Taste of Pro Baseball Whets Minor Leaguers’ Appetites

Life in Class A is all about major league dreams and pizza parlor budgets. There are no agents here, and a contract is a thing to prize, not renegotiate. Most of these guys are in their early 20s and make between $1,000 and $1,200 a month for playing baseball.

When the team is on the road, players receive $11 a day for meal money. They eat at fast-food restaurants and talk about how much better things are going to get. Eleven bucks. Bon appetit .

But, hey, this is a taste of professional baseball. An hors d’oeuvre , maybe, but a taste nevertheless.

Inside the clubhouse, a real professional clubhouse, Riverside Red Wave players were dressing for the game. One conversation focused on the players’ Charlie Maxwell League--a type of Rotisserie Baseball league in which the participants get points for how players do on Sundays. Riverside is a Padre Class A affiliate, so it’s easy to guess the most popular picks in the league.

“Roberto Alomar is tearing it up for you,” someone said.

There was a sign in the clubhouse: “I need six players to sign autographs at a Pizza Hut Grand Opening on July 24. 10:30-1. You will get free pizza and Pepsi. . . . “

A minute earlier, a representative from Topps had walked by the sign on his way to hand out a pack of baseball cards to each player.

This was last Wednesday. The temperature was well over 100 degrees, and there was a first-stage smog alert. Out on the field, just before batting practice, Jack McKeon’s stepping down as Padre manager earlier in the day dominated conversation. The voices came from all over.

“What happened up there today?” a player asked.

“A.O. (former batting coach Amos Otis) got released? He was my man.”

“Pepper is more important than ever, now.”

You see, Jack Maloof, formerly the roving minor league hitting instructor, had been promoted to Padre batting coach earlier in the day. It was Maloof who last year ordered teams throughout the Padre farm system to play more pepper because a couple of the teams weren’t hitting.

News from above was interesting, but . . .

“You seen our new baseball cards?” outfielder Reggie Farmer asked. “First time I’ve ever seen minor league cards with action shots.”

These players’ stories are as similar as their backgrounds are different. So young. So eager. So excited. All have hopes of fame and glory and big paychecks. Most of them have cars. Most have a wife or a girlfriend.

Their days are long, consisting of a lot of time sitting and waiting for another game. They get up toward noon. They have lunch. They play video games or go shopping or watch television. They get to the ballpark by 3 or 4 and go to work. Games are usually finished around 10, so they go home, get something to eat and watch more television.

One thing about the minors: There is a lot of free time. This is why pitcher Chris Haslock found a firecracker attached to his shoe by glue and gum one day. And it is why infielder Steve Bethea bit into a brownie one day and ended up with a mouthful of coffee grounds.

The names on the roster, aside from pitcher Candy Sierra, are unfamiliar. You wonder if one might be the next Roberto Alomar or Tony Gwynn. Then you remember that the baseball people say there are two, maybe three, legitimate prospects per team in A ball.

What it comes down to is that most of the Red Wave are in their big leagues right now.

But don’t tell them that. They have a vision, and it is focused especially on Wichita, home of the Padre double-A team and their next rung on the ladder.

And while they’re at it, they keep track of the Padres. What occurs in the major leagues sometimes has a domino effect throughout the organization. This happened to Tony McGee.

He was backing up Kevin Higgins at catcher in Riverside. He was frustrated. He had never been a backup player. Not many here have. All of these guys were stars in high school or college.

First, he was bitter. Finally, he resigned himself to being a back-up.

Then Benito Santiago sustained a broken arm, and the aftershocks rumbled all the way down to Riverside. A couple of catchers were moved up a level, including Higgins, who went to Wichita. McGee inherited his job in Riverside and got an opportunity.

That’s all these guys are looking for. A chance. Todd Dewey, another catcher, signed with Riverside in early July. Once, he was one of the best prospects in Atlanta’s system. He moved all the way up to triple-A at Richmond before breaking a couple of ribs in a collision at home plate. When he came back, he didn’t hit well. Suddenly, he was on his way down.

Now, at 23, he jokes about being the oldest player in the California League, the league in which Riverside plays. But he clings to his chance.

“Why sign again in A ball?” Dewey said, repeating the question. “The way I look at it, it’s another chance to go up again. I’ve seen guys go up and down awful fast. If the timing is right, things could work out for me.”

He doesn’t have a timetable. Hey, any game could be the springboard to a major league career. There are 141 games a year. Give yourself a time limit, you only set a clock on your dream. Tick, tick, tick, poof.

“It’s a dream, a goal,” said Farmer, who went to Madison High. “I’m not going to quit on it. I’ll let it quit on me before I quit on it. Trades, strikes, so many things can happen for you to put a time limit to get to The Show.”

So they go game by game and month by month, and they hope for an opportunity.

Or, as the case may be, a cam-corder.

That’s what Farmer was telling Tye Waller, the Padre roving minor league outfield and baserunning instructor, as they sat in the dugout.

“Filming your at-bats, especially in a long season like this, comes in handy,” Farmer said. “You can see it on film. How to avoid slumps. It’s great.”

He said he hopes to get a cam-corder this winter.

Batting practice was nearly finished. Mark Gieseke was talking to Coach Nate Colbert about slumps.

“Nate, I’m not seeing the ball,” Gieseke said.

“You’re head is going like this,” Colbert answered, tilting his head forward and down.

“I’m losing confidence. Last night when I was hitting right-handed, Nate, two balls came right down the middle and I missed them. I’ve hit rock bottom.”

“No, now you’re talking and losing your confidence. You’re going to have about three hot periods and a couple of down periods each year.”

Slumps and the major leagues aren’t the only kinds of things they worry about. When they got back from the last road trip, three players’ cars had been burglarized. McGee’s equalizer and stereo were stolen two weeks after he arrived in Riverside. And the car was at his apartment, under the carport.

“Every little noise, I’m looking around,” he said.

McGee is in his first full season of professional baseball. He played under Manager Bruce Bochy in Spokane last year and is in Riverside this year. A native of Florida who attended Jacksonville University, he lives here with Terri, his wife of seven months.

“I’d rather have her here than away,” he said. “She’s my No. 1 fan. I like that.”

Most wives and girlfriends have to work to help pay the bills. Terri McGee, for example, works for a temporary service.

The players, none of whom are from Riverside, live in various apartment complexes within a couple of blocks of the ballpark. In other towns, many of them say, players lived in the same complex. But with UC Riverside up the road, there is always a demand for apartments, and each complex manager can’t guarantee he will have the necessary 10 or 12 units open during the season.

Most of them live four to a unit. A few, those with good winter jobs, live two to an apartment. Some of the players go to school in the off-season, but most of them just work. Second baseman Scott Bigham was an internal auditor for a trucking company last winter. He was offered a full-time job and $35,000 but turned it down to play baseball. Dewey worked in a machine shop and, before that, delivered flowers for four years. Sherman sold mattresses.

“It’s pretty expensive here,” said Steve Hendricks, an infielder from Coronado. “I paid $285 for a two-bedroom apartment in Waterloo (Class A), and it was good-sized. Here, it’s $695 for a two-bedroom apartment that is about the same size. These are a little nicer here.”

Road trips are a series of games surrounded by a steady diet of fast food. That’s why the Padres spend $40 per day per minor league team to stock the clubhouse with fruit, both at home and on the road.

“You scrape in this game,” Gieseke said. “Most fans see all of the big money, but don’t realize players had to go through all of this. It’s all worth it, though. I wouldn’t trade a day.”

Riverside’s top two prospects probably are pitcher Brian Harrison and first baseman Dave Staton. The Padres think Harrison has a major league arm. Staton won the Northwest League triple crown last season in Spokane with a .362 average, 17 home runs and 72 RBI.

“I can see in the last four or five years, I’m getting better,” Staton said last week. “I can look at myself now and see I’m the same person as when I came out of high school, but I’m not the same player.

“Ever since I was a little boy, all I wanted to do was play this game. I’m going to give 100% until somebody says I can’t play anymore. Then, I might even call them a liar and keep on playing.”

Two days later, his future became even brighter. Staton was promoted to double-A Wichita.