Daily Grind

I have been getting some requests lately to write about the daily routine of professional baseball based on my experiences so far. I’ll talk a little bit about the living situations, the road travel, and the workout schedules. This is a good way for people to find out more about the grind of being a professional athlete, and just how not-so-glamorous it is sometimes.
To start it off, lets just say I may be one of the luckiest minor league baseball players to be playing, because I have had the opportunity to play at home in front of my family and friends this whole season. Whether it is fate or just plain luck, being drafted by Oakland inevitably secured a chance to play in Geneva, IL for Kane County. The Cougars are Oakland’s low a affiliate, and are located five minutes from my home town of Saint. Charles, IL. While I am lucky to be at home, my teammates are all living in host families around the area. Oakland has a pretty good host family program for the lower levels so it makes it as easy as can be on the players. Transportation is sometimes hard though, because not everyone has access to a vehicle. Once we have graduated from A ball and move on to AA, we will have to find living on our own.
The travel of professional baseball is about as big of a grind as it gets. It is not so much the amount of games we play on the road (71), but more the travel itself. Despite the popular misconceptions, we are not treated like kings in pro ball, and that’s especially true on the road. Sometimes we are lucky enough to stay in average hotels, but most of the time we don’t stay in the nicest of places. From my experience so far, the travel will become better the higher up the ladder I get.
Going to the gym and lifting weights has become part of baseball these days. Everyone one of us are put on some sort of a schedule. Since I am a starting pitcher, my schedule consists of working out my lower body the day after I pitch and working out my upper body the following day. I also condition every other day in-between starts by running long sprints the day after I throw and short sprints on my bullpen day. Relievers and position players are on a different schedule based on when they pitch or play. Working out during the season is more to keep us in shape and keep us healthy until the very end. We dont lift to make any significant gains in our strength at this point in the season.
Being a professional athlete is a lot of hard work, but if it were easy, everyone would be doing it. Sometimes people have the misconception that we are all living life glamorously and don’t have any worries in the world. In reality, our day usually starts at about 10 in the morning at the weight room, and ends at bout 10:30 p.m. at the field. While it might be a lot of hard work and not the greatest some of the times, we are still lucky enough to have the opportunity to do what we do. Besides, it all comes down to us playing a game, and getting paid for it.