ST. PAUL, Minn. -- If you didn't know who he was, you'd see just another St. Paul native showing up early at Midway Stadium to celebrate Labor Day from his tailgate.
Brian Burgamy's arrival is nondescript enough as he saunters toward the Saints' old stable, the one that'll be torn down after next season when they move to a new ballpark in Lowertown. Ramming his callused hands into the front pocket of a plain, dark green hoodie and sporting a full brown beard under his royal blue Toronto Blue Jays cap, the 32-year-old first baseman is one of the last players to file into the old barn's mangy clubhouse.
After 12 seasons of minor-league baseball -- every level from the independent ranks to international-equivalent Triple-A -- he doesn't require much time for mental preparation.
Burgamy joined the American Association squad known for its zany promotions and compulsorily eclectic in-game atmosphere about three weeks ago, a brief stopover between the Mexican and Atlantic Leagues. St. Paul fell out of playoff contention not long after his signing, and dollar beers and a day off of work are the main reasons nearly 4,000 Minneapolis residents will plop down on the rigid metal bleachers here in less than two hours.
Then, they'll leave the diamond behind. Some to dust off their bonfire pits for what will be a crisp, cool evening, some to catch the final afternoon of the Minnesota State Fair, others to prepare for the first day of school.
In one way, Burgamy will move on, too. In another, he's never been able to.
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Standing 5-foot-10 and weighing a rounded-out 200 pounds, Burgamy settles into the left-handed batter's box with the bases loaded and no one out. The Sioux City Explorers' starter is a right-hander, and the lifelong switch-hitter comes out attacking.
Too aggressive. Preston Olson gets Burgamy to pop out into shallow left field. The Saints' next man up grounds into an inning-ending double play, and their best threat in a 4-3, 12-inning loss produces nothing.
An all-too-familiar sensation for Burgamy.
There were no vocational crises during the Lawton, Okla., native's childhood. By the time his dad taught him to work both sides of home plate, 7-year-old Brian Burgamy had decided his life would be spent on a baseball field. When his small, rural high school in the nearby township of Cache didn't provide suitable exposure, he transferred to larger Lawton High School in hopes of attracting colleges to his smooth, seamless swing and positional versatility. The switch worked, as he landed on an interstate prep summer showcase team that helped Wichita State catch wind of him. The Shockers offered him a scholarship, and Baseball America recognized him as a second-team All-American after a junior season in which he batted .400 with 57 RBI.
San Diego selected him in the ninth round of the 2002 June Amateur Draft, and Burgamy was well on his way to fulfilling his self-dictated destiny.
Or so he thought.
"I just couldn't figure it out for myself," Burgamy said.
In five years with the Padres organization, he never made it past Double-A ball. His 56-game, 2005 stint with the Mobile (Ala.) Bay Bears saw him bat .199 with only 15 RBI. Philadelphia then selected him in the Rule 5 Draft and gave him another Double-A shot, but 66 appearances spread across two seasons with the Reading (Pa.) Phillies didn't go any better -- he hit .192 and finished his Double-A tenure with an OPS of .586.
While he cites the heat and humidity in Mobile and a lack of coaching direction in Reading, Burgamy blames himself for what amount to long, insurmountable mental ruts against the best pitchers he's ever faced.
It's a tale similar to the majority of pro baseball hopefuls. Massive banquet, miniscule invitation potential.
"Both stints were absolutely horrific," Burgamy said. "Horrible, horrible experiences for me."
His final chance with a major-league club proved even more disastrous; eight games into a go-round with the High-A St. Lucie Mets, he popped his shoulder out of place while tracking a fly ball in left field. He wouldn't dress again that season, and the New York Mets released him during the next campaign's spring training.
That was four-and-a-half years ago, in 2009.
***
Batting with two outs this time, Burgamy is a little more patient. He eventually ropes a textbook single to right field to keep the Saints' sixth inning alive.
Even after watching his childhood dream take three nightmarish sucker punches in succession, Burgamy is only happy when that wooden bat rests comfortably in his gloved hands. Rather than retire it in exchange for a stack of managers' lineup cards or a backpack in search of completing his degree, he has sought paid baseball opportunities the world over.
No matter the salary, no matter the location, he just wants to play.
"I've made the commitment to make this my career," Burgamy said. "You go where you can make the money and be able to support yourself."
For Burgamy, that's been primarily the Atlantic League, where he first dipped into the independent game between his stints with the Phillies and Mets organizations. He's played for four different Atlantic teams and will finish out the summer with a fifth after the Saints dealt him to Sugar Land (Texas) in exchange for future considerations.
Sporting the deepest pitching arsenals independent baseball has to offer, the Atlantic League is where Burgamy finally found his groove.
"I didn't start hitting at my best until I was in the Atlantic League for a couple years," said Burgamy, a .387 batter in independent play. "I didn't really learn myself and learn how to hit in general until I got on my own and went into the Atlantic League."
A strong start to this summer with the York (Pa.) Revolution got him the closest he's come to the majors since those dreadful Double-A days. The Piratas de Campeche of the Mexican League -- an MLB Triple-A pool of unaffiliated teams -- picked him up, and he hit .335 with 35 RBI and 15 home runs in 48 games south of the border. That was good enough to glean an agreement to play again in Mexico this winter, when some of the best money outside of major-league salaries can be made.
But first, Burgamy came to St. Paul to stay sharp.
Saints manager George Tsamis immediately liked what he saw.
"That's a guy you should just sit there and pay just to watch batting practice," said Tsamis, who spent five seasons in the Minnesota Twins system starting in 1989. "This is my 15th year managing, and I've never, ever had a player that the ball jumps off a bat like his from the left side. It's an unbelievable thing to see how much the ball jumps off his bat."
While he filled a void at first base in St. Paul, Burgamy has played every position except catcher during his professional career. He's admittedly lost the speed that made him a dangerous base runner in college and during his early affiliated years, but that's been replaced by more power. He slugged .600 in 24 games with the Saints this August.
It's enough for dreamers like Tsamis to clamor for a big-league team to take another flier on Burgamy. "I strongly feel he could be in someone's Triple-A right now."
But the major league scouts rarely come calling anymore, not with so many investments tied up in younger draft picks that have time and money on their side.
"He could play and DH or do whatever in the big leagues and probably do well, and it's like those guys are getting paid millions of dollars … and we're here making what, two-grand a month? How stupid is that?" spouted St. Paul shortstop Adam Frost, a one-time draftee of the Detroit Tigers. "You can just tell the guys that are older and have been around the game a lot longer that they don't really take it to heart. They just know personally that 'I'm just as good as that guy that's over there in Triple-A and affiliated ball' and it just doesn't really seem to faze those guys. You can't really tell, but deep down you look at them, you can kind of tell. They kind of carry it with them."
What Burgamy carries, besides a big bat, is a stubborn defiance to shift into another walk of life. Maintaining this career path hasn't been easy; he's served at restaurants, rented cars and accepted help from his parents to make offseason ends meet.
He's never been married, never had any children, though he does have a girlfriend of approximately one year. A family of his own is just one of the many things he's sacrificed in order to remain in the game.
"I don't know if it's fortunate or unfortunate whether I have a family or not, but it's helped me continue to keep playing," said Burgamy, who has spent time in the Australian Baseball League and played briefly in Mexico last winter, too. "My feeling is this is what I was born to do, and I can't really imagine myself doing anything else for a career."
***
In what's likely his second-to-last plate appearance as a St. Paul Saint, Burgamy exhibits none of the churlish abandon he did in his first at-bat. He wisely takes a 3-2 pitch for a walk, though he'll later be retired on another frame-closing double play.
It's the last bright moment in Burgamy's 1,307th professional baseball game.
After his attempt to help Sugar Land in its Atlantic League playoff push, then another southbound sojourn, his future is unclear. The winter could forge an MLB spring training invite, or it could help seal his fate as another amateur baseball star that couldn't hack it professionally.
But what sets Burgamy apart is that when he does finally terminate this cycle of hope and letdown, of living the life he promised himself regardless of circumstance, he'll have done so exhaustibly.
"I always told myself that I would be playing until I couldn't play anymore, until my body gave out or nobody wanted me," Burgamy said. "As of right now, I'm playing the best I've ever played in my life. I don't see anything slowing down anytime soon, which year-to-year, you never know. Things can creep up. You don't know how things work out in the future, but as of right now, I plan on going until I can't do it anymore."
And even then, he knows where the next trip will take him.
"I'm pretty much a lifer," Burgamy said, "so when I'm done, when I can't play anymore, when I'm hobbling around, whenever that is, I'm probably gonna be coaching somewhere."
Frost could see that. In less than a month around the guy, he picked up on a zeal that's extraordinary even among a league of big-time aspirants, each of them caught up in an uphill battle for a pinnacle very few of them will ever even sniff.
Burgamy might again. He probably won't.
But he'll have tried. And tried again. And then tried again.
"Those kind of guys are going to keep playing until someone takes the jersey off of them," Frost said.
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