Maybe they’re getting some chores done around the house. Taking a nap. Driving. Or it’s just right after a game.
The call that aspiring minor league baseball players wait on their whole life can come at any time, and who knows what they’re doing when that moment arrives.
For Arizona Diamondbacks infielder/outfielder Seth Beer, his first time getting called up to the big leagues was even more special, getting the ring while doing one of the things he loves.
Beer told media over Zoom before Friday’s game that he’s an avid fisher. It’s not unusual for him to spend up to 10 hours of one of his off-days out near or in the water, and he’ll even get out on a river before the sun goes down after playing in a ballgame earlier in the day.
On Wednesday, Beer was waist-deep in the Truckee River that runs through California and Nevada, the latter of which is where the D-backs Triple-A affiliate, the Reno Aces, are located.
Six hours into fly fishing, Beer got a call on his phone that was back safely out of the water, and he looked down at his Apple watch (armed with a useful waterproof case) to see who it was.
It was his manager, and he knew exactly what his skip could want to talk about, seeing how September call-ups have been underway.
“I was like, ‘Oh man, I gotta pick this up,’” Beer said.
He rushed his way through the river over toward his phone, and in the panic, slipped and fell over to put himself underwater. Beer got back up and made it to his phone just in time to get the news he was hoping it would be, but not before his manager started the conversation by correctly guessing that Beer was in the middle of fishing.
“I’ve dreamt about that moment for years and years and years,” Beer said, noting that he was in tears with family over the phone while delivering the news. “To actually have it turn into reality is pretty cool.”
He also couldn’t help but smile at thinking about how crazy he must have looked to fellow river goers as he scrambled across it and then had an emotional conclusion to his day of fishing there.
“The excitement that I was showing on the bank when runners and people walking by with their dogs [must have been] like, ‘Man, what’s this guy doing? Is he OK?” he said.
Beer, the D-backs’ 12th-ranked prospect on MLB Pipeline, will have his family in Seattle ahead of Arizona’s three-game series that runs through Sunday.
If all this wasn’t great enough already, Beer said he caught his largest rainbow trout yet on that day about 45 minutes before the call.
“It was a good day all the way around,” Beer said.
Ya don’t say!
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