Bitter-sweet is this field of dreams

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CHICAGO – To the Kane County Cougars, this was paradise. Paradise with energy bars.

The Cougars aren’t accustomed to the amenities lavished upon them in the visitor’s clubhouse at Wrigley Field, where on Tuesday they spent a historic July night bringing minor league ball to a quintessentially big league venue.

In the clubhouse, big league perks awaited. Free bottled water. Gum. Energy bars. And more!

Doesn’t sound like much? Over a long, exhausting and scorching-hot summer, the Cougars would beg to differ.

“The visitor’s clubhouse is just amazing,” raved Cougars right fielder Todd Johnson, who apparently doesn’t sign on to White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen’s condemnation of Wrigley’s aged, close quarters as more befitting rats. “I can’t even imagine how it’d be for the home team.”

Tuesday’s meeting with the Peoria Chiefs was a night for the Cougars’ most dearly held dreams to, fleetingly, intersect with reality.

All at once, it was heartwarming and heart-wrenching. Heartwarming because these players, video cameras rolling, staked claim to a lasting memory.

“I can say I played in one of the most historical parks ever,” Johnson said. “I have pictures I can show my kids in the long-run. It’s awesome.”

But heart-wrenching, too, because the odds are overwhelming that these young ballplayers are tasting baseball’s good life for the first and last time.

Starting near the bottom of the professional baseball totem pole – otherwise known as the Midwest League – and eventually securing a Major League roster spot is not quite a pipe dream, but it’s in the ballpark. About 3 percent of minor league players go on to make the bigs.

Along the way, baseball humbles these dreamers as perhaps no other sport can. In addition to the inevitable on-field frustrations, there are low-budget hotels, low-budget restaurants and little time for loved ones.

And did I mention bus trips? Rumor has it, there are some of those, too.

“You want to roll over and die sometimes,” Cougars center fielder Larry Cobb said.

Nobody is forcing these guys to do it. They gladly submit themselves to this lifestyle, with the lure of someday being a major leaguer – not to mention a very, very rich man – spurring them onward.

“You’ve got to go through hell before you get to heaven,” Cobb said.

Cobb exaggerates. Life in the minors isn’t all bad.

Most of these guys love baseball. And while there is little glamour, there are bonds formed that can only take root on a seven-hour, late-night drive to Midland, Mich.

“There’s a certain relationship you get with people here that you couldn’t have anywhere else,” Cobb said. “You’re all experiencing the same things, the same successes, the same failures.”

Ultimately, though, the motivation to press on is to experience the splendor of Tuesday night as more than a one-shot deal.

The clock is ticking for these guys. The realities of adult life will take hold soon enough, except for those elite few who break the big league barrier.

That’s why Cougars pitcher Scott Deal wasn’t anxious to retreat to the clubhouse as he surveyed the Wrigley scene before the game.

“I’m going to stay on the field as long as I can,” Deal said.

It’s heartwarming. Heart-wrenching, too.

• Jay Schwab is sports editor of the Kane County Chronicle. He can be reached at 630-845-5382 or jschwab@kcchronicle.com.