Love of the game is a strong thing for NBC’s Kansas Stars

A baseball life comes with an hour glass. No one plays forever.

But imagine being a Major League Baseball player whose skills have evaporated to the point where he can no longer achieve the kind of success to which he had become accustomed.

To play the game at the highest level is no longer possible. And let’s face it, many players aren’t interested in letting what was a flame become a flicker.

Which makes what is happening this year with the Kansas Stars and the National Baseball Congress World Series so fascinating. A group of more than two-dozen former big leaguers, from journeymen to stars, have decided that playing baseball is the most important thing.

Even past their primes.

“We were put here to play baseball,” said right-hander Tim Hudson, the starting pitcher in the Stars’ 8-0 win over the Sterling (Colo.) Xpress on Saturday night at Lawrence-Dumont Stadium. “This is what we’re good at doing.”

All of the Stars are hovering around 40. But instead of putting away their gloves and bats for good, they’re here doing what they still do best. And determined to have as much fun as they can in the process.

Hudson pitched three hitless innings, walking two. Josh Beckett followed up with three more hitless innings. The Xpress didn’t get a hit until the seventh, against former Wichita State left-hander Nate Robertson.

And when Hudson, Adam LaRoche and Pete Orr addressed the media after the game, they made it clear how happy they are to be playing.

Still.

“Not many of us took a rocket ship to the big leagues,” said Orr, a former utility infielder who spent time with the Atlanta Braves, Washington Nationals and Philadelphia Phillies. “Most of us had to really work to get there.”

What the Stars are is a bunch of guys who became friends because of their common pursuit and who still have enough left to give a tournament like this a shot.

And reinforcements are on the way. A guy named Roger Clemens will join the Stars soon and, it’s believed, is the likely starting pitcher for Wednesday’s 7 p.m. game against the NJCAA national team.

What does the 54-year-old Clemens have to gain by pitching for the Kansas Stars in the NBC World Series?

Enjoyment, which is fun. And competition, which is something these guys thrive on.

So does 5-foot-9, 165-pound Sterling right-hander David Mendez, who spent the 2016 season pitching for Northeastern (Colo.) Junior College, where he was 3-4 with a 4.57 ERA.

Mendez found out Friday night he would be starting against the Stars and forced himself to sleep, which isn’t what his body wanted to do.

“In the game, I just told myself to control my breathing, control my heart rate,” Mendez said.

After a tough first inning – he allowed two runs thanks to a couple of walks and a double by the Stars’ J.D. Drew – Mendez blanked the Stars over the next five innings.

“Besides that first inning,” he said, “I felt like I dominated. Against big leaguers, I did OK. I think the first inning was just the jitters I had, the nerves.”

Mendez said he tried to block out everything and focus on his catcher’s glove. He tried not to hear when the stadium’s public-address announcer introduced the next Stars hitter. He tried not to see who was coming to the plate.

“Those are some big guys, very intimidating,” Mendez said. “But I just didn’t let that get to me. I treated it like a regular game. They’re doing the same things we are.”

Mendez, who will pitch for Division II Bellevue in his hometown of Omaha in the fall, will have a whopper of a story to tell for the next several decades.

“This is the highlight of my baseball career,” he said. “Most definitely, the most fun I’ve ever had.”

LaRoche, who has six career homers and a 1.017 career on-base plus slugging against Cole Hamels, one of the best pitchers in the majors over the past several seasons, had nice things to say about Mendez.

“Man, he was pretty good,” said LaRoche, who has 255 career homers and was in spring training this season with the White Sox before retiring after a dispute with the team. “He was competing. I don’t know how hard he was throwing, but I thought it was about 99 mph my first at-bat having not seen a live ball for a while.”

The Stars roughed up Sterling’s bullpen, though, scoring five runs in the seventh to take a 7-0 lead.

Drew had a couple of hits, as did former Marlins and Braves second baseman Dan Uggla. Third baseman Brandon Inge, who played for Detroit, went 3 for 5.

Orr twice hit balls hard, once to the warning track. For a guy with three career homers in the majors, he was hoping to get one over the fence.

“But I didn’t quite get it,” Orr said. “It’s fun to have that feeling again, though. One thing when you retire is that you don’t get the feeling of barreling up a baseball anymore. There’s nothing in the world quite like that. It was definitely fun to get in the box and hit.”

The Stars’ players are wearing the uniforms of the big-league teams they identify most with, but they’re not here to big-time anyone.

They’re here to play a game they love and one they can no longer play at the highest level. They’re here because baseball has them hooked and this is the one place they can all do this together.

Baseball makes them happy. They have a desire to compete. And we’re lucky to watch them do this while they still can.

This story was originally published August 7, 2016 at 10:12 AM with the headline "Love of the game is a strong thing for NBC’s Kansas Stars."