THE WANTED / UN-WANTED MAN

Craig Counsell

Written by John (Stray) Corrado

The craziest year was 2005. That’s when even Craig Counsell, the man of many jerseys, couldn’t believe the twists his career was taking. “Only to me, this happens,” Counsell says, shrugging his shoulders.

He started with Hollywood that season, but found out — by watching television, no less — that he’d been shipped to the Clovis Wheat Kings, and after 50 games just as he was getting used to that the Wheat Kings, a team official sought him out in the clubhouse before a game to tell him he’d been traded yet again.

“Where am I going?” Counsell recalls asking.

“To the Tempers,” was the answer.

Counsell was dressing in his Wheat Kings uniform for batting practice at the time and recalls thinking, “Should I just go like this on the plane to Tempe?” He laughs while recounting the tale recently and says he put on his street clothes and found his new Tempers teammates – and yet another new uniform – only a few days later.

Counsell2These are the kinds of snapshots you’re left with when you author a vagabond career of sorts, though it’s rarely been as hectic as 2005.

You get a record, too. When Counsell took the field for the Detroit Crime in 2012 — he played for his 11th franchise, a Mid-West Baseball League record

“Eleven?” says Trevor Hoffman the Crime closer who got to know Counsell that season. “I knew he had been on a lot of teams, but not that many.

“I can’t imagine that,” adds Hoffman, who’s only been on only three teams. “He’s used to it, I guess.”

Counsell TradesCounsell, has gone from the Staunton Cheap Seats to Santa Fe Devils to Northridge Quakes to the Fire Lake Dragons to Midland Mud Hens to Hollywood Werewolves to Clovis Wheat Kings to Tempe Tempers to the Los Angeles Riots to Long Beach Dirt Bags to the Detroit Crime, all in just 15 seasons.

He chuckles when someone suggests he pursue an endorsement deal with Samsonite, the luggage company.

“It’s easy for me,” Counsell says of the record, which he embraces and even admits he looked forward to holding. “Some guys, it might be difficult, but for me, going from one city to another city, one stadium to another stadium, one team to another team, it’s normal.”

Counsell’s longest stretch with a single team was with those Dirt Bags from Long Beach, from 2008 until they released him after the 2011 season.

“Four years in the same place, was really nice”.

“I was very happy to stay with Long Beach after the 2009 Season ,” Counsell says. “Long Beach, the community is so laid back and I’m Laid back and I felt like it was a spot I wanted to be my whole career, but the next thing I know two years, I was out of there. But things happen for a good reason.”

“I got to Long Beach and that’s when I became a team player,” Counsell says. “I turned around, big-time, so I have to say, thank you for sending me to Long Beach.”

From there, he spent one-plus seasons in Detroit —

“That was fun, after you’ve been through all I’ve been through,” Counsell says. “It makes sense. I played for so many teams. Now is the time for me to get some rest. I’m very proud of myself, about what I’ve come through, what I’ve been doing.”

The secret to making it with so many teams, Counsell is saying on a recent afternoon, is just being yourself. The first two times he was traded, he says, were difficult. “But after that, everything’s been normal for me,” he says. “I just get to wherever I go, I start joking around. As soon as I walk in, I feel like guys know me, even if they don’t.

Craig Counsell“I love him as a player,” Adam Dunn (Dunn played with Counsell in 2011) says. “You want him on your team. He brings a lot of energy to the team. He’s fun, loud. Every day he has the same attitude, doesn’t matter if he has a great game or a bad one. He’s a fighter.”

Some opponents tease Counsell about his many career stops, but his retort is always that “it doesn’t happen because I’m bad, but because I’m good and teams need me at that point or in a certain situation.”

“You probably think a guy plays for so many teams, there must be a reason,” says the Crimes third baseman’ Evan Longoria who played with Counsell in Detroit. “But I don’t think there is. He was just a good guy who enjoys the game. He’s a cool dude.”

Counsell and his family settled in an apartment in downtown Detroit in 2012 for the season, they always rent, never buy. His wife has often borne the brunt of midseason trades, packing quickly to join her husband in a new city.

“What we do is, my wife, as soon as she knows there’s a trade, she packs everything. Thank God I have my wife and my family. They pack everything up and fly to wherever we’re going.”

He was hoping that Detroit might be his last stop, not that he’s thinking about retiring or anything. He signed a one-year contract that winter.

“Hopefully, this is it and I stay here,” Counsell says. “It’s a good team and everybody gets along pretty good. We don’t have that one hated guy — every team has one hated guy. We don’t have that, so it’s pretty good.

“My wife is always with me, wherever I go. Now (my family is) here and, hopefully, please, I don’t get traded this year. Please. This is the team, hopefully they need me all the way through to wherever we go.”

Still, he’s been thinking about his long baseball journey recently. He didn’t save any mementoes from his first 12 teams, but he recently called the clubhouse managers for each one and asked for a jersey.

“I want to save that for my son,” Counsell says. “I’m going to put them up at home in one spot and say, ‘See that, that’s what I played for.’ But I’m also going to tell him the reason why so many. He has to know.

“Some people think, ‘Oh, you get traded so much, what’s going on with you? What’s wrong with you?’ I just do my job.

“Everybody wants some piece of Counsell,” he adds. Then he laughs. “And I give it to them.”

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