“The Grind” grows out of a series of articles Barry Svrluga wrote for The Washington Post in 2014 about the personal toll Major League Baseball’s takes on a team’s players and those who support them, whether a general manager, wife, or equipment manager. The challenges on the field are only half the story in this account of 162-plus games with the Washington Nationals. It reveals the stresses and the strains of late-night flights, the impermanence of being in the majors, and the demands on a scout who has racked up 1.2 million Marriott points.
Here’s an excerpt from The Grind:
“A rain delay during the last night of a three-game series in, say, Cincinnati isn’t just an opportunity for the broadcast teams to toss it back to the studio, for the television stations to fill the air with highlights from other games or sitcom reruns, until play resumes. Sure, players pass time with card games or movies or other frivolities. But the delay is a meaningful obstacle that must be overcome; it pushes back the team’s flight, which pushes back its arrival in the next city, which pushes back the time when heads can hit pillows – four a.m.? five a.m.? – all with a game to play the next night.”
