From the vantage of Class AAA for the first time in a career that already included coast-to-coast stops — Vermont one summer, California the next —and a detour into the middle of independent ball, John Nogowski realized how close he was to the majors when a promotion to the next level didn’t mean vanishing into the ether. It meant appearing on ESPN.
And still Nogowski, a first baseman, never felt as near to the majors as he did at dawn in Jupiter, Fla.
“The thing about Triple-A is you see a guy raking and then you turn on ESPN and he’s up there and it’s like, damn, he’s in ‘The Game,’ he’s hitting home runs, and you do feel like you’re almost there, too,” Nogowski said.