Free Knuckler by Tim Wakefield Page A

hopeful, but that's a big dream," Judy Wakefield said—and there was little doubt that Tim would sign relatively quickly. Hall, for one, remembered advising Wakefield throughout the process, but Florida Tech was hardly a baseball factory and the experience was new for all of them.
    "I was at his house with his mom and his dad when he signed with the Pirates," Hall recalled. "I remember during the process [of negotiations], Tim turned to me and said, 'What do you think I should do?' I said, 'Tim, I don't know, but I'll tell you one thing: don't take the first offer.'"
    With some minor haggling, Wakefield negotiated a deal with the Pirates that guaranteed him a signing bonus of just $15,000 and ensured that the Pittsburgh organization would pay for the balance of his schooling, if and when Wakefield returned to college. At the time, the Wakefields believed that was a good deal for an eighth-round selection, because it ensured their son some security in the event that his major league career did not work out. Wakefield himself, of course, was certain that signing with the Pirates would eventually produce a major league career, a typical expectation for a young man approaching his 22nd birthday. He had excelled everywhere he played. On the baseball diamond, he was as confident in his abilities as anyone. Wakefield never stopped to consider that he was one of thousands of minor league players who aspired to make it to the major leagues and
that the odds were overwhelmingly stacked against him. He never considered failure or even hardship.

    During the summer of 1988, along with his parents, Tim Wakefield made the trip from Melbourne to Bradenton, across the flatness of the Florida peninsula, entirely unsure of what to expect. Baseball was an adventure now. He would be competing against dozens of other prospects and draft picks just like him. The Pirates had selected 66 players in the 1988 draft, and those who had signed quickly were asked to report to extended spring training at Pittsburgh's training facility along the Gulf Coast. As the newest members of the Pirates organization arrived, all of them with the hope of making it to the major leagues, Wakefield felt like a college freshman at BCC again, showing up for school amid a mountain of cardboard boxes, packing tape, and wild uncertainty.
    How we got here doesn't matter. We're all the same now. Nobody is going to give me anything.
    "Everybody was even. Everybody was good," Wakefield said. "It was a lot like the switch I made from high school to college. It was a huge adjustment."
    In the grand scheme of any baseball career, extended spring training, in or around the time of the draft, qualifies as the major league equivalent of freshman orientation, or perhaps matriculation. The idea is to get everyone acclimated to a new environment, new life, new existence. The minor league structure subsequently allows teams to assign players to new locations immediately, and players are assigned according to their level of skill. Some begin at higher levels and some at lower levels, but all generally are faced with the same responsibilities. The idea is to show up every day, work hard, get better, and advance to the next level.
    Truth be told, Tim Wakefield did not need long to learn that his hitting skills were short, that the power he demonstrated in college would not translate to the next level, that the journey would be difficult. As a starting point, the Pirates assigned Wakefield to their affiliate in the New York–Penn League at Watertown, New York, a transitional
league designed to help assimilate amateurs to a professional life. The New York–Penn League is the lowest level of minor league play—Class A—and it plays a
short
season of roughly 75 games. Because the season typically begins in June and runs through the summer, teams can immediately place those players from the annual June draft who signed quickly and showed the capability to play right away.
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