As some of you know, my cousin Justin, who is my Dad's brother Bob's brother, is a professional baseball player. Being as I grew up in South Florida and my cousins were in the Chicago area, I didn't know them all that well. When Justin's brother Josh moved in across the street from us in Franklin, Kentucky, we instantly caught up on twenty-something years of life and Josh and Sarah and JB and Wendi became the best of buds. This then, reconnected me with Josh's older brother Jason and younger brother Justin. Since Justin is into IM (instant messenger) and so am I, we have become good friends, and I have grown very intersted in his baseball career.
A basketball player myself, I really know very little about baseball even though I played softball until my junior year (when my dad convinced me it was a complete waste of my time! He was right of course. My volleyball and basketball were definitely my tickets to college and I was getting hit more than I was doing any hitting in softball.) But through Justin, I have learned a lot.
Justin has had a BIG week this week. So, I thought I would let him tell you about his week in his own words -- from his blog. Even if you aren't that in to baseball, I think you will find it very interesting and educational. So here it is: the life of a professional baseball player in five minutes or less:
I'm writing this blog not only to tell you about my interesting year so far, but also one thing you may or may not know about the pro baseball life. First of all, I love playing baseball for a living. There's nothing else I'd rather be doing with my life at this moment. Obviously, cause if there were I'd be doing it right? The myth about getting drafted into pro ball is that you're immediately rich or making a lot of money. I get many comments from old friends that find out what I'm doing and start saying "seems like you're doing well for yourself" or "looks like life is treating you well." Now some players who get drafted high get a lot of money in bonuses, but most players don't get that much. And what they do get goes directly towards paying off college debt, buying a car that they'll need to get around with, or the first month's rent at the apartment they end up in for the new season. Most college senior signs either get a pat on the back and a good luck, or maybe $1000. As far as during the season, here's what I made money wise in my first few years of pro ball. In short-season A...$850/month. Low A...$1100/month. High A...$1200/month. AA...$1500/month. Second year of AA...$1700/month. AAA before getting called up...$2100/month. Now for all you math majors, do the math for that amount over only five months. Cause we only get paid during the season. They don't pay us anything during the month of spring training. Now when I made it to the big leagues, that's when if you go back to the minors you start making a salary more similar to what you'd get with a normal job in the real world. Unfortunately, when you start making that much, that's when your career starts hanging in limbo. That's when you may start bouncing around many many teams, whether due to trades, free agency, or getting released and just trying to find a team to pick you up and give you another chance. Cause although they pay their big league contract guys crazy amounts of money...for some reason, they are very cheap with minor league players and look for any way possible to save an extra buck. For instance, when I was sent down from the big leagues to AAA, we were on the road in Detroit. KC had to mail me the rest of my baseball stuff from my locker back in KC. Well, when I received my pay check a few days later, I saw a deduction for $12 for USPS. They charged me for shipping my stuff to me!!! I guess they needed the extra twelve bucks to help pay for Sweeney's 12 million that year.
Ok, here's my interesting year so far. All off-season and during spring training, I wasn't happy with KC. My agent and I tried many times to get permission to talk to other teams who may be interested in me. See, you have to have been playing for six full season before you're allowed to do that, and I wasn't a free agent for one more year. But they continuously said no. This made us think they liked me enough to not want to lose me. Well, a week into the year...and after pitching very well in spring training....they released me! After holding me down, they let me go! And at the worst possible time of the year to find a new job, since the season just start and most rosters are full. Well, apparently the head of minor league operations let me go without even getting permission from the higher ups that were telling me they liked me and didn't want me talking to anybody. Now whether that's true or not, we'll never know. Cause that's another beauty of pro baseball....they lie all the time! Thank God I found a new job with Houston in less than a week. It was a miracle. Getting to Round Rock, Houston's AAA affiliate, they told me I'd pitch a lot here. They lied. We ended up having way too many pitchers there in the bullpen and none of us were getting enough work to stay sharp and do our best. I only threw 8 innings in a month, which a normal reliever gets at least 12 to 15. We had 13 relievers when you're only supposed to have 12. Not only that, an injured big league pitcher rehabbed with us and was coming off the Disabled List last friday. So all of us knew that they had to send someone down from the big leagues to make room for this guy. Which meant that one of us could be....sent down to AA, sent to what we call the "phantom DL" where you're said to be injured when you're really not just to make room on the roster, sent to another team via trade, or sent home! And the beauty was it could have been any of us! We had no clue. I figured it would probably be me, just because I hadn't pitched much, I didn't do all that well when I did pitch, and I was the new guy. So they didn't know as well as the other guys there, so it'd be easy to let me go. Well guess what happened, during the third group of batting practice...sure enough, the pitching coach called me off the field and into the office. I asked him if this was bad news, and he said not really. So I'm thinking, "alright, I'm not going home. Am I going to the phantom DL?" Well, I get in there and the manager says he just got off the phone and I've been traded to Seattle. At first I was in shock, then I realized something that makes this story a little funny. We were in Tacoma, Washington.....the AAA affiliate of the Seattle Mariners! And I had just pitched three innings against them the night before!!! Apparently, Houston owed Seattle a player from a previous trade, they sent them a list of guys, and Seattle picked me off that list. So anyway, I got dressed back into my street clothes, packed my baseball things, and WALKED ACROSS THE FIELD INTO THE HOME CLUBHOUSE! Now I've seen many crazy things happen to players, and I've even heard of something like this happening to someone....but how crazy is it that this happened to me! Anyway, that's my story so far this year. Stay tuned for the next episode of Where's My Career Going in just a moment. Ha!
Justin
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