If You Don't Like It, Play Better
9 minute read
When the West Virginia Power season started, I wasn’t on the roster. While my future teammates tugged on long underwear for a cold Opening Day in early April, I was probably sweating, and certainly stuck, 800 miles away in Extended Spring Training. Baseball’s purgatory, “Extended” is a continuation of Spring Training monotony (drills, drills, and more drills with intermittent scrimmages) for those deemed not yet fit for a full-season Minor League roster.
There are only a handful of escape options from Extended. The first option, release, is the least desirable. The second, and most likely, scenario is a three-month slog through an escalating Florida heat before short-season teams start in mid-June with an influx of newly minted MLB draft picks. I was bailed out of Extended by the third option; the morning after an infield collision between a Power pitcher and third basemen sent two to the Injured List, I packed my belongings from my room in Extended, boarded a plan, and joined the West Virginia Power bullpen.
When I arrived in West Virginia, my career’s trajectory was frustratingly undefined. Marred by bouts of wildness and a slew of injuries, “turbulent” would be a euphemistic way to describe my three-year college career. Pitching for a small Division III school on the East Coast, my fastball climbed to the mid-90s, prompting a swarm of polo-wearing, radar gun-toting, scouts to descend on our campus to get a closer look. I cobbled together a successful campaign during the back half of my junior year by relying on an effectively wild Major League fastball to dispatch Division III hitters. But rocky command caused front offices across the league to deem my prospect status full of risk, and rightfully so. Instead of being the lottery ticket other players with more upside were considered, I was a spin on the penny slots: comparable chance of hitting, less reward when it does. The Pirates took a gamble towards the end of the draft, and I’d rewarded them with uneven dividends — a lot of strikeouts, a lot of walks — in my first summer playing for their Rookie-League team.
A mechanical tweak at the end of Spring Training appeared to put my career on track, and after a few strong appearances out of the West Virginia pen, I became the team’s “bridge guy.” Instead of gobbling up leftover innings in blowouts or receiving the ninth of tight games reserved for relievers with high octane velocity, I bridged the gap between starters and closers in games that hadn’t yet tipped their hands. I entered games in the middle innings — the fifth, sixth, or seventh — in one run games, or in the middle of innings with men on base. My teammates warmed up to their songs of choice when they took the mound: fast-paced merengue, ACDC, or slow, thundering country. And me? I made my splashy entrance to one of two advertisements: a local tire commercial which played every seventh inning, or an off-brand cellular company’s pun for a mid-inning pitching change. Other pitchers were starters or closers; I was the “call to the pen.” ™
Other pitchers were starters or relievers; I was the “call to the pen” TM
The more innings I pitched as the bridge guy, the more aware I became of my career’s precarity. I was a prospect to be a prospect; a few ticks of velocity, sharper breaking pitches, and improved command would give me the chance to pitch in the Big Leagues. But, if I crumbled in my ascent to prospect-dom, I couldn’t slide safely down the depth chart. Being anything but dependable on the mound, the alternative to success wasn’t a spot on the bench further and further away from close games. The alternative was a long, soul-searching, drive back to the rest of my life. And a LinkedIn page.
During my time pitching in West Virginia, I plotted and analyzed the data points of each new outing, desperately searching for a promising pattern. My career’s vision contracted and expanded like an accordion. Some days my Major League dream materialized right in front of me, so thick, full, and clear I had to swat it away from my face. Impotent hitters limped to the batter’s box I’d repurposed as an executioner’s chair. You think you’re going to hit me? Sorry, buddy. Not today. I consumed it all: the broken bats, the strikeouts, the oohs and ahhs from sparse crowds clutching dollar beers on Thursday nights.
I was Zeus, the ten-inch mound Mount Olympus, my incomplete arsenal deadly lightning bolts. I didn’t want to simply strike my opponents out, I wanted to leave holes smoldering in their psyche. In my mind, they all left those games crying inconsolably to their mothers or girlfriends, replaying the images of my fastball shattering their baseball aspirations over and over again. That’s when I knew, they’d tell new acquaintances in bars a lifetime later, I was never going to make it. On those nights, the question of my Major League debut was no longer an if, it was a when.
I didn’t want to simply strike my opponents out, I wanted to leave holes smoldering in their psyche
On other nights, my pitches sailed out of the zone or collected as bruises on forearms of my unfortunate catchers. Hitters swatted away my feeble attempts of reclaiming past brilliance. My breath labored. Please, please just get yourself out, I begged them. I see you guys pop up in batting practice all the time. Instead, they turned my executioner’s chair into brightly colored plaster horses, whistled for their teammates to join them aboard my carousel of hits and walks and circled the bases, laughing all the way. During those outings I knew the good ones were simply illusions, borrowed experiences of the select few who used me as stepping stones on their paths to baseball glory. I’d never make it to the Major Leagues, and I was stupid for believing I had a chance.
What professional baseball deprives players of in years, it makes up for in immediate tomorrows. For every bad outing there was the hope that the next good one would erase all damage. With one sparkling stretch on the mound or hot series in the batter’s box the dream is back within reach. Even in stretches of doubt, I remained faithful to Minor League’s most weathered and versatile maxim: If you don’t like it, play better.
The phrase carried with it a truth my teammates and I learned to redirect as a source for collective humor. What do you say to a teammate when the bus’s AC breaks down in July? If you don’t like it, play better. Your laundry loop comes back soaking wet? If you don’t like it, play better. The team hotel has bed bugs? If you don’t like it, play better.
During my career in the Pirates organization, I gladly took part in the humor of our struggles, joined my teammates in the trenches of the Minor League Baseball lifestyle, and firmly grasped belief that all the hardships would be worth it in the end. No one makes it through the Minor League grind complaining. As a teammate often said, “If ten-year old me heard my complaints right now, he’d kick me straight in the nuts.”
I’d approached the Minor Leagues as a stress test for what I could endure to accomplish my dreams
At the time of this writing, it’s been three years since my retirement from professional baseball. Enough time for the dust to have settled on some of the bitterness that follows all ballplayers once they hang up their cleats, and for events and feelings to reclaim some of their objectivity. Throughout my time in the Minor Leagues, I recorded my observations, stories, failures, and successes with the intention of writing a book about my experiences. The previous passage is pulled from the very first draft of that book. What became apparent to me, flipping through the pages of journal entries and sample chapters with a spring training game on TV in the background, was that I’d approached the Minor Leagues as a stress test for what I could endure to accomplish my dreams. In my mind, I’d already written the arc of my career’s story before I slipped on a professional baseball jersey; the Minors were for recording the details.
The narrative I’d convinced myself went something like this:
- Boy and Father bond over baseball
- Boy loses Father
- Body dedicates himself to making it to the Major Leagues to honor Father
- Boy embraces underdog role and difficult conditions in Minor Leagues
- Boy triumphs and becomes Major Leaguer
- Boy has honored Father
Reading through my journals, I was surprised to find that the most interesting material didn’t fit the narrative. I’d started recording my Minor League life to selfishly showcase my uniqueness: losing my father to cancer at a young age, not being recruited to play Division I baseball, drafted in the 30 something-ith round of the MLB draft. What I found instead was that the experience playing Minor League baseball was like looking at life through a fun-house mirror, reflecting aspects of the human condition most people never get the chance to see.
…playing Minor League Baseball was like looking at life through a fun-house mirror, reflecting aspects of the human condition most people never get the chance to see
The journals contained stories and vignettes about the dissonance between playing baseball and earning a living, how my teammates and I handled doubt, the mental fortitude to thrive during long seasons, and the connections I shared with my teammates. I wrote about Minor-League promotions like Thirsty Thursday and Tinder Tuesday, the fields with the best (and worst) locker rooms, and why the wittiest and best card players were almost always bullpen pitchers. I wrote about learning to pitch without my best stuff, to know the appropriate time to tinker versus when to stick with my approach, where my mind wandered on long bus rides and, more importantly, how to get it back on track.
The longer I’ve spent digesting the meaning of those materials, the more I wrestle with the following questions: Did I love baseball? And do I miss it? It’s complicated, right now. Certain aspects of baseball, certainly. The stillness of an empty stadium with its lights still buzzing and sprinklers ticking across the outfield; the pop! of a well-fired heater into a catcher’s mitt; my team’s collective tension of a late inning rally; the invincible feeling of having “it” on the mound. Those moments thrust me in the present moment unlike almost anything else.
More days than not, I’m convinced I dedicated myself to a craft that wasn’t suited to my temperament and abilities. I married my Big-League dream wen I was 9 years old; why shouldn’t I be allowed to reevaluate at 24? But, on those other days, I can’t shake the suspicion that I was complicit in the process of falling out of love with baseball. Sometime after his death, I’d brokered a deal in my soul that the only way to honor my father’s memory was to pitch in the Major Leagues. Attributing self-worth to every failure or achievement is an effective way to strangle something you love.
Attributing self-worth to every failure or achievement is an effective way to slowly strangle something you love
But most of all, I find myself overwhelmingly grateful for my experiences. Regrets? You’ll certainly hear about them. But the further removed I become from my time as a ballplayer, the closer I feel aligned to the values and principles my father instilled in me. Sports to Dad were only as important as what it taught me: teamwork, ownership, grit, passion, enjoyment, satisfaction. Through these stories I hope to reclaim the meaning behind the sport I loved by re-examining those very values and lessons I lost touch with, and new ones I found along the way.