Detroit —The rush of emotion was so deep, so intense, so freakin’ fantastic, it literally buckled him.
“I broke down,” he said.
When Mike Hessman walked off the field at old Shea Stadium in New York on Oct. 3, 2010, he figured he’d seen his last day in the major leagues. All told, he spent 20 years climbing levels in the minor leagues, spending a year in Japan, playing winter ball in Venezuela and Mexico. Twenty years. And his Baseball Reference page shows just 109 games in the big leagues, 250 plate appearances.