The Where/How

Up to this point, I have been purposefully vague on the destination for this quest. I’ve just used the all-encompassing ‘independent league’ to describe, hopefully, the level of baseball that I’ll be playing in about five months time. Also, I had not yet narrowed down which leagues I would be researching to basically find out what teams would be most accepting of a Canadian left-hander with a dream.

Plus, I have very specific time, financial and geographic considerations to take into account as well. This is the reason why The Where and How are joining forces in this week’s column because they truly are interconnected matters that may cause scheduling problems down the road.

After some cursory research, I have, in fact, selected four leagues that will give me the best, most realistic shot at catching on with one of their teams. The first criteria I had was that I, at one time, have heard the league mentioned at least once in conversation, in print, on the radio or on television.

I don’t want to be stuck in a shady, unknown league in a one stoplight, Podunk town where I’m paid in bags of seed and the only available lodging is a manger in a decrepit barn. 

That being said, the leagues that I have selected (that will hopefully return the favour and select me in the spring) are the Frontier League, the Northern League, the Atlantic League and the Golden Baseball League.

Once I receive positive confirmation on logistics and possible tryout dates, I will expand a little bit further on each league and delve into the viability of me actually making the roster of a team in the respective leagues.

Besides having a modicum of familiarity with each league, distance from the Greater Toronto Area was really the deciding factor in mapping out this quest. And this brings me to The How.

How am I going to embark on this journey? By driving, driving and driving. And then driving some more. I am not naïve or egotistical enough to believe that the first team I approach on this journey through the heart of America will sign me to a contract. As I said before, this is real life, not a Disney movie.

I fully expect to get cut, or told that “I don’t have it”, or that I’m “just not there yet”, or that I “just flat out suck.”

Am I going to let the opinion of one team force me to roll up my dream, put it in the car and return home with my tail between my legs? Of course not. I’m going to pick myself up off the mound, ice my shoulder and find another team willing to give me a look. If the next team doesn’t want me, I’ll continue looking for a team that does until I’ve exhausted every last possibility.

Any dream that doesn’t require hard work, sacrifice and an unflinching belief in one’s talent or ability isn’t a dream worth having. As Rocky Balboa once said, “It’s not about how hard you can hit, it’s about how much you can take and keep moving forward.”

I’m going to put an ungodly amount of mileage on my car during the tryout process and probably single-handedly be responsible for rising gas prices throughout the continent (you day traders out there reading this may want to get your hands on some oil futures come springtime).

I’ve chosen the first three leagues in the list primarily for geographic concerns. The Frontier, Northern and Atlantic Leagues are all within a long day’s (eight to twelve hours) driving distance from the GTA. Not only that, but the teams within the leagues are clustered around a central focus. Thus, my tryout tour will consist of three to four hour hops from city to city hoping to catch on with a team somewhere. I’ll tryout for every team in the league(s) if I have to.

The leagues are constructed in this way so teams can travel to road games on those long bus rides I dream about in the blog title.

However, the Golden Baseball League is a little different. The league is based in California and the distances between teams in that league are only attainable by flight. Why is the GBL on my list? Because they have a couple of teams based in Western Canada.

I’m not sure if I need a visa to play independent league ball for a summer and I don’t know if I’m responsible for getting the documentation or if the team would procure it for me. But I do know that if it’s between me and a left-handed American citizen to get the last roster spot, the yankee is going to get the nod ahead of me due to his lack of red tape immigration headaches.

Therefore, I’m keeping the GBL on my radar in case I need to stay north of the 49^th to reach my dream.

In order to reach a wider reading audience, I’ve decided to join Twitter. Personally, I think it’s a narcissistic tool that serves no purpose to society. No one gives a shit about what I had for breakfast or my weekend plans. But I also want to create as much web traffic as possible, so an account on Twitter is probably a smart choice.

However, I promise that I will not subject any of you to my day to banalities or inundate your accounts with a plethora of posts. I am only going to post tweets when I post a new column on this site. And that’s it. I promise. Follow me @proballorbust.

Tune in next week for The When.