First of two parts

ORONO; LITTLE FALLS, N.J.; and parts in between – There’s very little disagreement among minor league baseball coaches or players about what’s worst about road trips. Almost everyone agrees: Bus rides drive them crazy.

“Being on the bus is probably the worst,” said Bangor shortstop-third baseman Todd Brock. “It’s cool to hang out with the team and watch movies and stuff, but driving through the night is probably the worst thing about trips.”

The best way to combat the worst the road has to offer is to be sure to provide for three basic things: music, entertainment and comfort. For most busing ballplayers, that means remembering to bring along CD’s, personal stereos, DVD’s, laptops, and – most importantly – pillows.

It may seem simple and anything but vital, but the pillow is right up there with food and water for these guys.

“If you forget your pillow on a bus ride, that’s the worst thing you can do,” said former Bangor backup catcher Mikaela Dworken. “You’re screwed.”

Such was the case for a certain reporter from a daily newspaper in Bangor who, along with a photographer (who also forgot a pillow), hit the road with 21 players, three coaches, a trainer and Steve the bus driver at 11:55 p.m. on a Thursday night in July. Projected time of the 391-mile trip? Eight or nine hours.

On the road again

Being pillow-challenged wasn’t as bad as it could have been, since sleeping on the bus is really something only the really tired can do and there was too much to do and document while the 20-inch tires were spinning their way from the University of Maine campus to northwestern New Jersey and a three-game stop in Clifton, N.J.

Things like watching starting pitcher John Vigue take all of 30 seconds to spring from his seat, rustle through a small stack of videocassettes, and select the first movie to be shown on the 12-inch liquid crystal screen that pops down from the roof at the front of the bus and the six, five-inch screens mounted below the luggage compartments and beside the windows every three or four rows back.

“Vigs is the movie guy. He’s Siskel and Ebert both,” said manager Kash Beauchamp.

The movie guy’s choice this night was “Fight Club,” which was joined from the spot they left it at on the last trip, about a third of the way through.

“Getting VCRs on buses has been the biggest thing. It’s made bus travel a lot easier and makes the time go a lot faster,” said Beauchamp, who’s had more than his share of bus rides as a player, coach or manager for 21 of the last 23 years. “That was huge.”

Well, that and air conditioning.

“I’ve been on a couple road trips when it’s hot and the AC goes out. That’s really bad, especially if it’s hot,” said Vigue.

Pitching coach and starting pitcher Kevin Pincavitch is hoping his idea will be hailed as another big advancement in bus travel comfort.

“It’s like a hammock and it would fit over the seat and have a hook so you’d be able to sit or lie in it and have your feet up,” Pincavitch said while punching his pillow and trying to find a comfortable position to scrunch his 5-foot-10, 180-pound body into his seat behind the bus driver’s cockpit.

There’s a hierarchal system when it comes to seating. The coaching staff sits up front in two seats, and the players fill in behind. Veterans have two seats, also, and rookies, if there aren’t enough double seats for everyone, must take a single seat.

Pincavitch, Beauchamp, assistant coach Josh Brinkley and trainer Angela Potter occupy the four seats in the first two rows and in a break from the traditional setup, the next row was occupied by the interlopers from the newspaper. The fourth row and beyond is players’ territory. This particular trip, nobody had to double up.

“This is one of the nicer, bigger buses we’ve gotten,” pitcher Brandon Bowe said of the Cyr coach bus. “The other ones, it would just be two or three seats where you’d have people doubling up.”

“I’d say being a rookie and having to share a seat … That’s the worst,” said starting pitcher Jerry Long.

Ah, the life of a rookie athlete.

“The rookies have to carry the laundry bags and stuff, and double up on the road … On the bus and in hotel rooms,” Bowe added.

Compared to the team travel a decade or two ago, today’s players – even if they are rookies – have it good.

“When I was playing in Kinston, NC., we had a bus that was some 1960’s bus. The seats were knifed out and it looked like the bus on ‘Bull Durham,'” said Beauchamp, referring to the popular movie about minor league baseball. “The bus broke down one night and I remember sleeping on the concrete at a truck stop while the bus was getting fixed.”

Even life higher up the minor league ladder (A, AA, AAA) had its disadvantages.

“We flew a lot in the PCL [Pacific Coast League], but those redeyes were tough,” Beauchamp said. “Honestly, the worst travel I had was in Triple A with the flights. They were all redeyes with all these connections and you’d have to try to sleep on the plane. I hated that.”

Mr. Sandman, send me a dream

Sleep is a valued commodity on the road … and it’s in as short supply as no-hitters.

“I don’t think anybody really sleeps a lot on the bus,” said infielder-designated hitter Donnie Ross. “You just try to get as comfortable as you can and relax as much as possible.”

“You try to get some sleep if you possibly can. I was a person who could never sleep on a bus. I always had a deck of cards with me,” said former Lumberjack reliever Donnie Thomas. “Reading’s a big deal on the bus too, along with movies and music. We have a lot more opportunities to do things on the bus that the older players didn’t.”

Some veteran players, like reliever Santiago Henry, bring material to make their own bedding. Henry uses yards of spongy foam padding and spreads it out on the floor of the bus below his seat to cushion his body and absorb the vibrations of the bus wheels. He then settles in with his pillow and sheets and catches some Z’s.

Others, like coach Brinkley, don’t even bother getting creative. They just spread out on the floor space between seats with a pillow and a blanket and conk out … If they can.

“I got about three hours of sleep,” Bowe said after arriving in Clifton at 9:30 a.m. “Usually I just throw on my sunglasses and rock out. I have my headphones on and listen to Rush and Megadeth.”

Maybe he should try Metallica and “Enter Sandman.”

Like music, everyone has a unique approach.

“When I was younger, I never slept on the bus. I played cards all night, but as I got older, I’d get tired at night,” Beauchamp said. “Nyquil and Tylenol PM don’t hurt either as far as helping you sleep, and I like road noise because I need a solid noise to sleep. I sleep with a fan on at home.

“When you get tired enough, you can sleep anywhere.”

The 6-foot-3 manager said the worst thing about long rides is how the bus affects his body.

“I have more problems physically with my back and neck. I always get a muscle spasm being in awkward positions,” Beauchamp said. “I used to get in the luggage racks back when they were bigger because I was so skinny. I’d just to stretch out and lay down. I normally get claustrophobic, but if I’m tired enough, I just got up there and fell asleep anyway.”

Detours and delays

The trip lasted almost 10 hours despite two stops for bathroom breaks, food, or just a stretch of the legs; slow going at the scene of an accident outside Augusta where a car ran off the road; and even slower going in New York early Friday morning after a truck fire closed the George Washington Bridge and stranded drivers for almost four hours.

Bangor’s bus was fortunate as it wasn’t on the bridge during the shutdown. It just had to roll along at a snail’s pace through narrow, congested, downtown streets through three detours which seemed to send traffic around the block two or three times before actually leading somewhere into the Lincoln tunnel and out of the city.

It could have been worse.

“Last year in Adirondack [New York]. We were going down a hill and the bus driver took a right, but we got the back of the bus stuck on this hill crossing two lanes of traffic in downtown Lake George,” Thomas recalled. “We sat there an hour and a half until a wrecker came to get us out.”

That’s not to say things went much better for Thomas on this trip. He found out he’d been traded to New Jersey and drove his car there after Thursday night’s game in Bangor. He did get caught in the G.W. Bridge closing and could do nothing but leave his car, seek shelter from the heat, and try to stay positive.

“It was like we didn’t really care as much after awhile. We found it kind of funny,” Thomas said. “It was better than sitting on a curb getting mad.”

Although he didn’t know it, Thomas wasn’t the only Lumberjacks player stranded on the bridge. Infielder-DH Mark Burke and his girlfriend Chrystie Fitchner, who always travel in his truck while on the road, also got stuck in a confluence of concrete, steel, hot tempers and sun-seared cars.

“We left at 11:15 p.m. Thursday night and didn’t get here until 11:30 Friday,” said Fitchner. “It was a nightmare, but what can you do? We just tried to find some shade and talked to some people.”

Tomorrow: For the love of the game.