Where Nobody Knows Your Name: Life In the Minor Leagues of Baseball (42 page)

Sure enough, on July 22 against Columbus, his pitches had bite again. He pitched six innings and gave up two runs. His next two starts were equally good—although he didn’t get wins in any of them. During that three-game stretch he pitched to an ERA of 2.55, and his ERA for the season dropped by more than half a run. Then came a bad outing against Rochester in which he gave up six runs and three home runs and came out in the sixth inning.

“I wasn’t discouraged by that,” he said. “I wasn’t happy, but you have starts like that. I just wanted to come back and pitch well in Buffalo the next time out.”

He did. But he might have been trying just a little too hard. With one out in the fifth inning, he felt a tweak in his leg while throwing a pitch. His legs had been sore, but he hadn’t paid attention, just figuring it was normal late-season soreness that any thirty-six-year-old pitcher was bound to feel. He threw one more pitch and induced a ground ball to first base—which, as it turned out, was the worst thing that could have happened at that moment.

As he ran to cover first base, Elarton felt a sharp pain in the back of his leg, and he knew right away he’d done something to his hamstring. He made the play and then looked into the dugout for help.

“I told them I had to come out,” he said. “Funny thing is I’d never done that before in my life. I remember a few years ago I got hurt during a game and I decided I was going to tough it out. No way was I going to ask out. There was a man on third base, and I was intentionally walking the batter to set up a double play. I threw the first intentional-walk pitch to the backstop.”

He smiled. “After that I didn’t have to ask out. They came and got me. This time I knew to get out before I made it worse.”

He ended up getting tagged with the loss that night to drop his record to 5-11. It was his tenth straight loss since the night in mid-May when he had been pitching so well and wondered if he was going to get the call to Philadelphia. Now, in August, May was a distant memory. His biggest concern at that moment was simple: he didn’t want to end the season on the disabled list or without pitching again. There were less than three weeks left to play.

“The good news was it wasn’t my arm, and I knew it wasn’t that bad,” he said. “If you tear something down there, you can feel it. I knew I had to be careful with it, but I also knew it was just a strain. I wanted to get back on the mound before the season was over.”

By now, Elarton knew for certain he wasn’t going to see the major leagues in 2012. “If they called in September, I certainly wouldn’t turn them down,” he said, laughing. “But I know they aren’t calling.”

On August 28, having missed just one turn because of the hamstring, Elarton was back on the mound. The IronPigs were still mathematically in playoff contention, trying to chase the Pawtucket Red
Sox down for the wild card spot, so this was one of those rare Triple-A games where the outcome has serious meaning for everyone on the team.

The opponent was Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. The game was in Allentown, but it was technically a Yankees home game. That didn’t really matter to Elarton. He gave up two runs on three hits in the second inning but settled down and pitched solidly for five innings, not surrendering another hit. He ended the fifth inning by striking out Ronnier Mustelier. Sandberg had decided that eighty-two pitches was enough for him after the missed start.

With Juan Morillo warming up in the bullpen to replace Elarton, the IronPigs scored two runs in the top of the sixth to take a 3–2 lead. Morillo pitched two shutout innings. Then Joe Savery, who twice had been called to the Phillies early in the season when Elarton thought he might get the call, pitched a scoreless eighth. Jake Diekman finished the job in the ninth, and the IronPigs had a 3–2 victory—giving Elarton his first win in more than three months.

That was nice. What was nicer was that he had pitched pain-free. The hamstring had felt fine. Sandberg told him he would get one more start—on September 3, the last day of the season. Elarton’s family had gone home to Colorado while he was working his way back from the hamstring injury. By the weekend, the IronPigs knew they weren’t going to make the playoffs, that their Labor Day game against the Buffalo Bisons would be their finale.

Elarton’s car was packed and ready for the trip. “It’s 1,575 miles from here,” he said on the season’s final Sunday. “As soon as the game’s over on Monday, I head down the road. The kids have told me I better be home in time to pick them up from school on Wednesday.”

He was ready to go home. He was not, however, ready to stay home. “I want to play next year,” he said. “I’m not sure about a lot of things. But I’m sure about that.”

Having managed in the International League for six years, Charlie Montoyo is familiar with just about everything and everyone associated with the league.

Including the umpires.

“They’re no different than the rest of us down here,” Montoyo said one morning in early August. “This time of year, they get a little cranky. It’s hot, they’ve been on the road all year, and they’re wondering how they’re doing. They’re not like us—they don’t have standings to tell them if they’re doing well. They have to wait to hear.”

While it was certainly difficult for umpires to make the jump from Triple-A to the majors, at least they knew that openings would occur and there was a chance they might be next in line to fill them. There were seventy full-time major-league umpires, and even though it seemed as if some of them never retired, they did, in fact, retire—usually by the age of sixty.

Not so with broadcasters.

Getting a major-league broadcasting job isn’t quite as difficult as getting appointed to the Supreme Court, but once someone gets there, he isn’t likely to leave unless he’s dragged to the door—usually kicking and screaming. For those sitting on the doorstep but not inside the door, that can be remarkably frustrating.

“What’s frustrating about it is you never know what it is that will get you hired or what it is that isn’t getting you hired,” said Steve Hyder, who had been doing play-by-play for the Pawtucket Red Sox for nine years. “Umpires, at least, have some kind of evaluation system even if it’s subjective. For us, it’s a question of a job opening and then having someone in a decision-making position who happens to like your work.”

The PawSox have a great tradition of being a stepping-stone to major-league jobs for broadcasters: Gary Cohen had been hired by the Mets in 1988 after two seasons in Pawtucket; Don Orsillo had moved up to the Red Sox in 2001; Dave Flemming had been hired by the Giants in 2004; Andy Freed moved on to Tampa in 2005; and Dave Jageler was hired in Washington in 2006 after one season in Pawtucket. All five of those men still work for the big-league teams that hired them.

The PawSox are one of a handful of Triple-A teams that use more than one radio play-by-play man. Traditionally, Triple-A radio is handled by one play-by-play man, perhaps supplemented by an ex-player who does color. In Pawtucket there have been two play-by-play men for years.

After Jageler’s departure in 2006, Hyder worked with Dan Hoard in Pawtucket. Twice he had been a finalist for major-league jobs: in 2005 when the new Washington Nationals were hiring and that same year in Oakland. He hadn’t gotten either job but had thought his time was bound to come.

“I grew up in Rhode Island and I went to UMass, so this area has been my home for a lot of my life,” he said. “When I got the job here in 2004, I felt like I was in the front row of Red Sox Nation and the timing couldn’t have been better. For the most part, I loved the job. I loved knowing the guys who came through here like Dustin [Pedroia], [Kevin] Youkilis, and Jacoby [Ellsbury]. I always felt part of it, even in a small way, and I loved that.”

Two things happened in 2011 that forced Hyder to rethink his life. First, he had a heart attack. He had just turned fifty, and he knew
that the job had taken a toll on him through the years. It had already affected his personal life—he’d been divorced twice. Now it was affecting his health.

“The minor-league life isn’t easy, especially as you get older,” he said. “The players are young, and they don’t plan to be around very long. Even the ones who are still playing in their thirties are relatively young. It’s not a fluke that you don’t see a lot of managers and coaches who do this at this level for very long. The travel wears on you. Working 144 games in 152 days wears on you.”

And being one step away from the big money and from living the major-league life also wears on you—especially after years and years in the job. Some make their peace with it. Howard Kellman has been doing play-by-play for the Indianapolis Indians since 1974 and is a beloved and respected figure in Indianapolis. The same is true in Toledo of Jim Weber, who grew up there, started with the Mud Hens in 1975, and has never left his hometown.

They are exceptions to the rule. Most Triple-A broadcasters are exactly like the players: they grow up dreaming of being in the big leagues.

Matt Swierad has been broadcasting minor-league baseball for twenty-three years—ever since he graduated from Jacksonville University with a degree in history. He spent seven years in the Class A South Atlantic League before landing the job in Charlotte in 1998. He was only thirty-one at the time and was on the path he wanted to be to get to the major leagues.

Seven years later, Swierad was still in Charlotte and beginning to wonder if the major leagues were just a pipe dream. Then came an unexpected—if temporary—opportunity. Jerry Coleman, who had been doing play-by-play for the San Diego Padres forever, was being inducted into the Hall of Fame. The Padres needed someone to fill in for the three games that Coleman would miss during Hall of Fame weekend and put out a notice that anyone interested in the three-day job could send in an application.

Swierad almost didn’t bother. “I figured there was no chance, that someone who had an in with someone out there would probably get
it,” he said. “My wife finally convinced me that I should at least give it a shot.”

The Knights were in Buffalo on a long road trip and had gotten to the hotel early one morning to find that they couldn’t check into their rooms right away—a frequent occurrence of Triple-A travel. When they finally got in their rooms, Swierad walked over to a nearby food court to get some lunch.

He was sitting down to eat when the phone rang.

“At first I didn’t even want to answer it,” he said. “I was tired, frustrated by a long trip, and hungry. But I picked it up, and it was the guy who was in charge of the search for Jerry’s replacement. He told me they had picked me and asked if I still wanted to come out and do the three games.

“I hung up the phone and just started to cry. I was sitting in a food court in Buffalo, and I’d just found out I was going to the major leagues. I didn’t care that it was only for three games. I’d done it.”

Hyder hadn’t gotten that break or had that moment. He worked the second half of the 2011 season wondering if perhaps it was time to get off the road, to find something different to do with his life.

Then his friend Hoard was hired to become the play-by-play voice of the Cincinnati Bengals. Hyder wondered if moving up to the No. 1 slot combined with feeling better physically would put more life into his step—and his broadcasts—in 2012.

Except that he didn’t move up to the No. 1 slot. The PawSox hired Aaron Goldsmith, who had been working for the Texas Rangers’ Double-A team in Frisco, Texas, and announced he would be their No. 1 voice with Hyder remaining in the No. 2 slot. Goldsmith was twenty-eight. Hyder got the message.

“Nothing against the kid,” he said, referring to Goldsmith. “It’s not his fault. I just thought I deserved the chance to be the No. 1 guy. They felt differently. If I said that didn’t hurt, I’d be lying to you.

“I didn’t want to make an emotional decision when they made the announcement. I decided to go back and work and see how I felt—physically and mentally. Opening day I knew I was done. I just didn’t have the feeling I needed to have to do the job as well as I possibly
could. The enthusiasm wasn’t there. I knew it was time—past time—for me to go.”

It made for a bittersweet summer. He told no one in the organization of his intention to leave and felt fortunate that the PawSox were having a good season. For broadcasters, the fate of the team day to day is very important because having players move on to the major leagues and succeed doesn’t make the games they are working any more fun. A winning team is always more fun to be around than a losing team. From day one, even with all the turnover created by a spate of Red Sox injuries that made the clubhouse feel like a baseball halfway house with players coming and going, the team was in contention in the IL North.

That made the season a lot more fun for Hyder. It also made the thought of leaving that much more difficult to take.