First of all, as one of my old managers always said, "if you don't like it, play better!" He was referencing accommodations and the day to day grind of one of the lower levels in baseball and that was the absolute truth. The higher you get, the nicer the accommodations.
When you first start out, in short-season A or Rookie Ball, road trips are basically put together to be as inexpensive as possible. The leagues and teams don't make a ton of money and they do as much as they can to cut down on player/travel costs. Thus, players have roommates on the road and the starting city for the road trip is usually planned out so that you can drive to the first city the day of the first game -- saving an extra night in a hotel. The per diem for the minor leagues stays pretty much the same if I recall, so basically every day you're on the road, you receive $20 dollars.
In Rookie and A ball, when you're leaving for a road trip, you typically pack your own bag, and when you arrive at the visiting clubhouse, you grab it from the bus and unpack it. Believe it or not, this changes as you get higher up (although it varies from clubhouse manager to clubhouse manager). When you arrive at the ballpark as a visiting player, you are taken to the locker room and usually introduced to the visiting clubhouse manager. He'll usually tell you what "services" he performs and what the daily dues are. Depending on the type of food spread, toiletries he has in the showers, and snacks he has for the game (seeds, gum, etc.), dues can range anywhere from $5 - $15 dollars. The biggest service a low level clubhouse manager can provide is cleaning cleats. The guys who do a good job cleaning cleats often get the best tips.
As you get promoted and get to High A and AA, you start noticing some subtle changes. The Hotels you stay at get nicer. You go from Holiday Inns to Hampton Inns to Doubletrees. The hotels are also usually closer to the field, so that you can either walk to it or grab a cab there. This is really helpful if you want to do something during the day, as catching the shuttle buses from the hotel usually allows players just enough time to eat lunch and little else.
Also, in the higher levels, the road trips typically get a bit longer. The leagues are more spread out. For instance, in the Eastern League, the southern most teams are Richmond and Akron, while the northern most teams are New Hampshire and Portland. The league will typically schedule it so that you travel from Akron or Richmond up north, and play both New Hampshire and then Portland. These bus trips are long and usually you have to spend an off day (one of two or three for the month traveling). On the way up to these places its typically a pretty boring bus ride. The biggest drama is typically who gets their own seat. Most teams do it by furthest level reached. That way, if a guy has been in the MLB or AAA, they get their own seat. You wouldn't believe how complicated this system can get though, with players trumpeting a AAA spot start as a reason they should have their own seat. The easiest part is to get on the bus early, put your stuff down and let the younger players figure out who they can or cannot "double up" with. When I first got promoted to High-A, this was my biggest nightmare. I got on the bus and saw nothing but "don't sit with me or I'll kill you faces". Lucky for me, one of the Venezuelan pitchers on the team that was impressed that I at least tried to speak Spanish with him the day before and let me sit next to him. Ironically that night, I got him out a bases loaded jam and picked up my first High-A save. He's gone on to do some big things in Miami and Detroit. As an aside, I typically found that a lot of the nicer guys I met playing, ended up being the best players. Call it karma, or maybe they were just more secure in their talent and place, but either way, a lot of guys who I came up with that made it are genuinely good guys.
As another aside, players are very cognizant of what to look forward to on a road trip. In AA, one of the most popular road swings was the trip to Connecticut. Not because either park was all that great (although New Britain has one of the best minor league front office staffs in the game), but because both CT Stadiums (although one has moved now) were close to casinos. Guys would typically grab a cab after the game and go out and hit the tables for a few hours (or more...) after the game. Likewise, each league I played in had a personal favorite place for road trips. Everyone loves Myrtle Beach in the Carolina League for obvious reason, Greenville in the South Atlantic League is a good time because the ballpark and downtown, and I personally loved Durham in the International League because of the atmosphere and surprisingly incredible food culture.
On the way back from these farther away road trips, if you've had a decent road trip, managers let the rules go just a bit and as you drive through the night, coolers of beer and drinks will be on board as well. Once in Portland, Maine, because I had a random connection, the manager drove the bus to the local Lobster shack where he let me jump out and grab 30 lobster rolls for the team. While I was doing that, one of the other players loaded up the coolers in the bus with just about every type of domestic beer you could think of. I don't think this would have happened had we not gone 6-0 on that road trip.
The biggest thing about the bus, and this is something every knows about potential managers, is whether or not you are allowed to watch movies. Now with iPads and smart phones, this has changed a bit, but you always wanted the manager that wasn't afraid to let his team throw on the TV and watch a comedy or two as part of an eight hour road trip. One of my AA teams got very into TV shows and we watched the entire series of Entourage in one month during road trips.
The biggest change is really AAA. Once you get there, the quality of live improves pretty significantly. Bigger cities, MLB veterans, and everyone is really just a phone call away from being in the Show. As a result, road trips are typically done by plane. Although this sounds better, AAA flying isn't exactly the most fun thing in the world. Often, after a night game, you have to be at the airport by 5 AM to grab the first commercial flight to whatever city you're going to. If you do bus trip it in AAA, many teams often provide two buses, which means everyone gets their own seat. For closer road trips, most of the guys in AAA with families, will drive themselves and grab a hotel for them and their family. A common practice at that level is for two married guys to be "road roommates" and split one hotel room when both their families come along. That way one stays in the team provided hotel room and the other gets their own, for the price of one room. The really big deal guys (guys who have made an MLB all-star team or played 10 years and are just getting ready to go back to the big leagues) will often get their own room regardless. The hotels are usually downtown in whatever city you are in and typically nicer than AA (Sheraton, Hyatts, etc.)
At the AAA levels, you might pack your own bag for road trips, but you don't usually do anything else. A clubhouse assistant will put it on the bus and make sure it gets to the opposing clubhouse where its put in front of your locker by a visiting clubhouse assistant. Its much the same in the Majors from what I understand, as on one of the exhibition road trips I took, I once came back on "get away" day to find my bag completely packed with everything I could have wanted in there and the only thing in my locker, the itinerary for the road trip, and a couple of baseball cards that I was asked to sign. The hotels in AAA are usually pretty decent, the MLB Hotels are usually the top of the top -- although a few cities have been known to cut deals with a tier below.
All in all, my experience was that road trips are actually the hardest and sometimes the most fun part of the job. Traveling with a group of guys with a common goal is an experience that not a lot of people get to have. Some of my best friends and best stories came out of road trips. Whether it be drinking in a Durham bar with three guys I used to watch playing in the World Series when I was in HS, or hanging out with a random college girl's soccer team you meet in a college town in A ball, the experiences were varied and typically a lot of fun. That said, you can't leave a road trip or take a day off. If your best friend is getting married during the season, you're typically out of luck. And no matter how nice the spread is and what level you are at, sleeping in a hotel, eating the same types of meals day in and day out, can be a grind.
Road trips are easier at the MLB level but from what I've seen and heard, but they can still be quite the grind as well. Traveling from the East Coast to the West Coast and trying to perform at your very peak is a challenge. As a result, despite getting paid to do what you love, professional sports isn't all glamour -especially at the lower levels- there is a lot of work and planning that has to go into being successful at it. And the guys who understand that and are willing to work at, the true professionals, are the ones that end up succeeding. Unless they're just a freak of nature armed with a 98 MPH fastball or lighting speed. Those guys exist too...
Sorry to be so verbose, but figured someone might like reading how the minor league road trips work.
Randy Newsom
Written Jun 18, 2013
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