Out of position
The baseball season is over. While some major leaguers poutingly demand trades, buy new gas-guzzling sport utility vehicles, and take time to work on their tans in tropical climates, all hope is not lost that the game that is the national pastime will remain pure. Manny can keep being Manny, but Pawtucket Red Sox pitcher Marc Deschenes prefers to be more like Jay-Z, using his understanding of baseball and the culture that supports it to get involved in many aspects of the business side of sports.
It's certainly nothing new for ballplayers to hold down second jobs. Babe Ruth worked in his family's saloon in Baltimore during the off-season from 1914 to 1918, while he was with the Boston Red Sox, says Michael Gibbons, the executive director of the Babe Ruth Museum. Like Ruth, today's minor leaguers are blue-collar athletes who paint houses, work temp jobs, coach youth baseball teams, and work at gyms, all the while training for next season.
MARC DESCHENES
Deschenes, 32, is a Red Sox fan living his dream. Even after being drafted by the Cleveland Indians out of UMass-Lowell as a shortstop in 1995, he still followed the Sox. He fondly remembers going to his first game at Fenway Park with his father when he was 8. Deschenes, who is now a pitcher with the Triple A PawSox, is far busier in the off-season. He is trying to buy land in Dracut so he can build a place called Future Stars with Mike Glavine, the brother of New York Mets pitcher Tom Glavine and a former major leaguer. (Mike Glavine played six games for the Mets in 2003.) The project is envisioned as a 40,000-square-foot training facility that would house artificial turf fields, a weight room, a strength and conditioning area, two basketball courts, a soccer arena, and batting cages. Deschenes has the blessings of the town recreation department and is moving the venture into a temporary facility while the bigger one is built. He even does the electrical work himself. And he doesn't stop there -- he coaches five AAU baseball teams, sees a strength and conditioning coach every day, and works out his pitching arm. ''The season is almost like a vacation for me," he says. ''I'm busier now."
RANDY NEWSOM
Newsom, 23, was born and raised in Cincinnati, where he idolized then-Reds players Chris Sabo and Rob Dibble. He went to college at Tufts and stayed in Massachusetts when he signed with the Red Sox in 2004. Now a minor-league pitcher, he also works as a sales director at the Gold's Gym in Westborough. He spends his days during this off-season in charge of marketing. In past off-seasons he worked in real estate and did consulting for a software company. Newsom says he has grown to love Boston, its people, its restaurants, and the fans' love for their team. ''My big-league dreams revolve around Fenway Park and the Red Sox faithful," he says. ''I hear stories from other teams, and around baseball, and I realize that I am with an organization that has great people and a great history and the best fan base of any sports team in the world."
JASON TWOMLEY
Twomley, 23, works at Ultimate Fitness in Amherst and says he has ''lived and breathed the Red Sox" his entire life. A front desk employee, Twomley makes shakes for customers, signs up new members, and teaches weight lifting techniques. Twomley, who played with rehabbing Red Sox Gabe Kapler and Keith Foulke last season as a member of the Lowell Spinners, a Class A Red Sox affiliate, is from Fitchburg, where he says he excelled at football and not baseball. After Fitchburg High, he played baseball for UMass-Amherst, where he earned a degree in sports management. ''I'm so glad I chose to play baseball in college instead of football," Twomley says. ''The high that I am on right now with getting drafted by the Red Sox, I hope it never ends."
MIKE CONROY
Conroy, 23, of Scituate, plays for the Kinston Indians, a Class A affiliate of the Cleveland Indians. During the off-season he paints on the South Shore and in Maine with his father, a former police officer who has owned Conroy Contracting for 28 years. Conroy says he enjoys working outside, in a laid-back atmosphere. He laments that it would be difficult to raise a family on the salary of a minor-league player. ''It would be nice to be paid more," he says. ''But you are doing something you love." He plans to return to college after baseball -- he turned down a scholarship in order to turn pro. In preparation for next year he will lift weights, ski, and practice his hitting and throwing. ''I have good confidence going into next season," Conroy says. ''You have no shot if you have no confidence."
BARRY HERTZLER
Hertzler, 24, of Bristol, Conn., ended last season with the Portland Sea Dogs, a Double A Red Sox affiliate. A sinkerballer with a 90-mile-per-hour fastball, he moonlights as a commercial painter for Roberge Painting in Forestville, Conn. ''I grew up painting family members' houses," he says. Hertzler is coming off of a roller coaster year. He started the season in Class A Wilmington, where he went 5-3 with 58 strikeouts in 83 innings, and was moved up to Portland in the midst of a championship race. (The Sea Dogs lost the league title to the Akron Aeros.) ''It was great to be on a winning team," says Hertzler, who grew up in East Providence, R.I., in the shadow of McCoy Stadium in Pawtucket, where he would watch future Boston stars Trot Nixon and Nomar Garciaparra. ''It gave me a confidence boost to know what to expect for next season." Hertzler, who has a criminology degree from Central Connecticut State University, hopes to work in law enforcement, perhaps for the federal government, after his baseball career ends.
