For Shea’s parents the time provided the opportunity to get to know their grandchild a little better.

“We enjoy having them,” Bobby said. “We look forward to seeing the baby.”

In the spring the family hit the road again, traveling to Florida and spring training for a month before Shea joined the Captains, the Indians’ A team, in April in East Lake, Ohio.

“We don’t know where we’re going to be from one day to the next,” Shaun said. “That’s hard, but it’s workable.”

The Douglas trio enjoyed a fairly consistent stay in East Lake, moving into an apartment with a lake nearby.

Whenever Shea had time off from playing he would take Lexus down to the lake for a little fishing, or for Lexus the opportunity to be mesmerized by the ducks, geese and swans that populate the lake.

“He’s a great father,” Shaun said. “Every chance he has at home he’s playing with (Lexus).

“He’ll be gone seven to 12 days sometimes. After five he’s begging to come home because he misses her.”

For Douglas those extended road trips are the worst part of the profession.

He and Shaun get by with long phone conversations, but Shea still can’t stand being away from his family.

“Ten, nine day road trips, it destroys me,” Shea said. “I hate being away from my girls.

“(Lexus) still knows who I am. She calls me, Da da.’ It’s great being home.”

Despite suffering through the road trips, Douglas found even more control and consistency on the mound.

The dividends of a summer of running and lifting weights became easily apparent.

His fastball began flashing a consistent 88-89 mph on the radar guns.

Surgery to remove bone chips from his left elbow before his junior season at Southern Miss had left Douglas with irregular speed on his fastball, ranging from the high to low 80s.

That inconsistency may have cost him in the draft, but now he is healthy and proving himself.

“He’s really thrown the ball well this year,” said Captains pitching coach. “His change-up is a major league pitch.”

Douglas went 1-0 with a team-best 0.81 ERA and six saves in his first 12 appearances for the Captains, and after earning the South Atlantic League’s pitcher of the week honors on May 22, his manager, Luis Rivera, told him he would have another move to make, although only a 45-minute drive to Akron.

“It was overwhelming,” Shaun said of Shea’s call up to the Aeros. “We couldn’t believe it … a lot of emotion.”

For the pitcher, it simply meant another step toward that dream of the big leagues, another chance to prove himself and show off his lifetime of hard work.

The Aeros only needed him for a week, though, so Douglas knew he needed to make an impression in a short amount of time.

Against what Douglas called more patient hitters he held up fine.

“You have to make more quality pitches,” he said. “I did great I thought.”

Although he only put in 3 1/3 innings of work, he felt he proved himself.

In a game against the Altoona Curve, Douglas gave up a run in the 13th inning to take the loss, but he had pitched scoreless 11th and 12th innings to keep the Aeros in the game.

“Man, I dealt,” Douglas said of his pitching in the first two innings of work.

Douglas felt he belonged, and his Aeros coaches told him as much. In one of the league’s top minor league programs, Douglas had made a name for himself.

But after the week ended Shea still had to leave the Akron hotel and drive back to East Lake.

The only thing the family didn’t mind leaving behind was the hotel room. Douglas said he didn’t like staying in a hotel with his family because of the lack of room, especially for Lexus.

“I’m not going to put my family through that,” Shea said. “I can’t tell you how many times she bumped her head in that hotel room. I think she did three times in one day.”

Douglas can’t stop talking about his daughter; the ultimate doting father.

At a Captains game earlier this season the announcer gave her name as one of the birthdays along with six or so other children, but didn’t say who her father was. Douglas felt Lexus deserved more attention than the other children.

His teammates, many in their teens and early twenties, live the wild life of a single athlete, and his main concern is the announcer not giving enough respect to his daughter.

“You see how much he cares for his family,” Arnold said, “that’s special.

“Having a kid will make you grow up real fast.”

Maybe that’s part of the reason Douglas didn’t feel too bad when he went back to the Captains.

He knows if he works hard enough his time will come. It could be a year, maybe even two or three, but Douglas knows the time will come for the family to pack up once more and make the 36 mile trip to Cleveland, to Jacobs Field, to the major leagues.

One might think it would be until then that Douglas could look back on that choice he made a year ago and decide if he did the right thing.

Douglas is pretty sure on the matter right now.

“I’m glad where I’m at,” he said. “Me having a family, I made the right decision.”