Sometimes breaking curfew was worth it

Was talking to a friend of mine today and some how we got onto the subject about life in the minor leagues. It was a great time in my life and would never trade those Life experiences for anything. Flashback 1987 playing in the California league: We where on the tail end of a 10 day road trip headed to Reno Nevada to play the Reno Padres. My roommate at the time (Craig Colbert) had told me as soon as we get off the bus we had to seek out the closest grocery store and buy a loaf of bread and PB&J.....I said why and he said we are in Reno for four days and staying at The Peppermill Casino what little money we have will be gambled away in minutes and we need food to live off while we are here. The Next day we get rained out and it never rains in Reno so that added a day to our trip and another day in the Casino. When you only make about $950 a month and get a whooping $15 a day per-diem it makes it tough so when the temptation to get lucky and possibly make a few dollars at the black jack table is put in front of you knowing that you have a couple loafs of Bread and a large jar of JIF to tide you over it makes it worth the risk. Fast forward to our last night in Reno, typically after a game on the road we had a curfew of two an a half hours after game time, but this was our last night in Reno and as long as we had cash and able to stay at the tables we didn't care about the curfew and the fine that would accompany it. Besides we had just won 3 out of the 4 games and our Skipper was in a pretty good mood so we really weren't concerned. 2:00 a.m. rolls by and we are actually doing pretty good, if I recall we were up about $400 and to us at that time was a ton of money. We continued to play on house money and pocket some here and there, at this point we started to loose track of time and our bus was rolling out at 7:00 a.m. for the long trip back to Fresno. We had a few adult beverages while we where at the tables and at that moment in time life was good 22 years old playing baseball and not really a care in the world so pulling an all nighter wasn't that big of a deal especially when we where looking at a 10 hour bus ride home we figured we had plenty of time to catch some shut eye sleeping in the above the seats luggage racks in our 30 year old broken down bus. Unfortunately our good luck was about to run out. Around five in the morning or so I remember a hard tap on the shoulder followed by the harsh voice of my manager "Hey Fireball how much have you won?" And with that I knew the lucky streak was over. My roommate and I both turned around and looked up at him and just shook our heads. Rule of thumb if you were out past curfew was $1 a minute so needless to say our Breaking curfew fund got a pretty sizable donation that morning. Just one of the many fun times I had playing in the bush leagues. Great times, Great Friendships and great memories.