In Minors, Big Wheels Keep on Turnin’

Editor’s note: Former Harvard hurler Frank Herrmann ’06 is a prospect with the Class A Lake County (Ohio) Captains of the Cleveland Indians organization. This is his diary.

As the first month of the season has drawn to an end, the initial buzz from Opening Day has started to wear off. We’ve all begun to settle into a routine.

Finding a comfortable routine is especially important for a baseball player, since you are more or less doing the same thing for five straight months. And as a minor leaguer, a good portion of your routine inevitably rests atop eight big wheels.

As I write this article I am sitting through one of our four bus rides this week. Our bus pulled out of the stadium in Lakewood, N.J. at about 10:30 p.m., and we are scheduled to arrive back in Ohio at around 6 a.m. Pulling an all-nighter on a tiny coach bus is nothing out of the ordinary in the minors.

Bus rides from city to city can last upwards of ten hours at times and average about seven hours a trip. Because we’re a team from Ohio that plays in the South Atlantic League, our trips are a good deal further than those of any of our opponents. Thus, we get the full experience of one of the least glamorous but most defining rituals of minor league baseball.

In the minors, there are no chartered planes or five star hotels. Instead, we have long, dull bus trips and roadside motels. And, love ’em or hate ’em, there are certain things everyone must know about the never-ending rides.

First off, unlike in every movie that has ever depicted minor league baseball, there is no guy in the back strumming a guitar or playing a harmonica. Fortunately for the hearing-impaired, there is always some kind of slapstick comedy playing at a volume between blaring and deafening.

Secondly, trying to navigate your way through the human minefield to the bathroom located in the back of the bus is more difficult than finding the Holy Grail.

When the personal lights go out and guys start stretching out under seats, across aisles or anywhere else they can escape their small cramped seats, things get interesting. At this time, the random painful screeching and incomprehensible cursing begins as overlooked players lying on the floor are frequently stepped on. If you really have to go, your best bet is to go into Spider-man mode and scale the tops of the seats to reach your destination.

Thirdly, no matter how much Nyquil you consume, you will not get a full night’s sleep on a bus. Aside from the sudden screams of pain mentioned earlier, there are countless other obstacles to overcome in trying to stay asleep on a bus. Therefore, piecing together a good night’s sleep over the course of the ride and the following day is a tricky task. And since roughly an eighth of the games played throughout the season fall on the day after a long bus ride, staying well rested is essential.

Still, perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the marathon bus trips is the way they are inadvertently able to promote camaraderie. At some point the iPod batteries run out and, if we are lucky, the coach will turn off the movie. Then you are pretty much forced to strike up a conversation with the guy across the aisle.

Although we generally spend about ten hours a day together, there is always something else going on at the field. Between the three televisions, wireless internet access, and numerous meetings that take up time in the clubhouse, it can be hard to get to know your teammate from the next locker over.

Our recent road trip to Maryland was also the site of the ultimate team bonding experience: initiation. The surprise initiation called for all first-year guys—roughly two-thirds of the team—to come to the front of the bus, introduce themselves, tell some little-known personal facts, and then delve into an acapella version of a song of their choosing.

Horrid versions of Kenny Chesney and the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme, all the way to my own animated rendition of Marvin Gaye’s Sexual Healing, allowed guys to let down their guards and get a better feel for one another.

Though these bus trips may seem fun to anyone who has never experienced a cross-country trip on a Greyhound or a school trip clear across the country, they can get old real quick. Trust me on that. The longer rides make me long for the days when a “road game” meant hopping on a bus for ten minutes to Northeastern’s campus or really “roughing it” with a 45-minute drive to Providence to take two from Brown.

But since it turns out being cramped on a bus for nearly half a day is a great way to promote team chemistry, I think we can all suck it up. Unless, of course, we have to sing again.

—Frank, who has a 3.14 ERA in 14 1/3 professional innings, can be reached at fherrman@fas.harvard.edu. His diary appears every Wednesday.