This video clip has some VERY strong language (warning to all who are offended by such speech), but you may want to know what you may experience inside an independent baseball league locker room if you make the team:
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=ZlsVr1ykBqQ
This clip was from the “Playing For Peanuts” documentary which was recorded during the only season of the independent South Coast League (2007). Along with the Continental Baseball League, this league was considered by industry insiders to be the in the “lower” tier of independent professional minor leagues at the time as compared to (at the time) the Atlantic League, American Association, Can-Am League, United League, Frontier League and Golden League. Even at this “lower tier” (not meant to be derogatory to anyone who was in the SCL or CBL at anytime as both were start-up leagues in 2007), you still could be managed by former Major League players who have World Series rings.
These types of managers expect you to be professional, and they will not “coddle” you like some college coaches do. Being in “professional” baseball means that you must be professional. He cites a former Major League player, at 39 years old, as being only one of two players who took batting practice before a game near the end of the regular season. This type of laziness risks striking a locker room late in the season, especially if you have some teammates who are considered to be “cancers in the clubhouse.”
Remember that if even if you join one the 2013 independent leagues considered in the “lower tiers”, you still need to push yourself and be a professional every day. Just because the rest of the team isn’t doing the little things needed to win a championship, you still need to do these actions so that you can get noticed by coaches and other players throughout the league. Once you retire, you will want to at least be marketable to coach at the high school or college level; and having recommendations from known professionals saying that you played the game the right way goes a long way toward helping you get hired in the next stage of your career.
Hopefully this tirade shows you the passion that these managers and coaches have to win, even in the independent leagues. This is not representative of what all locker rooms will be like this season, but you need to see a rather extreme example so that you know how much emotion there is once you become a professional.