that we need to turn off all the extra
electronic equipment in the bus if we’re gonna make it home,
so night-night!” All the running lights turned off, and we
were in the middle of I-5, doing 75 mph with nothing to do.
Someone started a game of categories, which got old, because
that’s what we do during games, not after them.
Then, someone suggested that since the lights were off, we
make a covert excursion to the back of the bus. Why not?
Well, we couldn’t just go back there, we had to make it like
we were Navy SEALS and have call signs and everything. One
guy started army-crawling rearwards, trying to scare a
fellow player sitting in the back, and was taken prisoner by
the back of the bus ‘rebels.’ Five minutes later, all hell
broke loose. We were in full ‘manhunt’ mode. They launched a
counter attack, and we snagged one of their guys.
Thankfully, our man who’d been taken prisoner was an
athletic center-fielder, and he hopped over about ten bus
seats back to safety. Meanwhile, we’d bribed our own captive
with magazines and candy, and he didn’t want to go back.
These weird episodes where we all lapse back into childhood
make it fun, and keep the mood light. Nobody’s making money,
few are moving up, but we’re winning games and every once in
awhile get to act like we’re 10 years old again.
Thursday | July 13, 2006
If you were a fly on the wall...
This is what most people would be surprised by if they were
a ‘fly on the wall’ in a minor league clubhouse:
TOP TEN MINOR LEAGUE CLUBHOUSE SURPRISES
1. Most people would be absolutely appalled at the showers.
Ours is small, cramped, with the same non-slip flooring that
we have in the dugout—I don’t know if it’s ever been
cleaned. Strange things grow in the corners, and simply
wearing shower shoes doesn’t seem like a sufficient barrier.
For some reason, though, after the first week of the season,
nobody really notices it anymore.
2. There is random stuff everywhere. We basically live in
this place for six months. If we get back from a road trip
really late, some guys will just sleep there—you have
toiletries, a shower, and clean clothes. There are piles of
luggage from guys who have been called up or down, random
lost items, and in our case, a rotisserie chicken cooker
that someone bought in April. Weird.
3. Clothing is optional. We’re all guys, and before the
game, it’s pretty warm in there, and so walking around in
underwear (or less) is perfectly acceptable. This, however,
is a habit that requires breaking after the season ends…
4. Pre-game naps. As the season wears on and the days become
hotter, pre-game naps become an essential part of the
routine. It’s not odd to see no less than 8 players asleep
on the clubhouse floor between BP and the national anthem.
As long as they get out to their positions by the first
pitch, they’re fine. Hey, we play every night…
5. Baseball players are obsessed with their shoes. Our
clubhouse manager has two cans of “Scrubbing Bubbles,” a
fancy name for bathroom cleaner, that when applied to
leather cleats, makes them look brand new. Seriously, try
it. Before the game, everyone has to clean his cleats. Some
players do this with astounding intensity—think
MacBeth—“out, out damn spot,” etc. (double points for a
Shakespeare reference in a minor league baseball blog…count
it.) Even the starting pitchers who know they aren’t playing
will clean theirs. Some guys say that they play better with
clean cleats, others say that it’s just a good habit to get
into. I like doing it because I look at my feet a
lot—sitting in the bullpen.
6. A clubhouse is actually that—a club’s house—so most of
them have at least one TV and a couple couches. I don’t
know, but I was surprised by this when I showed up in Salem,
it was kind of cool sitting there before work outs, watching
ESPN, and then going out and playing baseball in a stadium.
We’ve got a sort of separate sitting room area with a TV up
on a stand and a few couches—not really clean couches, but
they still work.
7. The smell. Each clubhouse has it’s own, distinct smell.
Even visiting clubhouses smell unique. Salem’s clubhouse was
the best-smelling, I think because the clubby sprayed the
carpet with Febreze, thus masking it’s true stench/odor.
Augusta’s was a cooler, damp smell, not mildew, but getting
there. In San Jose, we’re definitely near mildew, and
heading towards a combination between bleach and old shoes.
I guess you could call it the "clubhouse cocktail" smell …
8. Pants stretching. These days the cool thing is
having long baseball pants that go all the way down to your
cleats. In order to get this ‘look,’ you have to stretch the
bottoms of your pants, so that you can put them over the
tongue of your cleats, stuck there with spray adhesive
available in the training room. To get your pants longer and
‘stretchier,’ you have to put them on, then cuff them up all
the way above your knee, and then walk around for a while.
Then you’ll get the perfect fit. Just watch a major league
game and you’ll see the new ‘over the cleats’ style of
pants.
9. The mirror. I have a locker close to our mirror, and I
have to dress early, because as game time nears, the mirror
area is overrun. You’re not done dressing until you’ve
checked out the look you have going—hat straight, eye black
perfect, jersey tucked in correctly (wrinkles in the back,
like a dress shirt), pants over the cleats, and shiny
spikes.
10. One cool thing we do is play the same song in the
clubhouse after every win. I don’t even know what song it
is, but we put it on really loud on the clubhouse stereo
when everyone’s coming in after the game. It’s like a 5
minute post-game party, then the song ends, you dress back
into your ‘civvy’ clothes, and go home to get ready to do it
all over again tomorrow, including the shoes …
Thursday | August 17, 2006
Bakersfield and Quarters for a Ball
I’m sitting in the hotel lobby in Bakersfield, CA. As is the
usual routine for final days on road trips, we must check
out of our hotel rooms by noon, leaving our entire team
homeless until the bus leaves for the field around 4 p.m.
There are about 10 baseball players using the lobby’s
wireless internet right now—the place looks like an internet
café.
Bakersfield gets extra points for a nice gym, good food
options close to the hotel, and a fairly decent hotel. The
drawback is that the stadium might edge out the field from
the movie ‘The Sandlot’ for the worst baseball field of the
century award. When we came a month ago, there was no grass.
I mean it: no grass. Apparently they accidentally sprayed
herbicide all over the outfield grass instead of fertilizer,
and the entire outfield turned brown. While the grass is
growing back in, the field is still pretty rough looking,
and the stadium doesn’t make things better.
When you stand at home plate and look toward the mound, you
face directly into the setting sun. This means that no game
can start until the sun set below the outfield fence, which
is a 40 foot wall (smartly) built up so games can begin
before 8 pm in late June. Attendance struggles also.had
maybe 50 people at the last game. Ah, late summer minor
league baseball.
 We had a great time down in Lake Elsinore, also. Someone in
the bullpen had a great idea to calm the 30 or 40 little
kids screaming for baseballs down the right field line right
above our heads. We set up a plastic cup about 10 feet out
into the warning track down the line, and told all the kids
that if they made a quarter in the cup, they would get a
free baseball. Within 5 minutes it was like Las Vegas on a
Saturday night. Quarters flying in, we were making change
with mothers, and kids were having a great time trying to
score a baseball for 25 cents. We ended up making $50
dollars in two games. Since we were staying at the Lake
Elsinore Hotel and Casino, we doubled down with our money,
and turned that 50 into an even 100, all for throwing
a cup on the field and giving away a few extra foul balls.
Wednesday | August 23, 2006
Signs it’s late August in the San Jose Giants clubhouse:
1) People start talking more about fantasy football than
baseball. By this point in the season, baseball ceases
to be an acceptable discussion topic. For one, we’ve played
a lot of games and are sick of it. Secondly, we’ve probably
exhausted most of what you can say about baseball anyway, so
there’s no point in seeking a novel topic. Fantasy football
is where off-season bragging rights are won and lost, and
how a lot of guys keep in touch. Our 12-member league is on
Yahoo. We held the draft in a conference room at the hotel
in Bakersfield, and although my team is very Redskins-heavy, I think we
should be a force to be reckoned with this year.
2) The pre-BP stretch routine has completely deteriorated.
During spring training, our stretch routine would have
impressed a drill sergeant—not a single player out of sync,
choreographed form running, and all players giving their
full effort. Now, our team’s stretch routine more resembles
sheep grazing in the outfield. Most guys know what they need
to stretch, and others simply figure that it’s hot enough
they’re already loose…I guess?
3) The Countdown Begins … No matter how well a team is
playing, everyone knows the number of games left in the
season when that number dips below 20. Anyone on our team
could tell you we’re at 12, after tonight. Sample
conversation: “Man, this is brutal, it’s really hot. When
will BP end?” “Yeah, I know, only 12 to go, dude. Then
playoffs. Then we’re done.”
4) Our hats look like science projects. I try to keep mine
clean, but some of the guys’ hats on our team are so
sweat-stained that they’re not even black anymore. Some
think it’s bad luck to clean the crusty, white, salty
residue from the hat, so they just let it grow. Hats that
started out jet-black are now an odd off-brown color, and so
brittle they could double as batting helmets.
5) The Little League World Series is on TV all the time in
the clubhouse. We’re totally obsessed with it. These kids
are in so many ways the opposite of us— playing their guts
out trying to win each game, totally nervous on the field,
and basking in the spotlight of a national TV audience. We
watch it because it’s so real—the kids cry when they lose,
the coaches yell, and anxious parents watch from the stands.
I think we all miss parts of that (as well as the shorter 6
inning games…), so we’re big time fans of the LLWS.
Wednesday | August 30, 2006
A quick observation before I go to bed
Baseball owes it’s longevity as a sport to its perfection.
Most of the time, games evolve to root out asymmetry—to make
both halves equal, to put all players on equal standing, or
to make the field totally square.
 Baseball is uneven. It’s lopsided—sometimes really lopsided.
If one team can’t get three outs in the bottom of the
seventh, they might have to finish the game the next day
because of it. Keep in mind, however, that even though there
are no time limits on games, they almost all end after 2 ˝
or 3 hours.
A hitter has three strikes, but a pitcher has four balls?
Why is that? That doesn’t seem fair. Why not give a hitter
four strikes, because it’s obviously harder to hit than
pitch (remember good hitters fail 7 out of 10 times…)?
Those who know baseball revel in its asymmetry. They laugh
when people ask why there is no halftime, or why no
left-handers play anything but first base or outfield. Once
the pattern of the game is learned, everything else makes
sense. It’s like this elite club where people who "get it"
can delve deeper into the details of this crazy game that
for some reason, works out. Read Moneyball.
Or the fact that at any point in time, only two players from
opposing teams actually face one another. But still, there’s
this one guy who faces the opposite way of his own team on
the field…and gets special gear, too. Games like football or
soccer are directional—everyone’s going for this goal or
that one. The baseball field is a shared commodity—you guys
try your luck at it, then if you don’t, our team will give
it a shot in the bottom half of the inning, using the same
field.
.Baseball is easily romanticized because of how crazy it
seems to an outsider, but everything eventually works out
and the game actually makes pretty good sense. Most of the
time.
Monday | September 18, 2006
It's All Over...
Our season ended four days ago and it feels like I haven’t
picked up a baseball in three years. Playing every day blurs
time and skews one’s perception of how days, weeks, and
months pass by. The last six months have been tedious but
quick, difficult but simple, and both boring and
exciting—all at the same time.
No other job could combine feelings of boredom and
excitement. After your first few extra-inning games, you’re
just rooting for offense—from either team—so you can get
back home or to the hotel and go to sleep. I’m convinced
that when I was on the mound pitching innings 12 through 14
at Stockton two weeks ago, the team wasn’t necessarily
rooting for me, they were hoping for something
else—resolution. It could be a vital part of the game—men in
scoring position, two outs, and a struggling pitcher on the
mound, but because you’re there every day, and see those
moments every day, you’re not really moved by it. We’re not
necessarily jaded, we just play a lot of games…
 I’ve
always been a competitive player, intense on the
mound—sometimes too intense, and willing to grit it out in
tough situations. This year, though, really tested that.
After a few bad outings in a row, with nothing else to take
my mind off of baseball, it was really hard to keep it all
together. I can’t imagine the added pressure that some guys
have on them in the big leagues—contracts, media scrutiny,
or crazy fans—and yet they still slump, break out, and
streak over and over again, season after season. What
comforted me the most after bad games was not that "the game
didn’t matter" because we had so many more, or that I was on
a winning team and they would pick me up, it was that I had
other things I could do with my life. I could walk away from
baseball and still be OK. Not everyone could. Knowing that I
could get a good job or go back to school helped me keep a
level head when I wanted to ram it into something after
giving up back to back home runs…
So we’re all done. Nobody will hound us for autographs, ask
for balls, or care what we’re doing every night from 7 to 10
pm. Until we all come back next March, we fade back into
lives of normalcy. Like the old timers who all came back and
played on the ‘Field of Dreams’ in that great movie, at the
end we all sort of walk into the cornfield, slapping each
other on the back, laughing and thinking about next year.
Because in everyone’s mind, next year means “I’ll hit .350
with 100 RBIs and move up to Fresno.” Or “Next year they
want me to be a closer so I’ll do well and get a September
call-up to the big leagues.” Next year is all that matters.
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