When
planning my trip through the Cardinals farm system, I consulted an atlas to find Augusta,
New Jersey, home of the Class A New Jersey Cardinals. To my surprise, there was no such
city shown on the map or even listed in the index. After searching through a different
atlas, I eventually found Augusta, which turned out to be a small town located in the
mountains of northern New Jersey. It wouldn't seem that such a rural, out-of-the- way area
could possibly support a professional baseball team, even a short-season Class A
club.
But it has. As the saying goes, never judge a book by its cover. Or in
this case, never judge a town's population by its rural surroundings. Sussex County
actually boasts a population of close to 131,000 residents.
Skylands Park is located literally at the fork-in-the-road where
Highway 206 intersects with Route 15 southeast of Augusta. It blends in well with its
rural surroundings, resembling a barn with its burgundy metal exterior and surrounding
barn-like buildings. In fact, the ballpark was built on a cornfield.
"These guys are spoiled, I’ve told them that when they got
here," remarked New Jersey manager Jeff Shireman about the five-year-old ballpark.
"Back when I played and first signed, I made $700 a month and played in Johnson City.
Now they have a nice clubhouse there and all that, but all the fields were real bad. Some
of the ballparks that we go to in this league are real, real bad. But this facility is
outstanding, one of the better facilities in the organization. I tell my players if you
can’t get excited and pumped up to come out here and play, you might as well go home.
You’re going to see worse places in Double-A and Triple-A than you will playing
here."
The New Jersey club is a direct descendant of the Cardinals’ New
York-Penn League franchise in Hamilton, Ontario, which left Canada after five years.
Following one brief season in Glen Falls, New York, the team landed in the middle of
Sussex County, New Jersey for the 1994 season. They had a very successful debut, winning
the league championship and setting a new attendance record. During the 2000 season, their
one-millionth fan passed through the turnstiles.
New Jersey’s roster is made up mostly of college players who were
drafted just a few weeks before the season began as well as those who have a season or two
of experience from Johnson City.
"It's a time where the coaches let you go on your own and do the
things that you have been doing previously before coming to the Cardinals," recalled
former New Jersey pitcher Patrick Coogan. "(It's) more of an evaluation time (to) see
how you can do with those things and offering advice on things that can be changed that
are going to help you in the long run."
"The adjustment to pro ball wasn’t as big a deal as it was
the physical part of the game -- learning a new motion, correcting mechanics that would
help me out in the long run," he added. "Leaving college and coming to the
professional game wasn’t all that different in that you’re on the road just as
much as you are in college and stuff like that. Being away from home is the same. I think
it’s more of an adjustment for the high school guys than it would be for a college
guy."
"I've had three full seasons now and my first short-season in
Jersey seemed longer than any of them," remarked former outfielder Andy Bevins.
"Because I think you come out of college and then you get in this atmosphere where
you're playing every day and it's brand new and it's just a different lifestyle to get
adjusted to that fast. It was definitely a big learning experience but I had a good
time."
"Baseball is still the same but the atmosphere is a lot
different," former pitcher Adam Benes noted. "The biggest difference between
professional and amateur baseball is it's more of a business. Players are expected to make
adjustments on their own. Everything's just more professional. There's not a lot of
enthusiasm as far as challenging you to 'Come on, come on. Let's get going.' You're
expected to take that upon yourself inside and do it. The guys that can do that continue
to play and the guys who can't obviously have to do something else."
The Manager
Manager Jeff Shireman was drafted by the St. Louis Cardinals out of
Georgia Southern University in 1988 and was a middle infielder for seven seasons in the
organization, making it all the way up to Triple-A Louisville. His hustling style and
fiery temperament led Joe Pettini, his manager at Louisville, to nickname him
"Scrap." His players call him "Scrappy."
After two years as a coach at Double-A Arkansas, Shireman began his
managerial career at New Jersey in 1997 before moving up to Class-A Peoria the following
season. He was sent back down to New Jersey for the 1999 season. "I don’t look
at it as a demotion," he said at the time. "For a minor league manager, it
doesn’t matter if you’re in Class-A, Double-A or Triple-A. We all have the same
job to do and the same responsibility -- to develop players for the major league team, and
it doesn’t matter where you do it."
Three weeks into the season, the young Cardinals hitters are struggling
with a collective .228 team batting average. It's one of the first lessons a young minor
league player has to learn. "It’s mainly being able to accept failure,"
explained Shireman. "I see it so far right now where a lot of our players’
averages are way down, well below .200, and they press, they press. They were superstars
at their high school or at their college. Now they come in and they’re facing guys
that are the best in the country or at least at their level or maybe even better and they
can’t cope with failure. It’s hard; they want so bad to impress you and to show
you that they can do well. But this game is too much about failing that it will drive you
nuts and you see that."
"We’ve got some young, good-looking players that may be
overmatched right now at this level," he added. "But down the road, three years
from now, I think this short season here will help them tremendously even though
they’re failing real bad right now. The experience factor of it and hopefully getting
through adversity will help them out a couple of years down the road."
"He pretty much set the tone on how you act like a professional in
terms of just the way you carry yourself and what your responsibilities are day in and day
out," said former New Jersey outfielder David Kim, who played for Shireman there and
at Class A Peoria. "I was with him a year-and-a-half and I kind of learned through
him how to act and behave. Like you can't be irrational; you can't be throwing stuff
around. Just try to be professional. He had good guidelines for me to set and I try to
follow them."
Manager Jeff Shireman (Courtesy New Jersey Cardinals)
Both Shireman and pitching coach Gary Buckels are 34 years old, so
they're not far removed from their own playing careers. Buckels pitched in the California
(now Anaheim) Angels organization for six years before signing a minor league contract
with the Cardinals. He finally made it to the major leagues in ’95, which
unfortunately for him was also the year of the players strike. "I got called up right
at my birthday on July 22," he remembered, "and the strike happened on August 11
or something. It was kind of a letdown but I was happy that I even got a shot to be
there."
"The one thing down here is that you get to do a lot of teaching,
get to do a lot of talking," he explained. "A lot of the guys down here
don’t know themselves and this is one way that you can help them understand what
baseball is about. For me, it’s mechanics and teaching them certain things about
pitching that (they) would not otherwise think about too much. At higher levels, they
pretty much know what they’re doing."
With all the media attention focused on Cardinals lefthander Rick
Ankiel that summer, I asked Buckels, who was his first professional pitching coach, what
his impressions were of the 20-year-old phenom in his rookie season.
"There really wasn’t much to work with," he confessed.
"He was so above his age that you could tell him ‘You’re drifting out’
(or) ‘You’re rushing’ (or) ‘The reason your ball is high...’ or
whatever. But it would take him probably the next pitch to make the adjustment, so there
really wasn’t that much that he really didn’t know about. He had a good mental
approach, a good presence about himself as a pitcher, especially at that young age."
Host Families
During the season, the players stay with local host families. Because
most don't bring their own transportation, they often rely on them to get to and from the
ballpark. The majority of current and former New Jersey players I spoke with have fond
memories of their time spent with them. "We had a great time with our host
families," Peoria infielder Travis Bailey recalled about his time in New Jersey.
"I have friends there that I’ll always have. I stayed with the Gardners in
Branchville, but it was only about five minutes away from the field."
As picturesque as it is, the ballpark’s out-of-the-way location
does limit the players’ entertainment and recreational options between games.
"There wasn’t a whole lot to do to pass the time," admitted former
outfielder Andy Bevins. "It was like a big deal to go to the mall because it
was only 45 minutes away! It was pretty tough."
"At first I was a little scared because I was like, 'There's
nothing around here to do,'" recalled pitcher Chad Hutchinson, who like many players
had the opportunity to visit New York City for the first time during his brief stay at New
Jersey. "But it turned out to be so much fun having the (host) families. It was like
a family atmosphere and it was one of my better experiences I think in pro ball, just
being there and enjoying myself."
Pitcher Mark Butler enjoys the amenities that his host family have to
help him pass the time. "That’s the cool thing about my host family is
they’ve got a pool and a hot tub and a pool table, so I kind of find a little busy
time there doing that," he said. "Other than that, there’s not really much
to do around here. It’s a half hour to the mall."
"The families there were just unbelievably nice and
supportive," Travis remembered. "It didn’t matter if we got out of the game
at eleven or twelve; they had people over and had a nice little meal."
Shawn Schumacher
There are four catchers on the New Jersey roster and each one is
competing for playing time. One is Shawn Schumacher, who was the Cardinals eighth round
pick in the 1999 draft. At the time, he was with the Texas A & M baseball team in the
College World Series.
"The day of the draft, we'd just finished our super-regionals and
we were getting ready to practice for the World Series," he recalled. "As we
were practicing, we'd get the phone calls because we had Chance Caple (and) St. Louis
drafted him in the first round. He's from A & M. And so he got the call and then we
had a first round sandwich pick, Casey Fossell by the Boston Red Sox, and then we had a
seventh rounder and me in the eighth. As we were practicing, one of the grad assistants
would come out and let us know what round we went in."
Texas A & M entered the College World Series with one of its best
records in school history. As early as May, they were ranked number one in the nation.
Shawn's most memorable hit was a solo home run that gave his team a momentary lead in Game
3 against the Florida State Seminoles. But the Aggies eventually bowed out of the Series
with a loss to Cal State Fullerton. "We worked really hard for it and had to fight
throught it," he said. "We came through the back door all the way through the
regionals and super-regionals. It was something you're going to remember for a long
time."
Catcher Shawn Schumacher
Shawn had friends who had played in the minor leagues, so the
challenges awaiting him as a professional player weren't foreign to him. "I had a
pretty good idea of what it would be like," he said. "But the bus rides are a
little longer and just every (playing) every day, every day, everyday; that's probably the
biggest thing. When we were in college, we did something every day but it wasn't always
games every day; here it's games every day."
Having just come from playing college ball, the Cardinals rested him
for a week before he made his professional debut. "I'm anxious to see how things are
going to work out here because this (has) only been my second week of playing ball,"
he said. "We've got four catchers, four guys who can catch and hit. So I'm sure
they're going to try and get us all in there somehow."
Gabe Johnson
Another catcher is Gabe Johnson, who was selected in the third round of
the June 1998 draft. From his backyard to the Atlantic High School diamond, he had always
played shortstop. When draft time came, he felt confident that he would be selected on the
first day. Yet he had no idea it would be for a position he had never played before in his
life.
Before they drafted him, the Cardinals asked if he would consider signing as a catcher.
At the time, the organization had an abundance of talented middle infield prospects but
were lacking in ones behind the plate. "And
I said yeah," he laughed. "I didn't
know what I was getting into exactly."
When asked why they chose him for such an experiment, the 19-year-old shrugged his
shoulders. "I don't know. The scout just saw some tools (I had) I guess
that might work for catching."
At Johnson City, Gabe faced the same challenges all rookies do: living on his own for
the first time in his life, making the transition from aluminum to wooden bats, and facing
stiffer competition both on the mound and in the field. But unlike his teammates, he was
also learning a new position--one of the most challenging in the game--and didn't have the luxary of off-the-field training. While
trying to adjust to life behind the plate, he still did well in the batter's box, hitting .251 with nine home runs and 32 RBI in
57 games.
"
It's
a lot of work," he confessed. "You put in a lot of hours. I'm trying to build muscle memory towards the catching
part of it. It's just (that) you've got to do it over and over and over again until it's finally second nature." It makes him more versatile. He also looks at
catching as a positive move for his future and draws on the success of other converted
catchers for inspiration. AMichael Barrett with
the (Montreal) Expos, he was a shortstop out of college and he's now in the big leagues as a catcher-third baseman," he says. "I
mean, I'll always have that ability to go out
and play in the infield too. It's nice, you
know. It's something to fall back on."
Gabe's strong work ethic and determination has impressed many in the organization,
including Johnson City manager Steve Turco. "That's a heck of a transition going from shortstop to
catch," he said. "The way he progressed, even in the short time
that I had him here last year, he just took to it like a duck takes to water. He just did
a tremendous job with the mechanics of it. You look at him and say, 'Well, this kid has a
chance.'"
He credits longtime Cardinals minor league catching instructor Dave Ricketts with his
progress so far. "From the day I walked
into the clubhouse, I've been (working)
one-on-one with him a lot," he said. "He's
helped me mentally and physically."
A torn back muscle early in the 1999 season limited him to 35 games at New Jersey,
during which he batted .194 with five homers and 14 RBI. "I want to get innings under my belt and just get
game experience because I've gotten plenty of
drills," he said. "Now it's
just (getting) game time, so getting hurt wasn't
exactly part of the plan."
Despite his limited experience, Gabe is regarded as the best catching prospect in a
Cardinals organization that really has few contenders. "I
think that this kid is going to be a good catcher,"
Turco believes. "I think you should see him
in the big leagues as a catcher."
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