Playtime Is Over : Season’s End Means Back to 9-to-5 Life for Some Vigilantes

For players on Mission Viejo’s Vigilante baseball team, Sunday was the end of the dream and a return to real life.

After the final game against the Sonoma County Crushers, they will return to the conventional 9-to-5 jobs that they need to support themselves and their families. And though the team’s first season had its disappointments--the Vigilantes failed to make the playoffs--it was memorable.

“We didn’t win it, but we had a great time,” infielder Bret Barberie said. “You’ve got to have a good time winning and a good time losing.”

Because minor league players earn only $600 to $1,500 a month for the summer, most of the players have full-time jobs for the rest of the year. Their other work, they say, allows them the luxury of indulging in their passion: baseball.

“This season went kind of fast,” pitcher Paul Anderson said as he played catch with his 2-year-old twins, Paul Jamal and Jamal Paul during the break between Sunday’s doubleheader. “It’s not about the pay. You are here for the game.”

Anderson, a technician with Qualcomm electronics in San Diego, took a three-month leave so he could play with the Vigilantes.

Anderson said he is not sure if he will be back next year. He had dreamed of making it to the big leagues again--he once played for the St. Louis Cardinals. But now, at 28, he has a family to support, and a minor league salary is not enough.

Teammate Mike Smith, who won the league’s 1997 Pitcher of the Year award, is contemplating retirement as well.

“I’d rather go out on top than on the bottom,” said Smith, who coaches baseball at Biola University in La Habra. “I’m done playing independent baseball. It’s kind of tough on this salary. But you’ve got to play it for the love of the game.”

Right fielder Sam Taylor, by contrast, isn’t ready yet to contemplate leaving the game. Taylor, who gives batting lessons at Slammo batting cages in Los Angeles during the off-season, said the day he stops playing baseball, a little something inside him will die.

But “sooner or later, you have to start making a living,” said Taylor, who has a degree in occupational safety and health.

Teaching baseball is one way to stay connected with the sport, catcher Mike Morgan-Cowell said. He said he is eager to return home to Washington, D.C., where his fiancee and his kindergarten class await him.

“I love the kids. I’m a little kid myself,” he said as he autographed baseballs for eager youngsters Sunday afternoon.

Remembering their love of the game when they were kids themselves is part of the hold that baseball has on them, several players said.

Years ago, when they traded baseball cards, collected mementos and took pointers from the pros, they dreamed of playing in the big leagues.

“We are all kids out here,” Taylor said. “We’ve all been there, and that’s what keeps us coming back.”