Jeremy Guthrie

that the pressure no longer is just baseball, but it's life.

It's like, wow, if I don't make it and get a multi-year contract, what am I going to do?

I got nothing to fall back on.

I have no education.

I have no money saved because kids need to know when you get a signing bonus, that money evaporates pretty quickly if you spend it on anything.

You get half of it to start between taxes and an agent.

and then you know you go buy a car that's another chunk of it it just goes really fast and so a signing bonus is almost null and void for most players unless they are really wise with their money and so i think um i think education helped i was married in my career my wife was a huge support and most players probably aren't married in the minor leagues i was and so no matter what i always had someone to go back to someone that loved me someone that encouraged me

someone that believed in me and that was enormous for a lot of players that's a parent a sibling and if you're really fortunate it becomes a teammate or a friend but that's more rare because you know baseball you're competing you're not you're not there like in college trying to win a championship necessarily you're competing against the other 12 pitchers to take the one job that might become available in the middle of july in the big leagues and so that's a big change as well players need to understand money goes fast

If you don't have a plan to fall back on pressure mounts, you're going to be challenged.

You're going to fail.

And most of the time, you're going to be surrounded by a bunch of guys that understandably are selfishly trying to take the same job that you're shooting for.

And that's a tough life.

Throw on some bus trips.

And at the time, 20 bucks a day for food and some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and tuna fish after batting practice.

And you see very quickly why professional baseball will eat you up and spit you out quicker than you can say big leagues.

Well, you know, a lot of it goes back to my time in Spain, first and foremost.

That was the first time I really left the country, excluding a quick tournament I had in Canada as a senior in high school.

But, you know, I just learned to appreciate cultures, language, lifestyle of people who live outside of what I knew, which was the United States of America.

So I became more adventurous when I came home.

baseball provided me all the platform i needed to be able to go and have unique opportunities because i played baseball because i could throw a fastball 95 miles per hour suddenly i was you know invited to go and do certain things and i really wanted to take advantage of that and so while i played most of my off seasons were filled with travel whether it was personal or whether it was related to baseball and i got to know people and the more you get to know them the more you care about them