Michael Fulmer, a Major League Baseball pitcher on the Detroit Tigers, has taken up plumbing as his off-season job.
The American League Rookie of the Year finalist is working for a plumbing company owned by his friend's uncle for the second year in a row. Fulmer works up to 10 hours a day fixing faucets, replacing water heaters, and replacing toilets, the Detroit Free Press reports.
"I don't cut him any slack," Larry Wright, Fulmer's boss, told the Free Press of the pitcher's plumbing job. "He digs ditches and gets dirty and does whatever needs to be done."
Wright said the 6 foot 3, 210-pound rookie pitcher is a stand-up employee.
"Generally, it's hard," he told the paper. "When he's working with me, he's usually digging in or working on jackhammers. It's pretty physical work, but he's a great worker. He always wants to know more, he wants to know what we're doing, why we're doing it, and he never complains."
For his part, Fulmer said he gets a great workout from the blue collar experience.
"It's a different kind of workout," Fulmer said. "Digging out of 6-foot ditches all the time and shoveling quite a bit. So, it's a different type of workout, and it helps before I start working out in the off-season."
"That's what I tell him," Wright joked to the Free Press. "He should be paying me."
Wright said he thinks Fulmer taking the plumbing gig is an example of the kind of guy he is.
"I think it's just the kind of guy he is as far as being humble because he doesn't make near as much money working for me than what he does pitching," he said. "So, I think it just kind of keeps him grounded."