Professional Baseball Lifestyle Wasn't For Me

Hey, what's up fellas? How you doing? Manettinelli here. Hey, what's going on everyone? How are we doing? We're answering your questions again today. I've been doing this for like five years answering the questions. So of course I'm answering your questions today. Today's question was about a minor league lifestyle. And I've talked a little bit about this in the past. So I'm going to switch this question up a little bit. And I'm going to talk about why the minor league lifestyle wasn't for me. All right. And even, no, I'm not going to say even the major league lifestyle cause the major league lifestyle is much different than the minor league lifestyle. Um, but being a professional player, let's say that just being a professional baseball player, it doesn't jive with my personality very much. And let me explain kind of, kind of why. So as a professional player, um, there's a couple of things that come with that. And I think some of you understand, but you may not really understand unless you, unless you do it. And so the biggest thing when it comes to professional baseball and the lifestyle, number one, the thing that stands out the most is being away from home, right? Just being away. And that could mean anywhere in the country. For me, it meant mostly West coast because I'm from the Boston area. I got drafted by the Padres. And so, um, most of my minor league stops. So my first one was in Eugene, Oregon and the West coast. And then I went to Fort Wayne, Indiana, but that was only for a couple of weeks. Then I went to Lake Elce, North California, which is Southern Cal. And then I went to San Antonio, Texas, which is, you know, in the middle of Texas, not really in the middle, but I don't believe. Um, then I went to Portland, Oregon for AAA. And then I went to the San Diego Padres in San Diego, um, which can't get any further away from Boston. And so, and then I played for a bunch of other teams all over the country, but my main career with the Padres was out West. And so when you leave for baseball season, typically you're going to leave in February, the beginning of February because spring training starts in February and you're typically not going to get home until depending on what level you're at. If you're in the big leagues, you're going to usually get home around October. And even if you're in the minor leagues, you're going to sometimes get home even later than that because there's fall league, there's instructional league, there's all types of different things in the fall. And so you leave from home usually February. So you're gone February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, and sometimes October. So you spend nine months away from home and you spend three months at home. Um, so that's the first thing, right? You're on the road so much. You know, I am, if you know me at all, which some of you do, some of you probably feel like you know me a lot because I've talked to you on this, uh, iPhone for 10 years. Um, but if you know me, I'm a very much a home body. I don't go out a lot. I don't like to go out a lot. I like to be home. I can be perfectly happy, um, talking into an iPhone all by myself. Um, and so, uh, I like to read books. I like to relax and play a video game. Um, I like to learn new things. Um, that's what I enjoy doing. Any of my friends or family know that I'm not someone that likes to hang out with lots of people. I hang out with my wife, I hang out with my kids. I'll hang out with my family members. And if I'm going to hang out with friends, it's going to be a very limited amount of friends. I've never been someone that wants to be with a lot of people. I've never been someone that's going to want to go out to the bars or go out to the club or go out with, you know, lots of, uh, big groups of people. I've said that like four times already. Okay. That's just not my personality. I've never been a big drinker. I don't, you know, I just, that's just not my, that's not what I do. And so I enjoy just kind of being home and quiet and with people that I'm really close with. And so when you live on the road all the time, um, you're away from all those people. Right. And so of course you make new friends. I made a lot of new friends and I enjoyed my time with a lot of those friends, but it's, it's not always the same as, as being home. It never felt like your home. It feels like your way. And I'm sure you can imagine if you, you know, if you had a job, which I'm sure many of you do, I don't, some of you are probably nine years old and don't know what a job is, but many of you know what a job is. Just imagine if someone said to you, and I'm sure some of you already do this, so you already probably know, but there's a lot of people that might not. And they say, you know, you're going to go away for work for nine months and you're not going to see these people for a long time. And maybe they'll come see you every now and then, but you know, that'll be for a couple of days. And so that was the biggest thing I think lifestyle wise that I never liked about professional baseball is never being home and always feeling like you're away. And then always being on the West coast, which the West coast, which is like a three hour time. It's not like a three hour time difference. It's a three hour time difference. And you know, that makes you feel like you're not really part of the part of being home either. And I'd call, I'd get out of games at 10 a.m. or 10 p.m. 11 p.m. 12 p.m. And I would call my wife who was my girlfriend at the time. And then my wife eventually, and you know, it'd be one in the morning, two in the morning, three in the morning. Now she's a real psycho because she used to pick up and talk to me all the time when I would do that. Right. And so that whole thing was now I never really enjoy. I never really enjoyed that. So that was kind of the first thing. The second thing kind of relates to the first thing, you know, when you, when you play professional baseball and this again, I don't want to lump everyone into this category, but a lot of times what players do, and it's like the same thing every day. It's you go to the field all day long, right? You practice, you play, you do all that stuff. And then after the game, a lot of players will go out, right? You'll go out. I'm not saying drinking is a big part of playing pro ball, but go out to a bar, go out to a club. You're always traveling to new cities. So some players really enjoy that. They like going to a new city and being able to go out and see like the night life in that town. And, and I like going to restaurants. I do like going to restaurants. So I'll go to restaurants, but I would go to a restaurant and then I'd go home. And a lot of players are excited to go to a new place and be able to go out to new, to different places. Like I said, most, I think you're, you're talking about 18 to 23 year old, 24 year old, 25 year old. Um, a lot of times people that don't have wives or girlfriends. And so what do you do? You go out. And again, I never really enjoyed that. So I would usually, I guess, because I'm a big dork, I would usually after games, my typical day was go to the park, um, do everything that I needed to do there, leave the park, go home, relax at my apartment and go to bed and get up and do it the next day. That's what I would do all the time. Uh, let me go back. I usually talk to my wife and I didn't have kids at the time. And then I go to bed and then I do it again. And that's what I do for nine straight months. And so that, that minor league lifestyle is, um, it gets old after a while. It gets old. I will say at the end of my career, um, I was like when I finally stopped playing and I was able to come home again, it felt good to finally be home, like for the first time in a long time, you know? And when the winter, when you get home for the winter and spend three months at home, when it was time to leave, to go back to baseball, it was always like a little bit of a feeling of like, man, like nine more months. I got to go away from home again. So that was probably when it comes to lifestyle in the minor leagues, something that, uh, that was the toughest. And I was probably in the minority. Like I'm a real, uh, introvert. I think that's the word. And so most players, not most players, a lot of players are extroverts. They want to go out, they want to hang out and all that stuff. And, and I was never like super into that. And so you're a little bit of like, um, not different from everybody else, but I would say there's definitely more people that are doing that than, than, than I was. And so a long story short, I like to be by myself. I don't want to talk to anybody. I'm just kidding. Uh, so let's see what else lifestyle. Now we've talked about lifestyle stuff is about, about like traveling on shitty buses and like eating bad food and like staying in bad hotels and, and all that stuff. And is that fun? Like, no, that's, that's not that fun. Like that lifestyle stinks. You guys already know about all that stuff. And I don't think anybody enjoys that, right? Like I don't think anyone, I don't think any player is like, man, I can't wait to go eat McDonald's for the 57th day in a row. Like, man, I can't wait to go eat those peanut butter and jellies after the game, you know, for the 400th time in a row. And you know, I can't wait to go stay in that hotel in that city that I've never heard of with a population of 16 where the water doesn't even come out hot. You got to take a cold shower and then you got to go to some stadium that's disgusting. And even though I have to wear my shower sandals in the shower, I still don't want to wear them in there because I still feel like I'm going to catch some type of disease in there. Like nobody likes that. Okay. No one likes that. And so, um, this, this video wasn't for that. This video is for things that like, I think most people would bind. I just personally didn't like that type of lifestyle. Okay. Um, so that was the biggest thing. Hopefully that makes sense. I started off doing this video thinking about like the negative things of minor league baseball, but you guys already know all that stuff. I've made so many of those videos. So try to switch it up a little bit and go more into like a personal, my personal thing that maybe people really enjoyed, but I didn't enjoy as much of. So the life of being home now, one of the reasons why I did, I, I love Anthony baseball so much as I can be home. When I first got out of playing, you know, I tried the college coaching thing for a little bit, but I was back on the road again. You know, like my first year coaching baseball at Holy cross. Like I was, I was, I was going to work at, at 6 30 AM driving the Worcester for an hour and 15 minutes. And I was getting home at 8 PM with an hour and a half drive home. And like my, I left before my kids woke up. And when I got back, my kids were sleeping. And I was traveling all over the place for, for, for recruiting. And in some ways, I was like, man, like I'm freaking, like I'm back doing, I'm back doing exactly what I didn't like doing before. As far as just always being away and not being home. And that's why after a year of doing that, I was like, I ain't doing it anymore. You know, like I just want to be home. I want to be home, my wife, my kids. And um, I just enjoy being here. So, um, that's why I like baseball so much. I can still do baseball, which I love, but I can be home. That's all I got. Let me know if you have any questions in the comments section below subscribe to the channel, hit the notification, all that good stuff. We'll talk to you later. If you've enjoyed this video and want to learn more about building the elite swing, check out our new course. We have over two hours of content, almost 30 hitting drills. We break down the exact mechanics that you're going to want to implement into your swing. I've put the link in the description. If you want to go check it out.