For Waverly and Wilmington College graduate Luke Teeters, nothing could be better than being on a baseball field every day.
Teeters, a college baseball player himself, battled injuries throughout his career and took a different route to the big leagues. After completing successful athletic training internships with the Cincinnati Reds and the Kansas City Royals, Teeters has now secured a job with the Texas Rangers. He is spending the 2015 season in the Dominican Republic as an athletic trainer for the DSL Rangers (Dominican Summer League).
Teeters had his first internship with the Cincinnati Reds between his junior and senior year of college. After graduating with his bachelor’s degree from Wilmington College in the spring of 2014, Teeters secured an internship with the Omaha Storm Chasers, the AAA affiliate of the Kansas City Royals. Now this year he has landed a job with the Texas Rangers.
Teeters sent out many applications and received responses from about six teams. When the Texas Rangers told him they had an opening in the Dominican Republic, he jumped at the opportunity.
“On January 19, I flew down there and basically did a two-week interview by working for the Texas Rangers. When they offered me the job, I signed a contract. They kept me down there one more week, so I was there three weeks total,” said Teeters. “Then I came home to Ohio for a few days, returned down there (Dominican Republic) for three more weeks, and went to spring training in Arizona.”
The Rangers have their spring training home in Surprise, Ariz. at Surprise Stadium, a facility that seats 10,500 fans and is located on a 124-acre site that includes six full practice fields and a half field, as well as separate clubhouse and office facilities. It is also used by the Kansas City Royals, allowing Teeters to reunite with some familiar faces.
“It was really cool,” said Teeters of his two week MLB spring training experience. “Most of my athletic trainer work was done on the Minor League side. But I still saw all of the big players like Prince Fielder, Adrian Beltre, and Shin-soo Choo, and many Royals team members from last year, since Texas and Kansas City share a complex.
“Both Shin-soo Choo and Ryan Ludwick played for the Reds when I interned there. I talked to both players and they remembered me. So it was a good time.”
Teeters also had the opportunity to meet Hall of Fame catcher Ivan Rodriguez, who came to the Dominican facility to work with some of the players, while also being involved in the front office business side of baseball. He said most of the Rangers staff has been to the complex as they make their rounds.
Teeters explained that the Dominican Summer League is just another level of Minor League Baseball. According tobaseball-reference.com, the DSL was started in 1985 as a way for players from the Dominican Republic to get professional experience without having to adjust to a foreign culture. A rookie-class league, the DSL is a large organization where almost every major league team has an entry annually. Sometimes, teams have even had multiple entries in the league.
All of the players and staff live at a secure complex in Boca Chica. It is surrounded by fences and protected by armed guards.
“I’ve been outside of our complex quite a bit, while I’ve been down there,” Teeters said. “We’re only about five minutes from the beach. The capital city, Santo Domingo, is about 30 minutes away. Its downtown is very nice and kind of Americanized.”
Teeters said the majority of the players are Dominican, but there are also some from Venezuela and Mexico. Most are young and were drafted as teenagers.
He made the wise decision to take Spanish in both high school and college, which has helped him communicate with the players and staff at the complex.
“I have a good base of Spanish, but I’m still working on the language,” said Teeters. “Every once in a while, I have to slow them down. Their slang has a lot of bad grammar.”
Each day is full day, beginning early in the morning and ending late in the evening.
“We get up around 6 a.m. and do treatments for two hours. Everyone will have breakfast and then they go out and stretch,” said Teeters. “We will do a workout for practice and then come back to lunch. Then they have a game, and there will be more treatments after the game.”
The DSL Rangers have won back-to-back league championships in 2013 and 2014. How far the team goes in the playoffs in 2015 will determine how long Teeters will have to come home to Waverly before heading to Arizona and then back to the Dominican Republic for fall instructional baseball.
The 2015 72-game season began May 30 and ends August 22 with the playoffs starting on August 24, according to Wikipedia.
The league consists of 38 teams in five divisions. Each team is affiliated with a different major league franchise with eight organizations fielding two teams: the Astros, Mariners, Mets, Orioles, Rangers, Reds, Red Sox and Yankees.
Six teams make the playoffs, the winners of each division plus the best runner-up. The two division champions with the best winning percentages receive byes to the semifinals.
“I have a one-year contract with the Rangers with an option for next year. I am getting my foot in the door, and I have a job. This will be a good experience. Hopefully I can be back in the United States somewhere next year,” said Teeters.
“I enjoy my job. That’s a big thing — enjoying what you do. Even though my job is in another country, it is still fun. I basically live at a baseball field, so I can’t complain.”
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