“I get it,” Montoyo said. “He wants people to be aware of me. I knew he wasn’t asking me to go because they needed another guy to throw BP or hit fungoes in pregame.”
The trip didn’t go terribly well for the Rays. They dropped five of six and, even though they ended up winning ninety games, came up short of the playoffs. Montoyo headed back to Arizona after the team’s last game in New York and waited to see if his phone would ring during the off-season.
It didn’t.
“Not a big deal,” he said. “The minor leagues is what I know. To me the minor leagues is baseball. If that changes someday, great, I’d love the chance. I believe in my ability. But I’m not exactly old yet [forty-seven on opening day in 2013], so I feel if it’s going to happen, there’s still time.”
The most disappointing news of the off-season was that the doctors felt that Alexander needed another round of surgery. It was scheduled for April 15, and Montoyo and the Rays made plans for him to be absent from the Bulls for as long as was needed.
“We’ve been through this enough times that we almost know just how to do it,” he said. “I know that sounds strange, but it’s true. We always schedule the surgery for a Monday because that means the surgeon will be in the hospital for at least the next four days after the surgery. In April, it means I can fly to Los Angeles [UCLA hospital] after a day game to meet the family.
“Last time I was prepared to be away for a month. After the fifth day, Alexander came home. I hope it goes as well this time.”
Alexander would still be only five on the day of the surgery. “We hope this is the last one,” Montoyo said. “The doctors say if this doesn’t get it done, the next step is to consider a transplant.” He paused for a long moment. “Obviously, we don’t want that.”
As always, Montoyo enjoyed spring training, the feeling of being around the major-league team and players and living the major-league life. In the back of his mind, though, he knew that opening day—April 4—wouldn’t feel as much like a beginning as it normally did. It would be another day in the countdown to what he hoped and prayed would be his son’s last surgery.
“He’s done amazingly well considering everything he’s been through,” he said. “All I want for him is to be a normal, healthy little kid.”
That, very clearly, was far more important than getting a job in the major leagues. Montoyo would sign up for Triple-A life forever in return for Alexander’s good health.
The surgery was a success according to the doctors. After this, everyone just had to wait and see if the fourth time would be the charm. In September the Bulls won the Governors’ Cup once again. Montoyo waited to see if his phone would finally ring.
LINDSEY AND SCHWINDEN
One of the off-season rituals for players is receiving a letter from the team they work for telling them when they are expected to report for spring training and, in some cases, where they are to report for spring training.
Those who have contracts guaranteeing them major-league pay know they will report to the major-league camp; they just don’t know what day they are expected, because it changes from year to year. In 2013, reporting dates were a little bit earlier than normal because the World Baseball Classic was going to interrupt spring training for some in March.
For others, the where is far more important than the when. Often, veterans sign minor-league contracts with a clause that guarantees they will be invited to major-league camp. Most teams will have anywhere from eight to fifteen “non-roster invitees” in their major-league camp. Scott Elarton and Scott Podsednik had both been non-roster invitees in the Phillies’ camp in 2012.
Everyone else is at the mercy of the organization. “You hope they tell you to report to the major-league camp so you get a chance to show the major-league guys what you can do,” John Lindsey said. “But if you don’t, you just have to go and do the best you can.”
Lindsey was pleased when the Tigers offered him a contract for 2013 shortly after the free-agent-signing period began. That told him he had made a good impression in Toledo and, clearly, Phil Nevin had said good things about him to the organization.
He wasn’t shocked when the letter came in January telling him to report March 10 to the minor-league camp in Bradenton. It wasn’t what he wanted, but it was what he had expected.
“Maybe I’ll get some at-bats in exhibition games down there,” he said. “But if I don’t, I’ll go back to Toledo and try to put up numbers like last year, and if they need someone, I’ll be right there. It’s not perfect, but it’s a lot better than starting the season in Mexico.”
While Lindsey wasn’t surprised when his letter arrived, Chris Schwinden was. He had thought he had pitched well enough the last two months of the season in Buffalo to earn an invitation to the major-league camp. He’d been there in 2012 after finishing the season in New York and had hoped he would at least get a few weeks with the major leaguers. Like Lindsey, his hope was to make an impression.
He would have to do so from the minor-league camp. His report date was the first week of March, and it was to the Mets’ minor-league camp in Port St. Lucie.
“To be honest, when I first opened the letter, I was pissed,” he said. “It was a letdown. My thought had been if I got to the major-league camp—even if I didn’t go north with the team—I could leave some good impressions with them that would put me high on the list to be called up when the season started. That’s what happened in 2012—I was up before April was over.
“But I’m going to take the approach that I became a better pitcher last summer, especially with my changeup, and I have to keep working. I still haven’t got the sinker where I want it, so maybe if I can get that going, I’ll really be ready not just to make the majors but succeed in the majors. That’s the goal now—to succeed up there.”
Schwinden laughed. “After last year, I have to think this year is going to be calm and easy by comparison.”
With the Mets moving their Triple-A team from Buffalo to Las Vegas, life in the minors would be different. “I liked Buffalo, felt very comfortable there,” he said. “Never minded pitching in cold weather. The good thing about Vegas is that it’s a lot closer to home and I should finally get to pitch in Fresno in front of all my friends and family. I never did make it there last year.”
Schwinden, of course, had been scheduled to pitch in Fresno during his brief stint pitching in Las Vegas the previous June, but the Blue Jays had released him before that start. He had ended up making his next appearance in Columbus—as property of the Cleveland Indians.
Schwinden had two goals for 2013: make it back to the majors, and pitch well there and spend the entire season in one organization. Four organizations in thirty-five days was a little much.
TOMKO
Lindsey and Schwinden might have been a little disappointed when they received their letters telling them where and when to report, but chances were good that Brett Tomko would gladly have traded places with either one of them.
After the national championship game in Durham, Tomko flew home to San Diego and sat down to talk to his wife, Julia, about their future. Being part of a championship team had been enjoyable, and to some degree Tomko felt at peace with the idea that his career might be over.
For years, he had collected memorabilia from his baseball career. He had baseballs—thirty-eight of them—signed by every catcher he had ever thrown to in a major-league game. Some were from guys he had pitched to on more than one team. He had a signed bat from Rico Brogna—the first player ever to homer off him. And he had a signed bat from Mickey Morandini, the first player he had ever struck out.
“I’d always planned when my career was over to build a really nice case for the baseballs,” he said. “When I got home in September, I told Julia I thought it was time I start building the case. I enjoyed the experience—I like doing things like that, and I’m pretty good at it. But as I was doing it, I almost had the sense that I was building my own baseball coffin. It unnerved me a little. Made me
wonder if I really was ready to hang it up.”
When the free-agency period began in November, Tomko started sending out e-mails and making some phone calls to people he knew in front offices. Most said the same thing: check back with us in the spring.
“I think they wanted to see who else they might be able to sign,” he said. “Obviously, a forty-year-old pitcher was more of a backburner, ‘We’ll call you if we need you’ sort of guy.”
There were nibbles as spring training drew closer. Colorado wanted to watch him throw at one point, and the Blue Jays did watch him throw. Still, as everyone was leaving for spring training, Tomko was at home, looking for work.
“This is the first time in nineteen years, other than when I was rehabbing from the shoulder surgery, I haven’t been leaving for spring training right now,” he said one afternoon in February. “It’s an odd feeling. Most of my springs have been in Arizona, and I’ve just loaded up the car and driven there by myself to get ready. Now I’m sitting at home.”
Home, but not necessarily home for good. Tomko was throwing regularly at a nearby high school and planned to face hitters in batting practice on a normal spring training schedule.
“I’m acting as if I’m in a camp,” he said. “I’m throwing side sessions as if I was getting my arm ready for exhibition season. I’m going to throw to live batters soon. That way if someone calls and says, ‘Are you in shape to come right into camp?’ my answer will be yes. Julia and I have talked, and she wants me to ride this through to the very end because she knows that’s what I want to do.
“I’m not completely crazy. Every time I called a team this winter I said the same thing: ‘Look, I want to play right now, but I know it won’t be for much longer. Whenever I’m done, I’d like to coach or manage. If you’re looking for a guy who has experienced everything from top to bottom in baseball, I’m you’re guy. There probably isn’t anything a player is going to come to me with that I haven’t seen.’
“ ‘Hey, Brett, how do you deal with being unbelievably hot, throwing like you’ve never thrown before?’ I can tell them I experienced a half season where I was as good as anyone in baseball. Then I can tell them that same season I was also the worst pitcher in baseball for a couple of months.
“I brought all that up just to get my line in the water down the road. Right now, though, I want to try to pitch one more time.”
The plan was to wait for a call as spring training moved along. If no one called, Tomko had talked to independent league teams in York, Pennsylvania, and Camden, New Jersey, about pitching for one of them.
“Other guys have done it,” he said. “I figure I have nothing to lose. It’s going to be over soon one way or the other … why not go as far as I possibly can? Who knows, I could be one of those great comeback stories. It does happen.”
And so, when April rolled around, he was off to York.
Stop No. 28.
LOLLO
For Mark Lollo, there was no chance to beat the odds. Umpiring was a zero-sum game: you were in or you were out.
For most of October, he heard nothing official from Major League Baseball. He wondered—briefly—if perhaps Cris Jones had reconsidered or someone had stepped in and spoken up on his behalf.
“I never let myself think it for very long,” he said. “I knew they had until November 1 to let me know one way or the other. I didn’t want to be disappointed when the formal call came.”
It finally came a couple of days before the deadline. Cris Jones and another supervisor called him together and thanked him for his years of service but told him he would not be renewed for 2013.
“I guess I’d have been shocked if it had been the other way around and they’d said I was coming back,” Lollo said. “What bothered me, though, was the corporate-speak. I thought after twelve years I deserved more than something that felt like I was being read an HR letter from some company. I know baseball’s a big business, but it still left me feeling pretty empty and sad.”
Lollo was already looking for work outside baseball even before the formal call came. But he found himself stewing about the call, because there was one question he wanted answered and nothing in what Jones had said had answered that question for him. Finally, about a week after the phone call, he sent Jones an e-mail.
There was no anger in it, just a question: “Cris, I need to know the answer to this question: Can I go to my grave knowing I did absolutely everything possible to become a major-league umpire?”
Jones replied: “If you want to give me a call, I’d be happy to discuss.”
“It occurred to me right then and there I didn’t want to talk to him about it. I just knew whatever the answer was, I wasn’t going to get what I needed—even if he said I’d done everything, I wasn’t going to feel like I’d gotten a completely straight answer.
“So I decided to call Larry Young. He had been the supervisor who first brought me up to the majors in 2011, and I thought he’d tell me the truth—no matter what the truth happened to be. He called me right back, and I told him I had one question I needed answered. When I asked him, his answer was very direct: ‘Don’t even think about it ever again. You did everything you could. Timing is everything in life. You just didn’t get lucky with timing.’
“That was the closure I needed. It doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt and that I’m not still grieving over it to some extent. But I felt as if I had some closure after that.”
Lollo began to interview extensively after the call. He was offered a job as a money manager after going through a lengthy interview process but decided at the last possible second he didn’t want it. Everywhere he interviewed he did well.
“Five interviews, five offers,” he said. “But I was holding back. I just wasn’t ready.”
Finally, in February, he was offered a job by a company called Uni-First, a uniform supply company. The office was forty-seven miles from his home in a suburb of Columbus, but the company told him he would be able to work from home a couple of days a week. Lollo accepted.
“I still haven’t decided if I want to try to officiate again someplace,” he said. “I’ve thought about applying to do Big Ten baseball or even to do high school football. I think I might enjoy that.
“The whole thing’s a process for me. Right now, all my friends are leaving for spring training. A year ago I was in major-league spring training thinking I wasn’t that far from being a big-league umpire. Now I’m driving to an office every day.
“It’s better for my family; I know that. But I can’t honestly say I’m completely over it.”
There’s an old saying: great athletes die twice.
Umpires too.
ELARTON
It took Scott Elarton a solid month to stop feeling sore, once he had made the two-day drive from Allentown to Lamar in early September. The hamstring that had caused him to miss a start in August still hurt, but beyond that he just felt, well, thirty-six.
“It had been a while since I’d gone through an entire baseball season, much less an entire season healthy,” he said. “My last full season of pitching was 2007. Five years is a long break even if you’re young—which, in baseball years, I’m not. So it took me a while. But gradually I began to feel better, and there was no doubt in my mind that I wanted to try to pitch again. I’d enjoyed myself too much to just walk away.”
The question, like with Tomko, was whether he could find someone who would give him the chance. He spoke with Phillies general manager Rubén Amaro, who had been responsible for the chance he’d gotten in 2012, and Amaro was honest with him: “He said, ‘Right now we haven’t got anything for you,’ ” Elarton said. “They have some younger pitchers they feel are getting close, and a thirty-seven-year-old didn’t exactly fit into that plan. He told me that could change as they got closer to spring, but I knew I’d better start looking around.”
Elarton picked ten teams who he thought might be looking for insurance in the form of an experienced starting pitcher. If he knew someone wit
h a team, he sent him an e-mail. Otherwise he just sent a note to the farm director. He figured that was the logical starting point.
Like Tomko, Elarton wrote his own notes and e-mails rather than relying on an agent to do it. If there was a deal to be made, then he would involve an agent. “At some point in your career, you can’t ask your agent to do that kind of digging for you,” he said. “Plus, I think it’s harder to say no directly to a player than to his agent.” He paused. “Of course it’s not that hard.
“I got nine noes,” he continued. “Just polite responses saying they weren’t looking to sign anyone—as in me—at that time.”
The tenth response came from Brad Steil, newly named as the Minnesota Twins’ farm director. He said that he and general manager Terry Ryan would have interest in signing Elarton to a minor-league contract.
“I jumped at it,” Elarton said. “It was a chance to pitch. I still believe I wasn’t that far away from being major-league ready the first couple of months of last season, and with that year under my belt and another good off-season I can get back to the majors. I don’t think I’d go back if they told me Triple-A was the ceiling. I need that competitive carrot, the belief I can pull something off people don’t think I can pull off. I mean, think about it, how often do guys go five years between trips to the big leagues?”
The Twins’ offer gave him hope, a chance at least to pull off the unlikely. His family was 100 percent for it. “As soon as I told them there was a team that wanted to sign me, everyone’s reaction was, ‘When do we leave for spring training?’ ” he said, laughing. “They were ready to jump in the car that day and go.”
Elarton wasn’t at all surprised when his reporting letter arrived telling him he was expected in the minor-league camp in Fort Myers, Florida, on March 7. Even the thought of an overcrowded minor-league spring training clubhouse didn’t bother him.
Where Nobody Knows Your Name: Life In the Minor Leagues of Baseball Page 36