I still had a few days to prove I belonged here. We were divided into two teams and competed against each other. Everyone was doing well, but I knew I was right there. On the last day of practice they were going to announce the roster for the season. In the clubhouse was a sign, “GON’ FISHIN’. Whenever a player got cut from the roster, the tape with his name was ripped from his locker and pasted onto the cinder block wall below the GON’ FISHIN’ sign. Nerve-wracking.
Preseason practice grew more intense as the deadline neared for making the roster. I have never been the sort of player who could joke around before a game—most starting pitchers aren’t. To get ready I focus by remaining quiet and concentrating. It also fuels my anger against the other team. I wasn’t here to make nice. After we suited up, I went out to warm up. Everyone had a partner to throw to but me and this other guy. Joe Miller was cool with me and very talented, but no one seemed to want to play catch with him. I learned very soon why. For one, he was left-handed also, but he threw more than ninety miles per hour and had a killer knuckleball, which is hell to catch. On his first throw he blasted me with a fastball from about sixty feet. What the fuck? I said to myself. Players usually tested me at first but not like this. I should have said something but didn’t want to come across as a wuss or a whiner. So I moved two fingers out of my mitt instead of one to create more of a pocket to catch the ball. Next throw, same thing. The guy next to me said, “Watch out, he’s a dick.”
So I threw the crap out of the ball as hard as I could back at him. After we warmed up and played long toss he came back in, and said, “Wow, your ball has a lot of movement on it.”
“Wish I could say the same,” I replied, “but I couldn’t see the seams on the ball it was coming in so fast. Next time I will get a catcher’s mitt if you want to throw a bullpen instead of warming up.”
Joe laughed and said he was only trying to win a spot on the rotation—he didn’t want to play the outfield anymore. I figured this guy wasn’t trying to see if I could handle a ninety-plus-miles-per-hour at my ankles; he was trying to impress people. Instead he was making himself look like an ass. Too bad, I thought, because he had great stuff. I played catch with this guy only one more time, because on the second day of practice he said he was going to throw a fastball and then he threw a knuckleball. He was about sixty feet away and signaled with his mitt by waving it forward that a fastball was coming. As soon as he released it, I saw a nasty knuckler coming my way. I managed to catch it, but it hit the tip of my right thumb, pushing it backward. I thought, Oh, great, my thumb is broken because of this idiot. The pain was excruciating, and it took a month to get the feeling back, though I hid it from most everyone. No one played catch with Joe anymore, so the bullpen catcher got stuck with him.
May 29, 1997. Last day of practice. We play another simulated game today. Marty Scott came up and said, “You are going to pitch against all left-handed hitters.”
This was bad news. I had usually been a starter through high school and college and so had developed out pitches only for right-handed batters, because the lineups are usually stacked with them. My stuff was great against them, but I did not have a slider to use against the left-handers. My ball likes to sink and tail away from right-handers, but it goes right into a left-hander’s wheelhouse. Great, I thought. I need to learn a dialed-in slider or a cut fastball right now.
This was not a formal game—a step up from batting practice but not an intrasquad game. Facing the feared left-handers, I struggled; the batters feasted: one inning, three hits, three runs. When I was done I went for my usual run in the outfield, cussing myself, furious that in a mere thirty minutes I had blown it. No one was harder on me than I was, not even Dad. Then I stretched out on my stomach in left field, staring at the blades of grass. I looked around at the ballpark, pondering what I went through to get here and what I had been a part of at Midway Stadium. I had learned a lot in these two weeks. I’d sat on the bench next to John Dettmer, listening to his experiences pitching for the Texas Rangers. From John and other pitchers I’d picked up mechanical nuances, like how to get more spin on the ball. I’d learned to read hitters better, and when to slide step to home and when not to. Now I wondered whether this was my last day here. I cannot remember who came out to me in left field to say that the coaches wanted to see me. Had the name “Borders” already been posted under the GON’ FISHIN’ sign? I got up, brushed the grass off my uniform, and said, “Okay, where are they?”
“They’re all behind home plate,” he said. “In the shed where the ground crew stashes their stuff.”
Why there? I wondered. Probably because they don’t want to tell me the bad news in front of everyone in the clubhouse. My stats for the four-game exhibition season were not good: I had given up six runs and six hits for an 18.00 ERA over three innings. So the jog to the shed was the longest three hundred feet I had ever done. Inside were Barry Moss, Marty Scott, and the pitching consultant Marv White. Marty started by asking how I felt today. “I sucked, I was nervous,” I replied. “I want this so bad, but I felt good the other days. I just need to relax, and make my curveball more like a slider to the lefties.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I agree with you; it was not your best outing. But we see a fit for you here. Congratulations. You made the team.”
My heart rose. Did I hear correctly? “I promise to give you everything I have and more,” I babbled. “I will do better next time.”
Barry Moss gave me a huge grin as Marty nodded and said, “Okay. Because we don’t have a lot of left-handed pitchers, you’ll be used in relief. You’ll come in when we are behind and need some innings out of someone.” Marty didn’t hold back. He went on to say, “In any other given year, if we had a stronger rookie staff to draw from you might not have made the club. But based on what we have here and what you’ve shown, combined with your desire and your work ethic and your love for the game, you’re going to break with the team.”
I wanted to cry out, jump up and down, scream at the top of my lungs, and hug every single one of those guys, especially Barry Moss. But in my head I heard Dad’s voice: “Show No Emotion. Control yourself and never let anyone see what’s going on inside.”
Okay, I told myself. Keep it together. Don’t be a girl. I had learned well how to mask my emotions, but right now I was a rock star at it.
Barry told me later that they all wondered why I didn’t react more. Looking back I should have showed them what I felt. They deserved that! Instead I smiled, shook hands, thanked them, and proceeded out of the shed. When I went to go grab my glove and cleats out in the outfield where I left them, they were gone. Great. I had no money, and now I had no glove and no shoes. SSK was going to be pissed because they supplied the mitt to me for free. I would have to borrow my pitching coach’s mitt. Eventually I borrowed money from my friend, Kelly Deutsch, until I got paid, so I could buy a pair of cleats. I knew Dad would hold it against me if I asked for some of my money. It was easier to borrow from Kelly.
Back at the hotel, I called home. I could hear everyone scream—Leah, Phillip, Randall, and Mom. We had our shortcomings, but we all pulled for each other. I could tell Dad was excited, but like me, he kept it inside and simply said, “Congratulations, Ila.”
Mom later said that she’d never seen him so joyful. After we hung up I cut loose. I jumped into the shower, singing loud the way you do when you know nobody else can hear, then got into my thermal pajamas, and put on my headphones. Heater blaring, I danced around the room singing. I was filled with so much excitement I did not know what to do with the emotion. I was almost laughing at myself, and was thanking God in my weird way. Metallica was playing, but I was singing for God, my best friend. I was ready to kick some ass. I don’t recall falling asleep, but I woke up the next morning on top of the covers with one headphone still in my ear.
The next day, I went to the stadium to pick out a uniform. Most all of the numbers had been chosen, and I had a choice between one and fourteen. No way would I choose
number one—it would send the wrong message—so the club added my name to the back of number fourteen. When I returned to my hotel room that afternoon I snapped lots of pictures of my team jersey.
When the news broke that I had made the team, reporters called from all over the country, along with Japan and Canada. I think I ticked off a lot of sportswriters, because I followed Mike Veeck’s advice and did not say yes to every phone call or request for an interview. The comfort was that Mike Veeck and the Saints management understood my approach to all this: to just get along and play ball. I should add that a writer named Neal Karlen was hanging around. He had arrived in town the year before to do a hit piece on the “real” Bill Murray for Rolling Stone magazine. (Besides being a comedian and movie star, Murray was the Saints’ co-owner). But Karlen instead got caught up in a transformative story about the characters of all stripes on the Saints staff and team (as well as himself) that would evolve into a book. Neal was an Ivy League graduate, smart but a real rebel. He was short and skinny, with black curly hair, and sometimes smelled of alcohol. I appreciated that Neal was respectful of the space I tried to keep with the media. But knowing he was working on a book, I was wary of opening up to him. I’d hide from him, but persistent journalist that he was, he’d come find me. I did show him one of my journals, in which I poured out my emotions about making the cut. In Slouching toward Fargo: A Two-Year Saga of Sinners and St. Paul Saints at the Bottom of the Bush Leagues with Bill Murray, Darryl Strawberry, Dakota Sadie, and Me, Neal recorded my reaction: “I FUCKING MADE THE TEAM! I FUCKING MADE THE TEAM! DREAMS COME TRUE! DREAMS COME TRUE!”
Hardly a profound line in baseball literature, but there it was: real and true and good. I had fucking made the team.
I continued to stick to my approach of shying from the media, which I hoped gained me respect and trust from my teammates. I think they understood by now I was here because playing ball was my dream, just like it was theirs. And Marty wisely set a policy of refusing to answer any media inquiries about me unless I was pitching that day.
Mike Veeck’s Saints made the ballpark a great place to spend the evening. Shoot, sometimes I wanted to be in the stands. Mike’s philosophy, “Fun Is Good,” showed up everywhere. I was surprised to see in the seats behind third base a nun named Sister Rosalind, who administered massages. She was known, of course, as the “stress reliever.” Behind the left-field seats was a hot tub, where college kids liked to enjoy their beers while watching the game. Between innings were dizzy bat races for prizes, or two people in sumo wrestling costumes who would try to knock each other down. I always wanted to try sumo wrestling but never got the call. And the pig. In his first year of ownership, Mike had begun the tradition of having a pig—actually a piglet—dressed in an apron with big pockets that delivered baseballs to the umpires. This year’s piglet was named Hamlet, and over the years Mike would have a wonderful time naming each season’s piglet, from the Great Hambino (1998) to Bud Squealig (2006) and Boarack Obama (2008). Mike’s personal favorite was Hammy Davis Junior (2000).
Mike’s creativity runs right up to and sometimes over the edge of propriety, and he had paid dearly for it. As a young man working for his father, Bill Veeck Jr., with the Chicago White Sox in 1979, he had thought that a promotion to “kill” disco music might be a fun diversion between a doubleheader. But Disco Demolition Night resulted in a riot and a rare forfeit; and Mike found himself shunned by Major League Baseball. It would take him years to get back into the game. Once he was back, Mike unrepentantly engaged in promotional schemes that challenged conventional thinking. In 1996 he signed Dave Stevens, the legless ESPN producer, to play in the Saints’ exhibition season. He would go on to promote Snake Oil Salesman’s Night and, for his Charleston, South Carolina, RiverDogs, Free Vasectomy Night for Father’s Day—at least until the Roman Catholic Diocese of Charleston protested.
Mike liked a good laugh, but he had known plenty of tears, too. His six-year-old daughter Rebecca suffered from a rare eye disease, retinitis pigmentosa, for which there is no cure. She saw the world in shadows that would grow dimmer until eventually she would become legally blind. The bright side of the publicity buzz that surrounded me was that that young girls like Rebecca learned that I played the game of baseball and it inspired them. I like to think that it helped to widen their view of the world and what they themselves might accomplish.
I had hoped the attention would wane after I made the team. It did not. The majority of the letters from fans were positive, but the ones that were not were disturbing and I tended to obsess over them. Surprisingly, many of those who sent angry letters and e-mails were women. Men were more supportive, if you discounted the weird ones. One guy showed up at my parents’ house claiming he was my husband and the father of my child. Child? I told my parents to call the cops if he ever returned. Another man got hold of my home address and began corresponding with Mom. She respected that he was in the military and thought it would be okay to respond to him with information about me. She has no idea how crazy this world can be.
At the ballpark, I tried to be fan-friendly, but one time I failed. Finding the space to chill before a game was always tough, and I often used a women’s restroom in the stands. As I sat inside the stall, a woman shoved her camera under the door and snapped a picture. I came out flaming, grabbed her camera, pulled out the roll of film, and threw it into the sink. From that point on I used the umpires’ or staff restroom inside the offices.
I also worried about finances. Once I made the team, I started making 750 dollars a month. I thought about doing commercials but did not want to take on anything that would make me too busy to concentrate on baseball or look like I was out for the notoriety. I tried to get a sponsor to pay for my cleats. The responses came back: there is no market for a female playing baseball, plus you have no guarantee on a contract. The Saints could drop me the next day for any reason, and no one wanted to take a chance on that. I found that curious, since American entrepreneurs are all about risk.
It was time to find a place to live. Most of my teammates rented as trios in a one-bedroom apartment and shared a car. After he arrived in town J. D. Drew would sleep on the floor, because his two roommates took the one bedroom. The Saints put me in touch with their groundskeeper, Connie Rudolph. Connie and her husband had three young kids and offered me the use of their basement. I could also hitch a ride with Connie to the field. What a blessing! Living in the basement gave me the privacy I needed, while being part of their active household warmed my heart: I could see the love in the Rudolph family and how well they all got along. I read the book Saint Mudd, by Steve Thayer, and learned about the history of St. Paul during the Depression and gangster times. I wanted to explore my grandmother’s home state and went downtown to visit the science center, the cathedral, and a club owned by Prince; I attended the first collegiate female hockey game ever played, at Minnesota State; and I biked through various neighborhoods.
Connie Rudolph was a godsend. Not only did she provide a roof over my head; she became a friend. On one of my days off, she took me to the St. Croix River at Taylor’s Falls for my first canoe adventure. The river is on the Minnesota-Wisconsin border, and as we paddled, with me endlessly gawking at the scenery, other boaters passed by, always greeting us, always friendly. I remember thinking that I could get used to calling this place home. It was warm that day, and when we spotted a tire hanging from an overhanging tree, we had to stop. We were like two little kids—swinging out over the river and letting go, and swimming back to the canoe, laughing like crazy.
On another off day, Connie organized an outing to Quarry Park, near St. Cloud. As we followed the dirt path through what felt to me like a rain forest, we came upon a large water-filled former rock quarry. College kids floated on inner tubes, laying bets on who would be gutsy enough to jump from the top of the granite rock into the chilly waters and grading the ones who tried. Connie’s kids, who had done this before, jumped first, from four feet up. But it was another forty- to
fifty-foot hike to the top of the rock for the big jump. Of course, I had to try it. Connie’s sons hiked up with me. They told me to wear shoes, so I would not slip; get a running start; and jump far out toward the deep water, away from the rocky outcroppings. I watched while they jumped first; the daredevil in me was nervous. I stood for ten minutes, listening to the voices in my head that advised against jumping. I could get hurt—that was Dad’s voice. Then my own voice kicked in—Go for it! I tightened my bikini top, took a running start, and jumped out as far as I could. I’d been told to not look down, which I immediately did. It felt like my stomach came up into my throat, and I had to bear down with a grunt to push it back down. I pulled my head up, pointed my toes, and hit the water. When I surfaced, the crowd was clapping. Mostly guys had been jumping. What a rush—I wanted to go again, but it was cold that day and we packed it in. For a few hours, the adventure had taken me far from baseball and the cares that went with it.
Back at Midway, Connie was there when I experienced my first Midwestern thunderstorm. A rain delay had been quickly called—the club didn’t hesitate when a storm threatened—and when Connie looked up and saw the strange color of the sky, she said, “Oh, no. This is gonna be a bad one.” Remembering the tale of the ballplayer who was struck and killed by lightning in Saskatchewan, I didn’t hesitate either. While my teammates hung out in the locker room, Connie and I took cover in the maintenance shed behind home plate. As the storm swept through, we watched as cars, including Connie’s, floated in the parking lot and on Energy Park Drive. It was the worst storm she’d seen here. I continued to be in awe of Minnesota’s landscape—and now its powerful weather.
May 31, 1997. I looked forward to pitching in my first regular-season game. It would be on the road against the Sioux Falls Canaries. (I was also happy to be receiving my first paycheck, as I was down to six dollars.) I like to think that determination has been my biggest strength throughout my life. Doors have been shut in my face, and I have failed miserably at times, but I brush myself off and keep going. I would have to draw on that after tonight’s game. I was warming up in the bullpen when Barry Moss came down and said, “You’re coming in for the sixth inning. Watch out for the home plate umpire. He has a big ego and loves to call balks.”
Making My Pitch Page 15