He's a Lumberjack and He's Okay
In the summer, Jeromy Palki cuts through lumber with his fastball. In the off-season, he uses an axe. He is blazing a path throug the forest and baseball to a shot at the Show.
Jim Mandelaro
MLNSportsZone.com
Some baseball players spend the off-season playing winter ball in exotic locales. The zillionaires vacation at five-star resorts. More than a few swing the lumber in Venezuelan winter ball.
In the off season, Jeromy Palki stops cutting through lumber with a ball and picks up an axe in Yoncalla, Oregon, a blue-collar town of 800 people located an hour South of Eugene.
Lumberjacking is the family business, one that Jeromy joins each September. His grandfather, Arvid, was a lumberjack for 50 years. Father Dave has been in the biz for 42 years.
His brother, Travis, is in his seventh year. They work together on a rigging crew, cutting down trees and sending them off to lumber companies, six days a week, often 60 or more, in all kinds of weather.
Money Magazine rated logging the most dangerous job in America, with 102 lumberjacks killed in 2002 alone.
"If it's a nice day, we'll work 10 hours,'' the 6-foot, 203-pound Palki says. "If it's pouring, we may work eight or nine. It sure makes you appreciate baseball.''
His dad has seen him pitch only once since high school due to his hectic work schedule.
“He keeps saying he’s coming,” Palki says, recalling that 2002 was the last time his father could see him, “but he’s working 12-hour days, seven days a week.
Jack of All Trades
Palki's strong work ethic has transferred to the mound, where he has developed a reputation as a jack of all trades since being selected by the Seattle Mariners, the team he grew up following, in the 47th round of the June 1995 draft.
The right-hander, once blessed with an overpowering 97 mph fastball before arm surgery, spent seven years in the Twins minor-league system, including the last three at Triple-A. He has been a starter, a stopper and a middle reliever, fashioning a career 35-25 record and 3.57 ERA. He has never appeared in a big-league game.
"That's still the dream,'' he says, hoping that there is still a shot at the majors. "It's the dream of every guy playing baseball.''
Green Pastures
After completing his second season with Triple-A Rochester last fall, Palki looked at the Twins pitchers in front of him and the prospects surging past him, pitchers like J.D. Durbin, Scott Baker and Beau Kemp, and decided to try his luck with another team.
One problem: No team called him, other than one in Taiwan.
Palki, who lives with his young family live an apartment in Sutherlin, Oregon, was not about to travel halfway around the world , leaving wife Barbara to raise 4-year-old daughter Madison and infant son Logan, born on Jan. 12. He is considering playing in Mexico if no one signs him.
As a teen-ager, Palki's summers were spent in the vast Oregon mountains in a travel trailer with his dad. Work began at 3:30 a.m. and usually ended at 6 that night. Then it was off to baseball practices and games.
Baseball is his passion. It was, he hoped, his ticket out of the logging life.
"If I don't bust my butt every day, then this is what I've got to look forward to when I go home,'' says Palki, who, at 28, sees his days in baseball as a natural resource requiring great personal conservation. “This is what gets me up every morning, or gets me to the gym after working.”
Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow
Even though he’s seeking greener pastures for one last shot at the big leagues, Palki's determination hasn’t been lost on his former ballclub.
"He's a team player,'' Twins farm director Jim Rantz says. "He did about anything we asked him too. He's a pitching coach and a manager's dream.''
Rochester manager Phil Roof can attest to that.
"He's a great young man with a lot of pride in what he does,'' Roof says.
"He's the kind of player you root for, because you know how much it means to him.''
Detours on the Road to the Show
Palki's best season was 1997, when he went 9-3 with a 2.78 ERA in 44 relief appearances for Class A Wisconsin. A funny thing happened on the way to a promotion: Palki was traded that Aug. 21 to the Twins along with pitcher Joe Mays for outfielder Roberto Kelly.
"I had mixed feelings,'' he says. "The Mariners were the team I grew up with, but I thought maybe a fresh start with another organization would be good for me.''
1998 was anything but promising for Palki. He went 0-4 for the Class A Fort Myers Miracle and missed a month after undergoing mid-season surgery to repair a sore right elbow. Then, he appeared in only three games in 1999 before enduring surgery to repair a blown-out right shoulder.
"It was a tough time,'' he says. "It taught me that you've got to take care of yourself a little better. You have to make sure you're doing everything you can to try to succeed. If I get hurt now, who knows what happens?"
The injuries made Palki a different pitcher. Gone was the 97 mph heater (it dropped nearly 10 mph). In its place, he learned to change speeds and developed a sinker. It wasn’t until his seventh pro season that the lumberjack was promoted to Double-A, pitching for New Britain in 2001.
He split the 2002 season between New Britain and AAA Edmonton. The past two years have been with Rochester, a 2-0 record with a 4.44 ERA in 42 appearances last year.
A Player With Somethng More
Yet Palki’s mark on the Rochester community was something more than what will be recorded in the stat book along with the others whose names fade into the Valhalla of ballplayers whose best days are played in places like this.
"He was one of the nicest guys on the team, which says a lot considering the character that both of those teams had," Red Wings general manager Dan Mason says. “Jeromy was one of the hardest workers on the team and a great teammate. Off the field he was a tremendous help for the front office, volunteering for numerous events in the community, visiting kids in hospitals and reading to kids in schools. “
Love of the Game, Not Money
For Palki, it is a true love of the game that has kept him going through seasons that have not lead to a lot of financial gain. Palki says fans who think players sit around during the off-season are off base.
"A lot of people think the minor leagues is a luxurious life, but it’s not,” he says. “They don’t realize you don’t make money in the minors. I remember in 1995 when I was in Arizona with the Mariners, after hotel costs and per diem, I was making 125 bucks every two weeks."
Palki has started just 11 of his 339 career pro games and prefers relieving. He admits he is “more the shuffle-around type of guy” who eats up innings.
The lure of the Show is powerful, even when age, injury, and opportunity deny a talented player a taste of what it's like to be big league. There is something bittersweet about a player with the drive and the character to be a success in the majors being felled by the fates. Still, whether it's the Mexican League, independent baseball, or another club that makes a late acquisition, Palki is the consummate professional, a credit to the game. When he hangs up his glove, some say his next career might be as an instructor, rather than swinging an axe.
"I take the ball whenever my teams asks,” he says. “That’s all you can do. If I never pitch again, it’s all been worth it."
