Through the years, Roy’s analysis of Brownsville Monarch high school baseball came off excessively harsh and overly critical to some. Nevertheless, he believed his judgement to be truthful, and he tried to write honestly.
Therefore, when Roy wrote of the shortcomings of the Monarchs baseball team in state competition in a less than flattering way many voiced their displeasure. Mostly telling him face-to-face, in heated encounters.
“Don’t be so afraid of failure that you take the cowardly road and refuse to ‘go for it,’” Peterman often said to the summer Babe Ruth League baseball team. “In the end, failure is not the worst thing you can experience—not giving it your all, is. Don’t wake up one day and say those ordinary words that lesser men have voiced—‘What if I…’ ‘I wonder if…’ ‘If only I would’ve…’” Emphatically, Roy shook his head. “Take your place among other great men who strive against this world’s tides and winds and, without any protest, accomplish the mightiest and greatest of achievements. Or give it their all and fail.”
Quality of character and a disposition to shape the character of young men, more than anything else, brought Roy Peterman and Mitch Haddox together to coach summer baseball. It led to Roy’s close journalistic involvement with Ryan’s high school baseball career. After Mitch Haddox died, Roy willingly assumed fatherly duties in Ryan’s life.
Because I’m going to win
They arrived back at Lockhart in the morning. With a day off and then a home series against the Glen Allen Lake Lakers, before they hit the road again against the Saranac Chiefs and the Climax Heights Dragons to close out the season, Ryan planned to take some time to separate himself and enjoy his family.
Arriving home a little after 7 AM, Ryan entered the dark house thinking Stephanie would still be sleeping. Surprised to find her awake and sitting on the sofa in the dark, he sat down next to her.
“How ya doing, Baby? Is everything okay?”
Shrugging her shoulders, she answered, “Little Mitch slept through the morning. I thought I’d take some time alone time.”
Ryan started to get up. “I can leave.”
“No,” she called out softly.
Her response emerged abruptly, startling Ryan.
They sat in the darkened living room, holding each other.
“There are three games left,” Stephanie finally said.
“Yeah.”
“How do you feel? Your arm, I mean,” asked Stephanie, burying her face in the muscles of his left arm.
Gone were the conversations about the bills and their financial woes. Their stress now rested where it should—his performance on the field.
“It’s good,” he answered. He didn’t consider it a lie, because at that point of the competition, with only three games remaining to pitch, he knew that unless his arm fell off he planned to finish out the season and not be denied his victory in the contest.
“Are you nervous?”
After a momentary pause, he replied, “No.”
Pulling her head back, she stared at him in the morning dimness.
The world seemed to stop. In the span of a brief moment, the planet seemed to stop revolving and time stood still.
“I’m not nervous, Stephanie.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m going to win,” he declared. Absent of dramatics, emotionless conviction gave strength to his voice.
Because of his strong words, she fell back and once again buried her face in the warmth of his arms. Shielded in comfort, she saw a brighter horizon, their lives calmer and less traumatic.
Roman Toothache
They fell asleep.
A few hours later Ryan awoke.
The happy sounds of little Mitch came over the baby monitor and filled the living room.
Without hesitation, Stephanie went to tend to their son.
Still groggy and extremely tired, his body still recovering from his most recent pitching outing, Ryan remained on the sofa.
Because of its unnatural movement, pitching caused enormous trauma on his arm and the body. Typically, it took him until the second or third rest day before he could begin purging his system. His shoulder problems further complicated his recovery cycle.
Gentle noises of Stephanie and the baby came to him in a series of soft mommy giggles and baby grunts. Then he felt Stephanie, baby in tow, once again lying next to him on the sofa.
Around ten-thirty he awoke. Having already started her day, the sounds of Stephanie feeding the baby entered his ears.
Sneaking up, he stood unmoving at the dining room entrance staring at his world—his wife and child.
Just then, Stephanie noticed him standing there. “What?”
Ryan shrugged. “Why didn’t you wake me?”
“You looked tired, Baby. I thought it best to let you sleep some.”
On the rare day off, they set aside time to be together. After breakfast, they left the baby with a babysitter, loaded up a few items, and headed for the lake to enjoy an afternoon of fishing.
Under the surprisingly gentle sunlight, Ryan leaned back holding his fishing rod. Before long, he drifted off into a shallow doze.
Opening his eyes, the sun’s downward trajectory peeked below a batch of bloated clouds.
“I’ve been meaning to show you something.”
Stephanie lifted her head off his shoulder and smiled warmly.
He reached into his left shirt pocket and pulled out an envelope. “I want you to read this. Mamma gave it to me after Dad died.”
Stephanie opened the envelope, enfolded the letter inside, and began to read.
Dearest Son,
If you are reading this then I am dead. In my life, I tried to tell you how I felt about you. I know I failed most of the time. I’m not very good with words. Now that I’m gone, I don’t want you to live out the rest of your life and not know how much I loved you as a son and respected you as a man.
Ryan, making it to the major leagues was a dream of mine and I’m happy it’s now a dream of yours. If you make it, I’ll smile from above. But Ryan, if you don’t accomplish your goal, if you never pitch in the major leagues, it won’t matter to me.
Please know how blessed I felt to have you as my son.
There are many things I admire about you, my son. You came to us when we believed we wouldn’t be able to have a son out of our stock and germ. The comfort you gave to me after I lost my brother, were more than I could ask for.
You are a Haddox through and through, even down to the hard luck we Haddox’s suffer. I never saw you get down on yourself or hang you head.
Ryan, come what may, you must never quit.
It is our destiny in life—us Haddox men—to never quit. To keep fighting.
Son, please don’t forget what’s most important in life. Family is all we are as men and we must concern ourselves to loving and raising our children with all of our hearts. Love your wife. Love your children. In the end, nothing else matters.
Love and happiness.
Your father
Morning became afternoon. Ryan caught enough fish to meet their needs for the next week. Drifting slowly on the lake, in the afternoon sunshine, Stephanie closed her eyes and leaned back on Ryan’s chest and they talked about their life together.
A few feet from the edge of the boat, a fish leaped up from the lake’s depths and crashed back into the water.
“Wow!” exclaimed Stephanie.
“He wanted to get a closer look at how beautiful you are, Baby.”
“Aww,” Stephanie peered back at him. “You’re my sweet man.”
After a short, passionate kiss, they cuddled quietly.
Ryan continued speaking softly into her ear.
The Oklahoma winds moved down from the mountains and coursed through the Great Plains and steppes leading to the lake. Before long, the winds pushed the twenty-five foot vessel to the far end of the lake.
Stephanie fell asleep in his arms and Ryan didn’t want to wake her.
&n
bsp; “Honey?”
“Yeah,” he answered.
“How long was I asleep?”
“An hour and a half.”
“Why didn’t you wake me?”
“Cause I love hearing you breathe.”
Stephanie felt elation in her breasts. Lately Ryan’s quietness brought her to tears. On the days the team traveled out of town, the night coldness left her fearful for the future.
Her intuition exposed her to the immense pressure assailing Ryan. She began to consider the weight of life might prevent them from getting married.
“It hasn’t gotten worse?” asked Stephanie, kneading the area around his shoulder. Often she gave Ryan massages, but they were general. Recently, the massages were more specific.
“No,” he answered, grimacing slightly.
Stephanie pulled back, in horror. “Did I hurt you?”
“No,” he quickly assured her. “It feels good. Please don’t stop.”
Quietly, Stephanie went back to working his shoulder, more gently than before.
“It’s like the toothache,” he blurted out.
Stephanie stopped again and looked at him. “Toothache?”
Ryan rolled over on his side causing Stephanie to have to stop massaging his shoulder.
“About the time we first met, do you remember?”
Stephanie’s blank face answered him.
“A couple of months after we first met, I got a real bad toothache. It hurt something awful. Times were tough, like now, and I decided to wait it out, rather than pay a dentist to fix it.”
Stephanie put down the massage oil. “Oh yeah, I remember. I asked you about it. You said you didn’t mind the pain.”
Ryan grinned. “You said most people don’t like pain.”
Stephanie grinned back, nudging him playfully.
“Well,” Ryan went on, adjusting himself to a more comfortable position, “finally the pain got so bad that even just swallowing caused it to throb.”
Stephanie stopped grinning.
Ryan’s eyes glazed over. “In my shoulder, the pain’s like that. Mostly, the throbbing—I can feel it real deep, but it’s not enough pain to stop me. I know I’m probably wrecking my arm…” He shook his head. “I don’t have a choice. There’s no tomorrow for us. This is my best shot at making the majors. Our best shot.”
Suddenly scared, Stephanie leaned down and hugged him tightly. Going silent, neither of them said anything.
A relic of “old school” ballplayers, Ryan refused to believe that his best days were behind him. Absent of the good sense to know when to pull back, cut his loses, and move on, he kept fighting the good fight.
Once, his fastball torched the gun into the 90s, but those days were long gone. He’d turn twenty-five in April—getting old for a minor league pitcher who’d never been called up to the big dance—and his arm was beginning to feel the wear and tear of a minor league professional pitcher.
There were times in his past when circumstances compelled Ryan to hold back—not go all out—perhaps out of fear of failing. Human nature pricked the human heart, mostly to reveal powers or frailties. In Ryan’s case, his humanness revealed both with equal vigor.
Like a Roman gladiator, facing life and death in the arena, Ryan stood bold and straight and courageously looked down the strike zone knowing his success or failure linked to his son’s future.
To Ryan, the game had become more—much more—than a game.
His life and the lives of his family now intertwined in the cruelness of the ball and bat. In the cruel fate of the game, baseball far surpassed the boundaries between life and death. In his soul, failing to achieve his objectives would cause him to face an utter conclusiveness reaching beyond to the finality of even death.
More than a man should be tested, Ryan trembled in fear, refusing the weight of his weaknesses to pull him down. With the resilience and spirit of greatness, he reared back and hurled through his pain.
Trust me… you’re my friend
Horace Potter, the hard throwing ace of the Glen Allen Lake Lakers, entered the game with an 11 and 8 record and a 3.89 earned run average.
The near capacity crowd came to see the final game of the four game series, a game of extreme importance, bearing playoff implications. Both teams came in close behind the Climax Heights Dragons—the Lakers trailing by 1 ½ games, while the Panthers trailed by a game.
Directly behind them, the Saranac Chiefs loomed behind the Lakers by a half a game.
Within the heat of a tight conference race—in the hotness of summer—the Independent Mountain Conference sat embroiled in an intense deadlock that would reach a culmination in the last three series.
Involved in his own Southern Side-by-Side competition, Haddox felt the additional pressure of the conference race. Young’s win the preceding game—a 3 to 2 nail bitter—moved the pitchers into a near tie. Ryan’s record stood at 11-3 and Young’s right behind him at 10-5.
Another thought took shape in Ryan’s mind. In his five career pitching outings against the Lakers, he’d won once and lost twice.
Considering his final three opponents, the Lakers, the Saranac Chiefs, and the Climax Heights Dragons, any win would prove difficult going down the stretch.
Scheduled for late afternoon, the Lakers game afforded the Panthers some rest period before they journeyed to Colorado the following day.
In the dog days of summer, the late afternoon, mid-August sun blazed down, drawing out Ryan’s liquid from his pores.
As he warmed up, in between studying the movement of his ball and going over “the book” with Borelli, he ran various scenarios in his mind. From win percentage to magic number, his mind closed in on the most relevant. If I win today, Young won’t have the starts left to catch me. The best he’ll be able to do is tie me.
“Hey, you! Wake up!”
Borelli’s command broke him out of his reverie.
“I called for the cutter.” Anger flashed across the catcher’s face.
“Sorry,” called out Ryan. “I thought you wanted the heater.”
To prevent further mishap during the warm up session, Ryan cleared his mind and focused solely on the task before him.
If I’m gonna beat the Lakers, I better get my head screwed on straight, Ryan scolded himself.
After the warmup, Ryan and Borelli took a seat on the edge of the bench and went through the usual “book” run through.
“The Book”—a baseball encyclopedia of the opposing team—was a compilation kept mostly in the mind between pitcher and catcher. Because of the cerebral feature of the game, pitchers and catchers routinely went over the hitters they would face in the game and any relevant information—past and recent—passing through the baseball hotwire.
Comprehensive in nature, “the book” contained a voluminous library of every single player in the minors.
Bush league data network, Ryan referred to it.
Normally data collection occurred between games. Because of the constant player shuffle in and out of the bush leagues, the book could change suddenly and drastically with little warning.
Such a drastic event in the Lakers lineup caused a bothered Borelli to take full notice. “The Lakers, they sent Antonio Rivera down… yesterday.”
“Yeah,” Ryan nodded, “I heard.”
“He’s a good bat. We gotta pitch to him.”
Borelli’s angst increased the heaviness brewing within Ryan. Selfishly, angrily, Ryan cursed the situation. He gets here in time to face me.
Antonio Rivera—a five-year major league veteran—suffered a mild back strain a week earlier. After sitting out three games, the parent club scheduled him to play a few games with the minor league Lakers before calling him back up.
The addition of Rivera into the Laker’s lineup meant that Ryan couldn’t pitch around him because Culver Banks batted behind him in the fourth slot.
Young escaped the situation; Ryan hadn’t been so fortunate.
Of course, this would ha
ppen. Old feelings of resentment flooded over Ryan. He started to feel doubt about his recent good fortune. Once a hard luck pitcher, always a…
He didn’t finish the thought, fighting the urge to feel sorry for himself.
“Fuck it,” Ryan said under his breath, startling Borelli, who gave him a solemn look. “I can take him.” Stopping to reconsider his words, he added, “I can take both of them.”
Stepping up to the rubber to throw the first pitch of the game, Haddox heard Kyle Faught call out from shortstop, “Come on, Ryan, let’s get the leading lady!”
Much quieter, third baseman Mike Schmidt chipped in, “Take down number one, Ryan!”
The infield chatter never failed to lift Ryan’s spirits. He wondered if ballplayers realized how important their encouragement was to pitchers.
After getting the first hitter, Ryan gave up a single and quickly faced the first confrontation with the Lakers big bats.
Taking time to rub up the ball, Ryan looked up at the stands. Stephanie sat in her usual seat above the Panther dugout. Little Mitch, all bundled up in his infant car seat, sat next to her.
Stephanie smiled at him.
He smiled back.
From the stretch, Ryan looked into the plate. Eyeing the runner’s lead off first base, he turned and threw a strike to Lane Hunter, the purpose more to disrupt the timing of Rivera than keeping the runner close.
Rivera calmly stepped out of the box. After some adjusting, he took his stance again in the box and gave a few practice swings.
Ryan studied Rivera’s slightly closed stance.
A closed stance means he’s trying to compensate for his overaggressive tendency to pull the pitch. If I can place a pitch up and in, he’ll have trouble extending his arms.
Weighing the risk of pitching Rivera close, he shook off Borelli’s curve ball sign.
Hesitantly, the catcher gave the sign for the fastball up and in.
Nodding, Ryan moved into the set and pause before delivering the pitch.
Placing the pitch at the exact location he wanted—the inside black of home plate—Ryan forced Rivera to check his swing. Behind on the count 1-0, he refused to give in and tried to place a cutter in the exact same location.
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