Romak showed perseverance, beat the odds

Canada is hockey country, but Jamie Romak didn't let his homeland's national obsession interfere with his boyhood dreams of playing America's national pastime.

Almost two-thirds of the players who've ever appeared in an NHL game were born in Canada, and the province of Ontario -- which includes Romak's birthplace of London -- has sent more players to the NHL than the United States, Russia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Sweden and Finland combined. By contrast, fewer than 2 percent of the more 18,000 Major Leaguers hail from America's neighbor to the north.

But while his closest friends were taking slap shots from the blue line and perfecting their dekes on frozen ponds, Romak was waiting for the snow to melt and spring to arrive.

"I played hockey, but baseball was my love and that was what I wanted to do," said Romak, who turns 30 in September and has one Major League hit to his name. "I knew from a young age. I just had a different type of passion for it. It's never been hard for me to be motivated to work on baseball, I just don't feel like it's work because I enjoy doing it."

As a right defenseman, Romak played Triple-A hockey -- one of the highest youth levels in Ontario -- with current Los Angeles Kings center and Stanley Cup winner Jeff Carter. But when it came time to pick a career over a hobby, baseball won out.

Draft day

Romak's professional sports journey began in earnest in 2003. He was selected in the fourth round of the 2003 Draft by the Atlanta Braves, one of several organizations that showed interest in the two-sport teenage slugger who was honing his swing at little-known A.B. Lucas Secondary, a school that catered to around 1,000 students between ninth and 12th grade.

He remembers that day as if it were yesterday, huddled around his computer with family and friends, hanging on every word when the Braves, Pirates and Expos - those most likely to gamble on the high schooler -- were on the clock.

"I remember going into the day with some expectations, just from teams I had talked to. It was looking like I could go between the third and seventh round, but the Draft is such a crapshoot and so much could happen," said Romak, who shares a hometown with two former No. 1 overall NHL draft picks -- Sharks center Joe Thornton and Olympic gold medalist Eric Lindros.

"I remember believing it would happen, but when the Draft started, I start hearing all the names getting rhymed off: So-and-so, Arizona State; next guy, North Carolina; next guy, University of Florida. And I'm just this 17-year-old Canadian kid thinking, 'How does my name fit in with any of these guys?'"

On the day he signed his first contract with the Braves, Romak never had expectations of grandeur. He didn't expect to be patrolling Turner Field with Andruw Jones and J.D. Drew right away and he knew the road to "The Show" required hard work, perseverance and a lot of commitment.

However pragmatic the 6-foot-2, 220-pound outfielder was, it's likely he never foresaw just how winding the road ahead would be.

"You don't get to the Major Leagues without talent, but there are a lot of players who, for a lot of solid reasons, wouldn't have the resiliency to stay around for as long as he did when the game is telling you that it may not reward you ever," said Greg Hamilton, who's worked with Baseball Canada as head coach and director of Canada's national teams since 1998 and who first coached Romak in 2001.

"To stay for that many years and to grind it out in the Minor Leagues with neverending feedback that says you may not make it is a testament to his enthusiasm and desire and love for the game. He never let the negativity beat him."

In total, Romak needed 3,723 at-bats across 1,068 games to reach his ultimate goal. He played for 12 teams in seven leagues, and the Diamondbacks -- with whom he signed last November -- will be his fifth Major League organization and fourth in as many years.

Those numbers don't include the 21 games he played in Hawaii Winter Baseball as 22-year-old in 2007, the week he spent in the Dominican Winter League in 2012 or the 44 games he played to get extra at-bats in Venezuela the past two offseasons. Romak believes any opportunity to perfect a craft should be embraced, regardless of the opposition or continent.

"Growing up, you think you're invincible. You're used to being the big fish in a small pond, so to speak," said Romak, who grew up a Blue Jays fan and won a gold medal with Team Canada at the 2011 Pan-Am Games in Guadalajara. "That's the time of your life when everybody is telling you how great you are and all that. Once you start in pro ball, you're just one of all of these guys who've been told how great they are."

Patience

Sidelined with injuries for parts of his first three Minor League seasons, Romak didn't make it out of the Rookie-level Gulf Coast and Appalachian leagues until 2006, his fourth year in pro ball. He slugged a career-high 16 homers and appeared in 108 South Atlantic League games with Rome, more than he had played in the previous three years combined, and he lifted his stock so much in one season that the Braves packaged him with Adam LaRoche in the deal that brought big league closer Mike Gonzalez and utilityman Brent Lillibridge from Pittsburgh.

Minor League career breakdown
	2003: Selected in the fourth round of the 2003 Draft, Romak batted .176 in 19 games with the Braves' Rookie-level Gulf Coast League affiliate.
	2006: After three years in the GCL and Appalachian Leagues, Romak moved up to the full-season South Atlantic League, where he hit .247 with 16 homers.
	2007: Traded to the Pirates, Romak cracked 20 homers and plated 60 runs in 105 games across two levels, predominantly with Class A Advanced Lynchburg.
	2009: Romak started the year with Double-A Altoona, the team with which he ended '08, but after hitting .175 in 64 Eastern League games, he was demoted to Lynchburg, where he had seen time each of the previous two seasons.
	2010: Signed by the Royals before the 2010 campaign, the outfielder started in Wilmington and made his way back to Double-A, where he hit .278 over the final third of the season with the Naturals.
	2012: Romak got his first taste of Triple-A ball in Omaha, but the Cardinals purchased his contract on May 17 and assigned him to Memphis. He went homerless in his first 31 games and spent the second half of the year with Double-A Springfield.
	2014: Despite hammering 22 homers in 134 games with Memphis in 2013, the Cardinals chose not to re-sign Romak. He signed on with the Dodgers and totaled 24 dingers and 85 RBIs with Albuquerque. He made his Major League debut on May 28 as a pinch-hitter in a 3-2 loss to Cincinnati.

Romak spent the next three summers as a member of the Pirates organization, earning a reputation as a legitimate power threat. He clubbed 20 homers between two levels in 2007 and 25 more the following season after undergoing minor elbow surgery, earning him a trip to the prospect-laden Arizona Fall League.

"I think as well as things went in 2008 and started to click, the expectations started to get a little bit bigger," Romak admitted. "When they sit down to talk with you now, they start talking in a different way, like, 'We have so-and-so on the big league roster signed for 'x' amount of years and we see you as the next guy who can be there.'

"Then, all of a sudden, as a kid who's always wanted to play in the big leagues, you start forgetting about the process and you just want to be there right now. That was part of the problems I went through in 2009 and why I struggled. I got ahead of myself. When they start to talk to you about how close you are, you get too far away from your own game and what made you successful."

Romak batted .175 with Double-A Altoona in 2009 and was granted free agency at the end of the year.

"You sometimes worry if you would be able to continue playing baseball," he said. "It's crazy, two ends of the spectrum. On top of the world in 2008 and by the end of 2009 wondering how long I would be able to do this for."

After learning how to play third base to increase his versatility and his appeal to possible suitors, Romak latched on with the Royals for 2010-11 and had his contract purchased by the Cardinals in the summer of 2012. He was released by St. Louis and picked up by the Dodgers within a two-week span in November 2013 and was assigned to Triple-A Albuquerque to start 2014.

Even entering his 12th Minor League season, Romak never lost hope that he would join the list of more than 18,000 players who've earned the right to call themselves Major Leaguers.

"It's actually been easier to have more fun the older I get because when you're young you're trying to figure out so many things," he said. "I felt like I was a little bit behind, baseball-wise, and it was tough to get beat. As a competitor, the speed of the game and the velocity was ahead of where I was, so it becomes a little frustrating not having the success I had.

"The older you get, the game slows down and you know what you need to do to keep your body in good shape, and you're not battling the same injuries all the time. I think that's when it becomes more enjoyable because you relax and have fun. I have more fun now, I really enjoy it."

By the end of May, Romak got his chance.

The call

Romak was batting .304 (27-for-89) with 10 homers and 18 RBIs in 25 games that month, collecting hits in seven of nine contests to lift his average 30 points in 27 days.

The Isotopes had just started a four-game road trip in Sacramento and Romak's hot streak coincided with Dodgers left fielder Carl Crawford landing on the disabled list with a sprained left ankle. If timing is everything, Romak finally was in the right place at the right moment.

"That night [May 27], I saw our trainer take a phone call in the dugout and I watched him talk to our manager. It had been a great month and things were rolling and I just had this feeling in my stomach: 'Let this be me,'" he recalled. "After the game, nobody got called into the manager's office, so I turned the page.

"Sure enough, the next morning the hotel phone rings and I knew it was either me or my roommate, Clint Robinson. Anytime you hear that hotel room phone ring in the age of cellphones, that's what the call is coming through for. I was still sleeping and Clint answered it. As soon as I heard my manager's voice, I knew right away. It was just wild. That's the call you've been waiting for your whole life and the calls you've been waiting to make for so long. It's one of those things I'll truly remember for the rest of my life."

Romak went 1-for-21 with two walks and eight strikeouts in 15 games for the Dodgers before being replaced on the bench one month later by Robinson.

"It touches you emotionally because you're really happy for him," said Hamilton, who said while baseball resonates tremendously in the province of Ontario, it's still a long way behind hockey and soccer in terms of youth participation. "You know how much he's invested in it firsthand and you know the character and makeup of Jamie, which is outstanding. It's wonderful to see when somebody puts the amount of time in and has the resiliency and the drive and belief to stay with it for such a long period of time.

"For him to have dealt with the adversity and stay with it and realize his Major League dream with such a storied franchise, it's something we all applaud and we have a sense of happiness for him."

Now the Canadian has it all to do again with a new organization. Granted free agency on Nov. 4, Romak signed with the D-backs two weeks later and is one of 23 non-roster players at Spring Training.

Whether Romak makes the big league roster or starts the year at Triple-A Reno, he'll always look fondly on his time in the Minors because it shaped him into the player he is today.

He's grateful of the leadership role he took on in 2010 with Northwest Arkansas, where he worked with highly touted prospects like Mike Moustakas, Eric Hosmer and Johnny Giavotella. And he has fond memories of all the position players wearing matching tank tops and sitting around a TV in the clubhouse to watch "Jersey Shore."

Romak remembers the great weather that accompanied playing in Charleston, South Carolina, with Hickory in 2007 and the proximity of Memphis AutoZone Park to the downtown scene where the Mississippi River dividing Arkansas and Tennessee is just a long fly ball away. There are the memories of playing in a sea of red in the heart of Cardinal country in Springfield in 2012 and exploring the Pacific Northwest in Tacoma. He's thankful for the hospitality of Isotopes general manager John Traub in Albuquerque and the constant support offered by hitting coaches like Franklin Stubbs in Albuquerque and Mark Budaska in Memphis.

For Romak, that collection of experiences, people and locations are what makes the Minors special, intimate and, ultimately, rewarding.

"It was a crazy ride, but I always believed I would get there," said Romak, who was honored by Baseball Canada and presented with a special achievement award in January. "I love to play. People ask me how hard it was being in the Minor Leagues, but I'm pretty fortunate to play professional baseball and I really, truly don't consider it a grind. I enjoy playing and it was nice to play in the big leagues, where you feel it's the best players in the world. And as an athlete, that's the challenge you want."