By Amy E. Whitesall
Special to the Review
It’s a sticky afternoon in Kinston, North Carolina, where the weather forecast in June always seems to include temperatures in the high 80s with a 30-percent chance of thunderstorms.
Kinston Indians first-baseman Nate Recknagel, a 2004 Lake Orion High School graduate, sits in a conference room in the blessedly cool clubhouse, pushing the dregs of a strawberry smoothie around the bottom of a cup with a straw. Outside the air is humid and still, and the sun blazes over the left field bleachers. The flag above Grainger Stadium’s centerfield fence barely moves.
The team has been on the road for the better part of three weeks, and Recknagel, after three months of professional baseball, has learned this: The No. 1 priority on the road? Finding a place to do your laundry.
‘Sometimes you’re wearing a polo shirt that you wore three days ago,? he said.
So much for the glamorous life of a professional athlete. In addition to the dirty laundry, the paycheck’s small, the schedule’s a grind, the bus rides are, well, bus rides. But Recknagel, 23, realizes he’s been given a chance to chase a dream.
‘When you get into pro ball, it’s really a big test of your love of the game because you have those moments when you’re tired, you’re exhausted, you haven’t had much sleep because your bus ride was through the middle of the night,? he said. ‘But you have to remind yourself that you’re here and how you got here and remember that this is your goal that you’ve been trying to reach.?
Recknagel started the season with the Lake County Captains, the Cleveland Indians? low-A affiliate in Eastlake, Ohio. He joined advanced-A Kinston in mid-May. Unlike the two-and-a-half-month collegiate seasons Recknagel played at Oakland University and then at the University of Michigan, the pro season lasts six-and-a-half months.
‘People will tell you that (the season) is a marathon, it isn’t a sprint,? Recknagel said. ‘And you kind of brush it off, but it’s like, ‘No. Seriously.? I think the biggest (transition) is going from college, where you play four times a week and have some downtime and are able to rest, up to here, where it’s every single day.?
For their efforts, first-season minor leaguers make $1,100 a month, with an additional $20 a day for meal money when they’re on the road. Recknagel say he’ll pocket $300-$400 a month after rent and expenses, if he’s lucky.
Travel and downtime make up the major non-baseball features of minor league life. On road trips, the team moves from hotel to hotel, spending 3-4 days in one city after another. Players spend their free mornings playing video games, hanging around, taking online classes and playing golf.
Recknagel spends his free time studying for the GRE, which he plans to take this fall. He graduated with a psychology degree last December and will return to Ann Arbor and apply to graduate school in the off-season. That’ll keep Plan B–a career in either sports or child psychology–moving along and keep him closer to his five-year-old daughter, Taylor Butkiewicz, who lives with her mom in Royal Oak.
‘The long-term plan is to obviously play in the big leagues,? Recknagel said. ‘I don’t really have an exact cut-off point, but what most guys say is when your chances run out, then usually you know that’s when it’s your time to step away.?
After a month in Kinston, Recknagel’s minor league journey took him back to Lake County, where he’s currently listed as a designated hitter and batting .432 in his last 10 games. Moving from team to team is tough, he says, but his path through baseball has never been all that linear.
He didn’t have a lot of offers to play baseball out of high school, started out at OU, then transferred after an All-America freshman year.
He arrived at Michigan a catcher, but the Wolverines already had an Johnny Bench Award semifinalist behind the plate. U-M coach Rich Maloney gave him a chance as a pinch-hitter and Recknagel’s bat all but forced Maloney to keep him in the lineup.
‘I try not to look so far ahead, but there are definitely times in my life I look back at,? he said. ‘My senior year in high school I would have never thought I would end up playing at U-M, and when I started playing at U-M, I wasn’t even guaranteed playing time. At that point I couldn’t even imagine playing professional baseball.?
Though Cleveland selected the 6-foot-2, 220-pound Recknagel in the 19th round of the 2008 draft, he missed most of the 2008 minor league season rehabilitating the left elbow he dislocated in a collision during the NCAA Regional. The injury caused him to drop to 591st in the draft, even though he’d earned Big Ten Player of the Year honors and hit a single-season record 23 home runs as a U-M senior.
‘He’s a quality player to get in your organization,? said Chris Kline, who scouted Recknagel for the Pittsburgh Pirates. ‘I loved him because he was tough; he was a guy that any manager would want to have on their team. As a first baseman, with that kind of right-handed power, he’s one of those guys you can pencil in every day.?
Recknagel seems content to approach his baseball career day-by-day and roll with whatever comes. Taking care of the present has a way of taking care of the future.
‘That’s what this game is all about,? he said ‘What you put in is what you get out–that’s one of the things I live by. If you’re not working hard, the game has a way of humbling you. I don’t really pride myself on defense or offense, just dedication. And that goes beyond the game.?