Sooo.....
I am sitting in the hotel near PDX in Portland, Oregon at 2 a.m. in wonderment. I am flying to Germany in 4 hours and as I try and spend the last few hours fighting off sleep and spending time with my girlfriend Erin, I cannot help but think that these next 24-48 hours will turn my life upside down. For the past few years I have been coaching baseball. I enjoy it very much; the teaching, the development of players, the control of game situations, the game itself....... I love baseball! There is however, one thing that has bothered me the entire time I have been coaching these past few years. I always felt I was good enough to PLAY beyond college after having a successful career at the Division 1 level. At the time college had ended, I had been a starting player at The University of Portland for four years and was thinking that the only option I had was to play organized minor league ball with an affiliated MLB (Major League Baseball) team. I had heard of independent teams around the country that took players from college, but I wanted bigger and better. To me, playing independent baseball meant to delay the inevitable, which was a good job, good pay, and a stable life after earning a great degree from UP. When I did not sign with either of the two MLB clubs who had said they would like to sign me after my senior year of college, I quickly became discouraged and optioned out of going on and playing professionally. Especially if it meant I would have to grind it out in independent ball just to get looked at by MLB organizations!
Fast forward about four years later........... And back to the hotel room at 2 a.m.
As I sit here and write I am still amazed how this happened.
Five weeks ago I was in Portland, Oregon with Erin as we had both decided that we wanted to move here shortly. I love the area, and as we have been dating and traveling to Portland a few times she grew to love it as much as I do. Done deal! I would finish my teaching and coaching duties in the bay area and I will move up in June........ In the meantime Erin wanted to make the move on her own before I came up. So, on no particular day we drop by the University of Portland to use the library to print off some resumes. We park the car in the main parking lot which oversees the left field side of Joe Eztel Field at Pilot Stadium...... My old stomping ground, and home to the UP Baseball team! Erin obliged me for a good ten minutes as I watched UP throw intersquad. "Oh how I miss playing," I thought to myself!
We walked away to print off some resumes and about five minutes later I told Erin I wanted to go say hi to my old coach and watch some more baseball. The funny thing is Erin completely understands my passion for the game and gives me all the time I need with it. She is a tremendous supporter of my coaching and passion for baseball and she is learning the game very quickly.
I quickly walk to the field and enter above the third base dugout in the stadium bleachers. I quietly watched for a moment and one of Portland's assistant coaches Larry Casian saw me and said "Hey, we don't need any St. Mary's guys in our stands!" in a joking voice. (It is nice coming back to Portland and always being reminded that I coached at SMC, a WCC opponent) I say hello and again a few moments later I hear my former head coach Chris Sperry say "Is that Nik Kosach!?" I smile and wave, walk to the end of the dugout he is standing to shake his hand.
"What are you doing here, I was just talking about you today at lunch?" he said. I told coach Sperry I was planning on moving back to Portland soon and that Erin and I were around the campus. And as if he had not heard a thing I just said he tells me "There is a fellow here from Germany that I think you ought to meet, he is here looking for a catcher and I mentioned your name and told him about you today at lunch..........I had absolutely no idea you were in town, this is really bizarre!!...... Come down to the filed and I will introduce you to him."
Now at this point I have no idea what is going on. It is amazing how quickly life can change...... One moment you are looking so hard for a ordinary job, and the next moment you have a dream job land in your lap.
As I walked to the field I couldn't help think to myself, "Why the hell would he mention my name to catch? I haven't played in years!" As I get down to the field I start talking to a few of the guys, then walk over to Sperry and he tells me about the situation. " There is a guy here from the German professional league looking for someone who can catch Danny Meier." Danny was a former teammate of mine at UP who was released by the Houston Astros last season and was looking to play this season. He was an excellent player in college who pitched and played in the field. No easy task at the Division 1 level. Danny is good at everything, and he has an absolute cannon of an arm and hits the ball very, very hard. I believe he threw anywhere from 90-93 mph on the mound when he was in college. I had caught Danny when he was a sophomore and I was the starting catcher at Portland so I knew I could catch him.
As I continued to talk to coach Sperry he told me to come talk to the German coach, Stefon, aka "Red." Red was an interesting guy to begin with. He spoke very good English with a German accent of course and as we approached him coach Sperry says to him, "The gentleman that I was talking about today at lunch, who lives 700 miles from here in San Francisco, who can still play and catch, is standing right here." "I had no idea he was even in town" he said.
Red looked at me, looked at Danny, and back at me. I knew exactly what he was thinking because I would have done the same thing. Danny is a big strong guy, 6-2, a very lean 210lbs. Me on the other hand, I have stayed in very good shape, but have lost about 25lbs since college baseball and I stand all of 5-10, maybe 172 now soaking wet. Sperry quickly spoke up again and pointed at me, "Now this guy will lead your team in batting average, and catch as good as anybody." He points to Danny and says, "And this guy will lead your team in strikeouts as a pitcher, and homeruns as a hitter." Red once again looks at both of us and says to me "Yea, you can play a little but, yea? I need a guy who can handle Danny's stuff, my catchers will have a hard time with his fastball and breaking ball." I told him I could definitely still catch him, I just wasn't sure what the competition was like in Germany. I didn't even know they had a league. Remember, I haven't played competitively for four years, and my mind has been totally fixed on coaching, and only dreaming of playing.
As the conversation went on with Red, Danny, and myself, he explained that he could have three foreigners on the team and that Danny was definitely coming over. "If you want to think about possibly coming over I need to see you play." He told me. "I cannot just sign you because people tell me you can play, but if you are good enough we have a nice place for you to stay, a good stipend, free meals, and we pay your way to and from Germany." As my mind was still in shock, I thought about how cool it was that I might get to play again and even whether or not I could. I had not taken bating practice since college, and the only baseball I played was in the San Francisco city league in 2006 right after college. Red told us he wanted to discuss more later, and as we were leaving the field he told me to meet him later that night for a beer. We also decided that I would try out for him at the field the next morning. Honselty, I was more excited to hit and catch the next morning because I had not done it in so long.
That night we met up with Red and learned a lot about our German Baseball opportunity, and Red. (He is a character, but a good guy) The next day I was catching Danny at 10 a.m., throwing down to second base, and hitting. To say the least I still have it! I hit well, I caught well, I threw well. After the tryout we headed down to a workout PT clinic to do some conditioning and Red asked both of us to come to Germany....... I finally made it!! He shook my hand and said, "You are going to do really good over there, I really want you to come, are you in?"
"Done deal!" I told him.
3 years, 9 months since my last college game. 1 year of field sales in San Francisco, 16 months of coaching division 1 baseball at St. Mary's College, and 15 months of coaching youth baseball and teaching in Lafayette and Moraga, mixed in with Graduate School at St. Mary's with a finished master's degree........ And I finally got a chance to get paid play baseball.......In Germany.
Weird!
