Coste - The 33 year-old rookie: how I finally made it to the big leagues after eleven years in the minors

CONTENTS

Like the families of so many minor leaguers, always waiting anxiously for the bus to roll back into town, my family was there for me through all the disappointing, exciting, and trying moments of my long minor-league career.

I would like to dedicate this book to the families of minor-league lifers like myself. No one knows better than me how important family is, and how much a good family can help a ballplayer catch his dream!

FOREWORD

THE THROWBACK

John Kruk

I FIRST heard about Chris Coste in early March 2006. I was checking in on my old team the Phillies and came across an article about a guy who was tearing up spring training. He was hitting over .400 and had come up with clutch hits in something like four straight games. It seemed to me that the Phillies finally had that hot young prospect theyd been waiting for, so why hadnt I heard of him? I kept readingthirty-three years oldeleven years in the minors. I knew I had to check this guy out.

I called the Phillies hitting coach, Milt Thompson, my old teammate, to find out what the story was. I asked, How longs this going to last? They surely dont have the nerve to keep a thirty-three-year-old guy. I knew there must be some reason why a guy like Coste, who had hit at every level, had been kicking around the minors for so long.

Milt just said, Hes making it awful tough to get rid of him.

Its hard to explain how high the odds were against Chris Coste making it to the major leagues at his age. I played for five years in the minor leagues, and I vowed to quit if I didnt make it to the big leagues after my fifth year. You dont make any money. You have nothing to support yourself with. Hell, I was single and I couldnt live on what I made. And even if you still love baseball, soon baseball no longer loves you. Every year that goes by makes it less and less likely that youll make it, no matter how well youre playing. Baseball loves the hot young prospect. If a guy like me didnt make it after five years, the thinking goes, there had to be a reason.

A week before the end of my fifth season in the minor leagues, I was told I was going to be a September call-up for the Padres. (The minor-league season ends in August.) But after the last game, the manager, Bob Cluck, told me, The fat man doesnt want you. Go home. He was talking about a certain Padres official whom I wont name. He told me they were going to put me on the forty-man roster for the next year and invite me to spring training, which they did, for the first time in my career. And I had the best spring of my life, leading the team in almost every category. But wouldnt you know, at the end of it they called me in and told me I was being sent back to triple-A. I said, Screw that. Im going home. Im not going to play for twelve hundred dollars a month. I can go home and enjoy myself. I really was ready to quit. But shortly after that my teammate Bobby Brown came over and congratulated me for making the team. He had decided to retire and told me I deserved to play. Without that, I probably never would have played a major-league game.

I began to tune in to games to watch Chris Coste play during that amazing spring training and the story kept getting better and better. Unlike a lot of the guys who come up today, Coste was not a mechanical bull with a textbook swing. In fact, he reminded me of myself somewhat with his tremendously unorthodox hitting style. Hes got this hitch in his swing, and he dives at the ball, sometimes landing his front foot on home plate. I would watch him and think: This guy has got to be incredibly strongfarm strongto hit the ball as hard as he does with that swing. And it wasnt always pretty. He would take a godawful swing, miss a pitch by a mile, and look foolish doing it. But then the pitcher, feeling confident, would throw him the same pitch and he would hit it a country mile. You had the feeling he was just setting the guy up. Chriss catching style isnt textbook, either; when he throws the ball back to the pitcher, hell lean to his left and throw sidearm. But the Phillies pitchers told me they loved throwing to him. They told me he had a knack for knowing what hitters are looking for, and whats working for them that day.

Chris played eleven years in the minors, for twelve different teams. To hang around that long, after most people had given up on himthat tells you how special he is. Not to mention his wife, who must be even more special, given the level of sacrifice wives have to make to allow their husbands to chase their dream long after they have any decent shot of catching it. For everything I accomplished in baseball, Id say that Chris Coste has accomplished more than I ever did because he had to work so damn hard to achieve it.

When I first met Chris at Citizens Bank Park last year, he was modest and unassuming, with no chip on his shoulder about how long it had taken him to get to the big leagues. By then he had become a hero to the demanding fans in Philly, who loved him instantly because he is them, making him just as popular as Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, and Jimmy Rollinsa different kind of player to be sure, but just as respected. Hes true blue-collar: Hes worked for everything he has, and he doesnt take the game for granted. Im from West Virginia and Chris is from Fargo, North Dakota, but I could tell that he had that same I know Im lucky to be here and Im grateful for the opportunity feeling that I had when I first made it. He knows that, except for the birth of his daughter, this is the greatest thing thats ever happened to him. Not many guys feel that way. Guys get into baseball so they can make money; Chris plays because he loves baseball and thats his life.

For years now, the people who run baseball have been all about signing the best athletes. What they tend to get are a lot of spoiled kids with great skills but nothing inside. Theres something to be said about instincts, adaptability, and the mental aspect of the game, not to mention character.

Chris Costes story inspires everyone, because in an era of spoiled, overcoached athletes, hes a throwback.

PROLOGUE

THE DREAM

I FINALLY made it!

Im still in shock as I arrive at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia. Walking up to the stadium, the most beautiful in all of baseball, the first thing I notice are the cars in the players parking lot. Mercedes, Hummers, Escalades, and Bentleys in every direction. Incredible! Quite different from the usual array of Honda Accords, Ford Escapes, and Saturns in a typical minor-league parking lotnot to mention the Mitsubishi Endeavor that Id just pulled up in.