“What does professional baseball mean to me?” — By Jonathan Schuerholz
»» "To have the ability to wear a professional baseball jersey means more to me than the title, more than a paycheck, more than an opportunity. It is a way of life. Baseball has been so good to so many people before me that I believe it is my responsibility to play/manage/compete every day in all that I do."
»» "The bonds that are forged on the baseball field are stronger than any other sport. There is not another sport that I can think of that puts 25 guys together for 180-plus days in hotels in small cities across the country for a season. It is the reason that the good ones play for more than just themselves."
»» "Baseball is the greatest game in the world, and I chose to put my uniform on for all those who came before me wanting to make a life for themselves in this great game. But I also put this uniform on for those who are yet to come. … I love this game, and I hope everyone, every day, can see that by how I go about my business and are able to share that same passion."
From here to Hagerstown, Md. is 11 1/2 hours, as the charter bus rolls. That’s how the Rome Braves kicked off their season back in April. Lost three of four, too. All aboard, for another romantic, Kevin Costnerian, Single-A minor league adventure.
The bus rides seemed a lot shorter to manager Jonathan Schuerholz when he was a player. There were cards to deal, naps to take and the biggest decision was: Doritos or Cheetos?
“I thought it’d be like old times on the bus with the guys,” said Schuerholz, in his first season managing at Rome. “But you’ve gotten a little older (he’s 34). The bus rides are little harder. You got four other guys (the coaching staff) instead of 24 other guys to hang out with. And after we get there, we don’t go out. We get back to the hotel and it’s hey, see you at breakfast.”
You know the name. John Schuerholz, the architect of the Braves’ best years in the 1990s and early 2000s, the team president now, is his father.
Here’s where the genes split just a bit. Jonathan is a sharp fellow. After he had his fill of playing in the minors — deciding after six seasons in 2007 that a career .224-hitting infielder was not exactly on the major league fast track – he went back to Auburn and finished his business degree. The groundwork was set, it seemed. He could put aside the uniform, buy a few nice pairs of suspenders and begin climbing his way to an air-conditioned front office and a comfortable box high above home plate.
“People presumed that,” his father said.
“His answer to that presumption was, ‘I don’t want to be the next John Schuerholz. I want to be the next Bobby Cox.’”
So the kid who wasn’t a kid anymore, a married man who couldn’t yet imagine taking in a game anywhere but field level, started all over again.
He began as a roving minor league instructor for the Braves — the only team he has known since his family moved from Kansas City to Atlanta when he was 10, the team that made him an eighth-round pick in 2002. In 2011 he managed the Gulf Coast League Braves, and he was the Danville Braves manager in 2012-13. Those both play abbreviated seasons. When he stepped up to manage at Rome, it was Schuerholz’s first managerial experience with something approaching a full-tilt grind (140 games).
Since climbing on that bus to Hagerstown, the Rome Braves have hit a succession of detours and potholes. They finished the first half of the season 24-46 and were 5-16 in the second half entering Thursday night. They are 13th in the 14-team South Atlantic League in team batting average and last in team ERA.
Unlike the majors, a manager’s performance at this level is not measured so strictly on winning percentage. “If that was so, goodness gracious, I’m done,” Schuerholz said, summoning a smile.
At Single-A, it’s about developing talent, it’s about implanting the ethic of professionalism, it’s about spackling all the holes in a young player’s working knowledge of baseball.
So every day Schuerholz finds himself on the field, getting sweaty and dirty, tending one of the game’s remote gardens. Pitching batting practice. Taking throws at first. Leading base-running drills. Working with pitchers on their pick-off move. All the little puzzle pieces that ultimately are supposed to comprise a complete player.
“He’s very detail oriented, very persistent,” said Mike Dunn, general manager of the Rome Braves. Schuerholz is his fifth manager since the team lighted there in 2003, and the youngest.
“In the game of baseball, consistency and persistence go hand in hand. He’s a great teacher. He loves the game, he loves being around the kids,” Dunn said.
The name on the back of his jersey certainly is a blessing; it has from his childhood exposed Jonathan to the best and brightest of baseball. As a player, it occasionally could be inconvenient. Especially during some of those Thirsty Thursday games in the minors — beer half price — when tongues were lubricated.
Like the time in Charleston, after a strikeout, when a voice called from the stands: “Don’t worry about it Schuerholz. My dad helped me get my job, too.”
As a manager, he is not quite so exposed. Not that a few catcalls here or there would matter at this stage.
“I’m confident I got to where I was then — and confident that I’m here now — not because of the last name,” he said.
Schuerholz and Rome seem a good fit. As the batting average attests, he didn’t have a wealth of big hits in the minors. One of his biggest was a game-winning single for Rome in the eighth inning of the decisive game of the 2003 South Atlantic championship series.
So, there is a comfort level here. Still, it has been a season of trial and introspection for Schuerholz. The losing stings. And now that he and his wife have a young son, it can be especially difficult to commit to a life that is by nature transient and sends him away for long stretches.
Last month, mulling over all these factors while on the road in Savannah, Schuerholz pulled out his laptop. The feelings were in him, and he had to set them free. When he was done typing, he had produced three pages that he titled, “What does professional baseball mean to me?”
Turns out, quite a bit (see some of the passages displayed with this story).
“He has a remarkable feeling and belief and spirit about being a baseball person in professional baseball, wearing a uniform, trying to develop the talents of people he’s responsible for,” his father said.
From his father down, Schuerholz is the product of a lifetime of baseball people he has known. Some of the best advice he ever received, he said, came from Dave Brundage, who managed the Braves’ Triple-A team in Richmond when Schuerholz appeared in 211 games there over three seasons. That was his peak as a player.
“He told me to not ever forget how hard it was to play this game,” Schuerholz said.
Nor is he likely to forget, wherever he goes from here, how hard it can be to make a place in this game when the playing is done.
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