Most people spend their summers at the beach or lake. Me? I spend nearly every day at a ballpark. My boyfriend plays professional baseball, and naturally I want to be there every day to support him chasing his dream! However, being a baseball player’s girlfriend is not what most people would think it would be! I’m going to give you a little insight into what it’s like to be a players girlfriend.

Say ‘goodbye’ to date nights.

The day I met him I never would’ve guess the restraints it would place on every aspect of our relationship. The first thing I gave up was a normal date night. If we want a ‘date night’ we have to get creative, and usually our date nights turn into date afternoons. The boys have very few off days and a majority of the games are night games...prime date night time.

This season I can think of only a handful of times we have been able to go out for a nice dinner and maybe even a movie. I took date nights for granted prior to dating a baseball player. I thought nothing of them, and now if we get a chance to grab dinner, you would think I won the lottery! Baseball makes you appreciate the small things, even if its a pizza and Netflix in a hotel room after a late night game, you make it work!

Say ‘hello’ to dating baseball. 

Dating a player was a package deal, I date him...I date baseball. Every evening I make a date with the ballpark or my MiLB app to watch his team work towards a win (hopefully!) to get one step closer to playoffs. When the league sets the schedule for the team in off season, they basically set my schedule for the summer. I plan road trips, home games, and off days to make sure we make the best of the season. On game days (which believe it or not is every day from beginning of April to beginning of September minus a handful of off days) we spend MAYBE a few hours together...if I’m lucky.

Having two jobs, I work often, and I am usually gone before he even wakes up. A lot of people think players can show up an hour or so before the game...I WISH! These boys have to be at the field usually at 1pm for a 7pm game. Games usually are 3 hours, so from 1pm-10pm they’re at work and out of touch. I thank God that we have a strong relationship because for me, being out of touch for even a few hours would normally drive me crazy. But I happily share my boyfriend with baseball because watching the person you love chase their dreams never grows old.

Life is NEVER boring.

Minor League baseball is wild! Moves are always made and at any point they could move, trade, or release a player. Whether we are traveling for an away stand or he got moved up or down, we are CONSTANTLY traveling. Usually a move is never told to the players at a convenient time for them or their girlfriends. The news could come at midnight before his 8am flight, or right when he gets to the field to get ready for game day...so nice right? So at any moment we are ready to change our plans and move to a new ballpark that we will call home for who knows how long. This makes making plans in advance nearly impossible. One moment we could be in North Carolina, the next hundreds of miles away in another state.

Baseball Blessings.

Baseball has taught me many things and given me many blessings. Naturally I learn more about the sport, but I also learn patience with others and myself. I learn how to be a better girlfriend, and a better person through every experience I have with the sport. But the biggest blessing that comes from baseball is the wonderful women I have had the chance to build friendships with. These women come from across the country from California to Florida.

Being a girlfriend of a baseball player is tough! Not being able to communicate with them as often as you wish you could is hard. But when you have friends who are in the same shoes as you, it makes it a whole lot easier. We share the same ups and downs, wins and losses, and it seems like we all deal with the same issue...missing our boys. Whether its been a day, a week, a month, a whole season, we all go periods without seeing our boys. We’ve given them up to baseball and we all countdown the days to the last game of the season when we call can them ours again...until March, when it starts all over again.

I love where baseball has taken us, the opportunities it has given us, the friends it has allowed us to make. But what I love most is being able to sit in the stands and cheer on my guy as he takes the mound and chases his dream, one pitch at a time.