The Bullpen Gospels

by Dirk Hayhurst

  It’s tough to be the new gorilla even if you’ve played with a lot of the guys before. It was easy coming together with the Lake Elsinore team because we all started together. This squad had already gone through its formative period, and I’d have to ease in. The Lake Elsinore team was also younger than this squad, more immature and inexperienced, which gave me an instant leadership position. Here I was just another reliever. With a guy like Randy at the helm, it could be assumed this Double-A squad was also more rigorous and professional. Only time would tell, but I thought it best to act a tad more professional until I had a better read on things, which didn’t take long to get.

  While I finished trying on my new Missions jersey, I watched the team interact. The Latin players huddled together, speaking in hurried Spanish tones. A few position players sparked a card game and sat at the clubhouse’s lone table arguing over the amount of plucks to go for. Others sat at their lockers punching keys on their cell phones while the rest stared up at a lone television screen watching ESPN commentators argue over the relevance of today’s sports headlines. I pulled my pants up.

  When I hitched up the waistline of my new pants, the cuffs of the legs came up as well, way up. The scrunched elastic foot holes sat inches above my ankles, around my shins, Greg Maddux style. I thought I picked out a longer pair. I took the pair off, checked the label—36 inches—and scratched my head, Then as if something could have magically changed by my reading of the dimensions, I put the pants back on again—still too short.

  “They’re all that way,” Drew Macias said. Our first reunion in Double-A happened almost exactly like it did in spring training—me putting pants on. He had made this team out of camp and was happy to see me back on it. He walked over to my locker, watching me fumble around in my new uniform.

  “What do you mean? These should be a good four inches longer.”

  “First, good to see you again. Second, the pants should be, but they’re not. Grady made the Missions alter all our pants.” He rolled his eyes when he said it and made a cuckoo gesture.

  “Good to see you too, buddy, but wait,” I said, eyebrows furrowed in disgust, “all our pants will look like this on me?” I pulled down one of the pant legs, which sprang back up when I let go. I jerked it down again, then tried to go through my delivery. When I kicked, my pants crawled back up my shin, again. Finally, I resorted to taking the pants off, standing on the legs, and wrenching the waist up in an effort to lengthen them.

  “It sucks, dude. You know how Grady is about pants. When he came to town, he got pissed at everyone for not showing sock.” There was an organizational rule forbidding pant legs the right to extend to the shoe or cover it, anyway—a rule that has irritated the hell out players since its creation. “So,” Drew continued, “he had the Missions’ tailor alter all the pants down to thirty-two inches to prove his authority.”

  “Isn’t this taking it a little too far? I mean, I wasn’t even here. Why do I have to wear Little League pants?” I felt like Huckle-berry Finn in a pair of high-water overalls.

  “It’s stupid. I feel ridiculous in mine too! Guess we all get to rock the dirty mid look.”

  “I feel like a clown in these.” All the stretching had gained me maybe an inch when I put the pants back on.

  “We got guys with big-league time on this team, and they have to wear the same pants. One of the guys has a World Series ring!”

  “One of our guys has a World Series ring?” I said in a whisper, forgetting about the pants. I looked around the room trying to spot him. I eyed the ring hand of all the big, burly players. Surely, the man possessing a World Series ring looked herculean, like a dude from a romance novel cover.

  “Yeah, Wooten does. You didn’t know that?” Drew looked at me quizzically. Most of the guys retained this detail from spring training. I did not, considering I was most likely preoccupied with fielding breasts or getting a ball up my ass.

  “You know I don’t know baseball heritage. I don’t even know everyone on our big-league club right now.” Fact.

  Drew shrugged his shoulders. “Woot,” he called, “show Dirk your ring.”

  One of the guys playing cards looked over at Drew, then nonchalantly extended his ring hand like the Godfather, revealing a ring the size of a grapefruit. I almost felt unworthy gazing upon it. Then I saw the owner. My notions that a World Series champ would look like a longhaired Adonis were slightly off because Woot looked more like one of the fat kids on the chess team. Short dark hair and a few extra tires, he sported a golfing visor, no shirt, and a pair of mandatory too-short pants. All things considered, he looked better in his pants than me.

  Woot spoke in a high-pitched, nasally voice sarcastically declaring, “If you pay me, I’ll let you touch it.” He paused and thought to himself for a second. “Actually, I’m not doing too well this hand, so I could extend that offer to other things if the price is right.” He looked down at himself and then back at me. “I won’t charge much.”

  “World Series Champion, ladies and gentlemen,” Drew said, laughing himself. He slapped me on the shoulder. “Welcome back. Enjoy the pants.”

  “Thanks.”

  A cry came from the other side of the locker room, “Goddamn it, you stinky little bastard! I’m going to sew your fucking ass shut!” Ox roared. He shot out of his seat and threw his glove at Manrique Ramirez or “Reek” as he was christened for just such behavior. Manrique laughed like a Mexican Tickle Me Elmo, delighted by his own stink and Ox’s disgusted reaction.

  “You won’t be laughin’ when I—” The stink settled in on Ox and derailed his monologue, his face shot several different directions, trying to find uncontaminated air. “Christ! Did something crawl up your ass and die?” Manrique waved his hand in a scooping motion to propel more of his stink at Ox. Players within the blast zone began to wilt as the stench crept through the locker room.

  “It smells like a sick baby’s diaper,” one cried, falling.

  “It smells like bad Indian food covered in burned hair,” another said, exiting the area. Manrique laughed harder, delighted with his brew. More gloves were hurled at him.

  “Wash your ass once in a while you dirty Mexican,” Ox said. As soon as Manrique’s mustard gas had cleared, Ox was back in the area to serve up some punishment

  “Eh, eh, eh! Get off me, you fucking Yeti!” Manrique squealed.

  Manrique was not a big guy. Actually, he was small and wiry and carried a look on his face that made it seem that he was perpetually caught off guard. Manrique was Mexican, as Ox so delicately noted. In locker rooms, race is not treated as politically sensitively as lobbying parities would like it to be. We are all one race, the baseball-playing race, and only recognize the colors cut into our uniform’s fabric. We are the ultimate melting pot. We hand out slurs, low blows, and putdowns like candy in a multi-cultural parade.

  “What did you call me?” Ox was doing his best to fight through Manrique’s slapping hands to deliver some good kidney shots. Ox was not angry about the name-calling. He loved it actually. It was Ox’s love language to be called names by his little Mexican brother. But Ox was still Ox, and when Manrique farted, farts that are mercilessly putrid, Ox would be the first to beat on him for it. Who would have thought a guy like Ox would be so passionate about air pollution?

  Punishing Manrique for clearing the room with his emissions was not a very well thought-out idea. As Ox planted punch after punch on Manrique who was now scrunched up in the fetal position, the tension caused him to fart again, point blank on Ox. It sounded like a log going through a wood chipper.

  “Goddamn!” Ox cried. He covered his face with the collar of his shirt. “You are one stinky motherfucker!” he said, releasing Manrique to block his nasal passages better.

  Manrique laughed to himself, very pleased to escape his predators like a skunk.

  “Nice going, Ox,” came criticisms from scattering players.

  “I’m going to fix this right now.” Ox grabbed a shoe from his locker, then
grabbed Manrique. “I warned you, didn’t I?” Manrique squirmed while Ox tried to wedge a shoe into his ass.

  “Good to see Ox hasn’t changed,” I remarked to Drew.

  “Ox change? Impossible.”

  “Hey dude, how are you?” This was Jon Dalton. He’d come over to welcome me back to the league. He was wearing a pair of spandex sliding shorts and nothing else. He extended one hand to shake while the other was unmistakably stuffed in his shorts, fondling himself—perfectly normal behavior for Jon.

  “I’m good, bro. How are you?”

  “Great, I’m great,” he said, tickling his Elmo. “Don’t fucking live in the apartments up here, by the way.”

  “Okay. Why not?”

  “Why not! Why fucking not?” Dalton was the coolest-headed crazy person I’d ever met. He was fearlessly rebellious, a tad hyperactive, but by no means stupid. He went to Citadel Military Academy, a full-on military school full of drill sergeants and hard asses. When he got out of line, he paid a healthy price for it. Consequently, he learned two things: first, if you are going to cut loose, get your money’s worth in case you get caught, and second, don’t get caught. He and the army did not mix well, though he deviously kept up appearances, toeing the line of trouble without paying the full price for it. Sure, he made a few mistakes here and there, but he learned from them, and the stories gained made it more than worth it. He was smart enough to know how to cheat the system, cautious enough to make sure he didn’t get caught, and hyper enough to guarantee cheers and laughter from his teammates.

  “Dude,” he continued, “during our first road trip of the year, a storm caved the roof of our apartment in.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah, my roommate and I came back, and the fucking living room was a pond. There were leaves and branches and bird shit all over the place. Everything was ruined.”

  “Holy crap! What did you guys do?”

  “The apartment people moved us into another place, but a lot of our stuff was wrecked, which they wouldn’t pay for.”

  “Wow, that sucks.”

  “You’re telling me!” He stopped the conversation abruptly, then, “Hey, you got a dip on you?”

  “No, I don’t—”

  “You don’t dip, that’s right. What are you, Mormon?”

  “Why does everyone keep saying that?”

  “I need a dip. Nice pants. Excuse me.” He walked off, hand still on his piece. “Thompson! Give me a fucking dip. You owe me like forty!”

  “I’m going to get dressed,” Drew said, and he walked off.

  “I’m going to look stupid,” I said to myself, and stared down at my pants.

  After batting practice, while the rest of the guys ran from the steamy gulf humidity for the comfort of the locker room’s air-conditioning, I went to the pen to toss a light side session. I needed a tune-up after the trek I had to get here. Fifteen fastballs and ten breaking balls later, I felt like a pitcher again.

  Soaking wet from the sauna-like conditions, I stumbled into the clubhouse to a party that had started without me. When I opened the door, I could hear the bass blaring. Five steps into the clubhouse and I could feel the steady pulse of a cranked sub-woofer. Grandmaster Flash singing “White Lines” permeated the sanctum, almost completely drowning out the laughter of the team. When I turned the corner into the main locker room, there was Dalton riding around on an electric scooter. Where this scooter came from or how it got into the building was beyond me. The rest of the team had spaced chairs like cones on some kind of racetrack for the driver to weave in and out of while he sped around the locker room.

  Ox was nearly falling over laughing so hard. Drew pushed chairs out into the middle of the track. The rest of the team stood off to the sides trying not to get run over. I remained in the doorway, unsure of my own safety.

  Dalton rounded a corner, and ran over someone’s shoes, getting them lodged in the front wheel. The scooter screeched to a halt, but “White Lines” continued. Dalton picked the shoes out from under the tire, then threw them into a nearby chair, shouting like an angry mother, “Whose shoes are on the floor?” Dalton was obviously upset that the rest of the team did not take track safety as seriously as he did.

  He punched the throttle again and the scooter whirred into motion, sending him on a collision course with another chair. He narrowly dodged, jerking the scooter around and inches away from running over someone’s Xbox, also lying on the floor. Like the scooter, I could not tell where the Xbox materialized from, as they are not commonly found in away-team locker rooms, but then again, neither are scooters.

  “Oh, that was a hard one, watch out for the Xbox!” Each time he made a lap, or made up a lap, the team rearranged the chairs to make it harder. He snaked his way through as best he could, as fast as he could, sometimes kicking out to steady himself as he kept the speed up. Considering the track was only thirty feet by twenty feet with twenty-five chairs, a couch, a table, and an Xbox, he was pretty good.

  Guys started throwing gloves and hats at him. The ones that missed were purposefully run over.

  “Excuse me!” Dalton screamed as he barreled toward me. I sidestepped, and he flew into the hallway. Three seconds later, there was a crash in the training room, followed by laughter, followed by Eddie screaming. I turned to go investigate, but noticed no one else had moved to look, standing there as if it were all a normal occurrence. Woot walked in from the bathroom, looked around the clubhouse, then said, “Where’s my scooter?”

  I stood with my glove on my hip. If you haven’t noticed by now, things are way more mature up here in Double-A…

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  The game started at 7:05 in the evening, and the Missions’ relief core rambled out to the pen seconds before the anthem was sung. The visiting bullpen was indeed a pen; two mounds caged by chain-link fencing. Fans could poke us through its links or stare down at us from the seats above, pointing as if we were zoo animals on display. Composed partially of the right field fence, if the right fielder went back on a ball, he would only be inches from running into the relievers languishing just beyond the links.

  Next to the pen was a swimming pool. So close was the pool, spray from cannonballs could splash warming pitchers. Cutting across the skyline was a towering bridge, under which freighters the size of the stadium passed carrying cargo. The stadium was a gem displayed majestically on the shore of the gulf. Playing on it reminded me how cool my job could be.

  The relief core dragged the pen’s chairs across the grass and up the fencing. We sat, kicking our feet up and catching our cleats in the fence’s links. We watched the first couple of innings roll by, fans splashing next to us, ships passing by in the distance. The sun set and bright lights beaming out of a deep, Texas-sized sky illuminated the field.

  Aside from a few new faces, the bullpen had mugs I’d come to know as friends through previous seasons. We’d been through a lot of battles together. Surviving the minors is a war of attrition, and we’d braved the odds at each other’s side, something that, in a game of production or extinction, is worth honoring. There was a feeling of belonging by suiting up with these guys again.

  Beyond our individual histories, the Missions’ bullpen was a simple matter of ones and threes. One finger for the hard-sinking fastballs and three for nasty sliders. Everyone in the pen threw them, almost as if it were a fraternity requirement. If you had asked any of the boys about the suspicious absence of a changeup, they would have replied that changeups are for pussies.

  I threw a changeup, incidentally.

  We didn’t talk much that night. I was new and so I kept quiet, which was fine because I had a lot to think about. I tried to remind myself I was on the track to being a prospect again, even though I didn’t feel like one since talking to my folks. I told myself that their reaction was okay and that they didn’t have to be stunned by a promotion to Double-A right now. If I put up good numbers, they will be impressed. Besides, I could still walk up to anyone in this stadium wi
th my uniform on and make his day. Baseball had power, and I was its wielder.

  When the last out of the game was made, I picked up the stray catch balls littering the pen. It was my job, as the latest addition to the Missions’ bullpen staff, to wrangle up leftover equipment and cart it back to the locker room come game’s end. While I herded balls back into their bag, fans predictably called down to me in hopes of receiving leftovers.

  I put each ball back into the catch bag except one, a chewed-up fifty-five footer, the victim of a slider that ate dirt before it found a mitt. I placed that ball in my back pocket, earmarking it to give away. I finished equipment duties, grabbed the pen bag and zipped it shut, picked up my glove, and started walking the stretch of warning track toward the lockers.

  The entire trip back to the pen, fans begged—leaning over the rails, calling to me for the ball, any ball, including the one in my back pocket. I walked by them, disciplined eyes straight ahead, ignoring. Their anticipation turned to letdown and then their letdown to anger. They told me I sucked for ignoring them, which incidentally I also ignored. I’ve spent enough time in this game to develop insult immunity when I don’t meet fan expectations.

  I was going to give the ball in my pocket out to someone; that’s the whole reason I kept it separate. I didn’t know who yet; I was waiting for someone to catch my eye. Passing out a free ball is tricky business. It can make one person happy and a whole bunch of others angry, like these fickle folks chewing me out. Everyone will say he or she deserves it, everyone has a kid at his first game, it’s everyone’s birthday, and everyone is a lifelong fan.

  When I went into the underbelly of the stadium, onto the concourse running beneath the seats, I walked past a fenced section that exposed some of the stadium’s innards to the fans. The fencing came together to form a gate where carts and supplies could enter. A security guard manned the gate from my side, keeping fans who lined the links of the section in check on the other. They, too, called to me as I went past.