After an 11-year pro baseball career, Stafford native Gregg Ritchie is now the hitting coach for the Charlotte Knights. Visit the Photo Place

Chasing a

Minor League baseball

By JIM McCONNELL

Date published: 7/11/2004

John Maine's baseball career has been a rocket ride since the Baltimore Orioles drafted him out of North Carolina-Charlotte, carrying him from Maryland's Eastern Shore to the brink of the big leagues in a little more than two years.

Maine, the top prospect in the Baltimore Orioles' organization, earned a spot in the starting rotation at Triple-A Ottawa prior to his 23rd birthday. Barring injury, he'll be pitching at Camden Yards sooner than later.

But for every John Maine, there are hundreds of professional baseball players whose biographies read more like Gregg Ritchie's or Tony Beasley's.

They're guys who started playing the game as soon as they could walk. Guys whose skin still tingles at the crack of the bat or the smell of a freshly mowed infield. Guys who don't cash big paychecks, but would gladly play for free on even the most dusty, neglected sandlot.

Then there's Rickey Henderson. A sure-fire Hall of Famer who has 3,000 hits and the major leagues' all-time runs record in his back pocket, Henderson still toils in obscurity for the independent Newark Bears, waiting and hoping for one final call to The Show.

For most, it's a call that will never come.

"Everybody knows less than one percent make it to the highest level in any field," said Ritchie, a North Stafford High School graduate who played 11 years in the minors and is now the hitting coach for the Chicago White Sox Triple-A club in Charlotte.

"The window of opportunity slams shut in your face in a flash. You can be on the highest of highs one day and the lowest of lows the next, and it won't be because of anything you did. That's just the way it is."

North Stafford High School baseball coach Craig Lopez, once a prized pitching prospect in the Baltimore Orioles' organization, described the situation more bluntly.

"There are still a lot of guys out there," Lopez said, "who are chasing a ghost."

It never starts out that way, of course.

With few responsibilities--save for showing up at the park on time, working on their game and staying out of the local police blotter--life for many young pros is about as uncomplicated as it gets.

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Date published: 7/11/2004