Orange County Register

At 11:30 p.m. on Friday, I found out that my husband - Rich Thompson - had been called up to the majors again!

How did I get the news? A text from another wife.

Nope, Rich didn’t call me. But other players called their wives,
apparently. She was so upset she told me before he got a chance to,
but that’s the way it goes.

When Rich made the team out of spring training last year, I learned via text from his mom and sister …

They live in Australia.I was in the next room.

Nonetheless, it’s always exciting news. The first two times I got to be there. The last two times I did not.
Read the rest of this entry »

March 29th my husband played with the LA Angels of Anaheim spring training team. We were putting meal money in the bank every week, which meant eating out and having a daily iced mocha wasn’t a big deal.

We had plans to travel with the team to Anaheim for the Freeway Series, which would have given us the opportunity to pick up a vehicle we have just bought from a friend.

Our plan was to drive our Jeep to LA, pick up the new car, and ship the Jeep to Arkansas. Our month long tag-team e-mails to shipping companies, agents, friends and hotels had all boiled down to the next few days.

Then Rich got sent to the minor leagues.

Read the rest of this entry »

My name is Ashley Thompson and I am married to a professional baseball player on the cusp, #63 for the Angels, Rich Thompson.

You can call me housewife, or in good humor you can call me a trophy wife, but you cannot call me a gold-digger. There’s no gold in these hills…….. yet! I am simply an Arkansan who happened to be walking to my car right when an Australian pitcher was driving by.

It’s a very cheeky story that is well chronicled in Ron Meyer’s story about us, Rich Thompson - An Aussie With a Good Curveball and an All-American Wife Parts I & II  (www.therestofthedirt.com). And now, I am a blogger.

“Everyday Life” was an easier way to have friends and family keep track of our daily lives. I would no longer need to make 30 phone calls a day, or 30 e-mails every week. Instead, I could just log on every day and blog about our daily experiences. It simply explains what happens within the baseball world, and how we manage it.

It’s a glimpse into a world that is heavily stereotyped, but as it has turned out, not what anyone has expected … including myself!

Currently it is recording our life in spring training, Rich’s trials with going from big league spring training to being optioned down to triple-A, and my daily struggles with how to administer the appropriate support, and the inevitable boredom that this lifestyle occasionally ensues.