Major League dreams, Minor League realities
I was a fan favorite because I was a home-state boy, so that was awesome.”
“I started out in Arizona in rookie ball,” Broom said. “I was there for a few games and they moved me up past the short-season league to the Lower A level team in Lake County, Ohio. I stayed there for the majority of the year and then I got called up to the (Advanced A) Lynchburg (Va.) Hillcats for the playoffs. It was pretty exciting to move up. It just tells you that relief pitchers are in demand.
“As far as my best outing goes, we were playing at Dayton (Ohio) and I came in with the bases loaded and no outs with their big clean-up guy at the plate. I struck him out and I got a left-handed hitter to line out to our left fielder, who caught the ball and threw out the runner at second base. We got out of it with no runs scored so that was probably the best outing of the year for me.” biggest thing they like to tell us is that it’s not where you start, it’s where you finish. Wherever they start me at this year, hopefully I’ll finish a level higher.”
“We usually don’t find out anything until the last two or three days of spring training,” Baldwin said. “Hopefully I will start out in (Class A Advanced) San Jose, but if I’m back in Augusta, that’s alright too. Like Matthew said, it’s a business. They are the ones making the decisions, so you just have to trust the decision and do the best you can.”
“It’s still all kind of new to me,” Broom said. “I guess I’ll find out this next spring, but I’m just going to prepare myself this offseason and in spring training to get my body right. Hopefully, I’ll start where I ended up this past year, but regardless of where I’m at, I just need to dominate and have that same mentality. bie (clubhouse manager) has some decent food for you. Otherwise, you’re just going to order a pizza every night or get a snack out of the vending machine.
“It’s not the most glamorous life like everyone talks about. Now when you get to the big leagues, it’s pretty glamorous. The minimum salary there is around $25,000 every two weeks and everybody is reaching for that goal. Right now, though, it’s not as glamorous, but you enjoy the grind and know that if you put up the numbers, you’ll get a chance.”
“The locker rooms are always interesting, depending on where you’re at,” Baldwin said. “We got a new stadium in Augusta, but (when it opened) the locker rooms weren’t done yet, so they gave us two (temporary) trailers to get changed in. The trailers might have been two-feet wide, so we were all scrunched up in there together and then our showers were actually outside. You had to wrap a towel around you and walk outside and there’s a street about 50 yards to the left, so people are walking by as you’re walking to the shower. It’s stuff like that, but it’s stuff I’ll never forget and I’m grateful to be able to do it everyday.”
“The biggest surprise for me was on away trips, on the rides back home,” Broom said. “It’s usually midnight or later and they call the new guys up to the front of the bus to get on the microphone and tell sto- ries about ourselves. It was kind of an adjustment for me, having to come out of my box a little bit.”
“The biggest piece of advice I can give is to play as many sports as you can,” Crownover said. “Don’t specialize. There are very few guys that can play just one sport and make it somewhere. Play as many sports as you can, be as athletic as possible and never stop believing in your dreams. Just because you didn’t make a team in middle school or high school, it doesn’t mean you can’t become a college player and possibly go on from there. Stick to your dream and be willing to put the work in.”
“I didn’t go to a really big college and I wasn’t a really highly-recruited guy out of high school,” Baldwin said. “But I knew I could play and I knew that if I played like I could and proved myself, I would have a chance to play at the next level. Believe in yourself and just work hard. Nobody should be able to outwork you.”
“My biggest advice would be to not let anybody tell you that you can’t,” Broom said. “I guess some of the greatest success stories are based on failures. You just have to put all of that stuff away and focus on what you need to focus on. Like they said, just put in the work, trust yourself and things will work out for you in the end.”