The When

There wasn’t a specific moment when I decided to embark on this journey. I didn’t suddenly have a magical epiphany of me on a professional mound, nor did apparitions of independent league baseball past visit me with tales foreshadowing unparalleled fame and success.

In fact, the reality is much more boring and uninteresting. As this past baseball season progressed and I started to enjoy more and more success on the hill, I began to think of how I’d stack up against better competition. Did I have ‘stuff’ to take my talents down south and play independent league ball?

By the time playoffs rolled around my mind was made up that I was actually going to give this dream an honest shot. I worked extremely hard last offseason preparing my body to pitch this past summer and my hard work paid off handsomely. But I figured that I had a lot more left in the tank and could easily train harder and smarter—becoming a better pitcher as a by-product—with some extra elbow grease and focused determination.    

Although the decision was made to play independent league ball in the summer, I was nowhere near ready physically, and more importantly, mentally to even tryout for a professional baseball team last season. And deep down I knew that I wasn’t ready to play.

Even with all of my success in the summer, I still had trouble replicating a consistent delivery at times, which led to periodic bouts of wildness. I walked way too many batters and, though I got away with it last season, those control problems would have independent league line-ups feasting on me like vultures hovering around a pack of wildebeest carcases.

Also, my stuff deteriorates when I pitch from the stretch. It’s not a precipitous drop-off, but it is noticeable. I need to have the same confidence in my pitches with runners on as I do when the bases are clear.

It may seem like I’m being too tough on myself and splitting hairs when it comes to what I need to work on, but I’d rather not become ensconced with self-congratulatory back pats and kissing my own ass. I’m never satisfied with my own success. I’m constantly striving to get better; that’s the only way to improve.

Thus, this offseason is tremendously important for this journey and is where the question of The When begins.

My season ended on September 6^th. I started my offseason strength and conditioning program on September 8^th. For the past two and a half months, I’ve been working out at a frenetic pace five days a week, sometimes cramming in two workouts a day. I am leaving no stone unturned and working to get myself in the best shape possible.

To use a Rocky III analogy, last year’s training program would be like Balboa’s preparations for his first fight with Clubber Lang; lots of laughing and joking around, hard work nowhere to be found and a general laziness disguised as ‘having fun.’ This year is like when Rocky trains with Apollo for the rematch; all business, lots of sweat equity and a redlining heart rate, and I’m using muscles that I never thought I had.

After taking three weeks off of baseball-related activities, I threw a handful of long toss sessions and now I’ve been throwing a fifty pitch bullpen once a week at an indoor facility. This will continue throughout the winter and into the spring. Thus, once tryouts roll around, my pitches will already be in midseason form, my mechanics will be a well-oiled machine and my stuff out of the stretch will be just as good as my stuff from a full windup.

When does the roadtrip start? The one where I drive throughout the United States, put my money where my mouth is, stop talking, and actually audition for a roster spot? Excellent question.

I originally thought my trip would coincide with major league spring training and I’d be travelling around the time pitchers and catchers report. Then I realized that guys cut from camp in The Show would most likely find their way onto independent league rosters in the hopes of garnering interest from a big league club (which will only make my job a whole hell of a lot tougher).

Also, a lot of these teams and leagues are located in climates similar to the GTA, and there’s no way you’re getting me on a mound outdoors in late February. The only stuff I’d be able to show in that weather is shrinkage.

Lastly, independent league seasons start in early May and my initial research has shown both team and league tryouts take place anywhere from late March to mid April.

That means I have a little over four months until the next phase of this journey kicks off. Let the countdown begin.

Tune in next Wednesday for The Why.

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.

The Who

(Photo by Steve Dormer)

My name is Mike and I am a pitcher. A left-handed pitcher to be exact.

Luckily for me, being a left-handed pitcher opens doors and offers opportunities that might not develop otherwise if I was right-handed.

An apt analogy is to compare the competitive advantage I gain by being a lefty with being a blonde woman. It’s common knowledge that blondes get more attention from men and are just assumed to be more attractive and sexy than women with other hair colours.

The same assumption holds for left-handed and right-handed pitchers. Since the left-handed population as a whole is so small, a left-handed pitcher is considered a rare and valuable commodity. Hitters rarely get to face left-handed pitching, so when they do they are at a disadvantage due to their unfamiliarity with a lefty’s release point.

That is why so many major league clubs have left-handed specialists on their pitching staffs. Their only duty is to get left-handed batters out (a pretty sweet gig if you can get it).

For me to contact independent league teams and attend tryouts as just a regular pitcher, I am going to get a lukewarm response at best. I’m just one of many and I lack a defining characteristic to make myself stand out. Plus, if I don’t throw 90 miles an hour I might as well not show up.

However, if I go to a tryout or call a team and say that I’m a left-handed pitcher, that little nugget of information will immediately pique their interest and automatically give me a leg up on the competition.

It’s like the line-up outside a busy nightclub. The bouncer, doing his best Patrick Swayze in Road House impersonation, scours the line to ensure the best-looking girls are inside the bar and not waiting outside. Suppose two girls of equal attractiveness, one blonde and one brunette, are milling around the entrance making eyes at the faux Dalton. The blonde is getting in first. Every time.

Therefore, I think it’s safe to conclude that left-handed pitchers are the hot, sexy blondes of baseball. Although I am left-handed, and supposedly ‘hot’ and ‘sexy’ in baseball terms, for the early part of my career the best term to describe my pitching ability would be ‘ugly duckling’.

If any teammates from my formative years found out that I was trying to play professional baseball (even at an independent league level), they would undoubtedly recommend me for psychiatric evaluation and they would be one hundred percent correct in that assertion.

I only began pitching because I was left-handed and I lacked the other skills necessary to be an average baseball player. On the mound, I was the epitome of a thrower, not a pitcher. I literally had no idea what I was doing. The inability to replicate consistent mechanics and severe control problems were my downfall.

To borrow a phrase from Crash Davis in Bull Durham, I “couldn’t hit water if I fell out of a fucking boat.” Unfortunately for me, I also did not possess a million dollar arm like Nuke Laloosh. My arm wouldn’t have been able to buy anything at the dollar store.

I hit rock bottom during the summer after my freshman year in college at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. I had a lacklustre first season that saw me begin the year as a starter (after an uncharacteristic dominating tryout) and end up relegated to the bench by the time playoffs rolled around.

I managed to finagle my way onto a travel team in the summer and the coaching staff tried to overhaul my mechanics before every game in the bullpen and then send me out to the mound with shaky confidence and a new delivery.

It was a recipe for disaster. I lasted less than six weeks with that team and put up some of the worst numbers of my career. It was embarrassing walking out to the mound each game. I began to dread every outing and I seriously contemplated quitting the game.

However, something clicked during my second year at school. I trusted my own mechanics—to hell with those coaches—and realized that I didn’t have to throw as hard as I could on every pitch. I just needed to focus on throwing strikes and pounding the zone. And it worked. I became a pitcher, not a thrower.

I had a tremendous sophomore campaign which saw me become the ace of the staff and culminated with a pitcher of the year award. Over the next three years at Queen’s, and one at Durham College for a graduate program, I became a dominant pitcher in Canadian university baseball. I regularly led my teams in the pitching Triple Crown categories and won two more Pitcher of the Year awards.

Since my collegiate career has ended, I’ve played senior rep baseball in Ontario, which is the highest level of purely amateur baseball in the province. And I have definitely become a much better pitcher since I left school. A fervent commitment to strength and conditioning over the past two years has allowed me to enjoy the same, if not better, pitching success in a much tougher league.

I throw harder right now than I ever have (How hard? I’ll be getting on the gun periodically throughout the winter to document my velocity) and I have the strength and stamina to throw harder in the last inning of games then I do in the first inning.

I’m sure right now you’re saying, “Blah, blah, blah. Stop waxing poetic at how great you are and prove it with some numbers or facts to back up your claims”, and I don’t blame you. Check out the 2010 stats and notes link at the top of the page for proof that I’m actually not terrible.

Tune in next Wednesday for The Where/How.

2010 Stats and Notes

Here is a link to my 2010 pitching statistics. I was a member of the Whitby Canadians and the link contains some info on my rookie season in 2009 as well. To see the 2010 stats, scroll down, completely ignoring the batting statistics (unless you are looking for a laugh), and you can see a game by game recap of my past pitching season.

I played in the Greater Toronto Baseball League and I was lucky enough to be named the left-handed Pitcher of the Year. Here is a list of the first team all stars:

1B- Paul Versteeg-Lytwyn, Newmarket
2B- Henry Yap - Leaside
SS- Daniel Lehmkuhl, Thornhill
3B- Brian MacDonald, Thornhill
C- Bryan Rock, Leaside
DH- Alex Bruce, Markham
OF1- Justin Pennell, Thornhill
OF2- Shane Moore, Markham
OF3- Sean Cunningham, Oshawa
RHP- Steve Horsley, Markham
LHP- Mike Arsenault, Whitby

That’s how I stacked up in the Greater Toronto Area, but how did I fare throughout the province? The following lists cover the top ten provincial leaders in some of the most coveted pitching statistics.

One caveat: this counts appearances only up to the month of September, so it doesn’t include the horrible egg I laid during my past performance of the season. I threw terribly and was legitimately depressed for three days afterwards. I hate ending years with a loss as I don’t have a chance to redeem myself until the winter chill gives way to the spring thaw.

Provincial Pitching Leaders

Innings Pitched

Mike Arsenault, Whitby 94.0
Ian Zettle, Milton 91.1
Marc Walton, Oakville 86.1
Steve Carter, Windsor 85.1
Scott McTrach, Milton 76.0
Gord Robertson, Oakville 68.1
Dave McElroy, Whitby 68.0
Steve Teno, Windsor 66.0
Jorge Frugoni, Leaside 62.0

ERA

Steve Teno, Windsor 0.68
John Picco, Windsor 1.66
Dustin Turner, Niagara 1.69
Adam Kallio, Newmarket 1.70
Steve Carter, Windsor 2.21
Steve Horsley, Markham 2.29
John DeWolfe, Erindale 2.34
Geoff Strong, Niagara 2.35
Andrew Mullin, Erindale 2.38
Mike Arsenault, Whitby 2.48

Strikeouts

Mike Arsenault, Whitby 108
Steve Carter, Windsor 91
Marc Walton, Oakville 90
Dustin Turner, Niagara 76
John Picco, Windsor 66
Steve Teno, Windsor 64
Steve Horsley, Markham 63
Patrick Veccharelli, Martingrove 63
Ian Zettle, Milton 60
Dave McElroy, Whitby 57

WHIP

Steve Teno, Windsor 0.83
Brad Boussey, Windsor 0.89
Jason Ermers, Niagara 0.97
Dustin Turner, Niagara 1.02
Steve Horsley, Markham 1.12
John DeWolfe, Erindale 1.13
Steve Carter, Windsor 1.14
Jorge Frugoni, Leaside 1.16
Geoff Strong, Niagara 1.20
Mike Arsenault, Whitby 1.21

Wins

Mike Arsenault, Whitby 9-5
Steve Teno, Windsor 8-2
Ian Zettle, Milton 8-3
Steve Carter, Windsor 8-4
Marc Walton, Oakville 6-4
Gord Robertson, Oakville 6-4
Andrew Morales, Leaside 6-1
John Picco, Windsor 6-1
Jason Lauzon, Windsor 6-2
Josh Bowman, Leaside 5-1

The What

Baseball.

For decades, the game has resonated throughout the North American cultural landscape and has been a source of inspiration for countless works of popular fiction.  

For this blogger, it is hoped that this game, the most romantic and timeless of all sports, will lead to a lifelong dream fulfilled. A dream to play the game for a living—even if its just for a summer—where the journey will ultimately be just as important as the destination.

That being said, I do not suffer from delusions of grandeur and harbour fascinations of cracking an opening day Major League Baseball roster, playing in front of 50,000 screaming fans, and jet setting across the continent staying in first class hotels, while the superstars of the game that I currently watch on TV become my colleagues.

It’s not going to happen unless I am sent back in time to the womb and my genes and DNA are magically fortified with otherworldly talent, giving me generous helpings of the five baseball tools scouts drool over.

Thus, I would suggest that you fantasy baseball fanatics maybe hold off on adding me to your rosters next spring. There’s a better chance of Ted Williams coming out of his cryogenic exile and winning a batting title with a robot body than me getting into a major league stadium as anything other than paying customer. 

This website and the quest to fulfill a dream is real life, not a Disney movie. I’m not a 35 year old science teacher who will magically wake up one day with a 98 mile an hour fastball (I don’t even have a 90 mile an hour fastball). Nor am I a loveable, vertically and athletically challenged grunt whose dream is to play Notre Dame football and will carry my teammates’ jockstraps to make the team despite everyone I know telling me I’m not good enough.

Just who am I? And what baseball credentials do I have to even hatch such a harebrained scheme as this? My baseball ability, background in the game, and level of sanity will all be addressed in next week’s entry.

I can’t show of all my pitches in the first inning or I’ll have nothing left for the end of the game.

As the title suggests, my desire to play professional baseball begins and ends with the opportunity to ride a rickety, antiquated coach bus on hundreds of miles of dark, desolate freeway travelling from park to park playing the game I love. It’s the same decision hundreds of men make every summer: to play independent league baseball.

They play in old stadiums in front of dozens of fans (maybe more if it’s a special giveaway night). They make a modest sum of money that barely covers living expenses; there aren’t any RRSPs or 401(k)’s in the independent leagues. Million dollar contracts and fawning media coverage are nowhere to be found. The majority of teams and players toil in relative obscurity.

Over the coming weeks and months, I will document the steps I take to hopefully join these guys in ballparks all over the United States and Canada. I will detail my strength and conditioning program, along with my indoor throwing regimen, to prepare my body for the rigours of high level baseball. I will contact teams and leagues directly to find out what I need to do to tryout.

Truthfully, I will do whatever I need to do to make this dream a reality.

In terms of website coverage, for the first five weeks I will be posting new material every Wednesday morning, then up the frequency as the year winds down and we move into 2011.

These initial posts will detail everything one needs to know about this quest. From the limited knowledge of journalism that I have, I know that the proper way to gather and explain information for a story is through the five W’s (and one H). Today’s column answered the What; tune in next week to find out the Who.

If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to shoot me an email. My address can be found in the ‘About Me’ section.