Creatures of Habit

Baseball is a game of routines. Whether you realize it or not, every player follows routines in between pitches, in the on-deck circle, and before the game even starts. Some of these routines are very subtle, that the average fan would not pick up on, while others are quite obvious like Nomar Garciaparra's extensive batting routine before each pitch. I couldn't find a good clip of Garciaparra's routine, but this is a clip of former minor league prospect Andy Phillips.

Most players have a certain routine when they go to the plate, as you just saw in the video, similar to basketball players having a routine every time they go to the foul line. The mental side of the game is very interesting and I will get into more detail of that at a later time, but I wanted to focus on my daily routine last summer. Many people ask me to describe an average day for a Minor League baseball player, so I'm going to share about my experiences last summer. The following is my daily schedule for a night game played in Vancouver.

9:45 a.m. - Wake up and eat breakfast, usually toast, banana, peanut butter crackers, and chocolate milk.

10:30 a.m. - Leave host family's house for the subway to get to the gym.

11:00 a.m. - Arrive at the gym and lift for about an hour. I would lift 3-4 times a week, so there were days when I would sleep through the morning.

12:45 p.m. - Shower at my host family's house and have lunch. I usually ate a couple PB&Js or often had some leftovers from last night's dinner along with chips, protein bar, a Gatorade, and usually more chocolate milk.

1:45 - Leave for the park. My wonderful host mom would always drop myself and my roommate off at the field.

2:15 - Start getting loose and taking swings off of a tee or front toss. Our hitting coach was great and would always be there to work with me or any other players hours before the game began. There was always a group of guys getting some extra work in, so I would take 3-5 rounds of front toss every day. Front toss is a drill where a person flips the ball underhand from behind a screen to the hitter about 10 feet away. Below is a video of Alex Rodriguez hitting front toss.

Sometime from 3:15-3:45 - Meet as a team and discuss the previous nights game for 5 minutes, then break into stretching led by our strength and conditioning coach. After stretching was team conditioning; one day was pitchers conditioning, the following day for position players, and continued forth in that pattern. Next, we would go through a throwing program to warm-up our arms, and would usually have a short, team defensive practice before batting practice. In this time we would work on fly ball communication, cutoffs and relays, 1st and 3rd defense plays, bunt plays, etc.

4:30 - 5:15 - Batting practice. We broke into 3 groups and rotated between: hitting, base running, and defense.

5:15 - Pregame meal prepared by our clubhouse manager. He was quite the cook, which led to many second helpings

6:00 - "Road to the Big Leagues" as we called it. More optional hitting to get a few more front toss rounds to prepare for the game.

6:40 - "On the line" as our manager, Skip, said. We went through a base running routine with a couple sprints.

7:05 - First pitch. Time to "tee it off" another of Skip's sayings.

Post-Game - Return home and eat dinner around 10:30-11:00. My host mom always made great, large dinners and amazing desserts. I even started eating salads (My mom was so proud!)

Shortly after dinner was over, I would get ready for bed and rest up to do it all over again the next day.

The Results are in

Our team in Vancouver had great chemistry, I think mostly because of the many characters on the team. It is always interesting when baseball teams come together because there are usually guys from all over the country, and in this case, all over the world. Our roster included players from Connecticut, Maryland, Florida, Texas, California, North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Nevada, Massachusetts, West Virginia, Venezuela, and the Domican Republic. Combining over thirty guys from all different areas and backgrounds is sure to create an interesting dynamic. Then add the fact that we spent everyday together for three months sharing a locker room and many long bus rides and it is no wonder that we had many lasting memories together. But, there are more people who were a part of the team. We had three coaches: a manager, pitching coach, and hitting coach. We also had a strength/conditioning coach and an athletic trainer that were with us at all times. Still there are more people who became part of the team, our broadcaster/announcer was at every game, and I can't leave out our trusted bus driver who got us home safely through all hours of the night.

One of my favorite memories off the field was our team's week long ro-sham-bo championship (also known as rock, paper, scissors by amateurs). The team was broken down into four geographical brackets based on where each player was from. We met in the locker room at a specific time each day for a week and eventually a champion was crowned. I am proud to say that I'm open to challengers, as I was the winner of the tournament. It was pretty entertaining to watch a group of professional athletes get so competitive over such a simple game. 

Showing off my September stache

Our bullpen also started a "no-shave August" idea that the whole team quickly embraced and lead to "mustache September" as seen in this picture of my mustache. There was also the constant struggle to find the right music to play in the locker room with many different tastes in music. On a given day we would hear anything from country to spanish music. However in the time leading up to the game the starting pitcher would have the final say on what music was played. I also learned there is not too much on television in the mid afternoon, as we watched countless paternity tests on the Maury Show, hence the title of this post. There were also the never ending comical interviews conducted by our announcer who was one of the funniest guys I met all summer. The video below shows some of the entertaining interviews and more insight into the 2010 Vancouver Canadians.