Some things in baseball are just downright inexplicable, like the 1927 Yankees, or the sunset over Dodger Stadium or Cecil Fielder’s waist.
Someday, we might look back at Konner Wade’s 2018 season and place it under the same category.
Wade certainly will. One of the heroes of Arizona baseball lore — with arguably the best playoff pitching performance by a Wildcat in the program’s lofty history — finds himself in baseball no-man’s land.
He is a walking, talking casualty of baseball’s brutal economics, his world turned upside down when he truly least expected it. It’s not that he was released by the Baltimore Orioles. It’s that he was released by the Orioles on the eve of the season.
Now, just shy of three months later, he and his wife, Lara — a former Arizona pom girl — are keeping the dream alive in independent baseball, hoping to get noticed by one ballclub with a hole on the roster, any roster.
Oh, and they’re having the time of their lives.
•••
Konner Wade has a 2.91 ERA in 46ª innings for the Sugar Land Skeeters.
No player makes it to the big leagues alone. Look at the worn-out faces of travel-ball parents, and you learn that real fast. Introduce yourself to a ballplayer’s wife, and the first loud sigh will tell you all you need to know.
So when Wade was dealt the biggest curveball in his rather blessed life — after being acquired by the Orioles in November of last year in a trade from the Colorado Rockies and having good stuff in spring training, he was released by Baltimore on the second-to-last day of spring training — he turned to the most important person in his life.
They had decisions to make.
Wade is 26 now, with a home and budding responsibilities. His wife is a high school teacher. Was it time to hang up the cleats and go become a money manager or something?
No, they decided.
He was throwing too well, and despite back-to-back setbacks — a trade they didn’t expect and a release they certainly didn’t expect — the dream was more alive than ever.
After his agent reached out to several teams and found that all were settled with their rosters for the time being, Wade got a call from the Sugar Land (Texas) Skeeters of the Atlantic League of Professional Baseball.
The ALPB has been in existence since 1998, with a Freedom and a Liberty division, and rosters littered with former first-round picks, guys with a decade-or-more experience, a handful of World Series champions, even. The ballparks are better than Triple-A, and the competition is right around there, too. Heck, the teams even fly for road games.
Still, it was humbling.
Wade had never heard of the Skeeters.
When he arrived in Sugar Land, though, he was pleasantly surprised.
“Our everyday catcher (Derek Norris) has been in the bigs the last six years or so,” he said. “This isn’t a pushover league. This isn’t some college league. These are grown men who are good at this game, who know how to play it. I saw 45 guys competing for 25 spots, and it was pretty surprising to see this level of competition. Every day I’ve been impressed with what I’ve seen on the field.”
He’s impressed, as well.
Wade has a 2.91 ERA in 46ª innings en route to a 3-1 start in 12 appearances, six of them starts. While his strikeout numbers are middling, his 25-4 strikeout-to-walk ratio is sparkling.
Last year with Double-A Hartford, he had a 4.28 ERA and 79 strikeouts in 109ª innings, but he has added a cutter to his arsenal in Sugar Land that has paid dividends.
“I’m throwing the ball pretty well right now,” he said. “I’m happy with how I’m throwing. Out of spring training, I had a month before we started. A little short, condensed kind of thing we had going. I started in the bullpen, moved into the rotation a couple weeks later. Stretched out long enough to be a starter, I’m trying to take in as much as I can.”
So he does what he can. He pitches, well, and he waits for a call.
If only there were a LinkedIn for baseball.
•••
Konner Wade (48) celebrates a go-ahead run against South Carolina in the 2012 College World Series with teammate Robert Refsnyder.
You can hear it.
A little frustration, mixed with some pain, and a smattering of anger.
“I was pissed to say the least,” he said. “But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think do I want to do this anymore. I put too much work in, I was throwing the ball too well to hear that. I told myself I’m going to get back there. I’m not going to let this beat me. But I was pretty surprised. I threw pretty well in spring. Being traded for, obviously I felt like since they traded for me and had interest in me that they’d want me. It’s a cruel game. It happens, and you have to deal with it.”
Lara, a dance teacher and college and career adviser at her old high school in Buckeye, snapped him out of it quickly.
“I would be lying if I said he didn’t have his moments,” she said, using the same terminology as her husband, which is endearing. “As a wife, that’s the hardest part, seeing him in that negative mindset, wondering how to be a sounding board, but not enabling it. He didn’t stay in that mindset very long. Not to pat myself on the bat, but I let him have that moment for a day or two, but I said we have to move on from those thoughts. I … politely … told him ... It wasn’t what he wanted to hear at the moment.”
But it’s what he needed to hear.
In college, he says, coach Andy Lopez called it the red line. Once you walk past it, there is nothing but baseball on the ball field. Wade says he learned from Lopez that he can only control what he can control. Mostly, that’s his control.
Asked to identify what may have led to his release, he admits, “I had a couple walks. But if you look at every year I’ve been in pro ball, I’ve had good numbers in terms of not walking guys. In my second-to-last start, I had three or four walks in eight innings. Not great, but that was the only thing that could’ve been the issue. But my velocity was good, I was healthy. I was throwing the ball well. I threw the day before I got released. It was my best day.”
In Sugar Land, that 25-4 ratio may be his ticket back to the affiliated path. He doesn’t expect to jump right to a major-league roster, but the goal is simply to get back with one of the MLB systems.
“The only thing I can do right now is perform,” he said. “That’s the only way I’m going to get out of here, is if I go out and throw well. That’s the only thing I can control. I can’t control if a team is going to call me tomorrow. The one thing I can do is put my head down and keep grinding away.”
The good news is when he looks up, he sees Lara.
•••
Pitcher Konner Wade, right, became Arizona's No. 2 starter en route to Omaha in 2012, tossing six complete games in 19 starts.
A half-dozen years ago, it was Wade saving the day for Arizona, turning in one of the best pitching performances in program history.
In a College World Series classic against UCLA in 2012, Wade shut out the Bruins, holding them to five hits in a 4-0 win. He went the distance without walking one batter, the first time that happened in 40 years. Less than two weeks later, the UA would win the title.
On that team were nearly a half-dozen players who have already appeared in the big leagues or are poised to in the near future. Wade has remained close friends with most of them. He was best man for Robert Refsnyder, and Refsynder was one of his groomsmen. He’s still close with Brandon Dixon, who just got called up by the Cincinnati Reds, and Johnny Field, who joined Refsnyder with the Tampa Bay Rays earlier this year.
He has celebrated each of their call-ups and learned a thing or two about the brutal business that is baseball. Each of his comrades has faced setbacks. Each has been disappointed.
“When Johnny got called up, I saw Konner’s face light up,” she said. “There was a genuine feeling of happiness. For him, it helps see them go through it. It’s like, hey, I was one of them. This isn’t a pipe dream. I’m just as capable. As you get older, you start to wonder. Is it ever going to happen? With both Brandon and Johnny getting called up, it just shows it can happen.”
Lara, too, has learned.
“Thankfully, I have a community around me of a lot of other women who are in the same situation,” she said. “You hear the good and the bad. You kind of have an idea of what can happen. Our boat hadn’t been rocked a ton in the minor-league baseball world until he got traded. When he got released, it was the first time that things have been shaken up for us. Being in it for five seasons, I was more mentally prepared for it.”
Still, there were struggles.
“It was definitely difficult being the strong one, the one who has to find the right thing to say,” Lara said. “It’s hard watching him sad. You have to keep the brave face.”
They have persevered, leaning on their Christian faith more this season than ever before.
Their goal remains certain, the path straight. It’s not about the major league lifestyle. They don’t need three McMansions.
“For me it’s more about seeing him achieve his dream,” she said. “Would it be nice to afford to do things we can’t afford to do? Sure. But really, my mind has never gone there. If he made it to the big leagues and played one game, and that was it, that would be satisfying enough.”
Wade, for one, is just happy he has someone along for the ride.
“I would not be able to do this without her,” he said. “My wife is great. The way she’s handled the past couple months has been remarkable. She’s been a rock for me. When I’m feeling sorry for myself or getting pissed, she’s been there to kick me in the pants and get back to work. … She doesn’t get too high or too low when there is success or failure. We grew up believers, and we have a lot of peace in knowing God has a plan for our lives.”
“That has been hands down the biggest part of all this,” Lara said. “I kid you not, we would say we were big in our faith before, but to get through the days, I felt like a crazy person, because it was a nonstop conversation with God. I didn’t know what to say to Konner. Speak for me, Lord, please. That’s why I say it’s our favorite season. Because we’ve grown so much.”
