It’s 7:19am on Monday January 8th, 2018. Wow, hard to believe it’s 2018! I mean, my whole life I’ve been under the impression that I would have a flying car by now! Televison, movies, 80’s toys, and my imagination have all fueled my expectations of having a car that can take off and fly through the air. Soooo if you’re a scientistic aero-engineer person reading this brilliantly well written article right now… FIGURE IT OUT ALREADY! Anyway, my name is Tim Dillard. For the last 15 seasons I have been a pitcher in professional baseball. Mostly in the Minor Leagues, but I did strike out new Yankees skipper Aaron Boone in the big leagues 10 years ago. And because of my HIGHLY ordinary career… MLB Trade Rumors has declared me worthy enough to write words down for you to read.
7:23am And in case you haven’t heard, and judging by the lack of views and comments you haven’t… this is my TENTH time writing my Inner Monologue! I’m typing this particular morning because after several weeks of winter break, my children are finally going back to school! (THANK GOD!) Except for my two year-old. He’ll wake up in exactly 35 minutes… his unfathomable internal clock is exceeded only by his ability to Spider-Man up the side of his crib.
7:25am The offseason winter break is almost over as well, and then it’s spring training. Currently I’m signed with the Milwaukee Brewers for my 16th season. And every week the entire winter, a member of the training staff will text me to see how my workouts are progressing. Which is great, because when I first started playing professional baseball I didn’t have a cellular phone… so they would have to call me up on my parent’s cordful house phone. One time my dad woke me up after lunch to tell me that my trainer was on hold. Things have changed, because yesterday, when asked about workouts, I messaged back that I was wrestling with my kids.
7:29am But much like other veteran ballplayers after being gone for seven months, the offseason is all about family. And really just getting back to the simple things in life like eating dinners together, vacations, Little League games, birthday parties, visiting friends, school programs, soccer matches, Lego building, Googling third grade math questions, gymnastics class, basketball, performing on stage at Premios Univision Deportes… you know, the normal stuff.
7:32am My typical offseason day consists of: Wake up, bake the Eggo’s, pack the school lunches, drink the coffee, drink more of the coffee, and then work out or find some house work to do unil the bus drops the kids off. In fact, the day I got home from the regular season last year… I walked in and changed nine lightbulbs. To me, that perfectly sums up the offseason lifestyle.
7:34am Who am I kidding? The first thing I do when I wake up is check Twitter… and yes I do hate myself for it. But after that, I do some of that other stuff I listed. Last week I woke up to a tweet from Major League Baseball that featured a video of a player exercising, and they hash-tagged it #NoOffseason. Actually, they tweet the #NoOffseason hashtag quite a bit… during the offseason.
7:38am Hold on… the newest kid may have awoken?
7:41am Never mind. That was an Amazon delivery person. (paper towels) You ever find yourself just buying crap in hopes that one day you’ll get an Amazon drone visit?!? Yeah me neither.
7:42am As of now the child is still asleep, but I must stay on alert. Because last week he snuck out of bed, silently scaled the cabinets, and snagged some old baseball cards off a book shelf. And rather than recognize my child’s immediate danger or applaud his impeccable balance… I got caught up reading the backs of the baseball cards just like I did growing up!
7:44am I would like to say, that before Al Gore’s internet, the back of a baseball card was the BEST way to find fun facts and hobbies of my favorite players.
7:45am Like… according to one of my cards of Ricky Henderson, he enjoys swimming and fishing. A 1991 Score card states that Ken Griffey Jr. played 3 years of football, and 4 years of baseball in high school. This Robin Yount card tells me that he wants to be a pro golfer and race motorcycles one day. A 1987 Barry Bonds card says he majored in Criminal Justice at Arizona State. Who knew?! And also in 1987, Topps informs us that pitcher Sid Fernandez wears uniform #50 for two reasons. One, his native home of Hawaii is the 50th U.S. state, and second, his favorite tv show is Hawaii Five-O.
7:51am Next offseason… I want the, “Writing Cool Facts on the Back of Baseball Cards” job! (I bet that could also get me a lifetime supply of that pink rectangle gum included in old baseball card packs that disintegrated immediately after touching saliva)
7:52am In all seriousness though, most Minor Leaguers get jobs in the offseason. The BIG bucks are in the BIG leagues, and that only leaves the small bucks for the minor leagues. A few years ago I played winter ball down in Venezuela. One year I worked at a leather factory where I would measure, fold, and ship giant cowhides. (I also operated a forklift without a license) Another offseason I worked landscaping after I got turned down at the local sporting goods store for lack of experience.
7:55am One of the highlights of spring training is hearing about where teammates worked during the offseason. Over my career I’ve heard: hitting lessons, pitching lessons, baseball camps, bartender, waiter, barber, UPS driver, golf course attendant, Lowe’s clerk, roof shingler, Office Max clerk, landscape “engineer”, Lululemon sales associate, and one very special shortstop who was once in charge of putting stickers on fruit.
7:58am But right now it’s January, and every non-MLB-contract ballplayer is slightly paranoid about being ready to compete for a job in the coming spring training.
7:59am And speaking of paranoia… I think I hear “Eggo.” echoing down the hallway.
To Be Concluded…
It’s back!
Hey Tim! Welcome Back! Good Luck this season . Hope you stick
and sign a HUGE contract .
how can anyone afford, with a family, to be a minor leaguer for 15 years?
Sugar Mama?
In some cultures, women are allowed to have jobs
I mean, he’s been in Triple A or the MLB every year since 2007, i’m gonna guess his salary is just fine. $2200 ish a month is minimum for a first year triple a player and it goes up from there, after 11 years its typically double to triple that amount, if not more honestly, granted it’s only for half of the year, but still.
Well, not everyone needs six figures to have a nice tidy family life. If you think about it, the crap we spend money on these days is MOSTLY wants, not needs. It’s common to have expensive internet, everyone with unnecessarily expensive mobile phone and plan that probably costs $600 a year per family member. Multiple expensive TV’s, a car for everyone, a house twice the size that is really needed. Laziness that brings lots of very expensive eating out, etc.
A family can live easily on a combined income under the average, provided you don’t indulge in every single WANT for the kid and yourselves. Just because a kid wants a new glove, doesn’t mean they should be given one. Just because a room is lacking an HDTV display, doesn’t mean it needs one. I could go on and on…. A simply review of expenses could weed out between $10 or $20k of unnecessary annual expenses for an average sized family.
He’s made over 1 million in MLB. Most people can make that last for a couple decades.
He’s pitched in the majors for a short time, so if sent back down, doesn’t he get the minimum salary from then on? I wish I had this answer.
yes he does
Thank you!
Cold stove season finally sinking in.
Negative -60 stove it’s all frozen in
Hey Tim, good read. Thanks for doing this. Best of luck
Agreed nice read and interesting perspectives forget the rude people I apologize on there behalf for the nonsense keep up the good writing!
Al Gore’s internet, I love it. Glad these have returned.
This is fantastic ha.
I LOVE THESE
I beg to differ…’that pink rectangle gum included in old baseball card packs that disintegrated immediately after touching saliva’…That gum, with the texture of a roofing shingle, will outlast the careers of most of the players on the cards.
So many downvotes on anyone saying anything positive haha. Lot of debbie downers that weren’t hugged enough as a child on here. It’s going to be ok guys, life does get better.
How can you not like Tim
These articles are fun, but what’s with the time stamps?
That’s just Tim’s writing style/ personal choice. He writes his “inner monologue” as if he is writing a journal documenting his thoughts “as he has them”.
I guess so. Dumb question, I suppose, but usually writers do that if they are chronicling a longer period of time.
I’m commenting just so Tim knows that I read his piece.
Hang in there, Tim. Uecker can’t keep that job forever.
Tim really has a unique and entertaining way of writing these. Keep up the good work.
Please write more, sir. I really enjoyed this. You should write a book. Or get into broadcasting. Or just keep entertaining us. Thank you.
Btw, we have a cordful phone at work.
Yes! Tim Dillard’s ; BOOK OF LIFE! I’d buy it for sure!
great post! I love the off season stories. Keep the fun coming…
I understand it is a slow time but if I see one more post about Pittsburg I’ll go nuts
You should check out Pittsburgh Dad on Utube! You will absolutely go insane!
one of the best things, if not the best things about mlbtraderumors.com. Keep up the good work, Tim!
Thanks Tim! Please dislike this postive comment.
I got your back!
Thanks Tim! I love the posts
Tim needs a daytime talk show.
Always a great read. Thanks Tim and MLBTR
I know one minor leaguer who worked as a Merchant bank intern for about 5 years… every off season he was back as an intern. When he retired from baseball he was permanently hired.
Cole De Vries retired after his mostly forgettable career and became a realtor.
Yes I love these
Is there nowhere we can go to escape political snark? The (very tired) Al Gore comment was not only unnecessary but revealed a conservative bias that can only lead one to the disappointing conclusion that the writer is a Trump voter, which means I, for one, am no longer interested in his musings on life. And if I’m wrong then the writer needs to learn that in this polarized environment, such conclusions will be drawn if you choose to dip your toe in political waters.