Benjamin Hill travels the nation collecting stories about what makes Minor League Baseball unique. This excerpt from the Baseball Traveler newsletter, presented by Circle K, is a mere taste of the smorgasbord of delights he offers every week. Read the full newsletter here , and subscribe to his newsletter here .

Brayden Spears is currently a pitcher in the Chicago Cubs organization, but his first love was the bulls.

"When I was little, I wanted to be a cowboy," said Spears, who grew up on a cattle ranch in Northern California. "That's all I wanted to do. Pretended to ride my couch like a bucking bull and all that. I was completely obsessed with it. And I grew up. At 6, I realized that riding bulls was probably not in my future."

An equally improbable career as a professio

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