BOSTON — Logan Gillaspie could eat almost anything at this point. The options in a major league clubhouse are superfluous, an overflow of choices to meet the tastebuds — and dietary requirements — of the sport’s best athletes.

But Gillaspie knew just what he wanted, so he grabbed two pieces of bread. He reached for the jars of peanut butter and jelly. And he crafted the sandwich that has a deeper meaning than almost anything else in the cafeteria.

When Gillaspie eats a PB&J, each bite is a reminder of those long days with a shovel in his hands for three offseasons, the days when his workouts would center around digging into the Bakersfield, California, ground to mold the edges of swimming pools, the days when a role in the Orioles bullpen as a right-handed pitcher was a far-off dream.

In the visitor’s clubhouse at Fenway Park three years later, Gillaspie recalled those early morning wake-ups. Here he was, playing in the major leagues not long after being out of the league, pitching in a high-leverage spot.

It wasn’t long ago he enjoyed driving the skid steer and didn’t mind the hard labor. He woke up at 5 a.m., reported to the shop by 6 a.m. and worked until 3 p.m. He looked forward to his occasional 30-minute breaks and his sandwich for lunch. He thought about strengthening his obliques and biceps with each thrust of the spade almost as much as crafting a seamless curve in the ground. He can still recite the measurements of the stairs — 18 inches down, 18 inches forward.

Building pools was something for Gillaspie to do in the offseason to pass the time, earn a wage and strengthen his muscles with each scoop of dirt. He kept at it, even after the Milwaukee Brewers released him in 2019, early in his recovery from a torn anterior cruciate ligament.

Each day, he dug.

“That’s easy,” Gillaspie said. “Just take the shovel, dig. The hard part was shaping the pool, because it goes straight down and then curved, and by feet and how wide it goes out. That’s crazy.”

But like anything, Gillaspie learned, and then he’d eat his PB&J and dig some more. Most pools would go to a depth of 14 feet, but there was one that sank all the way to 27 feet, and he’d grab hold of the giant bucket of the excavator to lift him back out of the ditch because it was too deep even for that machine to aid their progress.

It was an education in perseverance — but Gillaspie was plenty educated as it was.

He thought he’d be drafted out of Frontier High School in Bakersfield, in 2015 but was passed over. He attended Oxnard College in California, and hoped to hear his name called in 2017, but was again left waiting for a break.

Instead, Gillaspie made his own break, trying out for the Monterey Amberjacks in independent ball, working his way into the Brewers minor league system and then finding a place within the Orioles farm system. In an organization stocked with high-level prospects drafted in the first few rounds, it’s almost an unheard-of path to the big leagues.

And when Gillaspie left the mound Thursday, having entered in relief of Bryan Baker to strike out Connor Wong and strand two runners on base in an opening-day win for Baltimore over the Red Sox, digging holes in the ground felt so far away.

So Gillaspie ate that PB&J, reminding himself of where he came from.

“People get caught in the moment, and sometimes I do, too,” Gillaspie said. “I never want to get used to eating big league food.”

The ‘Momager’

Perhaps it was because he pitched for a junior college, or that he only pitched 48 innings that year for Oxnard College. Whatever the reason, though, the 2017 MLB Draft concluded and Gillaspie hadn’t been selected for the second time.

He hit a momentary wall. Gillaspie’s mother, Michelle, told him he was eligible to jump to the Division I level; he could receive more attention playing there. But Gillaspie wanted to play baseball, not attend classes.

So Michelle Gillaspie typed out a Google search: “What do you do when you don’t want to play college baseball?”

She found the answer.

“He calls me his ‘Momager,’ because I’m not the coach, but I do everything else,” Michelle Gillaspie said.

“They see the potential in me, and I just want to get better, but they know what I can do,” Logan Gillaspie said of his parents. “I’m still trying to figure out what I can do. But they’ve always been supportive in everything.”

His mother discovered a tryout set for two weeks after her Google search in the Pecos League of independent ball, the first step of Gillaspie’s professional career. There, he was noticed by the Brewers, and he rose to their Single-A affiliate, the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers, recording a 3.96 ERA in 109 innings.

But then he tore his ACL, and while Milwaukee retained him through the knee surgery, the phone call that came after it threw up another barrier in his path, leaving him with a shovel and a dream, waiting for his break.

“He worked out every day. He was so focused in trying to get back into perfect form, and it wasn’t just his arm, it was his whole body,” Michelle Gillaspie said. “We’ve always known, because he wasn’t drafted, he had to work harder. … People say, ‘I have to be 110%,’ but they don’t know what that looks like when you’re a nobody.”

Still, Gillaspie fielded calls from teams around the league. When they asked why he’d been released from the Brewers and he informed them of his torn ACL, most hung up within minutes. They wouldn’t follow up.

But Mike Snyder, the Orioles’ director of Pro Scouting, kept calling back. And once healthy, Gillaspie asked Snyder in 2020 whether he could try out for Baltimore. He quit the pool-digging business early in February of that year, spent three months training, and then fired in 95-mph fastball after 95-mph fastball in front of the Orioles.

A year out of baseball, Gillaspie found his way back in.

‘In awe’

A day before the Orioles announced their opening day roster, Michelle Gillaspie texted her son. She wanted him to know that, no matter where Logan began the 2023 season, he was meant to be there.

If he had to go back to Triple-A Norfolk, “at least you have a job,” she reminded him. It would be better than a part-time pool-digging gig.

Logan Gillaspie made the team. He had compiled a strong spring, striking out 10 batters in seven innings without allowing an earned run. And then on opening day, manager Brandon Hyde relied on Gillaspie to strike out Wong, stranding two runners in a win. The yell from his father, Robert, probably could’ve been heard down the street as the Gillaspie family watched on TV.

In a baseball-obsessed family, Logan Gillaspie, his sister and his parents made road trips throughout his childhood to visit stadiums. They reached all 29 stadiums in the U.S. before he left for college, and as he made his way through his rookie year for Baltimore last season, he’d look up in the stands and remember where he and his family used to sit.

“When we went to the Yankees, I was like, ‘We sat right up there!’ In Kansas City, ‘We sat way up there!’” he said, remembering the not-so-distant past. “Where I came from.”

He did the same at Fenway Park last year on his first trip, and when he reminisced about it in the visitor’s clubhouse Saturday, Gillaspie got chills.

The rapid rise of a 25-year-old, from an undrafted independent league pitcher to a reliever in two games at Fenway Park, can be hard to wrap his head around.

“We know how long it takes to get to the big leagues,” Michelle Gillaspie said. “And to be honest with you, we sit in awe and wonder about how it’s happened so fast. We’re almost like, just pinch us. We almost don’t realize it’s happening.”

But just as it all becomes too much, when the rise might threaten to blot out the journey, Logan Gillaspie makes himself a PB&J.

“I never forget about it,” he said, thinking back on his path here. The sandwich, after all, won’t let him.

andy.kostka@thebaltimorebanner.com