Besides playing baseball for the Sounds and sharing an apartment to start the season, Joey Wendle and Brad Mills don’t have a ton in common in terms of baseball careers.
Wendle is a 25-year-old second baseman in his first season in Triple-A. He’s one of the top prospects in the Oakland Athletics’ organization. Mills is a 30-year-old pitcher who has logged more than 100 games at the Triple-A level in six years, plus 20 games in the majors.
Wendle is thrilled to be in Triple-A after playing in the low minors a year ago. He’s moved up quickly through the minor league system, and he’s one step from his major league debut. He’s never been in a better clubhouse than the one in Nashville. Mills is the only player on the 2015 roster who toughed out Greer Stadium as a member of the Sounds a year ago.
In other words, Wendle should enjoy the Triple-A perks while they’re still fresh.
Scouring Craigslist for an apartment or house for lease during the summer is an annual headache in minor league baseball. The same goes for living out of a suitcase, weeklong road trips and living apart from wives and children for stretches of the season. At least in Nashville, bartering Sounds tickets for accommodations has a little more cachet with the team in a new stadium — the recently debuted First Tennessee Park — than it did a year ago while the run-down Greer Stadium was still in use. The Sounds (the organization) have a new home in revitalized Germantown, but the Sounds (the players) are facing the same minor league baseball grind, starting with (continue reading at NashvilleScene)