I find it completely understandable that these young lads envision a day when they will see their name in lights and hear their name being cheered by thousands of fans as they come up to the plate. However, I am still trying to figure out why so many women fall asleep each night, hoping that their prince charming… a man in cleats, carrying a baseball bat… will come rescue them.

However, many five-year-old girls fail to realize is the reality regarding baseball. The long season, the constant travel – one can only imagine how hard this would be on the princess waiting at home.

Let’s take the Toronto Blue Jays upcoming season, for example. If I can still add (it’s been a few years since high school math), the Blue Jays will spend approximately 88 days in Toronto during their 187 game season. Plus, that’s not everything…consider where they are right at this moment… in Florida – for six weeks!

That being the case, it doesn’t seem to leave much time for baseball players to actually be the prince charming their woman has longed for when they are younger.

And then there’s the aspect of relocation. Whether the baseball player is excitedly moving from farm team to the major leagues, or disappointedly being traded from his home team to another state, (or in the case of our Blue Jays – to another country), one can only imagine how heart-wrenching the experience is for the woman he is leaving at home. She is merely left behind to figure out their new living situation and forced to say goodbye to the house they made their own, to the friends they’ve grown attached to, and to the happy life they had

The reality of the artificial dream is acknowledged in a newspaper article from the Montreal Gazette. Although published over 25 years ago (1985). The reality still rings true today. Within the article, Bryn Smith, who had then been a pitcher for the Montreal Expos, stated: 

You can shag a fly as easily in Wrigley Field as the Big O. It’s the person at home cooking those meals whose world has really been turned around. While her husband is doing something he’s always dreamt of, she has been uprooted from friends and family to find herself in a position she probably never dreamed of being.

Evidently Smith realized the effects of falling in love with a baseball player.

For every game that has to be won, a birthday is missed.  For every RBI scored, an anniversary is missed.  For every loss that occurs, a player’s love says goodnight to an empty pillow. For every win that takes place, tears of happiness are shared by the male but tears of sadness are expressed knowing it won’t be long until her lover leaves again.

Kate Kilpatrick published an article highlighting the reality of it all in the Washington Post this past August. In the article, Rachel Dunn, wife of Adam Dunn, the first baseman for the Nationals, stated that a life of the significant other of a baseball player is “not even remotely as glamorous as people think – [as it] can be lonely, chaotic and uncertain.”

Abby Kearns, wife of Nationals right fielder Austin Kearns, reiterated Dunn’s statement claiming “I am lucky to be able to take a shower every day. I’m just so busy, honestly, trying to take care of the kids, without [Austin] here.”

Michael Schlact, who is presently playing for the Texas Rangers, discusses the hardship that arises from being in love with a woman and a sport with me through a direct message Twitter. Schlact indicated: “I’m blessed that my wife is able to travel with me [now]. [It] makes it much easier. We did long distance for 3 years. It was hard!”

Interestingly, when I asked Toronto Blue Jays, Dirk Hayhurst, (or otherwise known by his Twitter friends as “The Garfoose,” about the aspect of the dream women have of falling in love with a baseball player (and the affect that might have on him), Hayhurst merely indicated that “women that want to meet you because of what you do for a living are not the type worth meeting.”

Evidently, it seems the life that I dreamed of having at five-years-old now doesn’t seem to be as amazing as I had once thought. The dream house I dreamed of sharing, only hear the echo from movements, the dream kids I’d wish to have would be screaming through crowded airports, the dream job I wished to hold would be pushed aside due to her being given the roles of both a mother and a father, and the dream husband that I wished would always be there to protect me be my knight and shining armour…well he’s away, playing the dream sport.