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How Rangers’ minor leaguers are coping without baseball, uncertain futures

With baseball suspended, the clock is ticking on their dreams.

It’s hard living without Major League Baseball as a fan during what is supposed to be opening week.

Try living without minor league baseball as a player right now.

There’s no work. There’s no play. And there’s essentially no pay.

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When baseball shut down 10 days ago, nobody was harder hit than minor leaguers. They earn a pittance to start with, drawing minimal salaries from baseball only from April through August. Now? What’s less than a pittance?

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Not that any of the rank-and-file from the Rangers minor leaguers I contacted last week are complaining. This isn’t a story about minor league pay: It’s pretty universally understood that it is not a living wage, but at the same time there aren’t many guys who would walk away from the opportunity. It’s more about how minor leaguers are adapting to life in the time of the coronavirus when their investment in their livelihood has been put on hold indefinitely.

When will the season begin? Will it begin at all? Will there be a draft that could further squeeze the players’ limited window of opportunity?

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A baseball player has only a finite amount of time to prove his worth to keep pursuing the dream. Far more damaging right now than the lack of a small paycheck is that while the game stops, the aging process does not.

“If guys are out two or three months, there could be a lot of guys whose careers are closer to over than they ever thought they were,” said Baseball America Executive Editor J.J. Cooper. “They are just looking at having less time in an already short window. The [age] issue and what level a player is at will still kind of be there because a sense of normalcy resides in the back of everybody’s mind regardless of circumstances.”

For the time being, the Rangers, along with the rest of Minor League Baseball ensured that from March 20 through April 8, when minor league seasons were scheduled to start, players would get their normal daily expense living stipend. For Rangers players, that amounts to about $50 a day. There is hope that the small stipend will be extended in the weeks beyond what was to have been opening day.

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In the meantime, players sit and wait. There simply isn’t much else to do.

These are their stories:

The long shot

This was going to be a big year for Cole Uvila. It had to be.

He showed the Rangers a 95-mph fastball last year and struck out 95 in 64 innings at Class A to go from 40th-round draft pick to potential reliever. But he’s 26, old for Class A.

“I felt like I had a ton of momentum after last year,” Uvila said. “The clock is ticking on me. I know my window is going to be small. There is a lot to be bummed about, but I’m trying to be as positive as possible. I’m getting to do a lot of mobility work right now.”

In the living room. In the home of his fiancée’s parents. In suburban Seattle.

When spring training shut down and most Rangers’ minor leaguers were asked to leave the brand new dorm the team had just opened for them, the only place Uvila had to go was home. Born in Port Angeles, Wash., he spent this past offseason living in Kent, Wash., five minutes from the Driveline Baseball facility where he overhauled his delivery.

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It was a convenient drive to workouts during the winter. Now, he sits in the epicenter of the first coronavirus outbreak in the U.S. So far, nobody in the house has had any symptoms.

“I wouldn’t say I’m all that stressed,” Uvila said. “I’m concerned for where I live, but Seattle has taken everything very seriously. It’s been inconvenient for a lot of people, but my day-to-day life hasn’t really changed.”

The powerful 1B

The shutdown has allowed Curtis Terry to get healthy again.

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Terry, a 6-2, 255-pound first baseman, played in a couple of major league exhibitions this spring before straining his back. With camp closed, he’s returned to his parents’ home outside Atlanta and has recovered. If a minor league season ever starts, he will be ready.

So far, he’s been able to continue workouts, though his plan to earn some money by helping youth players was canceled by the time he got back home.

“I’m fully locked in,” Terry said. “I’m glad I’ll be safe and at home. It’s not going to stop me from doing something on the baseball field if I can find somewhere to play. I can’t imagine not being able to play. To an extent, I’d play baseball for free.”

Terry has been able to organize some small workouts with other Atlanta-area based minor leaguers to take some batting practice. But with each passing day, that opportunity becomes less certain.”

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Terry can hit. After four years at the rookie levels, he blasted 25 homers between Class A Hickory and Down East last year. While playing at the same levels, he measured up favorably against top prospect Sam Huff. The difference: Huff is a catcher and a year younger than the 23-year-old Terry.

Time ticks for him, too.

The limited RHP

All his life, Tim Brennan has lived within a five-minute walk of his grandparents. There were twice-a-week family dinners.

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Now, at home outside Philadelphia and with nothing much to do, would be the perfect time for a visit. He can’t. Not after flying back from spring training and not with his grandparents in their 70s.

“It’s not worth it,” he said. “It’s not worth the risk.”

So, Brennan, a right-handed pitcher who led the organization with 11 wins split between the two Class A teams last year, spends his time at his parents’ home working out in the makeshift gym he’s cobbled together in his brother’s bedroom. There are some old dumbbells, a medicine ball and a yoga mat. He’s been able to get in some throwing at a local school by hopping the fence, but that’s about the extent of it.

“I’m trying to stay focused, but it’s a little hard,” Brennan, 23, said. “The biggest thing is to stay mentally sharp. I’m not going to get stronger, but I can work to stay sharp mentally.”

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The roommates

Scott Engler is 23. He bought Candyland this week. For himself. Well, him and roommate Nick Snyder, two of fewer than 20 players who remain at the Rangers’ dorm in Surprise, Ariz.

“We are basically self-quarantined,” said Engler, a right-handed pitcher. “All that was left was that or Risk, and I really didn’t want Risk. I guess I could pick up a book. That would be a good idea.”

The Rangers have left a group of Venezuelan teens, who had no place to go, and a handful of other players at Rangers Village. Snyder is there because he just underwent Tommy John surgery and is in the early stages of physical rehab. Engler is there because the other option would have been to sleep on an air mattress in the two-bedroom apartment his dad and uncle share in Wichita, Kan.

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Instead, he and Snyder are sharing a two-bedroom unit in the dorm. He has been able to do a little bit of throwing. It keeps him from going stir crazy.

“I’m pretty fortunate the Rangers have allowed me to stay here,” Engler, 23, said. “I’m trying to make the most of it. I’d drive myself crazy if I was complaining all the time. I get what work in that I can efficiently. I’m trying to not just sit around.”

Because if they sit, they start to wonder.

About when the next check will come. And about the clock ticking on all of their dreams.

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