The Homeless Baseball Team Just Focusing on Baseball in Atlantic League

Bridgewater, NJ – The Atlantic League’s Road Warriors are a professional baseball team, they play in the nations premier independent league and the team competes against some of the nations top players in a hundred-forty-two game season without playing a home game.

Assembled last minute by manager Ellie Rodriguez,  Atlantic League front office members searched for a team to even out the two divisions that make up the league while the league awaits the High Point Rockers in 2019. The team includes many young players who have little experience in a league made up of many MLB Veterans. The Road Warriors have to compete against former MLB stars such as Francisco Rodriguez, Endy Chavez, Derek Norris, Ried Briniac, and James Russell on a daily basis. For many players on the Road Warriors, they love the competition of the league.

“It’s pretty tough at first, but at the end of the day it’s just baseball,” Road Warriors right fielder Anthony Ray tells me. “You just want to go out there and have fun, but it is a great experience to go out there and see the big leaguers.” Anthony was a 36th round pick in the 2013 Major League Baseball Draft to the St. Louis Cardinals. Ray spent 3 years in their system, in order to do that, he passed up many college offers.

After Ray’s release by the Cards, he spent a year away from baseball. A talented athlete with three years of pro experience, and nowhere to play. Ray told me he worked to stay in shape and did. During the 2017-18 offseason, he was yet again emailing around looking for somewhere to play during the upcoming season. Ray posted on a Facebook group, “Meet A Prospect” asking the various scouts and coaches about potentially signing him. And here he is, on a team in the Atlantic League, living out his dream as a pro baseball player. Life on the road may sound rough at first.

“It’s not that bad. I mean a lot of people say it’s bad because you’re always on the road. The only thing I say that’s the worst part about it is that we never really have a home crowd cheering for you. But as long as we have the team together were all family so we all pick each other up if we’re down. We treat each other like brothers.”

Well, The Road Warriors have not necessarily played every game on the road. The Sugar Land Skeeters in Texas were nice enough to make the Road Warriors the Home Warriors for one day.

“That was very nice. Very special and cool to say we were the home team. Everyone was excited about having their own walk-up music and getting to bat last,” Road Warriors manager Ellie Rodriguez told me.

But all things said, Anthony and the homeless Road Warriors are living their best life. Anthony’s daily schedule: Wake up, play some Fortnite, grab something to eat, head to the field, take BP, eat some honey and fruit, hit off the tee, hit front toss in the cage, and try to get a win every day. Now that is living the dream of an Independent ball player.