The Journey to Pro Ball
Circa May 2012,
Well I didn’t have much time to be sad about season ending. As I said in my previous posts- its junior year. A couple weeks after our shitty defeat in South Carolina I was invited to the Kansas City Royals Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri. Now, Ive never been to the Mid-West, nor have I ever been to a workout on a Major League field before. Since my parents work, I went off to Kansas City by myself, got picked up by the local Miami area scout when I landed, and he dropped me off at the hotel that the players stayed at. Now for those that don’t know, a workout is an opportunity for an amateur player like myself (at the time) to be seen by the higher ups in a baseball organization in a effort to try and be drafted by them. If the team invites you to go, it means an area scout or someone in the organization likes your abilities and wants to get the people who inevitably make the choices on who to draft or not to see you.
It started in the hotel….I had way too much fun. What can I say I was twenty at the time, thought I was on top of the world. I met a kid in the same situation as me- there for the workout, and we hit it off. Did I mention the hotel had an indoor waterpark…
We went to the indoor water park and wreaked havoc. They had a basketball hoop in one of the pools, and we would alley oop and dunk on little kids half our age. Of course we had an unfair advantage physically being that im 6’6 and my newly aquatinted buddy was 6’4. (Yes baseball players are usually tall, especially pitchers!) Going down one of the water slides I was messing around and hopped off my tube and damn near knocked myself unconscious hitting my head on the wall of the slide. Ehh, I walked it off, but it sucked, and put me in a bit of a daze. Lets just say I don’t think I was at my peak performance. And it definitely transferred over.
The next day we went to the Royals stadium. It was like 9 a.m., (early as hell for me at the time btw), but it was magnificent. Kauf
mann stadium is so nice.
Majestic fountains line the rear of the field overlooking the warning track, with the world’s largest HD LED scoreboard overlooking the entire field, just above center-field wall.
The workout went O.K I guess, nothing crazy. I hit 90 mph a couple of times, nothing to boast about, but the other pitches looked good, the curve and the change-up. For all my non-baseball aficionados, you can change the movement of a baseball while you pitch with a change of the grip. A curveball is meant to move in a 12-6 or 1-7 (think clock) direction over home plate and is usually 12-20 mph slower than a fastball and a changeup is a pitch that looks like a fastball but is usually much slower.
The highlight of the workout was actually after. See the Royals gifted everyone who participated in the workout tickets to that’s night game against the Oakland A’s. This tickets were great, box seats with food included, but just like any fan of baseball, we wanted to be on field level to meet some of the players. My buddy and me went to the game as soon as gates were open and deceived a plan to get onto the field during batting practice. When we had the workouts in the morning we took an elevator down to the field level in order to actually get on the field. So we already knew how to get to the field. But getting past security was something to worry about. Long story short, we waltzed passed security like we owned the place. Took the elevator down from the general stands, walked past the two security guards outside the players locker-room, and went through the tunnel entrance in the dugout to reach the field.
It was a bit surreal that we made it, and even more so when we saw Major Leaguers Jeff Francour, and Eric Hosmer walking around, along with the rest of the Royals team. At the time, I was young, and dazzled by pro baseball players, I mean these guys were gods to me.
It was truly amazing. Ironically, when I was talking to a couple of the players right before we left in the batting cage, which was nestled away under the stands away from plain view- Jeff Francour proceeded to walk to the corner of the room where a small white porcelain toilet sat, with no door- and proceeded to take a piss. I laughed so hard, I don’t know why. I just didn’t expect that. You see these guys on T.V, idolizing them, in awe of their abilities, and here he is acting like a normal person. To be honest, from then on, I never looked a pro baseball player the same. This was before I became one, and looked at them as colleagues or piers after I was drafted, but the God sense, the perfection, sort of went away for me. Was it a negative? I don’t think so. It made me comfortable knowing these guys are the same as me, and one day I would try to compete to take one of their jobs on a Major League baseball team (or so I thought).
So anyways, the workout was mediocre. Needless to say, a month later I didn’t end up getting drafted by the Kansas City Royals, but the trip was fun though. Met some great dudes, and ended up working out next to some future major leaguers and was able to talk some crap with current ones. As I said, it didn’t work out with the Royals though. Guess I wasn’t meant to wear Blue. It was probably for the better though, as I actually ended up getting drafted by my hometown team. But like any good show, I need to cut to commercial break…..for a week.
Until next time- on the Minor League Struggle Bus.