What Every MiLB Girlfriend Should Read

The Truth About MILB Life, a girlfriend’s perspective:

It all seems really exciting and ideal once your guy gets drafted: full of glamourous events, money flowing all the time, meeting new people, going to new places, having your baseball player boyfriend idolized and featured in local papers and all that… is that what people think getting drafted is like? You play one spring training, a few minor league games, and BAM! He’s in the majors, playing in front of a hundred-thousand people! More money and fame and glam…

Actually, this is how it is:

Your boyfriend gets drafted after his college season and is sent off to rookie ball, or short-season ball for two months. It seems like an eternity and while he’s excited, you hear him complain about the daily routine and how tired he is of baseball, already having had played a full college season. Everyone is about themselves now, a great 180 turn from the team atmosphere he just left behind in college. You want to hear how he misses you, but all he talks about is that he wants to go home and he misses his mom. That’s okay, you think, he’ll be home soon.

That season is over, and he’s invited to instructional league, where he has one additional month of playing ball. It’s a good thing, they tell him, so he goes (without choice) and gets through it. He’s played for over a year straight at this time. More complaining about how he hates his life, and why did he choose the baseball route? You’re in his life… he hates it? You shove those feelings down and are there for him, encouraging him to give it a chance.

Finally, at the end of October he gets a break. Everyone at home wants to talk to him about baseball. It’s really cool, now that the first part is over. He’s a pro baseball player, after all. People tell him spring training is the best. When they ask his plans, it’s really all about what he’s forced to do, and what he wants. You sit there in the background for most of his encounters, and most of his dreams. You, his loving girlfriend, didn’t choose the baseball life. It seemed cool at first, but now that you know this is how life will be for four(+) years, you’re wondering how you’ll make it.

You two have a lot of fun together in the off-season, now that his only responsibilities from October through February are 1-2 hours each day working out and playing with a ball. He makes you a priority again.

March comes, and that means spring training. He leaves town again and has to wake up early (in a hotel) for a month, go to the field, sit in the heat in the games he doesn’t play, grind through the drills and the criticism, and go back to the hotel for the rest of the day. Afterward, he plays video games and walks over to find something to eat, where the Applebee’s employees start recognizing him at the same time almost daily. He takes a nap and maybe plays basketball, something he isn’t supposed to do. Maybe he calls you if he remembers before he goes to bed early.

You wait for this call every day. You hope he’s thinking about you and has one happy moment in his day too. But when (if) you get a call, he talks about how he’s “over it.” You try to help him through the tough day, even though you’re having a hard time without him, not hearing from him, maybe even with your own problems or positives. He knows you’re always there for him, but you’re starting to question if he cares about you and your days, that it might be hard for you, too…

April comes when you find out his assignment, only days before he has to report for the season. He has asked you to come with him! You really don’t know what other job you’d do at the time, and you’re up for an adventure with your guy, so you say “yes!” You want to be with him, of course and can’t imagine an entire season of what you’ve just endured. You kind of freak out though, because you’re going into this blindly. You don’t know the new city, you don’t know where you’ll live, or what you’ll do, and you’ve never lived with your guy. You think you can live with him, but who knows until you actually do.

You arrive in your new city, and it’s exciting! Day 1, you both look for an apartment close to the field and reasonable in price. You may have found one… but Days 2, on, he has to be at the field at noon, so you’re on your own. The hotel life will be tiring soon, so you secure an apartment with the shortest possible lease terms, set up furniture rental, cable, electricity, water, gas… you sign your short lease and break into his e-mail to electronically sign his part of the lease. You never know when he might be moved up or down a level, so your lease is temporary, but you try to make it feel comfortable to him. To both of you, I mean. That’s why he invited you, anyway, so he had a “home,” and didn’t have to be with the guys 24/7. So he had home-cooked meals and clean laundry. You thought he was so invested in you that he wanted the next step in moving in with you. You take his reasoning in the best possible way, and try not to take it personal. You’re sure he loves you.

Your GPS is your right hand man for the first month (at least) and you try to explore all there is to offer. After securing an apartment, you go out to find a job. You’ve served in a restaurant before, so you find a job doing that. It’s quick cash daily. Not a lot, so you can’t spend a lot, but you have your rent and power taken care of.

By the end of the week you have a home and a job. Now he has his first road trip… for eight days. The first few days are fine, you still have a lot to do, and a job to start. But everyday he’s away, the apartment for two feels more like it’s only you. You don’t know a single person in this city.

He’s back, and you go to as many home baseball games as you can possibly attend. Throughout the season, the Will Call personnel start recognizing you and hand you your tickets before you say anything. The ushers talk about how your boyfriend is doing every night you see them.

At work, you make friends because they find out your boyfriend plays for the local minor league team. “Can I have tickets?” “Can you set me up with one of his teammates?” These are the #1 and #2 requests you hear.

You also hear about girls on road trips trying to hang out with the guys, about guys cheating on their girlfriends, and those girlfriends coming to home games thinking everything is peachy. Again, you start to wonder… even though you trust your guy, you see how the others are, and how guys are in general. You will never know everything for sure.

These girlfriends that visit want to sit with you at games- you’re the host. You’re the only girlfriend that lives there, so you entertain them… ask them questions like “Where are you from?” and “How did you two meet?” and they get really excited about their pro baseball boyfriend and new lives with them. It is exciting, but girl, it ain’t easy. They all say they wish they were in your position. Every single one of them. You guess you have it the best, You get to at least see him everyday, but again… girl, it ain’t easy.

Throughout the season, he gets really tired of going to the field every single day. He wakes up saying “I don’t want to go!” on the regular, and you get used to saying, “It’s almost over.” You’re both ready for it.

Living with him is working out well, but even though you do live with him, you hardly see him. He leaves for the field around 1 every day, and doesn’t get back until at least 11:30 at night. Then he’s on a road trip 20 days of the month. He “doesn’t get cell service” in most of the small towns so you don’t hear from him. You take this personally sometimes, but try to be cool about it.

"I can’t wait to go home!” he says. All the time this phrase pops up. For him, being home means he wants to spend time with his boys and have his mom baby him. For you, this means you’ll have to get another meaningless job and when you talk to people it’ll be, “How’s your boyfriend doing?” and, “Are you just going to keep following him around?”

You guess, because you love him. Not the lifestyle.

It’s not that bad. You have bills, but little responsibility. You get to see and live in a new part of the country. You get to be with your boyfriend and see him throw a ball really well (and get paid to do it).

But when you think about this life, outside of being here, outside of living it at all in the first place, it seems like the dream. It is pretty cool- you get to do what you want, when you want for the most part, money allowing. You get to hang with your boy on his two off-days per month (part of each day, anyway). But that’s the sacrifice you both make.

Maybe one day it won’t be this hard; when he’s in the majors or when he quits baseball… but for now, this is how it is. And you are there for him because it’s his dream and you believe in and love him. This is not about you.

#baseball #adultstuff #groupie