The End Of The Road

It feels weird that the 2012 baseball season ends on a Wednesday. I’m used to the season coming to an end on a Monday – I worked in minor league baseball for several years, and their season usually ends on Labor Day – or a Sunday. But, Wednesday it is.

Like most people who work in baseball, I’m terrible at saying goodbye, even though there are several people I probably should say goodbye to. I come into contact with dozens of people over the course of a season, people I see at every home game. There’s the security guard I wave to as I walk from my car to the ballpark, the attendant I make small talk with as I wait for the clubhouse to open, the writers with whom I talk baseball. I talk to some more than others, but we all are united because of baseball. But, on Wednesday, the last game will be played and we’ll scatter without much acknowledgement.

And, that’s the thing: because we’re united by baseball, there seems to be little reason to communicate once baseball season ends. Plus, an effort would have to be made to communicate in the off-season, whereas in-season communication is effortless. I’ll cross paths with some of them before next season, but not with the same frequency. Many of us will go months without seeing each other, if we ever see each other again. The following year, there are always new faces and faces that disappear; questions will be asked about the people who are gone but, rarely, is there any follow up, regardless of the circumstances that led to that person’s departure from our daily baseball routine.

It always takes me several days to decompress from baseball’s every day routine. Since early March, when I was in Arizona for spring training, there’s been a game to cover, post-game work to do, a player to interview, a manager to question every single day, save for the handful of off-days scattered throughout the season and spring training. You have to be wired a certain way to deal with the baseball grind; most people can’t handle a schedule with no weekends off and few evenings off. Few would want to deal with a summer with brief vacations – if any vacations – and the constant travel (I currently don’t travel with a baseball team during the regular season, but I did for seven years) that covering baseball requires. I figured out right away that the baseball lifestyle suits me, but it takes a little while to get used to a normal lifestyle again, with more evenings at home and no game every day.

No baseball team I’ve covered as a play-by-play broadcaster or pre- and post-game show host has made it to the postseason, and I would imagine it takes even longer to recover from a stretch with heightened intensity and uncertainty surrounding when – and how – the ride will end. But, watching postseason baseball helps me decompress. There are still daily games, but I’m not covering them, so I can watch a game without thinking about anything other than watching the game; I can tune in and out whenever I choose and I don’t have to concern myself with every detail. The postseason is the only time I really get to watch baseball as a fan, even though I’m not rooting for any of the teams.

Growing up, I used to suffer from baseball withdrawal. The end of World Series was always sad to me, because I wouldn’t have any baseball to watch for more than four months. When my Sports Illustrated would come in the mail, I’d scour it for any baseball nuggets, and I would do the same whenever I got my hands on a newspaper. But, as I got older and developed an affinity for other sports and cultivated other interests, that withdrawal waned until it eventually disappeared. I still miss baseball during the off-season but, the melancholy feeling has been replaced by a sanguine one; random stories and notes about the upcoming season get me excited about what lies ahead.

Even though I love baseball, I’m not a typical fan; I don’t see the game the same way an average fan does. The baseball off-season gives me a chance to be a fan of other teams and other sports. My attention turns to the New York Giants and Syracuse basketball in particular. I follow their games passionately and emote over every occurrence – good or bad – in their games, something I don’t do while watching baseball anymore. I also keep close tabs on the New York Knicks and on Syracuse football but, since both of those teams have struggled mightily for several years, I tend not to be as invested in their success – or, more accurately, their failures. Also, it’s possible for me to watch virtually every Giants and Syracuse basketball game live with minimal effort and little-to-no cost; the same isn’t true for the Knicks or for Syracuse football.

I also use the baseball off-season as a chance to cover other sports. This will be my 10^th consecutive winter doing basketball play-by-play and, in many of those years, I’ve also called football. My preparation for the basketball and football games that I call is more detailed and nuanced than it would be if I wasn’t calling baseball. During a baseball season, there’s little time to slow down and think too far ahead. But, with basketball being two or three times a week and football being once a week, there’s plenty of time to put together detailed notes and to gather information. Baseball play-by-play is my first love, but I enjoy the different challenges posed by calling faster paced sports as well. When I do baseball play-by-play, or even during my pre- and post-game shows, I like to tell stories and weave that day’s events into a larger narrative. But, in basketball and football, I enjoy the challenge of delivering the perfectly timed statistic or factoid; the action moves so quickly that, if you miss your chance to mention something, the pace of the sport often won’t allow you another opportunity.

Right before either my fourth or fifth year covering baseball, I was worried because the season was about to start and I wasn’t particularly excited and I didn’t feel energized. Do I still want to do this? I thought to myself. Then, I gradually started my preparations for the season and realized that, as I dipped my toe deeper into the baseball waters, that excitement and enthusiasm began to emerge. Later, it occurred to me that I’d been through the grind of so many baseball seasons that my mind and my body knew what to expect and, as a result, were conserving energy. They knew how long the season was and they weren’t going to expend energy or resources unnecessarily or prematurely. Before each game that year, I noticed I was very low key but, once the games started, it was like a switch went off and I immediately transformed into Baseball Mode. I still find myself switching Baseball Mode on and off, when needed.

I wonder if a day will come where I’ll tire of covering baseball, a day where I’m unable to switch into Baseball Mode as quickly as I do now and the grind becomes more of a burden and less of a badge of honor. That day has come for many of my friends and former co-workers who’ve left baseball; some of them don’t really miss it and some forever rue the day they departed. I hope that day never comes for me. Hopefully, I’m able to gear up and decompress for many more baseball seasons. Right now, I know I’m prepared for the end of this season and I’ll be ready for the beginning of next season.

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The Bad News Yankees

We hadn’t been in our seats for very long when Dad pointed out the changes Yankee Stadium underwent during its renovation in the mid 1970s. Over there was where the Yankees bullpen was, Dad said as he pointed to an out-of-place nook behind the rightfield fence. Right there is where me and my grandfather sat when he took me to Yankees games when I was your age, Dad explained as he pointed to a section of empty seats in dead centerfield that were blacked out and blocked off, serving as a batters’ eye. Dad also pointed out the changed outfield dimensions and the monuments beyond the leftfield fence, which Dad said used to be located in centerfield, where they were in play. I stared at the retired numbers painted on the wall out by the bullpens in leftfield; there were so many of them.

I was a budding baseball fan on that night in 1989, two days shy of my tenth birthday, but I was already acutely aware of the storied history of the New York Yankees. I wasn’t even a Yankees fan, choosing to root for the New York Mets like Dad, Mom, Grandpa and nearly everyone else in my family who mattered. Yet, I couldn’t help but be awed thinking about all of the great players who roamed Yankee Stadium’s lush green grass. However, I was too young to remember the last great era of Yankees baseball; I was a fetus when the Yankees won the last of their record 22 World Series, in 1978, and I was two years old when the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Yankees in the 1981 World Series, their last postseason appearance. The Yankees had been marked by discord, dysfunction and a revolving door of players and managers ever since George Steinbrenner became their majority owner in 1973, but they’d always won, their drama not adversely affecting their play on the field. But, that was starting to change.

Ever since their last World Series game, the Yankees had been competitive, but not good enough to get over the hump. Their teams were marked by high payrolls and very good offenses, but also by inconsistent play and mediocre pitching. And, the Yankees certainly didn’t play like a well-oiled machine on this overcast June night. They committed six errors, leading to 12 unearned runs for their opponents, the Baltimore Orioles. Four of the errors occurred in the first three innings. Two of the errors were committed by first baseman Don Mattingly, the franchise cornerstone and winner of multiple Gold Gloves for his fielding acumen. The Yankees were down 7-0 in the top of the third inning when manager Dallas Green pulled starting pitcher Andy Hawkins. However, two batters later, Steve Finley – a rookie I’d never heard of – hit a grand slam off reliever Chuck Cary. Rain was in that evening’s forecast and many of the fans in attendance began opening their umbrellas and chanting for rain to wash the game away during the Yankees’ disastrous top of the third. Much to their chagrin, the rain stayed away all evening as the Orioles cruised to a 16-3 victory.

By the end of the 1989 season, the Yankees had suffered their third losing campaign since Steinbrenner’s reign began. Not surprisingly, the year included a managerial change, with Green being replaced by Bucky Dent in mid August. Meanwhile the Mets – the redheaded stepchild of New York City baseball for much of their history – continued to capture the hearts and minds of New Yorkers with their young, brash ballclub and dominant pitching. The Mets finished second in the National League East in ’89, but they were a year removed from a division title and three years removed from a dominant season that ended in a World Series triumph. Clearly, the Mets’ star was rising while the Yankees’ star was falling.

The biggest problem the Yankees had in those days can be summed up in two words: starting pitching. The ’89 season fell in the middle of a stretch in which the Yankees had a different Opening Day starting pitcher for nine straight seasons. That year Tommy John – a 45-year-old who wasn’t expected to make the team – took the hill for the Yankees in the opener. John won on Opening Day, but was released less than two months later with a 2-7 record and a 5.80 ERA; he never pitched in the Majors again. In 1985, the Yankees opened the season with 46-year-old knuckleballer Phil Niekro on the hill. 1991’s Opening Day hurler was journeyman Tim Leary, who’d lost a league-leading 19 games the year before. In 1990, Dave LaPoint, who had a 5.62 ERA in ’89, got the ball in the opener; he was released the following spring training and saw action in only two more Major League games after the ’90 season. Hawkins wasn’t one of the many Yankees Opening Day starters of that era, but he was signed to a hefty contract as a free agent, only to disappoint. Even when he wasn’t disappointing, Hawkins was still losing; in 1990, he threw a no-hitter in Chicago against the White Sox, but the Yankees committed three errors in a four-run eighth and Hawkins and the Yankees lost 4-0. The next start, Hawkins tossed 11 shutout innings against the Minnesota Twins, but allowed two runs in the 12^th and lost 2-0. It’s pretty hard to go 0-2 over a two-start stretch that includes 19 consecutive innings without an earned run, but Hawkins and the Yankees were able to make that happen (to add insult to injury, in 1991, Major League Baseball ruled that Hawkins’ performance in Chicago would no longer be officially recognized as a no-hitter because he only threw eight innings. That wasn’t Hawkins’ fault; since the White Sox led after 8 ½ innings, they didn’t have to bat in the bottom of the ninth).

But, the Yankees didn’t miss only on veteran pitchers. In 1984, the Mets began the season with 19-year-old phenom Dwight Gooden in their rotation and the Yankees, not to be outdone, put 18-year-old Jose Rijo on their season-opening roster. Rijo wasn’t a phenom, bouncing between the Yankees and Triple-A in ’84 before being traded to the Oakland Athletics after the season; Rijo later became a solid starting pitcher with the Cincinnati Reds, whom he helped to a championship in 1990. In 1986, 23-year-old Doug Drabek spent most of the year in the Yankees’ rotation before being shipped to the Pittsburgh Pirates, where he became one of the best pitchers in baseball, winning the National League’s Cy Young Award in 1990. Hard-throwing lefthander Al Leiter had great stuff, but struggled to throw strikes. Nevertheless, the Yankees refused to limit his pitch count. As a 23-year-old in ’89, Leiter threw 163 pitches in a start in which he walked nine, struck out 10 and allowed five runs; two starts later, Leiter walked seven and allowed four runs in a 130-pitch effort. Shortly thereafter, Leiter was dealt to the Toronto Blue Jays, where he had arthroscopic shoulder surgery before becoming a rotation mainstay and an integral part of championship teams with Toronto and the Florida Marlins.

The Yankees weren’t much better with position-player prospects. First baseman Kevin Maas – whose batting stance resembled someone sitting on the toilet – set a record by hitting 10 home runs in his first 79 Major League at-bats, but his performance went in the toilet after that. Outfielder Oscar Azocar liked to set fire to his bats, but he didn’t set the world on fire with his hitting. Hensley Meulens was nicknamed “Bam Bam” because of his prodigious power, but that moniker became a punch line as the outfielder struggled to make consistent contact. The Yankees had promising power hitters Fred McGriff and Jay Buhner in their system in the 1980s, but they traded both away. Both became All Star sluggers with other franchises.

I felt fortunate that I decided to latch onto the Mets rather than the Yankees. Sure, the Yankees had all that tradition, but they were a mess. Meanwhile, the Mets were winning with talented young pitching – Gooden was only 24 in 1989 and he’d already won a Cy Young Award – and scrappy position players scored runs in bunches in a lineup anchored by Darryl Strawberry, perhaps the National League’s best power hitter. The Mets finished second again in 1990, but at least they didn’t lose 95 games like the Yankees, who finished last for the first time since the Johnson Administration. But, Strawberry departed as a free agent after that season, Gooden struggled with injuries and drug abuse and the Mets started a freefall into mediocrity. Meanwhile, the Yankees seemed to have figured it out all of a sudden, making some savvy trades and free agent signings just as their farm system started to bear fruit. By the mid 1990s, the Mets were the rudderless ship and the Yankees were becoming dynastic again. To add insult to injury, both Gooden and Strawberry found themselves in Yankees pinstripes, where they redeemed their careers (Strawberry’s bouts with drug addiction became public after he left the Mets) and helped the Yankees win championships.

Nowadays, the Yankees aren’t quite as good as they were in the 1990s, but they’re still one of baseball’s best teams year after year. A generation of baseball fans has come of age knowing nothing but Yankees success. However, I remember an era when the Yankees seemed incapable of doing anything right and the Mets owned New York City. Where have you gone, Andy Hawkins? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you.

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Know When To Fold Them

I need to make a phone call, but I’m not sure where to start.

In 2003, I was in my first year as the broadcaster for the Kalamazoo Kings, a minor league baseball team that played in the independent Frontier League. The Kings had a rough year on the field, firing their manager with more than half the season remaining and finishing in next-to-last place in their six-team division. But, it was a good year for me; management and the fans seemed pleased with my on-air work and several others around the league complimented me on the job I did. Near the end of the season, I was named the Frontier League Broadcaster of the Year. A couple of months later, I got a plaque for my achievement, my name written in gold script. I gave the hardware to Mom, who still displays it in my old bedroom. I called Kings games again in 2004 and again won Broadcaster of the Year. Joe Rosenhagen, the tobacco-dipping general manager of the Kings, requested that the team be allowed to display that plaque in their office and I was more than happy to oblige. It would be nice to have the second plaque, I thought, but it’s neat to know my award will be on display in Kalamazoo long after I leave.

As it turned out, I left Kalamazoo in the spring of 2005. The Kings carried on without me, winning the Frontier League Championship in ’05 followed by several more successful seasons on the field. The Kings continued to pride themselves on community outreach and charity, donating lots of tickets and all of their profits to the less fortunate. However, attendance started to dip after the championship year and 2010 was the final season of Kalamazoo Kings baseball. Officially, the team suspended operations, but it doesn’t appear that suspension will be lifted anytime soon.

I’m sure my Broadcaster of the Year plaque is sitting in a box in a closet or storage shed somewhere. And, if the Kings are no longer, I’d love to have it. But, I don’t know who to call.

The first minor league team I worked for was also named the Kings and also relocated, but that was the plan. In 2000, shortly after completing my junior year of college, I got an internship with the Queens Kings, of the short-season New York-Penn League. The Kings were in their first season, moving from St. Catharines, Ontario, where they had been a Toronto Blue Jays affiliate for many years. The franchise still had one more year left on their Player Development Contract with Toronto when they were purchased by New York Mets owner Fred Wilpon after the 1999 season with the intent of moving the team to Coney Island, on Brooklyn’s southern tip, where the team would be a Mets affiliate. However, a stadium in Coney Island wouldn’t be ready until the 2001 season, at the earliest, and plans to play temporarily in other Brooklyn venues fell through, leading Wilpon to strike a deal with St. John’s University that allowed the ballclub to play in a renovated baseball stadium on their campus in Queens as a Blue Jays farm club. Several people in the residential community surrounding St. John’s were opposed to the plan, afraid that the Kings’ 38-game home schedule would lead to traffic snarls and that the night games and noise from the ballpark would become a distraction that would interfere with their quality of life.

As it turned out, the community’s concerns were mostly unfounded. Despite playing in America’s biggest city, the Kings were last in the New York-Penn League in attendance, so noise and traffic weren’t significant issues. And, the Coney Island stadium was completed in time for the 2001 NY-Penn League season, so the Kings left St. John’s with a brand-new baseball field to become the Brooklyn Cyclones, a Mets affiliate that’s seen nothing but success both on and off the field.

Things have worked out for the erstwhile Queens Kings, but not for the Yakima Bears, the second minor league baseball team to employ me, and the first to hire me as their radio broadcaster. When I got there in 2002, the deck was already stacked against the Bears, who were in the smallest market in the short-season Northwest League. Moreover, Yakima, Washington was in an out-of-the-way locale that relied heavily on agriculture, which helped lead to high unemployment and a lack of discretionary dollars for families and businesses. The Bears played in a tiny stadium on the Yakima County Fairgrounds that lacked the amenities of many of the other league’s stadiums. And yet, I had a great summer getting paid to talk about baseball and getting to know the close-knit group of Bears supporters.

Even though I wasn’t surprised when I started reading about the possibility that 2012 could be the last season of Yakima Bears baseball – I’d heard stories about the Bears exploring relocation even before I got to Yakima – the reports of the Bears’ demise saddened me. I knew how much baseball meant to that community and I worked closely with many of the people who put in many hours of labor to keep baseball viable in Yakima. Not to mention, I have many fond memories of my season with the Bears, even if it was the least successful season in their history. But, the Bears’ history ended last week, when they played their last game in Yakima; they’ll spend 2013 and beyond in a sparkling, new facility in Hillsboro, Oregon. Unlike Yakima, Hillsboro isn’t in the middle of nowhere; it’s a suburb of Portland, the largest metropolitan area in the United States without professional baseball. Their stadium is sure to have many of the money-making amenities that were lacking in Yakima and Hillsboro’s populace is sure to help the franchise move out of the Northwest League’s attendance cellar, which is where the Bears resided for a good portion of their 23-season existence.

After Yakima and Kalamazoo, I wound up in Binghamton, New York, as the voice of the Double-A Binghamton Mets of the Eastern League. Like Yakima, Binghamton is the smallest market in its league and plays in a stadium that was built without many of the frills modern minor league stadiums have. However, the folks in Binghamton worked hard to modernize the ballpark as much as they could, constructing a weight room for the players, adding luxury boxes and installing a state-of-the-art video board, among other things. But, like Yakima, Binghamton often finds itself at the bottom of its league in attendance and, for years, some have quietly wondered how much longer Double-A baseball would last in Binghamton. Those concerns grew louder several months ago, when news reports out of Ottawa, Ontario claimed that owners there were ready to buy the B-Mets and move them into a refurbished stadium in Canada’s capital city. Binghamton’s team president strongly and forcefully denied those reports, but the skepticism remained.

That skepticism was quashed with last week’s news that Binghamton and the New York Mets agreed to extend their Player Development Contract for four more seasons, through 2016.  So, the Binghamton Mets appear safe for at least a little while longer; hopefully, baseball remains in Binghamton for the foreseeable future. Several of the B-Mets staff members I worked with have moved on, but a few remain. I still check the Eastern League standings to see how Binghamton is doing. The fact that the Binghamton Mets still exist means part of my past still exists. You can never go home again, but it’s nice to know that your old home still stands. It’s nice to know there’s still somebody I can call.

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Postponed

The five Binghamton Mets players thought they were big shots, smoking their cigars while walking through the Mohegan Sun Casino in southeastern Connecticut. We were staying at a Days Inn 20 minutes away for a series with the Norwich Navigators. Rather than take the team bus, I opted to drive my own car during this road trip. My car came in handy when the first game of Binghamton’s series with Norwich was rained out. After the postponement was announced, five players crammed into my tiny, green Saturn: one in the front passenger’s seat, three in the back seat and another player laid horizontally across the three seated in the back. Those five tried to talk me into putting a sixth player into the trunk, but that’s where I drew the line.

I wasn’t in the mood to gamble, and neither were Jeff Duncan, a speedy outfielder who’d spent time in the Majors with the New York Mets the previous two seasons, or Tim McNab, a gregarious Floridian whose sinker and slider make him an effective relief pitcher. So, the three of us had dinner and hopped from bar to bar – I was driving, so I didn’t imbibe as much as the other two – before we came upon a cigar shop. Duncan decided he wanted to buy everyone a cigar, which led to the summoning of his other three teammates and a careful perusal of the cigar collection. In addition to cigars and other tobacco products, this store also sold autographed sports memorabilia, which is what I honed in on while Duncan methodically examined the cigars on hand while getting counsel from a middle-aged female employee. After what seemed like 15 minutes, Duncan finally found cigars he felt were suitable for 20-something, Double-A baseball players. A lighter was passed around and off we went, five cigar-smoking athletes and one amused radio broadcaster – Duncan offered to buy me a cigar, but I declined – traipsing through Mohegan Sun’s indoor mall and multiple casino floors.

After the cigars were about half-finished, Duncan paused and looked at the cigar ring.

“Hey! This cigar says it’s a product of Connecticut!”

“They probably grew that next to the casino,” I said, unable to contain my laughter. “But, you like the cigars, right?”

Duncan nodded.

“Well, then, that’s all that matters.”

*          *          *

Baseball is the only sport that’s played every day, so repetition and routine are paramount. However, baseball is also the only sport with regular delays and postponements because of weather, usually rain, which break up that precious routine. And how one deals with such disruptions is important.

One of the most vital things I learned in my seven years as a minor league baseball play-by-play broadcaster is to always assume the game will be played to its completion, regardless of how much it has rained, how cold it is or how ominous the forecast looks. After all, it’s easier to prepare oneself to play in or broadcast  a game and then call off the dogs than it is to mentally relax thinking there will be no baseball, only to find out there will be, forcing you to get in game mode after you’ve cooled down.

Early in my minor league broadcasting career, I got into the habit of consulting the people who are the most in the know and powerful during rain delays: the general manager and the head groundskeeper. Everyone who makes his or her living in baseball follows weather forecasts and radar closely on bad weather days, but none more closely than those two. However, you have to approach those decision-makers with caution, because they’ve been getting asked all day whether there will be a game but, as long as you use the appropriate level of tact and sensitivity, you’ll usually get the information you seek. There was one opposing general manager when I worked for Binghamton who was especially difficult. He would quietly consult with the groundskeepers and ignore anyone else who asked him about the weather, even keeping the rest of his own staff and the two field managers out of the loop. It never made sense to me to guard information about the possible length of a delay or potential rainout contingency plans like it’s a state secret.

There’s nothing worse than losing an entire series to weather. That happened to me twice in the minors, both times while I was with Binghamton. One was a four-game series in Portland, Maine in late May; it rained heavily all four days. During that time, me and Binghamton’s pitching coach compared crossword puzzle answers via our hotel room phones and I ate plenty of meals at a Mexican restaurant a few blocks from the hotel. I was also with Binghamton when a four-game, season-opening series in Akron, Ohio was called because of snow and cold weather. Fortunately, there’s plenty to do near the hotel we stayed at in downtown Akron. On that trip, I somehow lucked into a room with a Jacuzzi, which I used several times; after tough days of going to the ballpark, learning there was no game, and returning to the hotel, I needed to unwind somehow, right?

Rain delays can lead to some interesting problems and creative solutions. I was calling games for the Kalamazoo Kings, of the independent Frontier League, when the start of one of our road contests was delayed by rain in Chillicothe, Ohio. The Chillicothe faithful had come out in full force for a post-game fireworks show and, when there’s a big crowd, the likelihood that a game will be played increases (rainouts result in lost ticket sales). However, the fireworks had to be shot off by a certain time – I think it was 11 pm – and, even if the game started, there was little chance it would end by then. So, a compromise was reached: the game would be stopped right around 11, fireworks would be lit, and the game would resume immediately thereafter. We hit 11 after about six or seven innings and, as promised, the game was halted, fireworks exploded and the ballpark emptied. We had to wait another 15-20 minutes for the smoke to clear after the pyrotechnics display; it wound up being about a 30-minute fireworks delay.

Sometimes, postponements come on clear, summer days. That’s what happened when I was working for Kalamazoo, which had road games scheduled versus a team in Hamilton, Ohio. The team was known as the Florence Freedom, but their stadium in Florence, Kentucky – an hour away – had yet to be built (the stadium opened the following year, half-finished because the team didn’t pay all their bills, which later led to lawsuits. Florence’s owner wound up going to prison for lying to banks about his assets in order to acquire loans and lines of credit). In the meantime, the Freedom called a glorified American Legion field home. On this day, an unexpected brief rainstorm hit about 30 minutes before the scheduled first pitch. Problem was, the grounds crew – which I believe was comprised of municipal employees – hadn’t arrived yet. As a result, no one put the tarp on the infield and no groundskeepers were there to prepare the field for the game after the brief soaking. Instead, several Freedom players and manager Tom Browning broke into the groundskeepers’ shed, grabbed bags of drying agent and spread the sandy stuff all over the infield in an attempt to sop up the water. There was Browning, 12-year Major League veteran and, at the time, one of only 17 pitchers to ever throw a perfect game, raking drying agent into the infield around the third-base bag. I was amused as I watched the scene unfold from my perch in the metal press box behind home plate. I was less amused when the umpires arrived, surveyed the field and, minutes before the game was supposed to start, decided to postpone it. When the home plate umpire turned toward the press box and made the horizontal slashing gesture with his right hand that symbolizes a game has been called, I was on the air and at a loss for words for a moment. I then explained to my listeners that “this game has been called because of…stupidity!”

I could’ve used a cigar after that one. Even if it was from Connecticut.

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Getting Started

After an hour-long subway ride, 25-minute ferry ride and 20-minute bus ride, I was in a room with about 40 people. We were all around the same age – late teens and early 20s – and we all had the same goal of working for the Staten Island Yankees. I’d been looking for an opportunity to work in baseball, and this seemed as good of a chance as any. The woman I’d spoken with on the phone a few days earlier told me anyone interested in working for the team needed to show up at their offices for an interview. I’d returned to New York City after my sophomore year of college a couple of weeks earlier and was planning on working as a tour guide for school and camp groups at the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan for the second straight summer. However, I felt I had to explore any possibility of working in baseball, even if it meant a nearly two-hour commute. The Staten Island Yankees were about to embark on their first season as an affiliate of the New York Yankees in the short-season New York-Penn League, playing from late June through Labor Day, a schedule that dovetailed with my summer break.

It was my turn to go into the office. The gentleman sitting behind the desk noted that I was a college student and also that I lived in the Bronx. He asked me why I’d want to work in Staten Island. I told him I wanted to work in baseball and that the lengthy commute wouldn’t be an issue. They were looking for people to work in foodservice and run the concession stands, he said. That wasn’t what I had in mind, and he knew it.

“We’ve already hired all of our interns for the season,” he said. “If you’re interested in an internship next year, you should start looking in the winter.”

It hadn’t occurred to me to start looking in the winter for work in a sport that played all of its games in the spring and summer. I thanked him for his help and started the long trek home. A few weeks later, the Staten Island Yankees called and asked if I was still interested in working in concessions for them that summer. I told them I wasn’t. My dream of working in baseball would have to wait at least another year.

Growing up in New York City, I knew very little about minor league baseball. My focus was always on the Major Leagues. Every now and then, I’d read or hear something about a prospect who was doing well in Tidewater, or in Binghamton, or in St. Lucie – the top three minor league affiliates of my favorite team, the New York Mets – but I had no idea what that meant. As I started to get a better understanding of what Major League Baseball was all about, that was my focus. After all, who cares about who’s playing well in the minors? I thought. Most of those guys never make it to the big leagues anyway. It probably didn’t help that many of the Mets’ top prospects during my formative years – Bill Pulsipher, Grant Roberts, Butch Huskey and Alex Ochoa, to name a few – didn’t turn into superstars once they got to the Majors.

As I worked my way through high school and college and tried to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up, I realized I wanted baseball to be a part of my career in some fashion. I covered sports for my high school newspaper, which eventually led to me majoring in broadcast journalism at Syracuse University. I watched my first minor league baseball game early in my freshman year of college, when I took two buses from campus to see the Syracuse SkyChiefs, the top affiliate of the Toronto Blue Jays, host the Rochester Red Wings, a Baltimore Orioles farm club, on the final day of the 1997 season. I was fascinated by the entire experience: the smaller ballpark, seats behind home plate for less than $10, the endless promotions and the good, but not quite Major League caliber, play on the field. When the 1998 season began, I cut class to attend the SkyChiefs’ home opener, a tradition I upheld all four years I went to Syracuse, and I followed the SkyChiefs closely.

After the advice I got from that Staten Island Yankees employee, I spent the winter of my junior year keeping a close eye on the New York-Penn League team New York Mets owner Fred Wilpon purchased and planned to move to Brooklyn. A stadium would be built in Coney Island, in the southern part of the borough but, in the meantime, Wilpon’s new team would have to spend at least one year playing at a temporary site. Initially, that site was to be at Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, but community opposition led to that idea being tabled. Several other options – including the team playing their games at Shea Stadium when the Mets were on the road – were explored before St. John’s University in Queens agreed to host the team for a season. In return, Wilpon and the Mets essentially paid for a new baseball stadium at St. John’s, redoing the surface, adding lights and installing new bleachers. Wilpon’s team would be known as the Queens Kings.

I finished my junior year of college without a summer job lined up. However, I was convinced I would find work with the Kings. I was home for a week before I located a working phone number for the Kings and, after leaving a message, my call was returned, an interview was scheduled and, before the interview was over, I was hired as an intern.

My summer with the Kings was fun, even though I worked long hours, had a two-hour commute that involved two subways and a bus and our attendance wasn’t great. I told the Kings’ general manager I wanted to work in broadcasting, so I either emceed on-field promotions or served as the public address announcer for every Kings home game. When the Kings weren’t playing, I was doing everything from ticket sales to chasing down starting lineups to pulling the infield tarp to writing articles for the game program. Not only did I learn a lot about the inner workings of a minor league baseball team, but my internship with the Kings confirmed my belief that, not only did I want to work in baseball, but that I could work in baseball. Working in for the Kings also made it easier for me to apply for broadcasting jobs in the minors, because I had a better idea of what teams were looking for and a better idea of what to expect.

People always ask me about the best way to get a job in baseball or broadcasting. There’s no one way to go about it, but you have to do your homework, seize whatever opportunities come your way and seek advice from those in the business. Every experience, even the unsuccessful ones, can help lead you down the right path. The journey to find the career that best suits you is always worth it. Even if that journey involves a ferry ride.

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