A New Beginning

‘I have to quit my job.’ Those were the only words going through my mind.

It was July 19th, 2021 and I was mad. My seven year old son Jackson was in the back seat crying hysterically. I had just tried to drop him off at baseball camp and he refused to go in. This was an atypical response from him. Like his ‘Papa,’ Jackson loves sports, he cannot get enough of them. And he was refusing to walk in the doors to a camp he had been attending for a week.

The worst part? I was mad at him. Mad because I was taking him home for the day and knew it would be hard to get the pile of work completed with a seven year old by my side.

After the crying stopped and he was able to get words out, I asked him why he didn’t want to go to camp. His next words set in motion the biggest/hardest life decision I ever made - “I don’t want you to leave again.”

I worked in baseball for 16 years. The first year (2006) was as an intern with the Oakland A’s in the Community Relations department, the last 15 have been with the San Francisco Giants in the Baseball Operations department. For the past four years, I have been the Assistant Director of Player Development. I traveled a lot. In non-Covid years, I would be at spring training for 45 -50 days and then attend minor league games 16-20 days a month. That’s roughly 140-150 days a year of missed family dinners/bedtime routines/carpools to school. On this particular July day, I had recently returned from draft meetings in Arizona. Apparently my son had hit his tipping point on his Dad being away.

Working in baseball has been a dream of mine for as long as I can remember. Before I even hit the teenage years, I was doing Baseball Digest fantasy competitions under my Mom’s name. I would phone in my weekly lineup and pour over the boxscores each morning, tallying up how my team did by hand in my “fantasy baseball” notebook. I even won some money a few times. Becoming a baseball GM became my life dream, and I pursued the hell out of it. I’ll never forget where I was when the A’s called to offer me my first internship or when the Giants called to offer me a baseball ops position. You don’t forget moments when your dream starts becoming a reality.

For 16 years I pursued those dreams. There were some unbelievable moments (some of them I will be writing about in later posts).

However, on July 19th, those dreams changed with Jackson’s words. The new dream was being a father and husband who was going to be around as much as possible for my son, wife and daughter (Amelia, who is about to turn 5).

When we got home that day, i didn’t turn on my computer or return text messages. I spent the day with my son. We played catch, watched some shows, played Mario Kart, ate some junk food and messed around with his monster trucks. My wife and daughter were out of town for the week, so when it was bedtime, I laid down with him in our bed until he fell asleep. I then snuck out and spent a handful of hours getting back to people I had ignored all day.

Ending a lifelong dream doesn’t happen overnight. For the next four months I spent countless hours internally sorting through my feelings and having conversations with my wife. In the end, we reached the conclusion that in 20 years I would have more regrets about missing family time than I would about missing opportunities in baseball.

Telling Kyle Haines (the Giants Director of PD and someone I highly respect as a boss and friend), wasn’t easy. There were feelings of guilt that I was letting him, our minor league players and staff down. That group of people had become my second family and I was leaving them. But as Buster Posey said in his retirement press conference “you’re not as important as you think you are.” Somebody will fill my shoes, the work will get done and life will go on.

The first thing I did after hanging up with Kyle was sign up to coach Jackson’s little league team. An opportunity i never would have had working in baseball. Instead of watching live BP’s this spring, I’ll be helping groom the next wave of SF baseball players on the little league diamonds of San Francisco.

Baseball still is and will remain my biggest passion. I hope to use this blog as a way to stay engaged in the game with weekly posts. You can also follow me on Twitter @EricFlemming, where I will be able to become much more active now.

Please feel free to message me any topics you would like to see covered. Some of the topics/stories I hope to write about early include;

-Rule 5 preview, players the Giants are at risk to lose (if there is a rule 5 draft).

-Some inside stories that were incredible to experience (Buster Posey draft signing coming down to the literal last minute. The 2021 reserve list being 25 seconds away from being submitted late. ‘What if’ trade discussions).

-Ways to improve the minor leagues for players and staff (it certainly involves paying them more).

I also hope to touch on the nuts and bolts of player development / baseball ops that are out of the spotlight but play an integral part in a teams success or failure.

I look forward to the baseball conversations this platform will provide!