AJPettersen

I have been a resident of Minnesota my entire life, which probably makes me crazy for deciding to be a baseball player. Typically, November to March are off limits for outdoor baseball, making the offseason frustrating. In college this wasn’t a problem, as we had an indoor facility on campus and the Metrodome. As this offseason and the winter months approached, I realized how I took these facilities for granted. How would I workout now? Minnetonka I knew I would be living in Minnetonka about three days a week and in Rochester about four days a week for most of the offseason and would have to find places to workout in both locations. The high school football field in Minnetonka is domed for the winter and is usually accessible during school hours. Beyond that, my parents have a workout room in their basement that is perfect. I could do everything I needed. Now I had to tackle the other four days of the week.[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK] Rochester I discovered that working out in Rochester was going to be difficult, when a simple Google search for indoor batting cages turned up nothing. I knew I couldn’t take four days off from hitting and throwing each week and expect to get better. I stumbled upon the email address for the baseball coach at the local college. I emailed him on a whim and was offered a volunteer coaching job. I zealously accepted and was given full use of all the facilities they had to offer. I could hit and throw in their fieldhouse and I could lift in their weight room. I had a fellow pro baseball colleague named Brandon Douglas to workout with. He was in AA for the Tigers last year and was very helpful because of his experience. What I Focused On Having 6 months to work on baseball was a dream come true. When I left instructs in the middle of October, I knew there were things I needed to improve. Two things I focused on were mental training and getting my body ready for the grind of 150+ games. I was first introduced to mental training in college. We focused on techniques that guided my four years of play, which I have continued to develop. Recently I became connected with a mental/vision training coach in Minneapolis. Whenever I was in the cities, I worked with him twice a week for an hour. His methods stretched my imagination for how I can grow in vision improvement, bat speed and confidence. Playing for 6 months straight will be something new for me. In college, the frequency of games isn’t nearly the same as a pro season. I knew I would need to put on weight and increase my flexibility to endure the year. I left the season around 155 pounds, which was the least I had weighed in a while. I hit the weight room hard and was able to add 10 pounds and increase flexibility. My body is now ready to make it through the season without any hiccups (barring another fastball to the nose). My first offseason of workouts were successful and I am excited to get the 2012 season started! I will be writing again in about a week to give my initial thoughts about spring training. Check me out on twitter: @apettersen1

My name is AJ Pettersen. I will be blogging for twinsdaily.com throughout the summer. I grew up in Minnetonka, MN, have been a Twins fan my entire life and am honored to be a part of this organization. That being said, I hope my insight into the life of minor league baseball is both interesting and engaging. While the lives of minor leaguers may be significantly different from others, after the season ends we look for jobs just like anyone else. The only difference is our availability. Finding a job that pays decently, has flexible hours and doesn’t require your presence 6 months out of the year is nearly impossible. Many players have to get creative when they search for offseason employment. [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK] My Job Search When I returned home from instructional league in mid-October, I knew I would be moving half of my belongings to Emily’s (my fiancée) place in Rochester and half of them at my parents place in Minnetonka. Emily got a job out of college in Rochester and we decided it would be best if I lived there while she worked and we would return to the cities whenever she had 3 or 4 days off from work in a row. This meant my job had to be even more flexible than I had originally thought. I brainstormed ideas and couldn’t come up with much beyond working online. MTurk The first site I stumbled upon was Amazon Mechanical Turk. This is a site where workers complete “hits” and get paid for their work. I researched the best strategies for making money on the site and quickly found myself completing hits, such as organizing kitchen photos into categories like “stainless steel” and “open concept.” I timed myself and found I was making about…$3.50 an hour. I thought, “I either need to get a lot of quicker with my categorizing or watch HGTV to brush up keywords.” Neither of those thoughts made a difference, so I tried something new. I began filling out surveys and writing essays. My hourly wage was rising to about $7 or $8 an hour, but it was becoming more difficult to find the work I wanted to do. There was one employer consistently giving out the best rates to write essays. I searched his name in google and came up with his email, leading to my first real freelance writing client. Freelance Writing I began writing essays and was making upwards of $20-$30 an hour, with a steady stream of work coming in each day. This nature of these essays was more busy work than I wanted, so I contacted other online writers to see if they had any work for me. One woman responded and wanted me to apply for a weekly blog post on moneyning.com. The host of the site liked my writing and I have been writing for him for the past 3 months. From $3.50 to around $30 an hour I make now, my search for employment has been anything but normal. Freelance writing has been a blessing for the flexibility it allows me.