SPRINGDALE — A pair of college students on a cross-country road trip were in Northwest Arkansas on Monday night.
Jordan Shusterman, 21, and Jake Mintz, 20, are in the midst of an 18-day journey across the U.S., trying to see as many top-100 baseball prospects as possible and chronicling their journey on MLB.com. Their 14th stop was Arvest Ballpark.
The seniors-to-be began near their hometown of Washington, D.C., worked their way north to Maine, followed the Appalachian Mountains south into Alabama and are now heading west across the middle of the country toward San Diego for the Sirius XM All-Star Futures Game.
"When you're driving in the middle of nowhere, keep your eyes open," Shusterman said. "You are going to see some crazy stuff."
Although this is their fourth trip since creating Cespedes Family BBQ, a blog about baseball, in December 2012, it is the first time they have collaborated with MLB.com. Shusterman and Mintz wrote about their earlier trips for Baseball Prospectus but are now shooting video features with players at each stop.
Working with MLB.com also means their parents aren't footing the bill anymore, even though they said it wasn't too expensive because their only expenses were gas, food and cheap hotels.
"Give us two beds, a functioning toilet, an OK shower and two towels, and we're good," Shusterman said. "We don't need much."
While some of the time on the road is used to edit video and communicate with their editors, Shusterman and Mintz also enjoy interacting with people on social media. The @CespedesBBQ Twitter account just eclipsed 37,000 followers, and their Snapchat account receives thousands of views.
They recently had fans send their phone numbers to them via Snapchat and chose random ones to call for 10-minute conversations.
"We're two people's worth of funny," Mintz said. "They're 36,000 people's worth of funny. They overwhelm us."
With only six days remaining, Shusterman and Mintz still have more than 1,700 miles of driving before they reach San Diego. Then they have to drive back home.
"We're having this dope time," Mintz said. "We're going to try to bring you along as much as we can."
Sports on 07/05/2016