They wanted me to agree to a 1993 deal worth $10,000 less than the other Triple A call-ups like Mike Piazza, Rafael Bournigal, and Pedro Astacio because I had been on the roster two fewer days than them.
My agent Fernando Cuza was more upset than I was.
“Fernando, what are we arguing over?”
He went back to the contract, pointing out the exact offending clause.
“Give me the contract, Fernando.”
“What are you going to do with it?”
“No, just give me the contract, I’m going to talk to Fred Claire myself.”
“Pedro, what are you going to do? I have to be there.”
“Okay, if you want to be in, be in, but I need to go see Fred.”
As soon as Fred himself opened the door to his office, I said, “Fred, we’re having an argument over a $10,000 raise?”
Fred looked right back at me and said, “Yes, Pedro.”
“Fred, give me a blank contract.”
“What for?”
“No, please, just give it to me.”
He slid a blank one across the desk.
I signed it.
“Give me whatever you want, Fred. Give me the minimum, just give me a chance to make the team.”
Fred lowered his glasses on his nose and looked at me with his crystal-blue eyes.
“Of course, Pedro, we’re going to give you all the chances we can to make the team. Of course. We’re counting on you to do well. Of course, we’re going to give you a chance.”
Yes, Fred and the Dodgers gave me that chance. I got a chance to relieve and a chance to start and a chance to pitch innings—I got every chance I wanted to get, and I pitched as well as, if not better than, everyone else on the team that spring training, posting a 2.70 ERA with 23 strikeouts over 26⅔ innings. I felt alive that spring. I was pitching well, really well. Everything was clicking, and my hard work was paying off.
Ramon told me, “Wow, bro, I’m proud of you, you have really earned it.”
After an extended run one afternoon, Ramon and I were cooling off in the grass on a back field. Some anxiety crept into the back of my mind.
“Bro, what if they send me down?”
“Are you crazy? They’d much rather send me down or other guys, not you.” He mentioned something about how the fact that I had options could be the only thing that would hold me up, but I didn’t really hear him. What I heard was my big brother telling me how impressed he was by how I was doing. I became sure then that I would make the team: when Ramon spoke, those were godly words to me. Ramon and Orel Hershiser, they were the aces of the team, Orel was going to start the first game against the Marlins, Ramon the second, and I had the chance to appear in one of those games at Joe Robbie Stadium. This felt like a true beginning, not some call to the Dodger Stadium bullpen for “Ramon’s little brother.”
Then it happened. The day before we were going to bus out of Vero Beach for Miami, my name, my full name, was on the list.
I called Fernando to let him know.
My name is on the list!
I could barely sleep that night. The next day I packed my suitcase, taking extra care with how I laid out the six snazzy, barely used suits Ramon had bought for me the season before. As I laid each one gently on top of the other, taking care to make the creases and folds just so, I felt like I was burying the lingering nastiness from the year before in Albuquerque. Even the squabble that spring over my contract—I felt like I had handled that the right way. I showed the Dodgers by my words and deeds that I was ready to be a major leaguer.
The next morning I threw my bag under the bus and was one of the first ones to find a seat. I took a window seat in the middle, put on my Walkman headphones, and wondered what was taking so long for the bus to roll out of Vero and head to Miami. Before the bus was completely full, I noticed this young blond-haired underling from baseball operations step out of the office and walk to the bus with a nervous look on his face.
He stepped into the bus and called for Henry Rodriguez.
Henry had been batting as well I had been pitching that spring. We had done the math and saw room for each of us on the 25-man roster, so I didn’t think much of it when Henry got called off. Maybe there was some paperwork snag, who knew. But when Henry came back on the bus, he was in tears. He gave me the throat-slash sign. I felt terrible for him. My own stomach did a tiny flip.
I put my headphones back on and slunk down in my seat, just waiting for the doors to close so we could get the hell out of there. I glanced out the window again, and walking back to the bus was that same blond-haired kid, looking like a wreck. I saw him go right up to the stowage area underneath and come out with a couple of bags, one of which looked like mine.
A couple of coaches climbed off the bus.
I started to blank out, scrambling for cover in my head when the furious screech of Joey Malfitano, our third-base coach, jerked me back into the real world.
“Hey, Pedro.”
I took off my headphones.
“Goddammit, Pedro, I’m not happy, this is fucking bullshit, but they are sending you down. There’s no fucking reason for it, you should be here, we all know you made the team, you pitched better than everybody here, and I’m the saddest guy on this bus. I just hate to tell you this, but nobody else has the guts to tell you—you’ve been sent down.”
When Joey started yelling, Lenny Harris’s radio had been on, but by the time Joey was done, the power button was shut off and the bus was completely silent. I looked around, but everyone was looking in every other direction but mine. I stood up slowly. My mind emptied. I must have walked down the aisle and stepped off the bus, but I don’t remember. Next thing I knew I was standing on the sidewalk.
I heard someone call my name.
Orel Hershiser ran off the bus, handed me a baseball, and ran back to the bus without saying anything.
“You’re a true big leaguer,” Orel’s words on the ball read. “I’ll see you soon. Orel.”
The bus drove off, and I started walking. I walked and I walked until I saw Henry standing on the side of the road, crying by himself. I knew then it was my time to cry. The two biggest tears I’ve ever had rolled out of my eyes.
I wasn’t sad, though. I could cry when I got mad, and these were tears of rage.
I wanted to kill someone.
“Where’s Fred Claire?”
All I could think about was Fred, and I focused on his eyes, his ice-blue eyes that I could never forget. I can understand now why people snap and kill their bosses—the frustration mounts and then you lose all control. That’s what was happening to me. I had done my job and done it well. Success was supposed to follow. I was supposed to get a chance to be with the big-league team. I earned that chance, and I was standing on the sidewalk watching the bus that was supposed to take me on the start to my big-league career drive off to Miami without me.
And what was almost worse was that my boss, Fred, hadn’t even stuck around to give me the bad news. He had left it to others. Fred had told me he would give me the chance. What had I done wrong? He wasn’t around to explain it, that’s for sure.
Neither was Tommy Lasorda or Ron Perranoski, the pitching coach. At least Perranoski should have been able to come over and tell me, “Pedro, ‘I’ve got no choice. I chose you, but you know how it goes.’”
But he wasn’t around. They left it to Joey Malfitano to do their dirty work.
I started walking in the opposite direction of the bus, and Henry followed.
“Henry, I’m out—I’m out, I’m leaving.”
We found our way back to the dormitory. I shoved the door open to our bathroom and tore the shower curtains off their rods. I went looking for something, anything else to break.
“Henry, I’m going home. Nobody cares about me here. I’m going to go ask for my release.”
Instead of stopping me, Henry said, “Me too.”
Suddenly, the security of knowing I had a home to go to gave me a spark, an
d I began to feel stronger and calmer. I went to the secretary’s office and asked her to book me on the next flight from Miami to Santo Domingo and asked her to find 40-10 so he could take me to the airport.
40-10 showed up and asked me where I was going.
“I’m going home.”
“You got released, Pedro?”
Of course that’s what he thought. Nobody chose to leave the Dodgers. The secretaries who worked in Fred’s office also assumed I had been released. I used to stop in every day to grab an apple from the basket kept on the counter and talk to the two women there. It was a good chance to practice my English, and we had a fun banter. When they realized how upset I was, they both started crying.
“Can you please tell Fred Claire that I want my release? And let him know that I went home.”
They got Fred on the phone.
I calmed myself down before speaking.
“Fred, will you tell me that I’m not one of the 10 best or 11 best pitchers on this team?”
“Pedro, no, I’m not going to tell you that. I will tell you that you will be on this team in a very few days when we resolve what we’re working on because I see you as part of this team for this year—I think you deserve to be on this team.”
I couldn’t hear what he was saying.
I called home to let my parents know what I had decided. Both my mom and dad began to cry. I had never heard my father cry before. It tore me up some more.
“Nino, don’t leave, stay there, look at your brother.”
“Si, he’s up in the big leagues. He was given a chance. I was never given a chance. They don’t like me here.”
My mom said, “No, no, no, you have to be patient—don’t lose faith in God. Everything that has happened in our life happened because God helped us. Go forward, don’t be disillusioned, don’t lose hope.”
I hung up. I was done with phone calls. I went outside and Henry followed me, carrying his bags.
“Me too, Pedro. I want my release.”
Word had spread that Henry and I were not taking the news very well. As 40-10 pulled up the van to take us to the airport, a psychologist from the Dodgers was in the van too.
“Before you go, let’s head to the beach first,” said the psychologist.
Ten minutes later, we were on the beach, and Henry and the psychologist wandered off to have a heart-to-heart conversation. The hot sand baked the bottom of my feet as I headed down to the shoreline. I gathered as many smooth and flat stones as I could hold in one hand. The sea was still, and I skipped rock after rock across the glassy surface, following the spiraling arc of the rippling tendrils until the stone skidded to a stop and slid slowly underwater. When I ran out of rocks, I planted my feet in the sand and looked out over the vast, gently rocking Atlantic Ocean, scouring it for clues nobody had taught me to search for.
Henry and I put the Miami International Airport on hold and drove back in silence to Dodgertown. It was late afternoon by then, and the cafeteria was mostly empty, just a few coaches sitting in the corner. I grabbed a tray, got a glass of iced tea, and mindlessly piled food on a plate. I found an empty table and sat down slowly and stared at that plate resting on the fine white tablecloth. I didn’t want to eat. I couldn’t. The drive to the ocean had only calmed me down on the outside. I had no tears left. Inside, I still seethed.
I heard one coach ask Ganso, “What’s wrong with him?”
Ganso said, “He’s upset he didn’t make the team.”
That exchange got the ass of that little bit of evil that lives inside of me.
I bolted out of my chair and lifted the bottom of the table with me as I got to my feet. I flipped the table over, sending the glasses of ice water, my tray, the nice china plates, and the silverware into a loud and messy heap on the carpet.
I stormed out of the dining room, cursing the Dodgers, Dodgertown, Dodger Stadium, Fred Claire’s eyes, the deep blue sea, and every hue of blue.
I ran back to my room, locked the door behind me, and fell onto my bed, pulled the covers over my head, and curled into the fetal position, facing the wall, my back to the world.
I heard Ganso banging on my door, demanding that I let him in. Eventually, I did.
“Ganso, I outpitched everybody in spring training, and I’m better than half of those guys, I know I’m better. I earned my spot on that team.”
“Pedro, you’ve got two choices. You can quit and go home, or you can tell yourself, ‘Okay, they don’t think I’m ready for the big leagues, I’m going to go out and start the season and give them every reason to put me on the roster.’”
I responded by not saying anything. Ganso left, and then it was Dave Wallace’s turn.
Dave, the minor league pitching instructor, had been closer to Ramon, like a father to him when he was coming up, just as Guy had been to me.
He let me vent some more.
“You can’t tell me I’m not one of the best pitchers on this team.”
“You’re right, Pedro, you’re absolutely right, but don’t prove everybody else right too. I don’t know what’s happening, Pedro, I’m not privy to that, but you’re going to be in the big leagues with this club.”
“I deserve to be there now,” I told him and then shut it down, waiting him out in silence until he left.
I stayed in my room, covers still pulled tightly over my head, as dark thoughts churned and roiled through my head. Someone told me I had a phone call from Ramon.
I was exhausted, but I knew I had to take the call.
“Pedro, I know you’re upset, but listen to me. You remember what happened to me, right?”
Ramon reminded me that in 1988, his first partial season in the big leagues, when he had made six starts and three relief appearances as a 20-year-old, he had performed well enough that Lasorda and Claire had told him to go pitch winter ball and that he’d be the Dodgers’ fifth starter in 1989. But the Dodgers traded for Mike Morgan in spring training that year, and Ramon had to start in the minors. They had gone back on their word. And while he agreed to go pitch in the minors, he told them two facts: One, 1989 would be the last season he spent in the minors, so if they kept him there, he would ask for a trade. Second, if they called him up that season, they couldn’t send him back down.
They agreed, and Ramon went to Triple A, pitched great for more than two months, then got the call to start against the Braves in Atlanta. Kevin Kennedy told him to get all his stuff, so Ramon gave up his apartment in Albuquerque and brought all his belongings to Atlanta. There, he pitched a complete-game shutout, holding the Braves to six hits and striking out nine of them.
When he got back to the hotel, Fred Claire informed him that he was headed back to Albuquerque. It was a complete contradiction to everything he’d been told in January.
For Ramon, that was the single worst disappointment of his career. It still stung. But he accepted the assignment to Albuquerque because he knew, as the oldest son and the one with the best and only shot at helping our family with money, that the alternative—quitting—was unacceptable. He was not going to allow all that work to go to waste just because he took a baseball decision personally. He had seen too many young baseball players waste their talent and opportunity because they couldn’t get over a minor league demotion. They would go home, their skills would deteriorate and their confidence evaporate, and their careers would end before they could even begin.
Nobody but Ramon could have pulled me out of that hole I had been pushed into and then refused to climb out of.
He woke me up to the privilege it was to be there in the first place and get this shot. I was so close to my dream, and he reminded me that I had a responsibility to my family.
“Pedro, you know what I’ve been through, we already talked about it. It’s going to take some time, but I guarantee you’ll get called up, first week of the season, something’s going to happen.”
He delivered his message, and sure enough, the next week Dodgers pitcher Todd Worrell threw out his arm in the
third game of the season.
I was back in Albuquerque when that happened, pitching in the Dukes’ first game. It was the fourth inning, everything was normal, when my manager, Bill Russell, popped out of the dugout and marched to the mound.
“What’s going on here? Why are you taking me out now? It’s the fourth inning.”
“Something happened. You’ve got to go to the office.”
I almost ran to the manager’s office, where I was told Fred Claire was on the phone.
Something had happened?
I was thinking the worst: my mom or dad had died.
I grabbed the phone tentatively.
“Pedro, can you get big-league hitters out?” Fred said.
I was caught off guard, but not that much.
“Fred, why don’t you just send me a plane ticket? Didn’t I prove it to you already?”
He told me to pack all my belongings, that I was going to stay with the team for the rest of the year. Before I showered, I pulled out anything in my bag that had a thread of the red Albuquerque Dukes color and stuffed in everything that was blue. The game ended, and Ganso, who was the pitching coach, told everyone to come over and say good-bye. Everybody knew how badly I wanted to be with my brother and the Dodgers. Goose said some very nice things about how happy he was for me, and everyone applauded.
I thanked him and said, “With all due respect to you, Ganso, I hope I never see you again.”
He understood.
“Pedro, you’re on your way. I hope I never see you again too.”
8
Fragile: Handle with Care
AS SOON AS Ramon saw me in the dugout at Atlanta–Fulton County Stadium, he cracked a huge smile.
“Hey, what did I tell you, man? What did I tell you?”
I could really only laugh at that point.
I was in a daze. I had stayed up all night in Albuquerque, sorting through my bills and getting rid of my apartment, and then caught a 5:00 AM flight to Phoenix, then Phoenix to Atlanta. Somewhere along the way, Delta lost all my bags. In Atlanta, I started to deal with the baggage snafu when I realized it was getting late. A traffic jam between the airport and stadium didn’t help, so the game was halfway over by the time I showed up. Inside the visitors’ clubhouse, I was finally able to relax a little. Deliberately savoring where I was, I slowly put on my gray Dodgers road uniform with the blue piping, letters, and numbers, tucking in the jersey tails so there were no folds anywhere. I grabbed a Coke and a bag of Doritos and strolled out to the bullpen to watch the game from there. Ramon was making his second start of the season, and we were trailing, 1–0, in the sixth. Ramon walked a couple of guys, and I still had half a bag of Doritos left when the bullpen phone rang.
Pedro Page 8