Ears. You know something? Over seven or eight seasons of bouncing around the country’s bumpy roads on rattletrap minor league buses, a guy’s ears become pretty finely tuned.
And above all else over the past year, Jeremy Hazelbaker, the St. Louis Cardinals’ latest newly discovered gem, has listened and learned one thing.
The sound of 47,000 fans rising to cheer one of his home runs is a whole lot different than the sound his cellphone was making early last May after the Los Angeles Dodgers suddenly and unexpectedly released him from their Double-A Tulsa club.
As he sat at home in Indiana waiting for an organization to call and scoop him up, one day passed.