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What Day Is Today?
Prologue What I’m about to tell you isn’t a typical baseball story. I don’t limp off the bench and hit a game-winning home-run in the World Series. I didn’t throw a perfect game in my last ever start, nor do I mentor some bonus-baby with a million-dollar-arm and two-cent head so he can mature and make it to the big leagues. And I promise you that I don’t end up playing catch with my dad in an Iowa cornfield at the end of this either. What I did do was take a shot - a shot most people never get and something that anyone who has ever bought a pack of baseball cards has dreamed of at one time or another. I took a shot at playing professional baseball. And although I wish this baseball story had a happy ending just like in those Kevin Costner movies or the games on ESPN Classic, I am sorry to say it does not. My story is about a guy who never really thought his baseball career would amount to a whole lot—and it very nearly didn’t. If it wasn’t for hundreds of hours of practice, a patient pitching coaching who saw something in me, and one huge break, this wouldn’t be much of a story at all. The story I’m about to tell is about what life was like for me during my 301 days as a pitcher in the Montreal Expos baseball organization - one of the proudest times of my life. Now I know what you’re thinking. “301 days? Isn’t that an awfully short career? What happened, did you hurt your arm or could you just not get people out any more?” Well, neither. What I suffered from was a syndrome that affects billions of people on this planet every single day of their lives. It’s called aging. And in low-level professional baseball if you’re not 19 you might as well be 65. At least that was the impression I got when I was released from the Expos on March 28, 2003 - three days before the end of spring training. Things were going great for me up until then too. I was locating everything. My breaking pitches were breaking and my fastball was getting good, consistent sink and run. And with the help of an improved slider and change-up, I was starting to have more success against left-handed hitters as well. I had even made two appearances against AA teams (the Mets and Dodgers) and received rave reviews from coaches and coordinators alike. Pretty good for a guy who spent half a season in rookie ball the year before. But just as soon as it appeared that my own baseball story might have a happy ending after all, I got the bad news—the Expos were releasing me. I never got a rational explanation why and I don’t suppose they had to give me one. But I do know that my age (23), my draft round (48th), and my miniscule signing bonus ($1,000) were all brought up in my final “send off” meeting. I guess I had always pictured hanging ’em up when I wanted to, not when someone else told me I had to. And that, I think, is what makes my story so atypical. As far as I was concerned, I was cut down in my prime—a victim of the harsh business (and it is a business) that is professional baseball. But don’t think for one second that my forced retirement has tainted my outlook on the game or my time as a pro. It remains one of the happiest times of my life—despite the long, weird hours, moody teammates, cramped busses, crappy hotels and slave-wage paychecks. And consequently, that is why I chose to write this book—to give an inside look into minor league baseball for anyone who has ever wondered “what’s it really like?”
Chapter 1 Better Late Than Never I guess the best place to begin would be the afternoon of June 5. I was in the car on my way home to grab a bite to eat because in a few short hours, I was going to make my debut as a ringer on my friend’s company softball team. I wasn’t ashamed that I was excited to show off either. After all, while I assumed that every other participant in that game had spent the last four years of their lives going out on the weekends, drinking beer and telling high school football stories, I had devoted almost my entire life to baseball. I lifted weights. I went to practice. I long-tossed. I did thousands of crunches. I ran poles. I went on long bus rides, I kept charts and I looked at video like it was my job. But now that my career was officially over, it was time to relax and live a little, you know, do what I wanted to do for a change. Just a few weeks prior, I had graduated from the University of Maryland, Magna Cum Laude with a degree in broadcast journalism and a minor in kinesiology. I was also a four-year member of the baseball team. I say “four-year member” rather than “four-year letter-winner” because I only won letters during two years at Maryland—my last two. It’s funny now that I think about it but I really spent all four years there in the bullpen—my first two as a catcher and my last two as a pitcher. I was recruited out of high school as a catcher. I always had a decent arm and could play a bunch of positions so in high school, I spent my first two years as a shortstop, my junior year as a catcher and my senior year as a pitcher and outfielder. It was my versatility, the recruiting coordinator at Maryland had once said, that made me a valuable commodity. What they didn’t tell me was that they had already given a pretty big scholarship to a high school catcher from New Jersey, named Keith O’Donnell. I would later find out that he had been all but guaranteed the starting job before we even arrived on campus. As we practiced for the first few weeks that fall, the guy who was supposed to be my arch-enemy and my competition for playing time became far and away my best friend on the team. He was better than I was behind the plate and he deserved the starting job—which he won hands down. After two unremarkable seasons spent mostly on the bench rooting for Keith and occasionally getting late-inning at bats in blow out games, I started wondering if I had reached a dead end in my career. Baseball took up a good deal of my time in the fall and practically all of it in the spring. There were many times that I seriously pondered quitting and beginning my career as a sports journalist. I figured if I couldn’t play baseball, I wanted to get paid to talk about it. Before the start of my junior year though, our entire coaching staff at Maryland was replaced and within a few months, my career was revitalized. After spending most of the fall swinging and missing at the plate and re-learning the outfield, one single day breathed new life into a dying career. We had two weeks of fall ball left and just minutes before the first pitch of our inter-squad game, I was in front of the dugout, warming my arm up to play right field as I usually did. I was loose after a few throws, so just to be silly, I dropped down and threw the ball a few times from a submarine arm angle. Submarine is where your throwing hand is below your elbow, knee height or lower, when you release the ball. As I was doing this, our new pitching coach, Chip Faulkner, came up to me and said, “Hey, let’s go down to the bullpen later and take a look at that.” The day before, the coaching staff had asked if any of the position players had ever pitched before, just to get a sense of what everybody could do. I said I had pitched in high school and I threw maybe twenty pitches from the bullpen mound, just to show what I could do. It wasn’t much. I was throwing maybe 80 mph and the ball was straight as an arrow, so I figured my pitching days were well behind me. But when I went down to the pen this time, he asked me to throw every ball from that same arm angle—submarine. I did and so began my second stint as a pitcher. I was still only throwing 80 at best, but this time the ball had late sink and movement to my arm side so that it would run in on the hands of right-handed hitters. As a rule, submariners have a knack for keeping the ball down and getting a lot of ground balls. I pitched in the inter-squad game that day and after throwing a scoreless inning, I knew this was going to be my ticket off the bench. The rest of my junior year was more of a learning experience than anything else. I had some good outings and some very bad ones. But my senior year was when I really put it all together. I earned the job as our team’s closer and by the end of the year, we set a school record for wins, I had appeared in 25 games, recorded a school record seven saves and finished the year with a team-best 2.08 ERA. And I had wanted to quit a few months ago! My season and for all I knew, my baseball career, came to a close when we lost to the Duke Blue Devils in the play-in game of the 2002 ACC Tournament. I didn’t even get to pitch in that game because we trailed the entire time. While we were at the tournament, another one of the seniors, an outfielder named Sean Kilman, said to me that he had been contacted by Jack Smythe, a scout for the Montreal Expos. Jack had personally invited Sean to a tryout before the draft and wanted Sean to pass the word on to me, which he did. I really didn’t think much of the invitation to be quite frank. Sean, who was a four-year starter and a hell of a hitter, had already been invited to several pre-draft tryouts. I figured he would get picked up by somebody (in fact, I was surprised he hadn’t gone the year before) and I hoped for Keith’s sake that he would find a place to play too. Both Keith and Sean had been contacted by multiple teams during the season. And although that was never a guarantee of being selected, they both had a much better chance than I did since I had been contacted by exactly zero clubs. I still wanted to go to the tryout though. I figured it would be fun and honestly, I just wanted an opportunity to pitch one last time. Jack was at the tryout, along with the organization’s head scouting director Brandon White, and Ryan Moore, a national cross checker for the Expos. I had met Ryan several times before and he was a very knowledgeable and outgoing person when it came to baseball. He and I worked at the same instructional camp the previous winter and he had seen me catch before when I was at Maryland, so we were somewhat friendly and familiar with one another. He was also at Maryland’s annual Scout Day—held at the end of each fall as a way for our draft-eligible players to be seen by as many professional teams as possible. So at the tryout, I threw on the game mound at a small community college with these three guys critiquing my every move. There was no batter, just a catcher and a radar gun. They seemed genuinely impressed with the sink and run I was able to put on the ball, but not so much with the speed - I think I topped out at 83. Before I left, Ryan said he was going to “really push my name on draft day.” I was glad to hear that they were mildly interested in me, but at the same time I was quite cognizant of the fact that they probably said something like that to every halfway decent player who was there. Regardless, I had a good time, I threw well and I had a cool story to tell. Now, back to June 5. It was the second day of the 2002 Major League Baseball Amateur Draft and already two of my teammates had been picked up. Our shortstop, a junior named Ron McGuire, went in the first round to the Oakland Athletics. McGuire was an incredibly talented player. He could hit for power and average, run the bases and he had a cannon for an arm. His defense at short was a bit streaky but he had made some plays this season that only a few shortstops could ever make. McGuire was not exactly the quintessential teammate however. He was good and he knew he was good and that sometimes came across when you spoke to him. For much of the season, it seemed like he cared more about his personal statistics and draft status than how our team was doing. Regardless, he had put together a remarkable season which warranted a late first-round pick. Kilman was also drafted on the first day, by the Expos. He didn’t have the power that McGuire had, but was a very solid outfielder. He was a good leadoff or number two hitter and by the end of this last season at school, he became the all-time career leader in hits and runs scored. So as I said a few pages ago, I was in the car on my way home when I noticed I had received a new message on my cell phone. I checked my voice-mail and to my delight, it was from Keith. “KENNYYYY! I just got picked by the Tigers in the 38th round…everybody here is going crazy [cheers in the background]! Give me a call later! [more cheering]” the message said. I called him right back to congratulate him. I couldn’t have been happier for him and I said I wanted one of his baseball cards and as soon as he got one. As I finished my ride home, I was coming to grips with the fact that it was 4:30 on the second day of the draft and that I was most likely not going to be taken. As realistic as I had tried to be about my chances from the start, I still couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed. So I went in my room for a little while and played (what else) baseball on my Playstation 2 while I ate an early dinner before the softball game. After all, I wanted to be well-fueled for my debut. At about 5:15, I heard the phone ring and after a few seconds, my mom brought it to my room. She didn’t say who it was. “Kenny…” the voice on the other end said. “Yes?” I said. “This is Jack Smythe of the Montreal Expos. Congratulations.” “Uh, okay. Why?” I said. “Because we just drafted you in the 48th round,” he said. “We will get in touch with you in a few days with more information, okay?” “Sure,” I said, still in disbelief. I walked out into the living room where my mom and dad were on the couch, reading. “I just got drafted by the Expos,” I said, still not believing the words coming out of my mouth. “What!?” my mom said. “Yeah, that was one of the guys from the tryout. They just drafted me—48th round,” I said. “Better late than never, I guess.” “Kenny, that’s unbelievable!!” my dad said. And for the next few minutes we celebrated the unexpected good news. “Well what are you going to do about Charlottesville?” my mom then asked a few minutes later. “I don’t know,” I said. A week ago, I had interviewed with an NBC affiliate in Charlottesville, VA about an opening they had for a sports anchor position. I thought the interview had gone very well and was still waiting to hear from them. With that decision left to be made, I called as many people as I could to share my news. I was in my room on my cell phone calling my friends (Keith included) and my mom and dad were in the living room calling their friends and family. If we had a third phone in the house, I’m sure we would have used it too somehow. I’ll never forget the energy in our house that afternoon. A few minutes later Ryan Moore called me as well, congratulating me. Once the initial craziness died down, my mom asked me if I should still play softball that night. My dad, who served as the calming influence during this entire event, assured her that I would not get hurt playing and that it would be fine if I went. As fate would have it, the game got called due to rain before we even got three outs in the top of the first. On my way home from the softball game, I called my girlfriend, Amanda. We had been together for more than a year and a half, but had been friends since early in high school. I had called her house as soon as I heard the news, but I forgot she was working at a lacrosse camp until 8 and wasn’t home yet, so I made her mom promise not to tell her. When I did get a hold of her, I told her about the Expos and although she was very happy for me, I also got a sense that she was disappointed at the same time. She knew as well as I did that if I did indeed sign, I would be gone for the entire summer and we wouldn’t be able to see each other until the season was over. I think she had already been getting a sense that I was on the move somewhere, either to Virginia or now, wherever the Expos sent me. She hadn’t been her usual fun-loving, exuberant and upbeat self for the last few days and I was now realizing why. She and I visited a few friends that night to celebrate and despite my best efforts, I could not bring her out of her very quiet mood. When I came back home that night, I had a note on my bed which said Jack Smythe had called again and was coming over Sunday, June 9 to bring a contract and go over specifics with me about where I’d be sent. The note also said that Frank Pratt, my coach at Maryland for the last two years, had called and wanted me to call him back tomorrow. Over the next few days, I tried to reassure Amanda that no matter what happened with me or where the Expos sent me, it wouldn’t change our relationship a bit. This took a good deal of convincing though, because she had been waiting all year for us to finally be together. As short on time as I had been in the spring playing baseball at Maryland, she was equally busy playing lacrosse for Salisbury University - two and a half hours away. “Just wait until summer,” I kept telling her whenever she would sound sad or seem like she missed me. “We can see each other whenever we want then.” Thinking about spending time together like that always seemed to keep her going and bring her into a more rational mood. But now, what I had been promising all along looked like it wasn’t even going to happen. The next morning, I had a few phone calls to make, the first of which went to Coach Pratt. He congratulated me and said I had definitely earned the chance to show what I could do. Then he asked me in exactly what round I had been picked. “The 48th round,” I said. “Well, they’ll probably give you a plane ticket and a hot dog,” he joked. “Nah, you’ll get at least a grand.” I hadn’t really thought much about a signing bonus just because I knew it would by no means be life-changing money. That’s not to say that $1,000 is chump change, or at least to me it wasn’t. The next call I made was to WVIR in Charlottesville. I spoke with Brian Glass—the news director there and the man with whom I had interviewed. I explained my dilemma to him and once I did, he didn’t seem to think there was much of a choice at all. “You have got to play ball, Kenny,” he said to me. “Do you know how many people would want to have the opportunity that you have right now? If you don’t do this, you will be kicking yourself when you are 40 and if nothing else, you will be all the more qualified for this job when your baseball career is over. We’ll keep your resume tape and application on file, but please, you’ve got to play.” Thanks largely in part to his blessing and encouragement, I was ready to sign. My final phone call of the morning was to Coach Faulkner. He had left a message on my cell phone the night before and I wanted to make sure I spoke with him, rather than his voice mail. He told me he couldn’t have been happier or more proud of what I had turned myself into over the two years he worked with me and that my mental toughness and understanding of the game would serve me very well throughout my career in professional baseball. I spent nearly every minute of the remainder of that week with Amanda, trying to squeeze a summer’s worth of activities into a few short days. I had a wonderful time with her but I knew it would be hard for both of us once I was assigned to a team. The afternoon of June 9 came quickly and by 3 p.m., Jack Smythe was sitting at the picnic table on our screened in porch with a Major League Baseball contract out, ready for me to sign. He told me the contract was standard for college seniors picked after the 20th round—a signing bonus of $1,000, which I would receive in about 60 days and a monthly salary of $850 distributed on the 15th and 30th of each month. “We really think that you and Kilman could be the steals of the draft, considering how late we got both of you,” he began. “And I’ll say this to you before we begin. Everything anyone’s done prior to this in college or high school - the honors, awards, records—that means nothing now. Even what round you got picked in or what you signed for. All that goes right out the window because the bottom line is you have to perform.” It was during our meeting that he explained a number of things to me. First of all, he said that I would be assigned to the Vermont Expos of the New York-Penn League. They were a Short-Season A-ball team, meaning that their season had not yet started. The team would be comprised primarily of players who were just drafted. I thought this was a good thing. I preferred the possibility of joining a team where no one knew each other as opposed to joining a team where everyone knew each other. At least in the former scenario, we would all be new players and get to know each other at the same time. Another nice feature about Vermont was that there were host families in the area who housed the players for the duration of the summer. Some charged a small monthly fee while others did not. He said we would be given a sheet with a list of families on it and it was up to us to find a place to live. Of course we would be allowed to get a place of our own if we preferred to, but the Expos would not pay for it if we did. At $850 a month, I wondered how I would eat, let alone pay for an apartment, so I figured a host family would suit me just fine. He gave me pages of paperwork, including a list of all the teams in Montreal’s organization and a Vermont Expos schedule. Looking at these handouts, I came to several conclusions. First of all, in Vermont, I would be in the second lowest level of the organization. They had a team in the Gulf Coast League in Florida which was Rookie Ball. That team was the lowest. Then there was Vermont. Their low-A, full-season team was the Clinton Lumber Kings in Iowa, and their high-A team was the Brevard County Manatees, also from Florida. I had heard of their AA team - the Harrisburg Senators and their AAA team was the Ottawa Lynx. The next step up was the Montreal Expos. So basically, to get to the Major Leagues, I was on the second rung of a seven rung ladder and I turned 23 in February. There were already guys in the Major Leagues who were younger than me. Upon closer inspection of our schedule, I determined that my small salary would not be a major problem because I wouldn’t ever have time to spend it. Starting with the first game on June 18th, against the team Keith told me he would be playing for, the Oneonta Tigers, we had 76 games in 79 days. And as Jack told me, two of the three off days were team travel days! As I scanned the remainder of the schedule, three more dates jumped out at me—August 30, 31 and September 1. It was those three days that the Vermont Expos would be playing in Maryland at Ripken Stadium against the Aberdeen IronBirds, the team that Cal Ripken Jr. owned. As soon as I saw those three dates, I envisioned a scenario where I was pitching in front of a huge crowd which included all of my friends and family. It was a close game in the late innings and with the crowd on its feet, I struck out the last batter of the inning. If that ever happened, I knew I could die a happy man. Cal Ripken Jr. was one of the reasons I ever got interested in baseball. He was one of my favorite players growing up and now, I was going to get the chance to pitch at his own stadium, as a professional baseball player! I wished it was August 30th tomorrow. Jack went on to tell us that I would be receiving a glove, jacket, cleats, t-shirts and of course, hats. He said he was supposed to bring a few Expos hats for me today, but the UPS package had arrived late and we would have to meet before I left so he could give them to me. “Does he get a uniform too?” my mom asked, as serious as can be. I wished life worked like a VCR, so I could have rewound ten seconds into the past or even ten minutes and explained to my mom that of course I would be receiving a uniform. But life doesn’t work like that, so not only did I have to suffer as those six words entered the audible airwaves, but I also had to live through the embarrassment of knowing that at that moment, Jack Smythe though we were all complete idiots. “No mom, we have to supply our own,” I said, sarcastically trying to save face. “Yes, Mrs. Beck, they all get uniforms and they are washed by a clubhouse manager,” Jack politely said. Before he left, he gave me one more sheet of information—an itinerary for the Vermont Expos preseason mini-camp which required that all players under contract arrive in Vermont by June 13. We had to check into our hotel that evening and the next morning, we would have our physicals and see an orthopedist. Practice started the following morning. Jack said that I had the option to fly up or drive and said that although it was about a 10 to 11 hour ride, some players did prefer to have their cars when they were going to be away all summer. If I did drive, he said I would also be given gas money, totaling around $100. He had just come from Kilman’s house and after giving him the same information, Jack said Sean had chosen to drive. This sounded like a good idea to me too and although it would be the longest trip I had ever been on by myself, I couldn’t imagine being away from my car for three months. How would I get from my home to the field each day without it? Once he was finished, I officially signed my first professional baseball contract as my parents took pictures. I shook Jack’s hand and he gave me one of his business cards to keep in case I ever needed to get in touch with him. When he left, I felt a little nervous but at the same time, excited to get going. A whole new world of opportunity awaited me and for the most part, I couldn’t wait to get going. I once again had to break the bad news to Amanda, which I had been doing quite a bit of lately. From the day I signed my contract, I had three days before I had to leave for the summer. When I told her, I knew she was disappointed but unlike before, at least this time she was expecting it. She knew there wouldn’t be much time between the day I signed and the day I had to report, so in a way it was a relief to know exactly how much longer I’d be around. Once again, I spent as much time as I could with her over my remaining days. And when my parents told me they were going out to have dinner with their friends on June 11, the night before my last evening at home, Amanda invited me over to her house to eat. When I arrived at her house, I was greeted by streamers, banners and a cake along with my friends and parents—all there to wish me good luck and say good-bye. She had planned a surprise going away party for me and it was then that I knew that despite her initial mixed emotions about being apart all summer, she was so proud of what I had accomplished and what I was about to embark upon. I felt incredibly blessed to have so many people wanting to see me before I left and they were all brought together thanks to Amanda’s kindness and caring for me. We ate, we drank and we even played whiffle ball outside in her backyard like we were all nine years old again. That evening remains one of the fondest memories of my entire life. On June 12, she and I went out to lunch with two more of our friends who were working the night before and couldn’t make it to the party. She and I stayed home for the rest of the afternoon and she even ate dinner with us. Amanda really tried hard not to look sad, but as the afternoon sky turned to dusk and the dusk turned to night, she could sense our time together was running out. She left my house around midnight, not sure exactly when we would see each other again. I promised her that nothing would change between us, but that this was something I had to do. If I didn’t see just how far I could go in professional baseball, I would never forgive myself.
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