Lately, a baseball trip starts around six in the morning. Coffee first, of course. Then one last quick check of cameras, batteries, cards, lenses, laptop, drives, chargers and whatever else I’m convinced I may have forgotten. Then I point the car toward Springfield, IL, a four-hour drive. Usually I’ve got Starkville, Foul Territory, Power Alley or Loud Outs playing. Eventually I need a break from listening to people talk, so music takes over.
Springfield has become a regular trip because of the Women’s Pro Baseball League. Usually I’ll stay two nights and shoot two or three games. Drive. Ballpark. Shoot. Hotel. Download, process, edit. Wake up, get coffee, and edit some more. Read, write, work, head back to the park. Talk to players, coaches, fans. Get the cameras ready. Shoot another game. Then do it again.
At the Women’s Baseball World Cup in Rockford, IL, some days meant shooting from 11 in the morning until 9 at night. Three games. Six teams. By the end, my feet hurt. My shoulders hurt. I’m sweaty if it’s hot, wet if it’s raining, probably a little sunburned and almost definitely dehydrated. I’m 45. My body keeps pretty good game notes.
I’ve been a baseball person my entire life. That part isn’t new. What is new is trying to make a career out of it. I was laid off from my corporate job last year. I did what you’re supposed to do after that. I applied for jobs, reached out, I waited. I applied for more. Interviews weren’t exactly piling up. At some point, with the state of everything and no particularly compelling version of my old career waiting for me, I started looking harder at what I was already building.
Baseball.
Photography. Writing. Interviews. Traveling to games. Meeting people. Making things. The cliché is to do what you love. Fine. I love baseball. I know baseball. And suddenly I had a chance, because the other options weren’t looking too hot, to find out whether I could actually build a career inside it. So that’s what I’m doing. Sunday I’m going back to Springfield again.
I’m trying to make it in baseball. I’ve known that for a while. What I didn’t expect was how often I’d recognize my own experience in the people I was photographing. The jobs are completely different. The chase isn’t.
Prepare. Perform. Fail. Adjust. Wait.
Hope somebody notices.
Hope somebody calls.
Watch somebody else get picked.
Get better anyway.
Be ready when your name finally does come up.
First, I look
When I get to a ballpark, I don’t immediately start taking pictures. I take it all in, I look, I stare. I want to know what the place gives me. Where can I shoot? Where are the clean backdrops? What gets in the way? What can I shoot through? Where’s the angle? Where can I make something that doesn’t look like every other photograph taken from the obvious spot? Sometimes I see the shot before there’s even a person in it. The angle, maybe a layer, a piece of light, the background. I can already see what I want. Then I wait for the person or moment to enter it. Other times I notice something, remember it, and come back later.
At Robin Roberts Stadium in Springfield, there are houses, roofs, sheds, tents, people, and all kinds of things outside the walls. Put the wrong thing behind the right player, and a photograph I would otherwise love suddenly doesn’t work. So I’ll move and reframe. Wait, or just not take the picture. I’ve become much more comfortable with that last one.
Wait for it
I used to shoot much more reactively. Something starts happening and you shoot the crap out of it. I’ve moved away from that. Not so much spray and pray. I’m much more deliberate now. It’s closer to the way I approached concert photography. I’ll sit on a subject and wait for the moment instead of trying to react to everything happening in front of me.
I’ve learned where I like a pitcher during the delivery. The set. The coil. The windup. The delivery. The finish. Same with a hitter. I watch the eyes, the body tense, then the swing. The body language. I’m not photographing motion just because there’s motion. I’m waiting for the part of the motion that makes me want to take the shot.
And sometimes the picture I’m looking for has nothing to do with a play. It might be the dugout, the bullpen (one of my favorite places), players talking. It could be someone walking alone or the equipment. Fans, reactions, anything human. That’s the key. I really don’t need another photograph proving a baseball game happened. Of course, seeing the photograph coming doesn’t mean I’m going to get it.
The one that’s still out of focus
Northwoods League: Richmond Flying Mummies against the Kenosha Kingfish.
Home run. The hitter starts celebrating, and I’m on him.
Sharp.
Sharp.
Sharp.
He’s coming around third.
Sharp.
Then he gets to the third-base coach. They jump and toast helmets.
That’s it. That’s the photograph.
Out of focus.
Every moment surrounding it is in perfect focus.
The one I really wanted? Nope.
F#@%!
There is no fixing it. He’s not going to hit the home run again because I need another try. That’s one of the things I love and hate about photographing baseball. The moment happened. Either I got it, or I didn’t. I can see something coming, make the right decision, be in the right place, and still miss. A hitter can put a great swing on a ball and make an out. A pitcher can execute the pitch he wanted and still get beat. Sometimes the process was right, and the result still sucks. Then you get another pitch.
Five stars doesn’t mean you’re safe.
After the game, the work changes. Back at the hotel, I download memory cards and start going through what can easily be thousands of photographs. I’m brutal. The first goal is finding the five-star images. That doesn’t mean they’re making the final cut. Five stars only means they’ve earned the privilege of being judged again. Then I start killing them.
Can’t see the eyes? Gone.
The face caught wrong? Gone.
Background sucks? Gone.
Color doesn’t work? Gone.
Pose doesn’t sit right? Gone.
A limb is cut somewhere I hate? Gone.
Boring? Absolutely gone.
Sometimes I don’t have a technical explanation for why one survives, and another doesn’t. I just know. It feels right; my eye stays there. Then occasionally I’ll go back through photographs I’ve already culled and stop. Wait.
How the heck did I miss that?
A photograph I didn’t even mark to move forward suddenly jumps out at me. Sometimes it’s one of the best images from the shoot. Apparently I can be wrong about my own photographs, too. Some games are better than others. I don’t know that I’ve ever come back and thought I photographed an entire game badly.
It’s kind of like pizza. Some are just better than others.
But going through the photographs shows me what I actually did. Where I stayed too long. Where I shot too much. What I anticipated. What I missed. What I thought was great in the moment and wasn’t. Players have film, and I have thousands of little rectangles staring back at me. Then I make the adjustments.
Getting picked
Making good photographs is only part of trying to do this. You need somewhere to make them. The work matters. Relationships matter. Timing definitely matters. When I interviewed Oakland Ballers general manager Laura Geist last month, we talked about getting a job in baseball. Her advice wasn’t particularly glamorous. Get in. Do the job in front of you well. Learn. Make yourself useful. Get your boots on the ground.
She also talked about maintaining a broad network and “being ready to seize unexpected opportunities.” That one stuck with me. Because I’ve gotten better at recognizing the opportunities I should chase, including the ones nobody is going to hand me. There have been games I should have gone to. People I should have introduced myself to. Credentials I should have applied for. An email I should’ve sent sooner. Sometimes I’ve realized that afterward, that’s on me. Nobody can say yes to something I never asked for. The work has to be good. But being good doesn’t mean you’re next. Your presentation matters. Being known matters. Being trusted matters. Being there matters. So does doing good work when you get the chance and giving people a reason to ask you back.
Baseball is small. People remember. I want people to trust me. I want them to know I’m not going to make them look bad in a photo or make them sound silly in an interview.
I want people to know how I operate. That doesn’t happen because I put it in a bio. It happens because I show up. I’ve committed to covering this game. Somewhere along the way, something changed. I stopped feeling like I was just visiting. I’ve shot college baseball at Wrigley Field. I’ve photographed affiliated baseball, women’s baseball, international baseball, and independent baseball. I’ve been beside dugouts, on fields and in camera wells.
I’ve met people through this game who have become friends. I’ve had conversations I never expected to have. I’ve been invited back. I’ve loved baseball my entire life. For most of that life, I was a fan looking in. Now I’m contributing something to it. I’m not looking in anymore.
Then somebody picked me
This summer, I shot images for The Realest’s WPBL baseball cards. A 40,000-card print run. A photograph online can disappear in seconds. Scroll, like, on to the next one. A baseball card is something physical. Somebody can hold the photograph in their hands. A kid can pull it from a pack and smile. A collector can keep it. Years from now, one could still be sitting in a box somewhere. I made the photograph that’s on it. That’s cool.
It also didn’t magically change everything. There are still emails that don’t get answered. Opportunities that don’t happen. Times I’d rather somebody just tell me no. No is useful. No means stop waiting. Silence gives my brain all kinds of room to come up with its own answers. And this might be where I recognize the people I photograph most.
Waiting. Not knowing. Trying to figure out whether somebody sees what you’re doing. Wondering whether the next opportunity is actually coming. Sometimes somebody picks you. Sometimes they don’t. Then there’s another day.
I’m headed back to Springfield tomorrow through Tuesday. There are some players I’ll be working with. I’ll shoot, make portraits, have some conversations, and keep building. I’m hellbent on making a career out of this. There’s no point pretending otherwise. I want the assignments. I want the access. I want people to hire me. I want the things I create now to lead to the next photographs and the next stories.
I want this to work. Because I know nothing in my life like I know baseball. I love being close enough to hear it. The players talking in the dugout. Coaches working through something. Fans yelling. Arguments. Jokes. Frustration. The stuff that happens between pitches and after the inning is over. That’s usually where I find the photographs I care about most. And maybe that’s why I’ve started to recognize so much of myself in the people I’m covering. Everybody is trying to get somewhere.
The paths aren’t the same. The work isn’t the same. But the goal isn’t all that different. We’re trying to see how far we can take this. To reach the highest level our work can take us. Control what you can control. Put in the work. Make the adjustments. Get an opportunity, do something with it, and earn another one. Sometimes you watch one disappear. Sometimes you wonder when the next one is coming. Then you go back to work.
I don’t know where this ends for me. I know I haven’t made it. But I’m not standing outside baseball wishing I could find a way in anymore. I’m here. I’m making work. I’m building relationships. Sometimes somebody calls. Sometimes they don’t.
Tomorrow I’ll load the car and drive four hours back to Springfield. There’s work there I haven’t made yet. And for now, that’s absolutely enough reason to go.
Need a bat? I’m a Chandler Bats ambassador. Use code CHRISTOPHE30077 for 10% off your order.
Want to work together? Photography, editorial, interviews, video, partnerships, or baseball projects: DM me or email at crod@9inningnomad.com
Good stuff man. Good luck on your journey over the past couple years. I’ve been drawn back to baseball and decided to make a crew out of it myself with coaching and writing about it in a Substack that I called decoding the diamond. And even getting back into the playing side for myself building my arm back up for pitching so I can work with the JV team that I coach at the high school I work at. So I wish you luck keep following your dreams and remember that sometimes the best memories come from just living the grind.