Double Switch

by T. T. Monday

  Or so it would appear. Last year, Pete came to me with a dilemma. Turns out his elder daughter, June, had been keeping a secret from her parents. From everyone, really. It started with an innocuous middle-school project about money management, where each student got to invest a couple hundred bucks in an imaginary stock portfolio. Pete and his wife loved the idea so much they extended it, giving each of the girls a bit of real money to invest. They thought it would help teach them the value of a dollar, one of the hardest lessons to learn in a place like Scarsdale. The younger sister lost interest and cashed out her positions at the end of the school year, but Junie kept at it. She asked for more money to invest, and Pete agreed. Her results were excellent—what else could they be?—and before long Pete was transferring a thousand bucks into her brokerage account every month. Little did he know she was secretly wiring the money to an Irish sports book, where she had started playing horses and dogs. She moved on to European soccer and rugby, and by the time Pete discovered what she was doing, she was betting on half the Major League Baseball schedule every night. There are no hard-and-fast rules about family members gambling on games, but if Gretsch himself were caught gambling on baseball, he’d lose his job on the spot. The commissioner’s office has a zero-tolerance policy—just ask Pete Rose. Gretsch knew he could handle Junie, but he needed my help getting her accounts to disappear. So I made some calls. A friend of mine who runs a small oddsmaking operation in Connecticut (no baseball, just NFL and college hoops) put me in touch with an English friend of his, a guy named Hamish who sounded, when we spoke over the phone, exactly like that auto-insurance gecko. A few days later, the Irish book transferred ownership of Junie’s account to Hamish, who quietly cashed it out and wired the money to Pete—disguised as a speaking fee for a sports-management conference in Brussels.

  When I call, Gretsch is already in bed, even though it’s only ten-thirty. “This better be important,” he says.

  I skip the pleasantries: “Feldspar is recommending a life ban for yours truly.”

  “Why? What happened?”

  “I was working a case and witnessed a shooting.”

  “Really? That’s not so bad.”

  “It happened in the owner’s skybox.”

  Gretsch exhales. “We work for the owners. You know that.”

  I like Gretsch. I don’t want to be rough with him. But the clock is ticking. As we speak, Jim Feldspar is lining up his evidence: my involvement with Magnusson, the SOS call from Sonoma, the orgy in the skybox—not to mention all the trouble I got into last season. I imagine him printing out my crimes in a super-sized font and lovingly gluing the pages to foam-core boards for easy comprehension by the commissioner.

  I can’t lose to this guy, I just can’t. So what choice do I have? I give Gretsch a little chin music. “How’s Junie?” I say. Just like that.

  “She’s doing well,” Gretsch says with a little hesitation. “She starts at Princeton in August.”

  “You and your wife must be so proud.”

  There’s a beat of silence. “I’ll do what I can,” Gretsch says.

  Two days later, the commissioner reaches his decision. In a confidential memo sent to the players’ union and my agent, he writes: John Adcock is a valued member of the Major League Baseball family. Like any family, we in baseball forgive mistakes. Punishment is time served.

  41

  It’s a Friday night in August, and the San Diego Padres are in town. It feels good to be with the team, back in the realm of the familiar. The sleeves of my blue undershirt hit my arms just above the elbow, just where I like them, and the cuff of my pants falls just so on the tops of my spikes. Even when the rest of your life makes no sense, you can depend on a uniform. Cops and pilots and UPS drivers know what I mean.

  Stretching on the outfield grass with the other pitchers, I remember something Jock Marlborough likes to say: “Baseball is older than you.” The statement is obviously true, but what I think he means is that baseball exists outside of time, with its own rhythm and a governing logic that extends beyond the rules of the game. The idiosyncratic but predictable rhythm of baseball regulates our lives. How could I quit this game? I couldn’t live without the routine. But I shouldn’t kid myself: it’s a one-way love affair. Would baseball go on without me? You bet it would. Cemeteries are filled with dead ballplayers.

  Speaking of dead players, the trial of Pascual Alcalá, aka Yonel Ruiz, lasts just three days before he is convicted of killing Magnusson and masterminding the murder of the Sonoma winery workers. The tooth turns out to be inadmissible, but the police find plenty of other incriminating evidence: phone records, security-card swipes, and written demands from Magnusson. Ruiz will never play baseball again, but Alcalá might—for the penitentiary team.

  Tiff Tate fares almost as poorly as her lone smuggling project, and I’m not just referring to her reconstructed right shoulder. The criminal investigation of Ruiz revealed that Tiff engineered Ruiz’s exit from Cuba and immigration into the United States. Federal authorities decided to bring human-trafficking charges against Tiff—charges her lawyers tried to get dismissed, arguing that Tiff hadn’t broken any laws transporting Ruiz, a U.S. citizen, over the border. The federal judge was not persuaded. Eerily aping La Loba, the judge saw an opportunity to make an example of Tiff, and he let the charges stand. Her case is awaiting trial.

  The Padres are mediocre again this year, but they have a few bright spots. Because they were basically out of the division race by All-Star break, management used the last half of the season to audition prospects on the big stage. Most of the fresh meat melted under pressure, or thrived for a quick week or two before the league identified their weak spots. However, one young Padre has been on a tear since the moment he arrived in San Diego, and no one has been able to check his ascent. His OPS is holding steady at 1.000-plus, with his on-base percentage climbing every week. In the absence of a better approach, some teams just award him first base two or three times a game. You’d think the kid was Barry Bonds. His name is Hernández, and I’ll give my bag of sunflower seeds to the first person who identifies his country of origin. Hint: swim ninety miles south of Key West and you can’t miss it.

  The timing of Hernández’s arrival was uncanny. It’s almost like word reached Cuba that Ruiz was in trouble and they needed to send another five-tool man-child, pronto. One unfortunate note on Hernández is that his presence in the States means La Loba is still in business. With her sole competitor facing federal prosecution, there is only one way Hernández could have left Cuba. Somewhere out there, La Loba is still loading Zodiac boats with priests and players—and chopping up anyone else who tries to do the same.

  That Hernández and I will face each other tonight is a foregone conclusion: he’s one of the top left-handed hitters in the league. The only question is whether the game is close. As luck would have it, the score is tied at two in the top of the eighth, and when the Friars get the first runner on, the phone rings in the bullpen. By the time they bring me in, the bases are loaded. I’m not especially nervous, proof that the human body can become accustomed to virtually anything. My left knee tickles a bit when I push off, but it’s late August, nearly September, and if a ticklish knee is your only complaint at this point in the season, you’re doing well.

  Skipper puts the ball in my glove and taps my ass. “Make him earn it,” he says.

  I like to think I can do better than that. “Make him earn it” sounds like Hernández is going to get his due, no matter what I throw, so I ought to fail with dignity, not by walking home a run. Modigliani has nothing to add. He trots back to the plate to receive my warm-up tosses. I put a little extra on them, just because. Maybe because I’ve been humiliated by enough Cubans (and fake Cubans) this month. Or because I’m not dead yet. Shit, maybe I just want to hear the mitt pop.

  Javier Hernández is a thoroughbred, a black stallion. There is no such thing as a typical Cuban complexion. Ricky Ricardo was as white as a ghost. Hernández’s skin is very d
ark. He shares Ruiz’s musculature, but he’s taller and a bit more graceful at the plate. Whereas Ruiz held his elbows close to the body, worrying the bat up and down like a piston, Hernández wags his bat playfully as he waits for the pitch. He swings with a higher-than-usual step, but he plants his foot quickly. It’s a versatile approach, not especially vulnerable to off-speed pitches. The scouting report says to bust him in on the hands to start the count, to keep him from taking possession of the inner half of the plate. That’s good advice, but it’s boilerplate: it’s what scouts write when they don’t have any other advice to give. Work him in and out, mix your speeds. That’s not a strategy; that’s pitching.

  The San José crowd goes silent as Hernández steps into the box. Diggy puts down a sign. He wants a slider outside, not the high-and-tight fastball that everyone in the ballpark expects. This is known as stealing strike one. It works best in the middle of the game, maybe the second time through the order, once the starter has established a pattern. Say you start all nine hitters with a fastball the first time through. That puts you in a position to steal a strike with a curve or a changeup, maybe. Big maybe, because if the batter isn’t looking for a fastball, if he’s considering taking the first pitch for no other reason than to drive up the pitch count, to put that extra mile on your arm, then he can just wait on your off-speed ball and drive it anywhere he likes. That’s a medium-sized risk with nobody on base in the fifth inning, but it’s a big fat risk in the eighth with the bases loaded.

  On the other hand, this kid has been in the majors how long, two months? How many times has he seen a late-innings reliever try to steal a first strike? I’m 90 percent sure he’s expecting a fastball. Diggy is 99 percent sure. It would be nice to have him down 0-1 without having shown him the heater. If it works, he won’t know what to expect from the second pitch. Another breaking ball, or the inside fastball he expected on pitch number one?

  I nod to accept Diggy’s call. The runners take their leads. I look over my shoulder to stare down the guy on third, to freeze him so we have a play at the plate on a grounder. I set at the belt, kick, and deliver. I use a high three-quarters arm slot so that the pitch looks like a fastball out of my hand. The ball crosses the plate as a strike, but curls off the outside corner at the last second. Hernández begins his swing and plants his front foot early, just as he would for a fastball. But then he does something odd, something I’ve seen very few hitters manage to do: he slows the movement of his upper body so it trails the rotation of his hips. He still follows through with the swing, but he manages to put a few milliseconds between hips and shoulders. Now he’s no longer out in front of the ball but right on top of it, or maybe even a little ahead, as he squares his shoulders and extends his arms. The ball explodes off the bat with a resonant crack and soars down the right-field line. It doesn’t stop rising until it bounces off the concrete lip of the second deck, 350 feet from home plate. In foul territory.

  I exhale. That’s strike one.

  I take a walk around the mound, rubbing up the new ball, as the runners retreat to their bases. The crowd chitters, but a strike is a strike, and Javier Hernández is down 0-1. I wouldn’t say that we “stole” strike one, but he didn’t hand it to us, either. To be honest, it was the kind of foul ball you want to forget as soon as you see it.

  I climb the mound and plant my left foot on the rubber. Diggy hangs two, calling for another slider, but I shake him off. He cycles through the other signs: fastball in, fastball out, slider in the dirt. Finally, he returns to the original call, slider outside, and I accept. I’m hoping Hernández doesn’t know what to think. If he is going back to the same pitch again, he should be asking himself, why did he keep shaking off the catcher? Must be a fastball this time. But why so many signs? Maybe he throws a curve? No, the sheet said this guy has only a fastball, slider, and cutter. Jesus Christ!

  Yes, Jesus Christ. This is the bigs, the show, and I’ve been pitching here since you were in kindergarten. I deliver a second slider, two inches farther outside than the first. This one was never a strike, not from the moment it left my hand, but the poor kid is so confused he swings anyway.

  Strike two.

  This time I don’t leave the mound. As soon as I receive the toss, I plant my foot on the rubber and stare in. Diggy wants a fastball up. A challenge pitch. In a way, this one is even more risky than the first-pitch slider, because my fastball isn’t all that fast. On a good day I’m breaking ninety, but not by much. With two strikes, though, the strike zone expands, because Hernández won’t want to be caught looking at strike three. No need, therefore, to put the ball over the plate. Anything close and he’ll swing. I just have to make sure he misses.

  I nod and check the runners. When I look back, Diggy is setting up inside. This isn’t what I had in mind, so I step off. Everybody breathes. When I step back on, Diggy repeats the sign: fastball up. I shake it off, and I shake off all the other signs in the cycle until he starts adding direction, tapping his thigh to indicate inside or out. He never hits on the combination of pitch and location I want, so I step off again. Diggy stands up and runs out to the mound.

  “The fuck?” he says after he pulls off his mask. “Are you waiting for an engraved invitation?”

  “Fastball outside,” I say through my glove. “Way outside, and shoulder high.”

  “Like a pitchout?”

  “Almost, yeah.”

  Modigliani raises an eyebrow. There’s no love between us, but I’d like to think we enjoy mutual respect. We’re both veterans, and although I’ve never made an All-Star team, I’m sure Diggy recognizes that it takes a certain amount of skill to stick around fourteen seasons. Skill and wisdom: put them together and you get wile.

  “All right,” he says. “Just make sure he can’t reach it.”

  He replaces his mask and trots back to the plate. He sets up a little outside, not enough to signal anything unusual. I set, check the runners. The guy on third bird-dogs me, making little head-fakes toward the plate, wiggling his fingers like he’s Jackie Robinson. I stare him down, standing absolutely still, until he retreats to a reasonable lead.

  I kick and deliver.

  Diggy rises from his crouch before the ball even leaves my hand, and it’s a good thing, because the pitch is higher than I intended. As I expected he would, Hernández swings, stretching his arms as far as they will go, almost throwing the bat at the ball. Already I know I’ll be watching this in the video room after the game, whether or not it works out in my favor, just to know how in God’s name he is able to extend his arms so far. Does he have another joint in there somewhere? Can he dislocate his shoulder on command? It seems to defy anatomy.

  Somehow Hernández makes contact, but just barely. The end of the bat grazes the ball, a foul tip, which would have bought him another pitch—a foul is a foul, whether it goes 350 feet or zero—but today is an unlucky day for Mr. Hernández. Today the fox evades the hound. The glancing blow of the bat barely alters the pitch. The catcher knew what was coming, and he’s standing there with an open mitt. Tipped and caught for strike three.

  Welcome to the big leagues, Javier.

  42

  August becomes September, and the Bay Dogs hit their stride. We sweep three with the Padres and take three of four from the Nationals to close out the home stand. Reporters start to use the phrase “postseason potential” in articles about us. In fourteen years as a Bay Dog, I have been to the playoffs exactly twice, losing both times in the first round. My bet with the Highway Patrol notwithstanding, it’s exciting to imagine playing in the postseason again—everything is brighter in October, louder and crisper. It would be nice to feel that thrill one more time before I retire. That said, my role is a small one. What happens in the eighth inning counts toward the final score, but there is usually one more inning after I pitch. Some relievers think of themselves as keystones, but I’m not holding up any bridges. I’m one of those little stones near the end of the bridge, the little weird ones the masons brought along j
ust in case they had a hole that size.

  Thanks to Pete Gretsch, I’m still playing ball, but Feldspar did get a few lashes in. Before I was allowed back on the field, they made me sign a piece of paper promising to quit investigations, under penalty of immediate termination from Major League Baseball. In effect, they were asking me to choose between a job that pays me a million and a half a year and one that pays me nothing. Somehow it was a tough decision. Every team in baseball has at least two setup men, a righty and a lefty, which means there are at least sixty guys out there doing exactly what I do on the mound. Sixty weird little stones. But only one of those can make your daughter’s gambling debts disappear. Only one can deliver spy-cam photos of your wife dressed up as a housekeeper. Without that power, what am I? It would appear that we’ll find out.

  Tomorrow is a travel day—we’re headed to the East Coast for a ten-game trip that will determine whether these playoff predictions are right. Three in Washington, four in New York, and a two-game interleague series in Boston. It’s make-or-break time in more ways than one. September means rosters get expanded from twenty-five to forty, and the Dogs have called up a young lefty from Riverside, a kid named Jackson with a fastball in the mid-nineties and a knee-buckling change. I’m not nervous, exactly—I’ve survived challenges like this—but I do feel more vulnerable this year.

  After tonight’s win, most of the team hit the bars to show the call-ups how that part of major-league life works. I opted to come home instead, and now I’m sitting in my apartment, flipping channels, until it’s late enough to go to bed without shame. I’ve already seen all of the evening’s baseball highlights, so I turn to CNN. The anchor is talking with a reporter in Havana, a doe-eyed American Latina, who explains that the American government is considering relaxing its stance toward Cuba. Families would be able to send more money back home, and the United States may open an embassy in Havana for the first time since 1961. So far there has been no word on lifting trade sanctions. The anchor asks if there will be legal Cuban cigars in time for Christmas—a joke, from the look on his face. The reporter, who can’t see the anchor, thinks he’s being serious. “Maybe so, Frank,” she says. “Already there is talk of amnesty for Cuban defectors, including athletes.”