In 2008, I made the triple-A all-star team.

I say made, but I was really asked to fill in for another guy who actually did make the team but was called up to the big leagues and therefore couldn’t attend.

I didn’t want to go. I was given the usual shtick: it was a great opportunity that would be a real feather in my cap and I should be honoured to take it.

I agreed whole heartedly, as players tend to do in closed door meetings with their managers, then I flatly turned it down.

I’d already booked a flight home. The tickets weren’t refundable and I wasn’t about to blow the only consecutive set of off-days I had doing more of what I’d been doing for five months, for no extra pay, in a game that didn’t help me get to the top any faster… if I even got to play.

A minor league all-star game is about as useful as wings on a bowling ball. It’d be a different story if going to the all-star game put you on the fast track for a promotion, but I knew from experience that wasn’t the case. I’d already been through the minor league all-star experience once before and it was a complete and utter disaster that yielded nothing but frustration and regret.

The year was 2004 and I was playing for the now defunct Fort Wayne Wizards. I legitimately made the all-star team as a first ballot member and was told, because I was one of the standout starters in the league at the time, I would actually get to pitch in the game.

The trouble was Fort Wayne was a three-hour drive from my home in Canton, Ohio. I could easily head home for the break and unplug from baseball, play video games, visit friends and fight with my family — the good stuff.

But just when I summoned the nerve to opt out, I was back-roomed by management and told of how the all-star game was a great opportunity, a real feather in my cap and that I should be honoured. Also, there was this line about how, if I didn’t go, there would be consequences.

As I was still very early in my career, I assumed consequences meant the organization wouldn’t promote me. Thus, under the fear of career suicide, I accepted the opportunity and sacrificed my break.

The coaches, having delivered the organization’s ultimatum, seemed indifferent. The Wizards front office, on the other hand, was thrilled.

They respected my sacrifice and told me that, as a recompense for the loss of my vacation, I would enjoy the experience immensely, get to stay in a luxury hotel, eat high-class food and, since there were an odd number of all-stars from my team and I was assured to pitch in the contest, I’d have my own room.

It sounded peachy, but talk is cheap and the front offices of minor-league clubs are even cheaper. It turned out that, though the Fort Wayne Wizards wanted as many representatives of the team to attend as possible, they didn’t want to spend any excess money to get us to the game.

In order to mitigate costs, the team passed on the normal motor coach and opted for a short bus, the kind usually used to shuttle seniors from old folks homes to casinos or passengers from long-term airport parking.

Normal minor-league busses, as bad as they are with their rich, body odours, pungent bathroom chemicals and mysterious rivers of skoal-laced saliva running down the centre of the aisle, were better than this midget bus. The road noise, the lack of AC, no built in DVD screens, bench seating — it was brutal.

To make matters worse, it was clogged with office personnel. The Wizards general manager, the assistant GM, the assistant to the assistant GM, etc … and down at the bottom of the list, some random office guy who tipped the scales at 300 pounds if he weighed an ounce came along because he wanted to go really, really badly.

From Fort Wayne, Ind., to Cedar Rapids, Iowa — a six-hour trip that turned into eight thanks to the obligatory traffic jam outside of Chicago. We stopped once for fuel and once to hit the john — that was it.

We pulled in the hotel at around 5 p.m., got our room keys and dispersed with the understanding we’d reconvene around 7 p.m. for the opening ceremony party at the Cedar Rapids Kernels stadium. I synchronized my cell phone, went to my room, and about five minutes after I shut the door there was a knock.

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