Young gets first taste of pro ball with Pirate farm club Hickory

Hickory, a town of roughly 37,000 people in the Piedmont region of North Carolina is probably best known for its furniture, hosiery and textiles. Chartered back in 1870, it has been voted by Reader's Digest as one of the "10 Best Places to Raise a Family." It has a science center, gem mines, a motor speedway and a couple of colleges. In 1993, things got a little more lively when it welcomed the Pittsburgh Pirates South Atlantic Class A team, the Hickory Crawdads. This past summer, it added another distinction — the place of senior Chris Young's summer employment.

While many Princeton kids spent their summers as interns in law offices or management consulting firms faxing, filing and answering phones, Young spent his time playing summer ball out in Hickory as a starting pitcher for the squad.

He joined a diverse Crawdad lineup. Some, like Young, were college students. Others were newly drafted players out of high school, fresh eighteen-year-olds with something to prove. About one third of the players came from a Latin American country, most of them speaking very little English.

Young didn't mind the language barrier.

"On the field it wasn't a problem," Young said. "There is unity that ties each player together regardless of ethnic or cultural differences. They are from all walks of life yet everyone shares one common dream of becoming a major league baseball player."

Just as the team was diverse, Young's team was ever changing. Minor league baseball is a series of transactions. Players streamed in and out of various teams within the South Atlantic League throughout the summer moving up and down baseball's ladder. Some were cut from the league all together.

"It makes team unity somewhat hard to maintain, as the same players who start on a team are most likely not the players that finish with that team," Young said. "But everyone knows each other to an extent from spring training, so it facilitates the process of adding and subtracting players."

Yet if the players were constantly shifting, Young could count on a constant, supportive home venue. He played half of the 140 game schedule in the L.P. Frans stadium, where crowds of nearly 2,700 people gathered to cheer on the Crawdads from the start of April to early September.

"The local crowds were great," Young said. "Ticket prices are inexpensive, food is cheap and fans aren't afraid to get rowdy."

Baseball is not the only entertainment for the Crawdad crowd. There are countless theme nights at the stadium in addition to the famous "dancing usher" — an elderly man who dances between innings.

"The fans got quite a thrill out of him every time," Young said. "No matter how many times they had seen his gig."

Getting adjusted to a slightly more rambunctious crowd wasn't the only change Young faced.

Get the best of the ‘Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

"The biggest difference between minor leagues and college baseball was the intensity level," Young said. "In college it seemed as though every game was do or die. In the minors the focus is about the players."

Young faced a tough transition early in the season.

"The level of play was higher than anything I had ever seen so it took me a month or so to adjust," Young said. "But then I felt pretty comfortable pitching. I found it to be a constant learning experience and I can look back at each game I pitched and find at least one thing that I found valuable to learning."

Young ended the season on a positive note with a win, going six-and-two-thirds innings en route to a 5-3 victory over the Hagerstown Suns.

He credits his pitching coach, Bob Milacki, for his mental and physical improvement over the course of the summer. Milacki played Major League baseball for five seasons.

"He was an unending source of knowledge," Young said. "Perhaps my favorite thing to do when I wasn't pitching was to sit next to him in the dugout and discuss different aspects of pitching."

Young didn't have much down time. With 140 games to get through, the team usually played every day. He, along with the other Hickory pitchers would arrive at the ballpark about four hours before game time to train. Practices consisted of running, lifting weights and abdominal workouts in addition to intensive throwing.

Pitchers also exercised their shoulders to avoid injury.

"The players are investments to the organization," Young said. "They do monitor the physical training very carefully in order to avoid injury and to ensure that we are maintaining a high level of conditioning for competition.

When Young was not practicing, pitching in games or receiving words of encouragement from the coaching staff, he and his Crawdad teammates were on the road.

Here, like so many times on the Princeton basketball court or pitching mound, Young's six foot, 10 inch frame worked to his advantage. While most of his teammates were forced to share a seat on the bus, Young enjoyed his own space.

"Because I am so big, I did not have to share a seat," Young said. The seating arrangement came in handy when the team traveled as far as traveling to places as far as Macon, Georgia or Lakewood, New Jersey.Most trips, however, weren't quite as far as the Peach or Garden States, lasting around five or six hours on average.

Young would travel after night games then fall asleep in the motel rooms in the early morning hours. He would usually awake mid afternoon for a 7 p.m. game.

Yet if nights were long and sleep was hard to come by, entertainment was never lacking.

Young and his fellow teammates passed the time in their motel rooms, playing cards and telling stories. If there was a familiar face on the opposing team, sometimes they were shown around town.

He recalls one time, in particular, coming home from Charleston, West Virginia on the bus after playing the Alley Cats:

"Several of the guys dared another player to drink his own spit from a cup of spit tobacco that he had been chewing," Young said. "They offered him $300 if he could do it and hold it down, thinking he was not dumb enough to do it. Well, to the disgust of many of us, he took them up on it and did it. I've never seen anything so sick, but it definitely sticks in my mind as a memorable experience."

When you're playing minor league ball with players who like you, share the dream of one day playing in the show, every day is memorable. Everyday is a good day in Hickory.

"My favorite part of the summer was probably getting to know all the guys," Young said. "I made a lot of good friends that I know I will keep in close touch with over the off-season."