Where Nobody Knows Your Name: Life In the Minor Leagues of Baseball by John Feinstein Page A
Authors: John Feinstein
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put him in contention for a spot on the team in the spring of 2012.
By then, the Mets’ rotation was healthy again. Johan Santana and Mike Pelfrey were both back from injuries, and Schwinden’s best chance to make the team was going to be coming out of the bullpen. Even that was a long shot, because the Mets had several veteran relievers in camp. Schwinden thought he had pitched well enough to make the team, but the Mets decided to go with more experience (and then some) in forty-one-year-old Miguel Batista. Three days before the regular season was scheduled to start, Schwinden was sent back to Triple-A Buffalo.
“It was disappointing but not that surprising,” he said. “Terry [Collins] gave me the usual talk—stay ready, keep working. I felt good that at least I’d come close. And I knew it was a long season.”
He couldn’t possibly imagine just how long it was going to be.
Who enjoys spring training the most? It might be the media, which has access to players and managers both before and after morning workouts and before and after—occasionally during—exhibition games, very few of which are played at night.
Or it might be the umpires—especially those who are accustomed to the minor leagues but find themselves living the big-league life for the month of March.
Mark Lollo was starting his eleventh season as an umpire—his fourth in the International League. The previous season, he had madethe call-up list of Triple-A umpires and had worked six games in the major leagues.
The call-up list consisted of eighteen Triple-A umpires who, like Lollo, had worked their way from the low minor leagues to one step from the majors—taking much the same route most players took. The call-ups were the guys who were brought to the majors periodically during the season to fill in for umpires who were on vacation or injured or sick. They were divided, informally at least, into four different categories: the top five on the list were likely to spend as much as a month in the majors during a season. They were umpires who major-league baseball had pretty much decided were ready for the majors and were just waiting for openings to occur—which they did every year as older umpires retired—so they could make the move to the majors.
The next five were a step behind, umps who had proven themselves to the point where they were likely to find themselves in the majors at some point in the near future unless something went wrong: they got injured, got out of shape, or for some reason, in the eyes of their evaluators, failed to progress the way they had on their way up the ladder.
The last eight were the ones who were still question marks. They were being tested. Five of them were guaranteed some major-league work during the season, and the last three knew their work would almost certainly be dependent on the unexpected happening: injury, illness, the birth of a child, or, on a very rare occasion, an umpire being suspended.
Most of the time the last eight were where they were because they weren’t as experienced as the top ten. Lollo knew, based on the fact that he’d gotten only six games in 2011, that he had been in that group, but that didn’t bother him. “First year on the list that’s what you expect,” he said. “It really isn’t until the third year in most cases that you start to be concerned.”
Lollo was in his second year on the list and was hoping for more major-league work in 2012. He knew that Randy Mobley, the presidentof the International League, was a fan of his work because Mobley had told him so. Mobley was a good advocate to have, but it was still the major-league evaluators and those who were in charge of umpiring in the offices of Major League Baseball who made the final decisions.
“More often than not, it’s three years up or out,” Lollo said. “If you’re on the call-up list for three years and they don’t believe you’re major league ready, they’re probably going to move on. It’s
By then, the Mets’ rotation was healthy again. Johan Santana and Mike Pelfrey were both back from injuries, and Schwinden’s best chance to make the team was going to be coming out of the bullpen. Even that was a long shot, because the Mets had several veteran relievers in camp. Schwinden thought he had pitched well enough to make the team, but the Mets decided to go with more experience (and then some) in forty-one-year-old Miguel Batista. Three days before the regular season was scheduled to start, Schwinden was sent back to Triple-A Buffalo.
“It was disappointing but not that surprising,” he said. “Terry [Collins] gave me the usual talk—stay ready, keep working. I felt good that at least I’d come close. And I knew it was a long season.”
He couldn’t possibly imagine just how long it was going to be.
Who enjoys spring training the most? It might be the media, which has access to players and managers both before and after morning workouts and before and after—occasionally during—exhibition games, very few of which are played at night.
Or it might be the umpires—especially those who are accustomed to the minor leagues but find themselves living the big-league life for the month of March.
Mark Lollo was starting his eleventh season as an umpire—his fourth in the International League. The previous season, he had madethe call-up list of Triple-A umpires and had worked six games in the major leagues.
The call-up list consisted of eighteen Triple-A umpires who, like Lollo, had worked their way from the low minor leagues to one step from the majors—taking much the same route most players took. The call-ups were the guys who were brought to the majors periodically during the season to fill in for umpires who were on vacation or injured or sick. They were divided, informally at least, into four different categories: the top five on the list were likely to spend as much as a month in the majors during a season. They were umpires who major-league baseball had pretty much decided were ready for the majors and were just waiting for openings to occur—which they did every year as older umpires retired—so they could make the move to the majors.
The next five were a step behind, umps who had proven themselves to the point where they were likely to find themselves in the majors at some point in the near future unless something went wrong: they got injured, got out of shape, or for some reason, in the eyes of their evaluators, failed to progress the way they had on their way up the ladder.
The last eight were the ones who were still question marks. They were being tested. Five of them were guaranteed some major-league work during the season, and the last three knew their work would almost certainly be dependent on the unexpected happening: injury, illness, the birth of a child, or, on a very rare occasion, an umpire being suspended.
Most of the time the last eight were where they were because they weren’t as experienced as the top ten. Lollo knew, based on the fact that he’d gotten only six games in 2011, that he had been in that group, but that didn’t bother him. “First year on the list that’s what you expect,” he said. “It really isn’t until the third year in most cases that you start to be concerned.”
Lollo was in his second year on the list and was hoping for more major-league work in 2012. He knew that Randy Mobley, the presidentof the International League, was a fan of his work because Mobley had told him so. Mobley was a good advocate to have, but it was still the major-league evaluators and those who were in charge of umpiring in the offices of Major League Baseball who made the final decisions.
“More often than not, it’s three years up or out,” Lollo said. “If you’re on the call-up list for three years and they don’t believe you’re major league ready, they’re probably going to move on. It’s
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