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Welcome one and all to another edition of a day in the life of Mick Mattaliano. This week’s entry will address the Shorebirds latest road trip and the current status of the team during and afterwards. But before we get to that, a few housecleaning items. First, I would like to congratulate VCU alum and former roommate, Nate Anderson, on hitting his first ever home run in the Alaskan collegiate summer league. Yes, you heard me right. Nate graduated college, went and played professional baseball and then traveled to Alaska to play against inferior competition for the sole purpose of hitting a homerun (just kidding, he was there as a player manager-but I had you going there for a second, didn’t I?). Congratulations to Nate, now I can stop making fun of you for never hitting a home run but I still have plenty of ammunition left. Secondly, I’m no movie critic but in my humble opinion, everyone needs to go see the latest version of the Batman series, The Dark Knight. Great story, tremendous performances by all the actors and is plenty worth the nine dollars it will cost you. But now, on with the show....
They say the hardest part of the minor leagues is the travel. Long bus rides to small minor league towns, staying in run down hotels are the norm and unfortunately the most trying on a young ballplayer. Anyone who ever played in the South Atlantic League knows that the travel here is one of the worst in all the minor leagues with teams as far north as Ohio and teams south to Georgia. This past week, the Shorebirds were making our longest trip of the year down to Asheville and then on to Hickory, NC. Before we ever set foot on that bus to leave, I had an eerie feeling that things were about to go bad quickly. You see, no one can expect a group of 30 young men who while on the same team are, in essence, competing against each other to get along for a full 140 game schedule. In early July, you can just notice that people aren’t as friendly walking into the clubhouse, certain attitudes that were once accepted are now getting on everyone’s nerves and the littlest thing might set off a clubhouse war. Even if a ridiculous team bonding experiment such as everyone attempting to grow mustaches (mine I believe is excellent, picture Luigi from Super Mario Bro.) won’t work, you know the team is traveling down a dangerous path.
This tension brings us to the bus ride. When you play games at home, at least after the game you can retreat back to your apartment/house and avoid your teammates for a couple hours. Not the case on the bus and on the road. Try cramming 30 fully grown men, averaging about 6 feet tall and about 200 pounds in a sleeper bus that definitely is not fit for the situation. Combine that with the fact that sometimes the air conditioning fails to operate and our bus driver, Barry (God Bless him) drives like a blind NASCAR driver with a horrible sense of direction. Throw in the fact that you have to put up with these factors for 10 hours and you have a very interesting adventure on your hands.
When we arrive in Asheville, the heat is suffocating. To make matters worse, our clubhouse which is strikingly similar to a chicken coup in both size and smell provides us no relief from the heat as it is hotter than the weather outside. The ballpark is a bandbox, measuring 297 down the right field line, 320 to the right center gap and only 375 to center. It’s a pitcher’s nightmare. Arriving at the ballpark three hours prior to game time on the road also doesn’t help team chemistry but we are only servants to our manager’s demands. Regardless, everyone is miserable and finally, after 100 some games we have our first scuffle between teammates. In a glorified shoving and wrestling match, two teammates had enough of each other and decided to deal with their frustration physically. What began over something as small as one of them not speaking up to tell another what time BP was, we have a fight that will certainly cause irreparable future damage. Although the fighting and bickering amongst the team hasn’t affected our play to that point, the first night in Asheville it did. We blew and 8-4 lead in the ninth to lose it in the tenth on a walk off homerun. With everyone complaining about everything from coaching decisions to playing time to the bus to the hotel, it was a miracle that we salvaged a four game split with Asheville, arguably the best team in the Sally League. Maybe our venture to Hickory would fare better...
Although the trip between Asheville and Hickory was our shortest travel of the year, the trip didn’t get any better. Staying at the luxurious Red Roof Inn (please note the severe sarcasm here), the team was warned by our pitching coach to be careful around the hotel because last year the team had things stolen from their rooms and that the hotel was known to have drug dealers and prostitutes hanging around. Only in the minor leagues folks (Parents, do you still want your sons to grow up and be professional baseball players???) Despite the dangers that lurked at our hotel, the Shorebirds played their best baseball in Hickory. We swept all four games with no major incidents amongst teammates. Luckily we have an off day when we get back to Delmarva, so everyone can get away from each other and re-charge their batteries and get back to business for the last 30 some games. Or if for nothing else, to GET READY TO RUMBLE.
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