DETROIT, MI – SEPTEMBER 28: Michael Fulmer #32 of the Detroit Tigers pitches during the first inning of the game against the Cleveland Indians on September 28, 2016 at Comerica Park in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo by Leon Halip/Getty Images)

Detroit Tigers pitcher Michael Fulmer kept a high-profile as an AL Rookie of the Year candidate in 2016, but in the off-season, he’s taken a blue-collar approach to work.

In an excellent feature from Anthony Fenech of the Detroit Free Press, Fulmer’s unlikely offseason job as a part-time plumber is profiled. Fulmer is working his second offseason in the profession under the tutelage of family friend Larry Wright. Fulmer’s celebrity status doesn’t give him any added benefits on the job.

“I don’t cut him any slack,”Wright, Fulmer’s boss at Cyrus Wright Plumbing, a small, long-standing family business in Yukon, Okla., said. “He digs ditches and gets dirty and does whatever needs to be done.”

It might seem bizarre for Fulmer to use his offseason to do manual labor when he’s earning serious money in baseball. But, the intuitive Fulmer said he tackled the job because he wanted to pick up the skills of plumbing and learn everything related to the job. Fulmer called the job ‘fun’.

“He called me, and I said, ‘All right, we’ll see how it goes from here,’ ” Fulmer said. “And I’m still doing it, so it’s fun.”

There are many punchlines to be made about Fulmer becoming a part-time plumber in the offseason, but taking on this position, when he had no need to, shows what a hard-worker the Tigers pitcher is. Learning about plumbing is a skill which will benefit him for the rest of his life. You have to respect Fulmer’s thirst for knowledge.

[Detroit Free Press]

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