“Playing Major League Baseball was always my dream, but even I questioned whether it was worth playing Minor League Baseball to get there.” Mike Piazza, the Hall of Famer, said these very words in only his first season of Minor League ball, and these same words have been said by thousands of other players. Many talented players, some drafted high and some drafted low, retire from baseball and simply give up on their dream because they can’t handle the Minors and its many obstacles. The very thought of the struggles of Minor League Baseball are very daunting to even the most headstrong players. Yet many young eighteen year old kids put off getting a college education to pursue a career in the MLB, even without of guarantee of making it there. Even college draftees put their lives on hold to capture their dream. These players don’t listen to the many warnings they get about the thirty-five hundred dollar salaries or about the draining twenty hour bus rides and the seventh month long seasons with only eight off days. However young baseball players should consider low wages, slow progression of their career, and possible failure when striving to become a Major League Baseball player.
Many players never even make it to the MLB or even just the 40 man roster. Only 9% of of drafted players make the forty man roster and only 5 percent play a single pitch(Baseball America). But the low chance of ever playing in the Bigs is only one of the many intakes and reasons players retire young. Minor league pay is one of the biggest reasons players quit. “I was paid a mere 800 dollars a month when I played. After housing, taxes, clubhouse dues, and instance were taken out it was a mere 300 dollars a month.”(Mark Dayhurst). That’s only 2100 dollars a season. Nobody, especially a professional athlete, can live just off of that money. Players have to do anything to get through the season. “You steal. You lie. You cheat. You almost have to. How else can you survive? How else can you justify all that you’ve leveraged to get to where you are?” (Mark Dayhurst). Players do anything to survive the minors for the small hope of making it big. They dream all their life to make it to the MLB. Players have to put their lives on hold during the minors. Some realize they wasted 10 years of their life and have nothing to show for it. They have no money and no career to fall back on. When players realize this there is nothing they won’t due to make it to the Bigs. “When the window of big league glory starts to slip shut and you realize you’ll never get back the years you gambled on this “dream,” you’ll do anything.Stare into the face of the woman who’s waited while you chase your once-in-a-lifetime dream, look upon the children who only know you from the three months you’re actually home to be their father, consider the reckoning that will come psychologically after you hang up your spikes and, with them, everything you’ve ever known yourself to be. Then tell me cheating doesn’t make sense when the worst thing that can happen to you is a suspension.”(Mark Dayhurst). Players put everything they have on hold to pursue this dream and will ruin their bodies knowingly with steroids just to make it. They don’t care about suspensions over PED’s or that players die from them as long as it aids them for a couple years. Players simply don’t care what they have to do.
Players endure the minors because it’s the only option they have once they commit to making it to the MLB. They can’t go back to college for free and they don’t have an education to get a job. Only 3.2% of Major League Players have a college degree( TomVerducci). Once you wash out you have nothing unless you’re a star or a long time veteran. And very little draftee have college degree clauses, which is where the team pays for college. The average career in the Majors is 5.56 years(ESPN). That’s not even long enough to get to free agency where players make the most money. Players simply don’t have much of a chance to have make a lot of money and have a good career in baseball. But still millions of kid dream of it and try it. Players from Latin America leave their families when they’re 16 to try and make a career. Not too long ago Cuban players had to escape and some were killed trying too. Yasiel Puigs family were killed after he escaped to play Major League Ball. Players need to understand the risk of trying to make a career in baseball and then pursue it.
In conclusion baseball is hard to make a sustainable career out of and many ruin their lives for a chance to play and make it big.