John Feinstein - Where Nobody Knows Your Name: Life In the Minor Leagues of Baseball

One on One: Behind the Scenes with the Greats in the Game

Moment of Glory: The Year Underdogs Ruled Golf

Living on the Black: Two Pitchers, Two Teams, One Season to Remember

Tales from Q School: Inside Golfs Fifth Major

Last Dance: Behind the Scenes at the Final Four

Next Man Up: A Year Behind the Lines in Todays NFL

Let Me Tell You a Story: A Lifetime in the Game

Caddy for Life: The Bruce Edwards Story

Open: Inside the Ropes at Bethpage Black

The Punch: One Night, Two Lives, and the Fight That Changed Basketball Forever

The Last Amateurs: Playing for Glory and Honor in Division I College Basketball

The Majors: In Pursuit of Golfs Holy Grail

The First Coming: Tiger Woods, Master or Martyr?

A March to Madness: The View from the Floor in the Atlantic Coast Conference

A Civil War: Army vs. Navy

Winter Games

A Good Walk Spoiled: Days and Nights on the PGA Tour

Play Ball: The Life and Troubled Times of Major League Baseball

Running Mates

Hard Courts

Forevers Team

A Season Inside: One Year in College Basketball

A Season on the Brink: A Year with Bob Knight and the Indiana Hoosiers

Copyright 2014 by John Feinstein

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Doubleday, a division of Random House LLC, New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto, Penguin Random House companies.

www.doubleday.com

DOUBLEDAY and the portrayal of an anchor with a dolphin are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.

Jacket design by John Fontana
Jacket illustration Mike Janes / Four Seam Images

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Feinstein, John.
Where nobody knows your name : life in the minor leagues of baseball /
John Feinstein.
pages cm
1. Minor league baseballUnited StatesHistory. I. Title.
GV875.A1F37 2014
796.35764dc23 2013030645

ISBN 978-0-385-53593-9 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-0-385-53594-6 (eBook)

v3.1

This book is dedicated
to the memory of Rob Ades.

A friend in deed.

SCOTT ELARTON Pitcher. A one-time first round draft pick who won seventeen games for the Houston Astros at the age of twenty-four, his career was brought to a halt in 2008 by injuries and drinking issues. In August 2011, Elarton realized he wasnt finished with baseball, and he talked himself into a tryout with the Philadelphia Phillies that ended up exceeding his wildest expectations.

RON JOHNSON Manager, Norfolk Tides (Triple-A team of the Baltimore Orioles). Johnson is fifty-seven and has spent most of his adult life in the minor leagues. He played in twenty-two major-league games and likes to say, Im in the twilight of a mediocre career. It is that approach that makes him a perfect Triple-A manager, because he loves coming to the ballparksany ballparkevery day. Johnsons other saying about Triple-A life is very direct: If you dont like it here, do a better job.

JON LINDSEY Designated hitter. Lindsey is a footnote in baseball history: He had played more minor-league games without a major-league call-up than any player in history. In 2010, his unwanted streak came to an end. Lindsey liked to say he was an accident away, from a return to the major leagues. Not rooting for anybody to get hurt, he would say. But people do get hurt. Its just a fact.

MARK LOLLO Umpire. At thirty years old, Lollo had finally made it to the major-league call-up list in 2011, meaning he got to work a handful of games at the big-league level and was in line to move up to the majors in the near future. But 2012 was more difficult: there were fewer call-ups and there were questions about his umpiring future.

NATE McLOUTH Outfielder, Baltimore Orioles. A perfect example of the vagaries of baseball life, McLouth went from being an All-Star in Pittsburgh in 2008 to Atlanta to Pittsburgh, where in 2012 he was released while hitting .140. He wondered if his career might be over before he got a chance in Triple-A Norfolk and made the most of it, ending up as the Orioles starting left fielder in the 2012 playoffs. In a five-month period he went from out of baseball to signing a $2 million contract to play in Baltimore in 2013.

CHARLIE MONTOYO Manager, Durham Bulls (Triple-A team of the Tampa Bay Rays). At forty-seven, Montoyo is considered one of Triple-As best managershis team has reached the postseason six times in seven seasons in Durham, and the Rays loved the way he develops players. But he hasnt been able to get a serious sniff for a major-league job, even though hes been successful and is highly respected.

SCOTT PODSEDNIK Outfielder. A World Series hero in 2005, hitting a walk-off home run in game 2 for the Chicago White Sox, helping lead to their four-game sweep of the Houston Astros. Two years later he was looking for a job. He became a baseball wanderer, going from Kansas City to Chicago to Philadelphia to Bostongetting hurt and dropping back to Triple-A along the way. He began 2012 in Lehigh Valley, Triple-A team of the Philadelphia Phillies, thinking he should retire, and ending up on a head-spinning baseball odyssey.

CHRIS SCHWINDEN Pitcher. He lived through one of the most remarkable seasons in baseball history in 2012, but not for the reasons a player would want his season to be considered remarkable. In a five-week period he was released and then picked up by four different organizations. In thirty-seven days he went from New York to Buffalo to Las Vegas to Columbus to Scranton Wilkes-Barre andat lastback to Buffalo, where he finally found a home that wasnt a hotel room.

BRETT TOMKO Pitcher. A one-hundred-game winner in the major leagues. Tomko came all the way back from a serious shoulder injury suffered while he was winning his one-hundredth game in 2009. He started over in rookie league ball where he washis wordsabsolutely terriblebut pitched his way back to the major leagues in Texas two years later. He started the 2012 season in Louisville, Triple-A team of the Cincinnati Reds.

J UNE 2, 2012

On a spectacular late spring evening in Allentown, Pennsylvania, a sellout crowd of 10,100 people packed Coca-Cola Park, the five-year-old stadium that has served as the home for the Lehigh Valley IronPigs since 2008. Dusk was rapidly approaching. The temperature was seventy degrees with just a hint of breeze. It was a Saturday night, and clearly the ballpark was the place to be in the town of just under 120,000 that was made famous by Billy Joels 1982 ballad.

Sellouts, or near sellouts, have become commonplace since the franchise that once resided in Ottawa as the Lynx moved to Allentown and became the Lehigh Valley IronPigs. And with the Pawtucket Red Sox in town for a twi-night doubleheader, the park was jumping with noise as the second game began.

The IronPigs had just, thirty minutes earlier, come from behind for a 54 win in game one, and game two had also started promisingly for the home team. The PawSox had been forced to start Tony Pea Jr.normally a relieverbecause the scheduled starter, Ross Ohlendorf, had opted out of his contract a day earlier to sign with the San Diego Padres.