Norwin grad Max McDowell earning his stripes with Yankees taxi squad

One day Max McDowell was out of a job, a pro baseball catcher with nowhere to play.

The next he was wearing pinstripes and practicing on the hallowed grounds of Yankee Stadium.

McDowell, a former Norwin standout who played with four teams in five years in the minor leagues but never reached Triple-A, signed in June to play for the New York Yankees taxi squad.

What a come-up for the former UConn Huskie.

“It all happened so fast,” he said. “All of the sudden I am driving to New York City, and the baseball season is on. I’m in spring training 2.0 with the big boys.”

Getting the invite to join the 60-man pool was a thrill in itself for McDowell, who instantly went from jobless to being an injury or demotion away from the big leagues — during perhaps the ultimate asterisk-marked season.

The covid-19 pandemic drove a stake through the heart of minor league baseball, which shut down operations while MLB teams opted to resume play in early July and attempt to manage a 60-game season.

“The first couple days of (batting practice), I am just looking around Yankee Stadium,” said McDowell, 26, a Derek Jeter fan as a boy. “I’m seeing all the pics of legends in the hallways. It was pretty amazing. We had the place to ourselves. I got used to it, and now it’s just the field we play on every day.”

After spring training 2.0, McDowell returned to Pennsylvania. He set up camp in a sleepy, once-thriving coal mining borough called Moosic, six miles south of Scranton. That’s when his new baseball life began — perhaps the most bizarro baseball life the game ever has seen.

Seven days a week, from about noon to 5 or 6 p.m. McDowell works out with other Yankees hopefuls who go through monotonous drills and intersquad “games” that last a few innings at PNC Field, home to the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders, the Yankees’ Triple-A affiliate. It is the Yankees’ alternate site.

He misses the game action and small-town environment of the minors, but hitting and catching live pitching can only make him sharper for when he does get to face a player in a different uniform again.

Most days, he is just happy to be framing pitches somewhere, anywhere. It just happens to be guys like Gerrit Cole, Aroldis Chapman and Masahiro Tanaka popping his mitt these days.

“It’s nice to get work in with a lot of really good players,” McDowell said. “The vast majority of them have big-league experience. We’ll be in the cages or I’ll catch bullpen. It’s different each day, but at the same time, it can feel the same. You just take it as it comes each day and hope to get that call-up. You never know.”

Some days, McDowell feels like an exposed wire. Others, he might be the best player on the field.

“You have good days and bad days,” he said. “But you keep working.”

There is no travel, and strict safety protocols are in place.

“We’re in our little bubble,” McDowell said.

Players wear masks when they’re not competing and have to social distance. McDowell gets screened each day and is tested for the coronavirus every other day.

“The guys really get after it,” he said.

After practice each day, McDowell retires to his room at a nearby hotel, which is about a Babe Ruth blast away from the stadium. He lives alone and isn’t permitted to go out to restaurants, malls or stores.

Players eat dinner in a stadium luxury box. They can watch the Yankees games on the jumbotron at PNC Field.

Isolation has become part of the job.

“It’s not always easy, to be honest,” said McDowell, a 13th-round draft pick of the Milwaukee Brewers in 2015. “You get lonely. That’s the hard part. But you get used to it. I’ll play some PS4 or watch Netflix, or talk on the phone with people back home.”

He said his fiancee, Emily Crisman, who is studying in a nursing program at Saint Vincent, could come across the state and stay with him since players are allowed to admit family members or close friends. But he advised against it, and the couple will remain apart for the season.

“That is tough,” he said. “(Aug. 19 was) her birthday, so I wasn’t able to be with her. I sent her flowers.”

McDowell purchased a home in North Huntingdon and hopes to get settled in the offseason before returning to baseball next season. He signed a two-year contract, so he anticipates being in the minors with the Yankees in 2021.

He owns and operates The Baseball Academy of Norwin.

McDowell hit .213 with 14 doubles, four home runs, 22 RBIs and 31 runs scored last season for Double-A Biloxi, a Milwaukee Brewers affiliate. He was released May 31.

An All-Star in the Midwest and Carolina Leagues, he has a .232 average, 14 homers and 113 RBIs in 371 career games in the minors.

“The ultimate goal is to play for the big team,” he said. “But you take it one day at a time. We’ll see what happens.”

Whatever happens from here, McDowell agrees the whole experience has been surreal.

“It’s baseball. It’s just a different experience,” he said. “I know how fortunate I am to be playing somewhere. And I am playing for the Yankees.”