Sure, I could tell you what it’s like: it’s as if your soul gets ripped out of you. It’s like someone stomps on your neck and then giggles. It’s as if, oh, I don’t know, you’re getting told you had a good spring, but you’re going back to A-ball.
“Best moment of my career,” I said.
The radioman was so well meaning. Nothing he said was meant to hurt, and still I felt as if I was being flogged in public. It’s no fun lying to make yourself look good, but worse still is keeping up a lie so others can believe in you. I wanted to escape, but the microphone wasn’t going anywhere, unfortunately, and neither was I.
“It’s good to have you back Dirk, though we doubt you’ll be here very long. What are your thoughts on this upcoming season?”
This is the part where the player says he’s going to do great, where he’s sure the team will win, and where he’ll pitch the hell out of it. I didn’t want to lie, and so I didn’t want to answer. I didn’t even want to speak. The anger and the disappointment would surely come out if I opened my mouth. I wished Maddog or Slappy would do something stupid and distract the audience so I could sneak out. I wished for Armageddon, as I did minutes before the championship game we just blissfully discussed.
I dropped my head. The radioman shifted awkwardly. I’m sure the crowd thought I was choosing the right words, but I wasn’t thinking about that season. I was thinking about my life, and how I got up on this stage, and how I had had enough lying about the situation.
I lost faith in the game, lost faith in myself, and felt chained to something I didn’t care about anymore. How it was all a sham. I was tired of being a stat, a bad one, and I didn’t want to be remembered for what I almost did. You sell your soul to this game, and it gives you nothing to go on but the promise of chance. We chase it like donkeys after a carrot until we are put out to pasture or ascend to what? Gods of entertainment? Who cares what happens this season?
This is a wicked business, hiding behind soft candlelight and homemade desserts. I was tired of being a commodity and tired of lining up and thanking people for the opportunity of almost making it. I was tired of getting dragged up in front of people and having bad things spun clean by nice-speaking people. If I was going to be lost in the folds of some minor league town, then I go out on my terms. This rage and disgust was coming out, and I didn’t care what happened. I was already a loser, how much worse could it get? Send me back to my junkyard of broken dreams, I will find another way if I must. I was a competitor scorned, and believe me, I had a few things to say about it.
All the emotions of my private battle with the game swirled up to my tongue. The radioman lifted the microphone to my face, and I felt the fire coming up inside. When the heat came to my mouth, it melted away the Diamond Club walls and burnt the roof down. The whole place disappeared like smoke, and before I could puff out a word, I choked on something like an epiphany or a parable.
I was on a ball field, atop a mound, with fans and players and families standing behind me. Across from me, in the batters box, the Baseball Reaper came up to hit. This was it, where it all would end. I swore I would beat him. I would not stand in fear of him any longer. I dug in on the mound, wound up, and threw my best fastball in for strike one. The crowd behind me cheered, and I lapped up their praise. The Reaper, however, stood motionless. No emotions to be seen underneath his dark mysterious hood as I showboated.
I wound again—a fastball again. I felt my arm would snap as I gave it everything. The ball shot from my hand like fire and down the middle it went, popping into the glove for strike two. The Reaper did not move, his cloak blowing lazily in the wind, with the bat still motionless on his bony shoulder. The ball returned, but the praise and support were gone. Somewhere in the distance, some prospect of unknown origin stood surrounded by the people who once watched me. They had moved on. I was alone, forgotten, and suddenly cold.
The Baseball Reaper did not forget. I owed him another pitch. Once I started this challenge, there was no backing out. Silent, ominous, and sixty feet away, he stood piercing me with his gaze. The reaction came up inside me again, the fire that raged at the game and all its lies. Who cares if the rest of the world was here to see it or if I was alone? I would beat him, or I would watch my career go down in flames trying—it didn’t matter anymore. This was now a competition of will, something beyond muscles, velocity, or baseball talent. All I could control was my approach, and so I wound up with the will to win, unafraid of the worst.
The ball went into flight, rolling off my fingers the way it did so many times before. It spun over and over as it made its way to the mitt. The reaper stood motionless, waiting for the ball to come to him as though he was waiting for the demise of my career.
The ball whipped by him, slamming into the glove for strike three. He did not move. Everything froze. I stood staring at the Baseball Reaper—no emotions, no fear, no joy, no fans, no cheering, no lights, no reporters, nothing but him and me. The reaper dropped the bat, reached up to his cowl with his bony fingers, and pulled back the fabric that hid his face. It was me underneath. It was always me.
The radioman’s microphone lingered near my mouth. “So Dirk, your thoughts?” he asked again.
“I feel very optimistic,” I said, and for the first time in a very long time, I meant it.
Chapter Nineteen
I didn’t get to ride on the fire truck, which sucked. I mean, this was my fourth year at the place, the least they could let me do was ride on the fucking fire truck. Instead, mostly position players came rolling out on the polished red engine. I walked out of the dugout and stood next to it, but you could tell all the fans thought the guys who rode in were much more interesting than me.
Opening night at home is always one of the best experiences in baseball. Though we started the year on a seven-day road series, the season doesn’t have the same kick-off feel to it as it does the first night you walk out to a packed house of your own fans. Most stadiums won’t see this many fans again until a fireworks promotion or a championship series, but it still makes you feel like a rock star even if most of the crowd just happens to be here because it’s dollar beer night.
The bullpen in Lake Elsinore sits down the left field line. It’s cut out of the left side of the stadium, in the left field corner just below the outdoor decks of the Diamond Club. There is a metal bench in the pen, but no one sits on it. Instead, the players use plastic lawn chairs, common seating arrangements for bullpens around the league. When there aren’t enough chairs, players have been known to steal the soft, bar-stool-style seating from the Diamond Club.
Both the Diamond Club and the Lake Elsinore bullpen are good places to watch a game from, though each has its advantages. The bullpen, for example, gets you away from the oppressive eyes of management who will insist that we care about what’s going on on the field and stop our talks about boobs, guns, or boobs with guns. The Diamond Club, on the other hand, serves beer. Though we have gotten beer served to the bullpen before, it’s difficult to spend time in the Diamond Club during a game without the coaching staff getting upset.
Before our merry band of relievers took to the pen, Pickles jumped up onto the lip of the grass and shouted in his best superhero voice, “Bullpen, assemble!” Supposedly, we relievers were to leap to our feet and rush to his side like the Super Friends, maybe even combined into one large reliever like Voltron. Instead, I got up from the dugout bench like an old man getting out of his rocking chair, Slappy put a dip in, and Maddog accidentally dropped his glove on someone’s spit out gum.
As we made our way to the pen, fans splashed against the stadium’s fencing, begging us for autographs. We signed everything from hats and programs to ticket stubs and sandwich wrappers. It always boggles my mind how fans will fight all over themselves at a chance to get one of our names scribbled on their souvenirs. If only they knew what we were under these jerseys. Just hours before the game, the team debated the question of when a protein shake should be consumed—before or after sex? During, we decided
, if you have a hand free.
After signatures came the sound of something I truly despised—the constant petitioning for the game’s more revered souvenir.
“Can I have a ball?” legions of children squawked.
“No. Sorry.”
“Why not?”
“We can’t give these out.”
“Why not? You have a whole bag full of them.”
“I’m sorry, I’m not allowed. Our coaches will get mad at us. I can only give out foul balls.”
“Well, if you get another foul ball hit down here, can I have it?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Can I have a ball?”
“No. Sorry.”
“Why not?”
“You were standing right behind the other kid when I told him no. Weren’t you listening?”
“Can I have it if I listen?”
“No kid, you can’t have a ball. I can’t give these out.”
“Why not?”
“Because our coaches will get mad at us.”
“They don’t have to know.”
“They’ll find out. Sorry I can’t give you a ball.”
Some of the other guys on the team handled it differently—like Slappy, for example.
“Can I have a ball?”
“Sure, they’re ten bucks at the gift shop.”
“Why can’t you give me one?”
“It’s un-American to give it out for free.”
“You’re mean.”
“You’re annoying. Go sit down.”
Then there was the Spanish rejection.
“Can I have a ball?”
“Que?”
“Um, can I have a ball?”
“Que? No habla Ingles.”
“But you were just talking to that other guy in English.”
“Que?”
And, my personal favorite.
“Can I have a ball?”
“No.”
“I’ll give you twenty bucks for one.”
“SOLD! Show me the money kid.”
“I don’t have it; let me go ask my parents.”
“Well hurry up because I don’t know how much longer I can guarantee this price.”
“Dude, you’re not seriously going to sell that kid a ball are you?”
“Why not? I need the money more than he does. I can’t afford to come to these games on what I make.”
The pen’s seating arrangement puts us close enough to the edge of the stands to warrant constant petitioning for baseballs throughout the contest. If you ever come down to the pen to ask for a ball from a player and he ignores you, it’s probably because he knows what you want, can’t give it to you, and is sick of explaining it. We began rejecting requests one after another until we were sick of rejecting fans and just ignored them altogether.
“You know, there has got to be a better way to deal with this,” I said.
“What do you mean, like make a big sign that says ‘no free baseballs’?”
“No, I mean, we have this high-demand item. Every kid wants a baseball. It’s a simple economic issue—supply and demand. We could make this profitable. Back in my communications studies days my professors always said collaboration was the best way to solve an issue. Well, this is America, we are capitalists, they’re rich little snots, and there has got to be a way this works out to our benefit and theirs.”
“I am totally cool with selling balls to kids, but I’ll bet we get into trouble for it,” Slappy said.
“What if we made a game out of it?” I said.
“Oh yeah, I’ve heard of this before. Like make them pay for a chance to win a ball,” Rosco said.
“Yeah, I’ve heard of other teams doing something like tossing a quarter in a cup.”
“It’s called quarter toss. I’ve heard of it too. Oh shit, we totally have to do it! I heard some team made enough money to buy a ping pong table for their clubhouse doing this,” Slappy said.
We took one of the plastic cups next to the bullpen’s watercooler and filled the bottom of it with a little bit of dirt so it wouldn’t tip over when struck. Then, we counted by paces from the railing of the seats to a spot in the pen, about eight feet. We placed the cup down. That was as elaborate as it got.
“So who’s going to be our salesman?”
“Slappy, that’s all you, baby.”
“Yeah, sure, that’s fine. I’ll keep all the money we make, though.”
“No, come on, this is reliever money. It’s bullpen cash. We can use it to pay fines in Kangaroo Court on—”
“To buy dip!”
“Or a night out.”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, we haven’t even made our first quarter yet.”
“So, before I start selling this, what are the rules?”
“If you toss a quarter in the cup, you get a ball. If you miss, we keep the quarter—simple.”
“Fuckin’ all right then.” Slappy turned to the audience. He didn’t see kids; he saw dollar signs. “Step right up for quarter toss. Everyone’s a winner! Only costs you a quarter to win a baseball. Step right up!”
“Wow, he was made for this,” I said to Maddog as we watched Slappy go.
“Can I have a ball?” our first customer asked.
“No, but you can win one,” Slappy beamed.
“What do you mean, win one?”
“Well…” Slappy explained the rules. He pointed out the cup and to our bag of balls. The kid’s face turned skeptical, but Slappy assured him in a “just get in the car and I’ll give you candy” kind of way. The kid produced a quarter and set his feet at the edge of the stadium’s railing, teetering over, dangling into the pen. He tossed his quarter, which twirled through the air and landed with a dull thud in the dirt near the cup—a miss. We were one quarter richer.
“Darn it!” the kid said. His hand shot into his pocket.
“If you have another quarter, you can try again, as many times as you got quarters for. I believe in you!” Slappy was a regular carnie.
The kid tossed and missed again. Fifty cents richer. Another miss followed shortly, 75 cents. Then another. One dollar.
“Oh, you were so close. I thought for sure you had it that time,” the consummate tempter hissed.
More kids came down. They lined up, taking turns tossing for a chance at a ball. As they missed, Slappy played devil’s advocate and assured them it was only a quarter, or a dollar, or five measly bucks. So many children began to congregate that the stadium’s ushers had to shoo them back to their seats.
“Hey you’re killing our business here!” we protested.
“I’m sorry boys, we can’t have them blocking the view of paying ticket holders.”
The kids all took seats near the bullpen. But when the ushers left, we encouraged them to toss again.
“Wow, this is amazing,” we remarked.
“I know, and profitable. Why didn’t we think of this sooner?”
“What if they drain one?” Pickles asked.
“We’ll just give them one of the scuffed-up balls.”
“Slappy, what’s our total up to now?”
Once Slappy had four quarters, he started changing in dollars. Once he got five dollars, he started changing fives. “About $17.50,” Slappy replied, as he sifted through the wad of dollars and quarters in his pocket. We had only been playing for about thirty minutes.
“I love opening night!”
One little boy came up and confidently declared he wanted a dollar’s worth of quarters. Slappy happily obliged him. The new boy set his feet, stuck his tongue out like Kobe Bryant, and shot his first quarter with both hands, free throw style. The silver circle tumbled through the air and landed in the center of the cup.
“Yea baby! Yeah! Give me that baseball!”
“Alright, that’s how it’s done right there,” Slappy declared, announcing to everyone in earshot as if it was the perfect advertisement. We knew someone would eventually get one. We fished out a beat-up ball and handed it
over to the boy. He didn’t care that it wasn’t a new ball, a pearl as we called them. He happily took it, passing it around and high-fiving his friend.
“Okay, let me take my next shot.” He still had three quarters left. Slappy obliged. The odds of him sinking another were slim to none. Giving out one ball was good for business in a way.
The boy lined up his next shot, put his hands in the air, and let the quarter loose. It landed in the center of the cup. “Wow, this kid is amazing. Great job kid!”
“That’s right, that’s right, this game is easy! Bring your quarters, everyone’s a winner!”
We fished him out another ball. He handed it to one of his friends as if it were a large, stuffed dog he won for knocking down milk bottles, then set himself up for his next shot. A quick glance at the inventory of balls revealed that we didn’t have that many scuffed balls, in fact, we had no scuffed balls left. It was early in the season, and we hadn’t beat too many balls up yet. If he drained another one, we’d have to pass him a pearl. I did the math in my head. If this kid made his next shot, we’d be giving out balls at the rate of one ball every six dollars. They cost ten in the gift shop.
The boy set his feet and steadied himself. The quarter tumbled through the air and came up short. We all breathed a little easier. The boy fell back as if he were shot, and all his friends groaned at the near miss. He recovered, set his feet again, and let his last quarter fly. It landed in the center of the cup.
“That’s great, good for you, bud,” Slappy said through gritted teeth. He handed over a perfectly round, rubbed up, game ready, pearl from our bag. The boy took it, chest bumped his compadres, and reached his hand into his pocket to produce another dollar.
“Sorry kid. Game’s over,” Slappy said. Maddog picked up the cup and threw it in the trash. Rosco shut the ball bag.
“But you have a whole bag right there.”
“Sorry. I can’t give any more out.”
“But why—”
“Here kid, take this as a ‘cancelation’ prize,” Maddog said offering the kids Bazooka Joe bubble gum.
“I don’t want no gum.”
“Tough,” Maddog said, pushing gum into the kid’s hands. “Here you go, now you kids go sit down.”
The Bullpen Gospels Page 14