The blistered stretch of Arizona highway that greeted Jordan Czarniecki last April as he motored from Tulsa back to Knoxville, Tenn. offered no peace of mind. Instead, the black sea of asphalt served as a callous reminder of an uncertain destination.

Czarniecki refers to the journey as “the long drive home,” a deflating cross-country trek, covering nearly 1,900 miles embarked upon April Fool’s Day week.

Released on March 31 by the Colorado Rockies as Major League Baseball Cactus League play concluded and teams trimmed their rosters for opening day, Czarniecki rode in his car, one of the expendable, left with an air mattress, a memory-foam topper, some clothes and a few dishes rattling around as he sped eastbound, a baffled ex-minor leaguer.

He was a free agent for the first time, and as he recollects, stuck in humility, but far from conceding his lifelong dream as humbled aspiration.

“I remember calling people on the way home from Arizona back to Knoxville, and a lot of people were saying, ‘It was good ride, you know. You played hard and you did a good job.’ They were basically saying, it was over for me, and it frustrated me more than you could imagine,” Czarniecki said. “I knew I wasn’t done. I knew I had a lot of productive years left in me, and I felt like I was swinging the bat better than I was my entire life. I wasn’t done. I was not going to take that and move on with my life.”

Czarniecki hit .280 during spring training and worked out with the Triple-A team in Colorado Springs in hopes of inching closer to the Majors, but after an unexpected move by the Rockies, the former Anderson High School standout lost his roster spot completely.

A shocking development for the 27-year-old outfielder, considering he was coming off his most productive season in the Texas League, hitting .281 with career-highs in RBIs (58), runs (74) and doubles (31) for the Double-A Tulsa Drillers.

“I thought I was going to make that (Triple-A) team,” Czarniecki remarked. “Right at the end, we had a big leaguer trickle down to Triple-A, and it kind of pushed me out at the very end of spring training.

“I felt like I had four productive seasons with the Rockies, and you expect to be released when you hit .220, but not when you hit .280. It was a learning experience. It was kind of shocking.”

After spending five seasons with the club that selected him 737th overall in the 2003 MLB first-year draft out of the University of Tennessee, Czarniecki, a speedster on the base paths, proceeded to play the game with first-round intensity rather than dwelling on his 25th round label.

He earned Texas League Player of the Week honors last August and the season prior. He garnered mid-season all-star distinction, an accolade he also achieved in 2004 in the South Atlantic League as a Class-A Asheville farmhand.

Yet, there he was, idle for a week until the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim made an offer. With his promise too difficult to ignore, Anaheim presented a contract, giving Czarniecki a spot with its Double-A affiliate the Arkansas Travelers.

“The Angels called and said they needed outfield help right away, so I took it. They had an unbelievable team put together over here, so I was kind of hesitant to take the job in the first place just because (Triple-A) was where I needed to be. I needed to get to Triple-A or my career was going to fizzle out,” Czarniecki said.

“At the same time, it was probably going to be four to six weeks before my agent could find me another job, so I was going to sit at home for about a month and a half without a job. That’s no good either. My thought process was, I missed a week, so I needed to take it, get in there and play well. I knew if I did the things I know I can do well, then they would have to move me.”

He was right.