Jumping from the Minors to the Majors Ain’t Easy–
The Logistics of Professional Baseball
By Adam Russell
Pitcher for the Chicago White Sox
Stuffing my oversized 6’8” body into an undersized purple Teletubbie costume to appear in front of 3,000 screaming fans outside Yankee Stadium wasn’t what I had in mind when I joined the Chicago White Sox midway through the 2008 season. It was one of many unexpected rookie experiences that I would gladly do all over again to play professional baseball.
The road to the major leagues looks even longer when you realize you are competing for one or two available roster spots with the country’s best ball players. The call to the majors can come at any time and, unfortunately, I slept through my first call up. I missed the manager’s phone call because I was taking advantage of an off day. What people don’t know about getting the call to the big leagues, although a magical moment in my life, is the complicated logistics of catching up with the major league team while living up to the obligations of your minor league life.
I was called up to the big leagues three times in 2008. When I finally returned White Sox manger Ozzie Guillen’s call that first time, I was given a couple of hours to get my things together and head to the airport. I knew it was just a temporary call up, as I was filling in for Cuban-born Alexei Ramirez, who was having visa issues getting into Canada. I knew I would be sent back down to Triple-A when the three-game series was over, and I was. I thought of it as a “mini vacation” to the bigs.
The second call-up came when I was on a six-day road trip. I was told to be at the airport in less than two hours, even though I had only six days worth of clothes in my suitcase. I had to rely on my teammates in Charlotte, the White Sox Triple-A affiliate, to pack up the rest of my things and home and ship them. But getting clothes on my back was only part of the problem. I had no home where I was going and needed to focus on baseball. When I arrived in Chicago, the team gave me nine days in a hotel and, after that, I was on my own. Luckily, my agent’s brother had a condo to rent. Other rookies who aren’t so fortunate often choose to stay in the hotel, even though it costs a lot, because they might be sent back down and get stuck with a long-term lease on an apartment they won’t use. Eventually, the team realtor can lend a hand, but the uncertainty of rookie life makes it difficult to “settle down.”
September call-ups, who are headed to fall league or winter baseball in Central America, always live in the team hotel unless they can find a couch at an aunt’s house, as one of my teammates did.
Obligations to Triple-A teammates are another complication you never expect when you dream about playing in the big leagues. My roommates in Charlotte were stuck with a man down on rent the second time I went to Chicago, so the team stepped in to cover my missing share until a Double-A player was brought up to take my place. But then he was ousted when I was sent back down, again. I moved back in and started paying my rent only to be called up less than two weeks later for the remainder of the season.
The biggest headache in all of the moving was not the packing or traveling back and forth, but the bank changes I had to make in order to get paid. I had to open and close bank accounts three times in order to get my pay check every 15 days. In the minors, my money was deposited into a bank that did not have a branch in Chicago and my Chicago bank didn’t have branches in Charlotte. It’s worth keeping a couple of bank accounts open just to have the convenience of easy access to cash.
Fortunately, I was warmly welcomed by my White Sox teammates. I had already played with some of these guys in Spring Training. I was also given some great advice from the veteran players. Rule one: “Don’t call too much attention to yourself in the locker room.” Rule two: “Ask questions about becoming a better player or how to learn a specific skill from a teammate.” The best way to sum up this advice is not to look too comfortable in your new locker room. Pranks are part of the rites of passage into the pros, but you can avoid some of them by looking earnest and busy.
I wasn’t comfortable when I suited up as a Teletubbie with six other rookies in an annual ceremony for rookies finishing the year with a major league team. Four days before the Yankees played their final game at Yankee Stadium, me and five other rookies, who were dressed as the Chiquita Banana lady, Raggedy Ann, a Can-Can girl, a 1970’s wrestler and a track star, put on parade in the stadium parking lot. Adding to the hilarity of, and the pride I felt at, the moment was my proud father who was in town with his friends to see his son live out every boy’s childhood fantasy. His son, dressed as Tinky Winky, the gigantic purple PBS character known for chasing rainbows around a magical world.
Following rookie rules, we were not allowed to take the team bus back to the hotel that night but had to cab it in the costumes. Rookie protocol applies in many situations. If, for example, there is only one team bus, all rookies must pay for cabs back to the hotel on road trips. When there are two buses, rookies are allowed to ride in bus #1 but NEVER bus #2. It follows the standard high school rule: JV does not ride with varsity. Despite living like I am on the JV team, paying for all of my cab rides, and dressing up as every toddler’s magical purple friend paves my way to a big league roster spot, then sign me up because I’m living the dream!
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