by T. T. Monday
“Look,” Feldspar says, “we’re only talking about a year or two, right?”
“What do you mean by that?” I know what he means, of course, but I want him to say it.
He smiles. “Come on…you’re not getting any younger. You can’t pitch forever.”
“Watch me,” I say. “I’ll pitch till I’m fifty. I’ll be the zombie Tommy John, and you’ll still be swapping Single-A stories with a bunch of coaches.”
On that note I walk out, and for a few minutes I wonder if I went too far. But as soon as I emerge from the tunnel, hear the crack of the bat, and feel the grass under my feet, I realize I was right. This is my life. I may not be Clayton Kershaw, but I am immortal.
5
They play a lot of day games at Coors Field, more than anywhere but Wrigley. In Chicago, the reason is tradition: Wrigley Field didn’t even have lights until the early 1990s, and by that time Chicago fans were accustomed to the Cubs’ playing their home schedule under the sun. The Rockies didn’t exist until 1993. The Colorado preference for day games is an attempt to create the best possible playing conditions in a place where nighttime temperatures in April can dip below freezing. Even the night games start a little early. Everywhere else, night games start at 7:10 p.m., 7:15 p.m., 7:30 p.m. In Denver, they start at 6:40 p.m., God knows why. Today’s start is 1:10 p.m., which means players report for work in the nine o’clock hour. I mention this not as a play for sympathy, but only to note that sometimes—not often, but sometimes—baseball players work nine to five.
In the eighth inning, the score is tied, with no outs and runners at the corners. Our starter, the righty Tim Wheeler, has turned in the Coors Field equivalent of a no-hitter: four runs on eight hits, six strikeouts, and no walks. He doesn’t want to come out of the game—pitchers never do—but Skipper knows that games slip away fast in this park. Wheeler takes off his glove and grips it with his pitching hand. As he walks back to the dugout, he raises his ungloved hand, plugs a nostril, and shoots a snot rocket into the infield grass. Both runners are his, meaning they will be charged to his earned-run total if they score. If the Rockies take the lead here and end up winning, he’ll be charged with the loss. The new statisticians like to say that a pitcher’s record doesn’t matter. That may be true for wins and no-decisions, but let me say this to the nerds out there: a loss is a loss. An “L” next to your name means you blew it, for yourself and the team. Nothing matters more than that.
The batter is Maurice Watson, the Rockies’ callipygian third baseman, who is going to make his first All-Star team this year. Most observers credit Watson’s success at the plate this season to the protection he gets hitting before Yonel Ruiz, but I always thought Watson had it in him to hit this well. He has a rare intensity at the plate, a reptilian fight-or-flight response that only a few players possess. You can’t teach that. You also can’t control it. Watson bats right-handed, so Skipper calls in a righty, Guillermo Gutierrez, to face him. The stars align for Gutierrez, and he gets Watson on three pitches—a sinking slider called a strike; a fastball at the belt, fouled back; and finally a piece-of-shit slider in the dirt that Watson can’t resist but can’t reach. It’s tough luck. Even All-Stars make outs 60 percent of the time.
The visitors’ bullpen at Coors Field is beyond the wall in right-center, next to a little landscaped area filled with pine trees and waterfalls that is supposed to represent the natural splendor of the Rocky Mountains. I think it looks like a Christmas-tree farm. As soon as Watson takes his final cut, I head for the gate near the trees. I don’t even need to see Skipper’s signal. This is my spot. This is why the Bay Dogs pay me. When a dangerous lefty comes to the plate in the late innings, it’s my job to sit him down. It’s my only job, in fact. I work ten minutes a night.
Why me? Dogma maintains that left-handed batters fare worse against left-handed pitchers (and righties against righties), because breaking balls trail away from the hitter. Statistical analysis bears this out, but I tend to think the advantage is psychological. Imagine you’re a hitter. It’s late in the game, with runners on base, and just as you’re walking up to the plate, the game stops so the other team can bring in a new pitcher, a specialist whose strengths match your weaknesses like hands on a mirror. Imagine further that this pitcher’s only task for the night is to send you back to the dugout. After you, he can hit the showers, crack a beer, whatever. But first you. He’s all about you. Every ounce of his professional-athlete’s body is focused on this moment. For a hitter who might have four or five or even six at-bats that night, it’s hard to match that intensity. Advantage pitcher, right?
Not always. The late-innings reliever has special concerns of his own. For one thing, the situation he inherits is always a shitshow—otherwise, he wouldn’t have been called in. Today, for example, I’m coming into a tie game with runners on first and third. There’s only one out, which means a sacrifice fly will score a run, as will several kinds of ground balls, depending where they’re hit. So it’s not enough just to get this batter out; I have to get him out in one of a limited number of ways. Of course, he could also get a hit, which happens on average two out of ten at-bats, no matter who’s pitching or hitting. Bear in mind that we’re in an opponent’s ballpark in the eighth inning, meaning the crowd is liquored up and yelling at the top of their lungs. Also remember we’re at Coors Field, a mile above sea level, so forget what I said about sacrifice flies: here, those are called “three-run homers.”
I jog in from the pen, crossing paths with our second baseman, who is being replaced at the same time. This is what’s known as a double switch, a maneuver that allows a manager to change two players at once and swap their places in the batting order. The pitcher’s spot was up in our half of the ninth; now the new second baseman will hit instead. In the National League, where pitchers are required to bat for themselves, double switches are common, especially in the late innings of close games. Relief pitchers almost never bat, and when we do, our performance is laughable. The last time I stood on first base was six years ago.
The huddle on the mound consists of Skipper, Thick Will, and Tony Modigliani, our All-Star catcher. Modigliani is a prick, but he’s our prick. It makes me feel a little better to know that he’s due to bat in the top of the ninth. Even if I screw up and let the Rockies go ahead, I can count on Diggy to give the Rockies’ pitcher the same heartburn Yonel Ruiz is giving me right now.
“All yours,” Skipper says as he hands me the ball.
“Are you sure about this?” I shoot back. The joke isn’t funny, and it never was, but now it’s part of my routine. Skipper pats my ass and walks back to the dugout—leaving me, Thick Will, and Modigliani on the mound. “Head in the game,” Diggy says to me. “We’re looking for a double play. Low on the corners, got it?”
“Low on the corners,” I repeat.
“No off-speed shit. Just the heater and the slider. No cutters, understand?”
“You’re speaking English, Tony. I hear you.” When I was traded to San Diego last year (it was a round-trip; I returned as a free agent at the end of the season), I had the pleasure of facing Modigliani twice. First time, I struck him out swinging. That was the highlight of my year. Maybe of my life. Second time, he spun around on a 2-2 fastball and put it twenty rows into the bleachers. Like I said, it’s better if he’s your prick.
The huddle breaks up and I take my eight warm-up pitches, including a couple of off-speed pitches and a cutter for Diggy’s enjoyment. But when Ruiz steps into the box, I stop messing around. As much as I hate to admit it, Diggy is right: we need our heads in this game, or it’s going south faster than a goose on crystal meth. These are the moments that decide championships. A win in June counts as much as one in September. In fact, if you want the games in September to count for anything at all, you have to win the ones in June. Sounds obvious, but when you’re playing these games every day for six months, you have to be reminded. Diggy is just doing his job, the bastard.
Ruiz stands in the box like
a locust on a branch, his massive arms furled and heaving with each breath. I try to see him as Tiff Tate does: the impeccable micro-beard like a dagger from lower lip to chin tip; the top two buttons of his shirt undone; the long, cuffless uniform pants, loose enough to hide the fullback thighs. From this mound I can’t see details of his tattoos, but something is crawling up his neck, some kind of animal dancing with his gold chain and crucifix. Waiting, he pumps the bat up and down like a piston. Although we’ve not yet faced each other, I’m sure he’s been briefed on my repertoire. He knows roughly what to expect, but most hitters like to see a new pitcher for themselves before they start making guesses about pitch selection. That’s why I’m not surprised when he lets my first pitch sail past without so much as a twitch. It’s a fastball at the knees, just touching the outside corner for strike one. Ruiz steps back with his right foot, leaving the left planted in the box. He stares down the line, reading the signs from the third-base coach. He knows as well as anyone the expectations here: get the ball into the outfield, pretty much anywhere, and the team goes ahead by a run. Maybe you get lucky and the ball carries farther, but a sacrifice fly is the minimum.
I know he’s thinking fly ball, but I also know he’s a wild man. He plays with a certain audacity—you might even call it greed—that you seldom see in American-born players. For example, on a routine single he never just trots to first and takes his base. Instead, he hauls ass down the line every time and rounds the bag at full speed, like he’s going to try for second. The first couple of times he actually did get to second—until outfielders around the league wised up and realized there are no routine plays with Ruiz. A couple of strong-armed right fielders actually cut him down before he could scramble back. You’d think that would have stopped Ruiz from taking this kind of risk, but so far it hasn’t. He’s leading the league in stolen bases and pickoffs—a fan’s dream and a manager’s nightmare. Considering Ruiz’s way of thinking, then, what are the chances he’s going to be content with a sacrifice fly? Pretty small, I’d say, and I use this knowledge to my advantage. I want him to overextend, to chase something out of the zone. He’ll be trying to golf it into the second deck, but if the pitch is already on a trajectory toward the earth, maybe even brushing the dirt, I might get a grounder. A strikeout would be nice, too.
Diggy knows what I’m thinking. He calls for a slider and sets the target six inches off the plate. I check the runners and deliver exactly the pitch I want, one that starts flat and hard before breaking down at the last moment, out of the hitter’s reach. Except that this is no ordinary hitter. This is Yonel Ruiz. His reach is extra-human. Somehow he gets the bat on the ball, and it skips along the grass toward short. The infield has been playing at double-play depth, a few steps closer to the batter, and the shortstop fields the ball cleanly, turns, and fires to second. The second baseman receives the throw, jumps up to avoid the spikes of the sliding runner, and throws across his body to first, beating Ruiz by half a step. The inning is over. The Rockies don’t score.
As Ruiz retreats back to the dugout, I surprise myself with a twinge of sympathy. Everyone in the park knows what he went through to get here, but few if any know that the nightmare is still going on. I think about his family stuck in their house in Havana and wonder if the Venezuelans at least allowed him to move his parents to a nicer place. I know so little about Cuba. Are there nicer houses to be had? Does the communist government allow that kind of upward mobility?
I saunter down the dugout steps, receiving ass taps and high fives from my teammates. My day on the mound is done, but I’ve got plenty of work ahead of me. For one thing, I need to get less ignorant about Cuba if I’m going to make anything of this case.
6
Diggy smacks a dinger in the top of the ninth, and we hold on to win by one. After a shower and shave, I slip out of the stadium by the employees’ gate and find myself in possession of the real prize of a nine-to-five day: an evening of freedom. Most guys prefer day games at home, where they can spend the evening with their families, but for me there’s nothing better than a matinee on the road. For a few hours, I’m a regular guy on a business trip—with ninety-five dollars per-diem meal money, handed out in cash every afternoon. I don’t get recognized much in San José, but on the road I’m practically anonymous. Let’s hope that sticks. This morning’s events have me looking over my shoulder more than usual. If I were more prudent—and let’s face it, less horny—I wouldn’t be walking around Denver right now, but as it stands, I’m on my way to the Denver Public Library, workplace of Constance O’Connell, my date for the evening.
To be fair, she’s more than that. Connie and I were introduced several years ago, and since then she has been my girl in Denver, a sympathetic soul with an open heart and a warm bed, and last winter I asked her for more than the usual casual liaisons. I had always wanted to spend a winter in the mountains, learning to ski, so I called Connie, who helped me find a short-term rental in Denver. As it turned out, I barely used my apartment, and I never learned to ski. I spent my days at the gym and my nights at Connie’s place. I have never felt so cozy, inside and out. For three months, I felt like a sheepdog curled up by the fire. I’ve been with lots of athletic women—for example my ex-wife, Ginny, a four-year Division I soccer All-American. Connie is different; she likes to take a nap after lunch on Saturdays. Whereas Ginny used to wake me up at three or four in the morning for sex, Connie hasn’t seen 3:00 a.m. since college, where she did run track, but only, as she would tell you, for the social connections.
Last winter was fantastic, but I worry that Connie may have gotten the wrong idea. She has been counting down the days to this weekend—the Bay Dogs’ first visit to Denver this season—as though it were a homecoming. She needs to know that this isn’t my home, that I don’t want to settle down. Perhaps I should have been more explicit about my expectations, but I’ve never led her to believe that I’m anything but what I am. I do enjoy her company, but I enjoy the company of other women, too.
Okay, time out. You’ve read between the lines—gentle personality, nothing like my All-American ex—you’re probably thinking Connie O’Connell is a dog. Nothing could be further from the truth. Her freckled cheeks, bangs, and dark eyes make you think of your best friend’s nerdy older sister, the senior whose plaid uniform skirt you lifted in your fantasies freshman year. Thanks to Pilates and gentle weekend jogs, her body remains toned but not hard. At thirty-one, she has the curves a woman ought to have: the breasts God gave her and the ass she’s earned. Her skin smells like cream, her hair like pine. Her vibe is wholesome and a bit naughty, like skinny-dipping in a private lake.
She is a librarian, though. The Denver Public Library is in the civic-center complex downtown, across the plaza from the state capitol. It was built around the same time as Coors Field and designed by the American architect Michael Graves. The highlight is the Western History Reading Room, an atrium containing a three-story oil derrick made of salvaged timbers. Connie’s office is right off the atrium, a little glass cube, like a greenhouse, taking in the rays from the skylights over the derrick.
My little hothouse tomato meets me in the courtyard outside.
“Hey there, beautiful,” She’s wearing an asymmetrical knee-length dress and strappy heels; her legs are bare. Acknowledging the cool summer night, she’s brought a shawl for her shoulders, which lends a touch of elegance to the ensemble. “Thanks for meeting me,” I say.
She rises on her toes, takes my head in both hands, and kisses me softly on the mouth. “Where are you taking me?”
I’m ready to bag the dinner reservation and go straight to her place. Her work clothes do that to me, for some reason. But I’m a gentleman. I lend my arm, and we walk the few blocks to the restaurant, a Michelin-starred joint called Chez Roque. Like Michael Graves, the chef at Chez Roque has adapted the conventions of his art for the Mountain Time Zone, with entrées like duck with pine nuts, filleted brook trout, and bison frites. Rocky Mountain oysters, I’m happy to repo
rt, are not on the menu. The hostess gives us a table by the window.
“How did it go this afternoon?” she asks. We haven’t seen each other in more than two months. During that time we’ve talked and e-mailed, done a few video chats, but none of it compares to sitting right across the table, tracking her eyes with mine.
“We won.”
She thinks about this. “When I was running track, I always thought it was more important to run a beautiful race than to win, because if someone else is faster you can run a flawless race and still lose, and then what do you have?”
“Nice thought,” I say, “but it doesn’t work in baseball.”
“Why not?”
“Because baseball is a business, and winning is all that matters.”
“Isn’t that kind of mercenary?”
“It’s completely mercenary. We’re paid to win, not to play with grace and style.”
Connie is the most principled person I’ve ever known. She once told me she likes filing tax returns, because it reminds her of our commonwealth. “But if it’s a business,” she says, “then you’re selling tickets and beer and hot dogs and T-shirts and what else? Those foam hand thingies? Wouldn’t you sell more of all of it if you looked good?”
“There’s a woman you should meet,” I say. “A stylist for baseball players.”
“She helps them look better?”
“Yes, but her clients say that the real value is that they play better. She builds confidence.”