Ever Wonder What the Life of a Professional Baseball Player Would Be Like?

My guess is your mind just went racing with ideas like a luxurious life style, first class travel/hotels, top of the line restaurants, finest products, girls galore, and of course...BIG $$$! But! Let me ask you something else: If I had added the words, "in the minor leagues" to the question, would your idea of this life style change? Most of you now might say yes because you can see where I'm going with this. However, if you never truly understood the difference, you are in for some great stories! :)

Hi all! My name is Tonya Cloyd, and I am the wife to Tyler Cloyd. Tyler is heading into his fourth year of professional baseball with the Philadelphia Phillies. In three years so far, he has progressed his way from Rookie Ball, all the way up to AA.(I’ll make sure to tell you about the levels in the minors soon.) He is a right-handed pitcher and has been both a starter and reliever in his professional career. Tyler and I have been together for four years now, but only married for three months! We just got married this past off-season on November 12, 2010. We are kind of old fashion and chose not to move in together until we were married, so this will be our first season living together! We are so excited! Since this is my first post, I figure I will at least catch you up on our lives, and start from the beginning...enjoy! :)

Tyler and I met back when I was 17 and he was 19. (Today we are 21 and 23.) I graduated high school early, just three months after my seventeenth birthday, and started working morning customer service hours at a grocery store. I had to be to work at 5am and it just so happened, this totally cute guy, Tyler, was working the overnight shift there. We would always pass each other when I was walking into work, and he was leaving. It took awhile for me to get out of my shy stage, but we finally managed to start talking. Then one day he asked me out on a date! We went out for ice cream and totally hit it off. Tyler was such a great guy and had everything going for him that I was looking for in a husband. It wasn’t until a few dates later that some people came up to our table and asked him, “Hey man! How ya been? How’s baseball going?” I sat there wondering what the heck these people were talking about. They left and Tyler decided to tell me he was a baseball player. In all honestly, I thought nothing of it, except that maybe my dad would like him even more now, haha. Besides that, I really didn’t care; I knew nothing about baseball because I hated it, especially watching it. I still ended up telling my parents about what had happened, and my mom decided to Google him! Embarrassing right? :) She informed me that this boy was playing for the University of Nebraska at Omaha and that he was their ace-starting pitcher. I had no clue what that even meant so I just shrugged it off thinking, “Whatever, should I be impressed or something?” Tyler loved and laughed at the fact that I didn’t know a thing about baseball and that it just didn’t phase me. I had such a crush on this grocery store employee I knew, that I just decided to ask him to be my boyfriend myself! Gutsy move I know, but he said yes! :)

We dated for a whole year before we had quite the eye opener happen to us. In the 2008 MLB draft, the Philadelphia Phillies selected my boyfriend as their eighteenth round pick. “What?” I thought in shock. That was the year I found out that Tyler didn’t just play baseball, he seriously played baseball, in fact, this was now becoming his career.

We made it through a lot of ups and downs over the past three years, as choosing to be long distance was not an easy path to take - especially when your newly drafted boyfriend goes through a stage I liked to call, “big head syndrome.” Luckily, that faded and things only looked up for us. I moved to Denver for school to become a massage therapist, and Tyler played baseball, it worked for us. He proposed two years later and we were married in November. (So yes, I might have asked him to be my boyfriend, fortunately, he asked me to be his wife.) ha!

It is already spring training time again, and although years prior I would dread having to say goodbye, this year we look forward to spring training because I get to go with my husband for the first season ever! I can’t wait to share all my stories and adventures with you guys! I will let you know what life is really like for these minor league players and also keep you updated on where our journey takes us this summer. Thanks so much for reading, and stay posted!!

*Also, if you are interested in reading more stories from baseball wives, go to:

http://www.baseballwifeblog.com/