CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The hike from Little Rock, Arkansas to Memphis, Tennessee is a little more than two hours, but Alex Eckelman wasn't sure he'd ever reach his destination.
As Eckelman plodded along the highway, he thought to himself: "I didn't know I'd ever get this far."
The drive itself wasn't the issue. It simply had never dawned on Eckelman that, at some point, his major-league dream would be one phone call away. When he earned his promotion to Triple-A Memphis in 2000, it all started to register.
"I enjoy competing and I know what my end goal was," said Eckelman, now an assistant director of player development with the Indians, "but it's still like, 'Wait a second.