Herm Schneider grew up wanting to be a professional baseball player. He never made it to the playing field in uniform, but the Naperville resident’s career in the dugout at Comiskey Park has lasted far longer than those of many of the players he has tended.
“I used to sneak into the Rochester [N.Y.] Red Wings’ park, the AAA affiliate of the Baltimore Orioles, and I’d get in trouble all the time,” said Schneider, a native New Yorker and the White Sox trainer for more than two decades. “Finally, people at the park were saying, `If you want to be here so bad, we might as well put you to work.’ I started working as a clubhouse attendant before I went to high school.”
Schneider got a bachelor of science degree in sports medicine, then got a job in the Orioles instructional league.
His journey to the majors began with the New York Yankees’ Class A affiliate that was then in Ft. Lauderdale. He reached the majors as an assistant trainer with the Yankees in 1976.
Three years later, the White Sox hired him as head trainer. Shortly after, he moved his family to Naperville.
During the baseball season, Schneider generally heads for the ballpark before noon for a night game. Once there, Schneider revs up the whirlpools, checks messages and returns telephone calls, and works on mounds of paperwork. Players start trickling in about 2 p.m.
“The guys who are injured usually come in early for a treatment, and I’ll treat them again sometime before the game,” Schneider said. “They’ll get another treatment before going home, so we get in three a day.
“By the time I treat any postgame injuries, it’s midnight before I’ll get home. If games last too long on Saturday night, I’ll usually just sleep on the couch here at the park if there’s a Sunday afternoon game.”
He said the most difficult time for him is spring training, which opens this month.
“I’m usually at the park by 4 a.m., and the guys start coming in by 6 a.m.,” he said. “There can be as many as 80 or 90 people, and I don’t want to shortchange anybody. But as we get closer to the season, I spend more time with the guys that are going to take us to the dance.”
He said injuries to the shoulders, elbow and back are the more prevalent in baseball. He said his biggest baseball challenges were working with Bo Jackson, who played baseball even after having hip replacement surgery, and Robin Ventura, who had sustained a very serious ankle injury.
“Bo Jackson was probably the most challenging case in my career, since we were trying to rehabilitate someone with a prosthesis, which had never been done before,” he said. “Robin Ventura’s ankle was another challenge, simply because it was so severe. Both Bo and Robin have a special place in my heart. They are both unbelievable, incredible men.”
Schneider’s eyes get a little misty recounting the two cases. Schneider said Jackson injured his hip before his prime and believes few will ever know how great he might have been. Ventura, he said, “isn’t the fastest guy, but he brings a lot of intangibles to the table.”
Schneider’s rigorous approach to rehabilitation is widely recognized.
“I’m a no-nonsense kind of guy. No one likes to have fun more than I do, but when it comes to injuries I don’t have time for nonsense,” Schneider said. “My job is to get these players moving on with their careers. When it comes time to negotiate a contract, it doesn’t help them if they missed two weeks and 14 ballgames. This isn’t like football, where you only play once a week.
“The other issue is we need them on the field so we can win some games.”
Today’s athletes, Schneider noted, have better facilities and are better conditioned, stronger, faster and bigger than their counterparts 20 years ago, when he began his job in Chicago. Nevertheless, he believes players today generally spend more time in the training room than their predecessors.
“The White Sox’s injury history in the past decade has been phenomenal. We were always first or second in the league with the least number of injuries,” Schneider said. “Last year, we really got hit. The equation of better athletes yet more injuries doesn’t add up. If someone can answer that, he ought to win the Nobel Peace Prize.”
