Mike Granger

Minor League Player

After a successful collegiate career with COC and UC Davis, you have spent the last two seasons playing minor league ball in Louisiana and Massachusetts. Are the minor leagues anything like the movie Bull Durham?

You know the first day I showed up to camp in Alexandria ( Louisiana) I thought to myself, “this is right out of Bull Durham”. The stadium had old wooden grandstands, it was a small town, everyone had accents, it was awesome. The experience all around I’d say is pretty well represented in that movie. There are long bus rides with your teammates, wacky girls running around, and often times less than adequate living conditions, but it’s all worth it to put on a uniform everyday and compete.

 

I also can’t forget to mention how a certain team we played against this past season decided they wanted a rainout the following day after we had clobbered them for two nights straight already. However, rain was not in the forecast, so late at night a group of their players flooded their entire infield so they would have to cancel the game the next day. Needless to say, it worked like a charm. The funniest thing about it though was how the entire staff and grounds crew at their stadium had no idea it was their own players who had done the dirty work. But everyone on our side knew what was going on. And anyone who had seen Bull Durham knew what was going on.

 

When you were with the Alexandria Aces in Louisiana, did you run into any banjo-playing, toothless, Deliverance-looking, French-speaking Cajuns? And if so, were they named Bobby Boucher?

That’s funny you should ask that. I never met Bobby Boucher down there, but I think I met some of his relatives. In fact when they announced my name before my first professional at-bat some old guy in the stands yelled out, “Hey, it’s not Granger!! It’s Gronjay!!!!” I didn’t know what to think about that one, he must have thought I was French or something though. But everyone I ran into down there was so nice. Southern Hospitality is no joke. I had numerous families invite me to their houses to hang out and eat some great southern cooking. So naturally I could never pass that up.

 

Playing in The OUTside was the most fun I’ve ever had playing in a band. We played a ton of shows and even got to play on a stage at Warped Tour. Coach Smock (I know him as Darwin, or Deez) is a heck of an entertainer, and I loved being on stage with him because he was wild and always got the crowd into the music and the moment. The West Ranch players are lucky to have such an awesome guy as their coach.

 

When I’m away from home playing baseball I try to reserve a little time to play my acoustic guitar. I play for my teammates and they like to listen and sing along if they know the song. But it also helps me relax and also just kills time when I’m away from the field. I can’t just live baseball 24 hours a day, or I’d go insane from such a heavy schedule.

 

That’s a good one. But I’d have to say that getting a game-winning hit would be more rewarding for me. There’s no better feeling than coming through in the clutch for your team. And those types of moments are the reason I go to the yard everyday and put in my work and strap the cleats on to play. The main stage at Warped Tour would be awesome though.

 

I loved college ball. Competition was better all around, because all the teams were full of the best high school players. The games were also full nine inning games, and there’s no mercy rule like there is now in high school ball. It just felt more like “real” baseball to me, like what you see on TV and professional games.

 

School comes first. There isn’t a single college in this nation that even considers student athletes who have bad grades. So again, school comes first. On the field, the best advice I can give is to work hard, play hard, have fun, and don’t worry about things that you can’t control (ie coaching decisions, umpires calls, parents, etc.). I’ve passed numerous players that were more talented than I was, but they didn’t work hard, they whined about everything, and thus they never got better, while I did. I still get to put on a uniform, and they don’t. Think about it.

 

I figure I will always be involved with baseball to some capacity. Whether I decide to coach or go into industry after my playing days is still in the air. Although, I would love to pass on what valuable lessons I’ve learned from the game to younger players. I know that would be very satisfying.

 

Yeah, that’s true. It’s a long story so bear with me. It was game three of the first of two rounds of playoffs, the second round being the championships of course. It rained really hard the night before and both teams had been driving all night (11 hours from Boston) after we lost game 2 at our place, tying the series at 1-1. The best of five games moves on. At this point the series was almost in their favor since they had the best home record in the league by a long shot. This is partly due to the atmosphere of the park (loud music, flashing lights, girls dancing on top of dugouts, and rabid/drunk French-Canadian fans that never shut up). They have 30 foot high screens all around the fences there to keep fans from getting on the field, or getting hit by balls, or bats, or players who lose their cool. Some teams couldn’t even get all of their non-American players across the border forcing them to play shorthanded, and giving Quebec yet another advantage at home. Plus, the crazy nightlife in Quebec City seems to have an adverse effect on how well opposing teams perform on the field there (not so strange). I call it “The Quebec Factor”. Bottom line, the fans and the team there are used to winning on their field, and they will do anything to make sure that the visiting team’s stay there is not pleasant. Thankfully, as a team we learned how to deal with all those distractions, but only after going 2 and 6 there in the regular season.

Getting back to the story, the field was damp from the rain, but playable. Much of everything else was flooded, though. The tunnel going from our clubhouse underneath the stands to the dugout was under about two feet of water, and we had to walk through the stands full of crazy fans just to get to the field or even back to the clubhouse to use the restroom during the game. We had almost already had a massive bench-clearing brawl earlier that game and tempers were flaring. I’m telling you this was an extremely heated competition.

We were leading 8-5, in the bottom of the ninth inning. Our reliever had been shutting their hitters down for two innings now, so we had him start the ninth so we could save our closer for a real emergency. Suddenly half of the lights behind home plate just shut off in the middle of their leadoff batter’s at-bat. The game stopped and everyone kind of looked confused for a minute or two. Then the managers and umpires met and decided to just resume the game with slightly dimmed lighting (it wasn’t great, but it wasn’t too bad at this point). We get the lead-off guy out, then as soon as the next guy came up ALL of the lights behind home plate shut off (Great!). The game stops again.

So now we have a half-lit field, and two outs to get before the game is over. We’re all wondering what the heck’s going on. Quebec’s owner, who’s incidentally the commissioner of the league, came out on the field and said the flooding caused the lights to go out (yeah right buddy). Note that this is the same guy who had his team crack open champagne bottles on the field, not the clubhouse, after they beat us in the second to last game of the regular season, the outcome of which meant nothing in the scheme of things (a real class act if you know what I mean). So we delayed the game for about an hour while they “fixed” the lights. In the meantime our pitcher is getting cold, and 6,000+ Quebec fans are getting hot. They are yelling in French, throwing peanuts and beer at us, and making obscene gestures while we stood outside our dugout not-so-patiently waiting to finish the game off. Thank goodness for those 30-foot high nets. It was intense. Just think Yankees vs. Red Sox on a smaller scale. Same emotions though.

Finally the lights came back on, and we had to bring in our closer to finish the game after the long delay. He got the next two guys out and that was it. Now, I know this is minor league ball, and we as players sometimes take for granted the amount of organization it takes to run an independent franchise, but it’s my opinion that the flooding couldn’t have gotten any worse since the start of the game since the rain stopped earlier that morning. It’s common sense, right? So how have the lights been working fine all game, but when it appears that the home team has lost momentum the lights go out? It’s very mysterious indeed. It kind of reminds me of what I heard happened at the Hart vs. Canyon football game last year (also very strange). We won that series in game 5 by the way and made it to the championships, but that’s another long story.

 

You’d find a bunch of CD’s that don’t get listened to that often. I tend to have a single CD running heavy rotation for weeks at a time. That’s just how I am. But some CD’s/bands that have stood the test of time for me are: Old Megadeth albums, Machine Head, Rise Against, Thursday, Further Seems Forever, Shai Hulud, Open Hand, and Old Metallica

 

Far too many things to list here, but some important values would include living with passion, perseverance, dedication, good work ethic, teamwork, failure and success, the list goes on.

 

Ted Williams, Frank Herbert, Albert Einstein. Not sure what they would all have in common to talk about, but things they have all done and written about have had large impacts on my life and way of thinking. It would be a good time, and I would pick each of their brains for hours.