MESA, Ariz. — Back before free agency, many baseball players worked second jobs in the offseason. With bigger contracts and year-round training, that’s less common now, but this spring, the A’s have a part-time construction worker in camp.
Left-hander Jarret Martin, his baseball career adrift after shoulder surgery in 2014, played independent ball in Sussex, N.J., and Ottawa in 2015, then he went to work digging ditches for his family’s construction company in Bakersfield.
“It was really therapeutic, getting out there changing my goals, changing my mind-set,” Martin said at Hohokam Stadium. “Every morning, 6 a.m., I’d be out there in a bright orange T-shirt and a hardhat.