The summit of Camelback Mountain rises some 2,700 feet above Arizonas Salt River Valley, accessible by a trailhead that attracts serious hikers and aspirational amateurs alike. The journey takes about an hour. The climbers range from pre-teens to AARP members. On mornings in the winter before the 2012 baseball season, the bottleneck included a 30-year-old man whom many in Major League Baseball never expected to see again. Oliver Prez scrambled across the mountains brown rocks and caked his sneakers in its red dirt.

By his side was his friend and trainer Rafael Arroyo. Atop the mountain, they gazed across the desert sprawl of suburban Phoenix. After enough trips, Prez started to talk, about mistakes he had made, about lessons he had learned. He needed to cleanse the venom and humiliation he had endured during his last few years as a failed starting pitcher with the New York Mets. The hikes almost became like therapy sessions, Arroyo...

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The second baseball life of Oliver Prez - The Athletic