This week was big in professional sports. One of the most hardworking and committed players at his craft announced his retirement. No, I’m not talking about Kobe Bryant, but instead, Mike Hessman. The 37-year-old baseball minor league lifer retired from the game after a historic 20-year minor league career. In retrospect, Hessman’s career brought him all over the world. He’s traveled the country playing in the Minor Leagues and Major Leagues. He traveled around the world playing in the Japan Pacific League, Mexican Pacific Winter League, Bejing Olympics, and Venezuelan Winter League. He hit 454 professional home runs; 434 coming in the minor leagues (a record) and the rest distributed among his other stops.
Because he spent the majority of his career as a home run hitting minor league player, many have labeled Hessman as the real Crash Davis- the Kevin Costner character in the movie Bull Durham.
For those of you who have never heard of Mike Hessman, his story is a fascinating one. Raised in Fountain Valley, California, the Atlanta Braves drafted an 18-year-old Hessman in 1996, out of high school, in the 15th round.
There are many different levels in an organization’s minor league system: A (the most amateur division), AA, and AAA (the closest stop to the major leagues). It took Hessman until 2002 to reach the Braves AAA affiliate. In 2003 when he was called up to their major league roster, he had already amassed 168 minor league home runs. His first hit in the major leagues, unsurprisingly, was a pinch-hit-home-run.
After the 2004 season, Hessman became a minor league free agent. He signed a deal with the Detroit Tigers, and little did he know, he would call their AAA affiliate, the Toledo Mud Hens, home for the better years of his career. At 27-years-old, Hessman began hitting home runs at a torrid pace. In his first stint with the Tigers organization, lasting until 2009, Hessman hit 140 home runs with Toledo, and 9 with the major league Tigers.
I became aware of Hessman in 2010 when he signed with the Mets. The New York team signed him as minor league depth and assigned him to their, then, AAA affiliate, the Buffalo Bisons. At year end, Hessman earned a spot on the Mets major league roster and managed to hit a home run. This would be the last time Hessman would make a major league roster, but it certainly wasn't the end of his career.
Four years and 114 home runs later, Hessman returned to the Toledo Mud Hens. This time he had a goal; break the all-time minor league home run record. The minor league record stood at 433 home runs, and at this point he had amassed 389 dingers. Over the course of the next two seasons, Hessman hit enough home runs to break the eighty-year-old record by one home run before calling it a career.
In a sport where prospects rise through the minor leagues relatively quickly, it seems reasonable to predict that this record will stick for the very foreseeable future.
When people ask me who some of my favorite baseball players are, I always include Mike Hessman in my list. How could you not? This guy never gave up; he just kept on going.
For many players, baseball’s minor league system can be a black hole. After spending years in the minor leagues, these players become discouraged and give up on their career. Mike Hessman never gave up. All he wanted to do was play the game he loves, and so he did.
Today’s game is a lot different than the one Hessman grew up watching. The hard-nosed gritty style of play that older generations grew up with has transformed into a more friendly and flashy game. In a sport that has been marred by steroid use, where almost every player’s integrity is questioned, Hessman never became a headline. He played the game the right way and so, Mike Hessman, we salute you.
