John Jaso knew he wished to retire, so he began searching for sailboats. It was the 2017 season, and Jaso, the Pittsburgh Pirates’ first baseman, would spend his downtime at house looking on boat web sites. And when the Pirates visited a group close to a physique of water, he would wander the marinas and picture himself on the open water.
One June morning in Baltimore, earlier than a 7:10 p.m. first pitch in opposition to the Orioles, Jaso rented a automotive and drove to Annapolis, Md. There, he discovered the boat he’d been on the lookout for: a 2014 Jeanneau 44 DS. He had it surveyed, purchased it and had it shipped to his low season house in St. Petersburg, Fla. He made it again to the stadium in time to go 2 for 4 with an R.B.I.
4 months later, when the Pirates’ season ended with no playoff berth, a handful of reporters wandered over to Jaso’s locker and requested him what his plans had been. He had reached the tip of his two-year, $8 million cope with the group and was set to turn into a free agent. He informed them that his subsequent vacation spot could be someplace within the Caribbean. He was retiring.
“I’ve a sailboat,” he said, “so I simply wish to sail away.”
5 years later, as pitchers and catchers started flooding into spring coaching camps in Arizona and Florida on Monday, Jaso, the final catcher to have caught an ideal recreation, has no regrets about having sailed off into the sundown. “Generally I’ll simply be out on the boat bobbing within the water, not crusing and even fishing, and I’ll assume to myself: ‘There’s nowhere else on the planet I’d slightly be than proper right here,’” he stated. “It’s been the proper match for who I’m.”
Jaso’s baseball journey was by no means fairly nearly as good a match. Tampa Bay chosen him within the twelfth spherical of the 2003 draft, and he made it to the majors close to the tip of the 2008 season. In his nine-year profession, he was traded 3 times and switched to first base from catcher after sustaining multiple concussions. However he had loads of highlights too: He caught Félix Hernández’s 2012 good recreation for the Seattle Mariners — there hasn’t been one in M.L.B. since — and hit for the primary cycle in PNC Park historical past when he was with Pittsburgh in 2016. His lengthy dreadlocks towards the tip of his profession made him virtually immediately recognizable. And he pulled in profession earnings of greater than $17 million, according to Spotrac.
However he discovered the M.L.B. life to be unfulfilling in some sudden methods. “Baseball set me up for all times,” he stated. “I like it, and I respect it. Nevertheless it was a part of this tradition of consumerism and overconsumption that started to weigh actually closely on me. Even once I retired, individuals stated: ‘You may be strolling away from thousands and thousands of {dollars}!’ However I’d already made thousands and thousands of {dollars}. Why can we all the time must have extra, extra, extra?”
Boating crammed the void in his life. He familiarized himself with each foot of the ship. He took a category for diesel motor mechanics and put in photo voltaic panels and a wind generator. He devoured hours of YouTube movies concerning the electronics and made certain he knew what each wire did. “If something goes incorrect within the open ocean,” he stated, “I’m the one one on the market to repair it.”
All that was left to do: Discover ways to sail.
He discovered an advert for a sundown tour on Craigslist and emailed the captain, providing a number of hundred bucks for a crash course in commanding a ship. After a number of hours, he felt snug sufficient to go it alone. “It was like studying to hit a fastball and lay off a slider,” he stated. “You possibly can hear coaches discuss all of it day, however you’ll solely learn to do it when you face it in a recreation.”
Jaso named his boat Roaming Rose and began taking day journeys into the Gulf of Mexico in early 2018. At some point that spring, he was engaged on his boat when he was struck with a sudden and unusual sensation. “I believed, one thing feels actually bizarre proper now,” he stated. “Like I used to be forgetting one thing. After which it hit me: I ought to have been in spring coaching. I began laughing as a result of I spotted: I didn’t miss it in any respect.”
He took his first massive voyage a number of weeks later. He sailed south to Key West and stayed on the boat for 3 weeks earlier than departing for the Abaco Islands within the northern Bahamas, anchoring down in a protected bay for the higher a part of a month. He took off when he heard a few main storm making its method throughout the Atlantic. He prevented many of the winds and rain on the five-day sail house, however on the ultimate night time, he stated he encountered violent winds and lightning.
On the deck, he saved one hand on the wheel and one on his go bag. His life preserver was strapped on tight in case he was thrown overboard. He watched the lightning marble the sky and felt its surges shake the boat. He alerted the Coast Guard to his place and referred to as his brother as a backup. After a number of hours of white-knuckling, he was again on dry land.
“Within the second, you’re terrified, and also you wish to be as distant from hazard as potential,” he stated. “However as soon as it’s over, you recognize the place you’re at extra. There’s this euphoria that comes over you when the storm clouds half. It’s like holding your breath underwater after which coming again as much as the floor and taking that first gulp of air.”
When Jaso described the expertise to Fernando Perez, a buddy and former teammate, Perez wasn’t stunned within the slightest. “Taking part in skilled baseball is a form of drug,” stated Perez, who’s now a video analyst with the San Francisco Giants. “Once you retire, it’s a must to discover one other excessive. The drug that John discovered was being in the course of nowhere and holding himself alive. That first storm didn’t scare him away. He preferred getting caught in it.”
For the primary two years after retirement, Jaso spent about six months of the 12 months on his boat. For the remaining, he was based mostly in St. Petersburg. Though he stated he doesn’t comply with baseball anymore, he does attempt to catch a recreation or two yearly. In 2018, throughout a Rays win over the Boston Crimson Sox, he tried to go right down to the dugout to say hey to some former teammates. However an usher noticed his tie-dyed, sleeveless T-shirt and his lack of a ticket and waved him back up to a budget seats. Ultimately, one other usher acknowledged him and let him down.
He has additionally taken a number of journeys to Europe, discovering a ardour for exploring his father’s ancestral land within the Basque Nation of northern Spain. And he has pushed a camper van round Australia and Indonesia. However the boat has been his greatest pleasure. “I would like my life to be easy, and it doesn’t get less complicated than being on a sailboat,” he stated. “You deal with the boat proper, and she or he treats you proper. That’s all there’s to it.”
Earlier than the pandemic, he docked Roaming Rose in Turks and Caicos. With journey restrictions, it was caught there for nearly two years. When he was cleared to return again and gather the boat in 2022, he introduced alongside his girlfriend, Jayden Davila, for a three-month sail across the Caribbean. They docked within the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.
“John is a reasonably peaceable particular person generally,” Davila stated. “However there’s one other degree of peace and happiness for him when he’s on the boat. Even when there are points — and one thing is all the time going incorrect — he preferred coping with it. When issues are calm, generally he’ll simply randomly seize his guitar and begin taking part in. It’s actually a phenomenal existence for him on the market.”
Jaso nonetheless lives primarily in St. Petersburg, the place he manages some funding properties. However he’s hardly ever in a single place for lengthy. This winter, he’s been snowboarding in Colorado and Wyoming. By the spring, he’ll be again on the boat.
“Once you’re crusing, you’re going again to one thing primitive,” he stated. “You’re eradicating your self from the fabric world — this concrete, digital world. And also you’re returning to this sense of marvel. It’s the identical sense you get whenever you’re holding a new child child, trying into their eyes, and feeling the world disappear round you.
“Generally it’s straightforward to neglect that all of us come from the identical place. Once you’re on the market on the water, you keep in mind.”
