The Bullpen Gospels

by Dirk Hayhurst

  “You like writing?” Hoffman asked.

  “Yeah, it’s a good release,” I said, trying my hand at humor, “speaking of which, if I keep pitching the way I am, it may be my next career.”

  Hoffman smiled, but he was not looking at me when he did it. To me, this conversation was a once-in-a-lifetime event. To him, it was small talk, something to pass the time while he waited for whomever he had business with to finish taking a crap.

  “Did you major in English in college?” he asked.

  “No, no, I didn’t.”

  “So you just kinda picked this up then?”

  “Yeah. I started doing it because I thought the experiences we have in baseball are too valuable not to be recorded.”

  “What’s the book about?”

  “It’s about one season in the minors. It’s about baseball. Maybe it would be better to say it’s about what baseball isn’t.”

  “What it isn’t?” Hoffman asked, now giving me his full attention.

  “Yeah.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Well, baseball is a lot of things, but it’s not everything. It can’t make your brother sober. It can’t make your family stop fighting. It can’t make peace or win wars or cure cancer. It makes or breaks a lot of people, like many jobs where the folks who do it find their identity. I don’t know if it should be as valuable as it is, or maybe baseball is valuable, and we players just don’t use it the right way. I guess that’s what I want to figure out in the book.”

  This was probably one of those moments I should have kept to the seen-and-not-heard rule. Hoffman was talking to me, on his own accord, and I went into deep water. I could have just said it was about baseball and smiled like a kid in a parade while he waited for the sound of a toilet flush, content with the scraps from his table. When people asked, Hoffman could say I was a nice, harmless kid who majored in English. I would tell folks I talked with baseball’s all-time saves leader, who was a nice, personable guy. We could both ride off into the sunset, another conversation neatly wrapped up with a bow and forgotten. Instead, I just told the person who was baseball’s walking synonym for “save” that our identity shouldn’t rest in our job.

  Hoffman looked at me, evaluating and judging me like those big leaguers with time and power do. “I agree,” he said, and the words struck me as if someone had taken me out to be shot but fired blanks instead. “Baseball’s brought me everything I have, but I agree, it’s not as important as a lot of other things in life.”

  “Yeah. I, uh…” I swallowed hard. “I mean, I believe that if you take baseball out of the world, it would keep spinning, but if you took math or science, or love, or art, or teachers, or doctors, or some of the other things we take for granted away, it would stop. Baseball is such a small thing, comparatively speaking.”

  “I’ve never thought of it like that, but I’d agree with you,” he said. “Though, you can’t deny it’s still a great tool.”

  “That it is, if you know how to use it,” I added. A bold comment for a rookie to make, but one that would spark more conversations than I ever thought I’d have with my childhood hero.

  Every now and then, when the pen was quiet and I was feeling courageous, I would pick Hoffman’s brain on a subject about life and baseball, and he would always give me, some rookie with less big-league time than the watercooler, a real, thoughtful answer. Come the end of the year, after the last game of the season, while everyone packed up their bags and readied to escape the dismal conclusion of the 2008 season (we lost 99 games), I felt compelled to approach Hoffman one last time. With a half-a-dozen baseballs I had snuck from various sources, I asked him whether he would mind signing what would become my groomsmen presents. He obliged, and while he stretched the ink of his name across the balls for me, I asked, “Do you remember a few years back, during spring training, coming out to speak with the minor league pitchers?”

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  “Do you remember being asked a certain question about psychological routines and inculcating yourself?”

  He looked at me funny, then smiled, “Yeah, I do remember that. You were the one who asked me that huge question. Now that I know you, it doesn’t surprise me at all!”

  I didn’t know whether I should feel flattered or embarrassed that he remembered. “Yeah, about that, I just want you to know you turned me into a laughing stock.”

  “I’m sorry kid. I remember that question, and to be perfectly honest, I didn’t know exactly what to say to you. I mean, you have to understand, when you reach this level, there is so much pressure surrounding you, it’s easier to let people down than it is to meet their expectations. This game puts us on a pedestal, and showing our human side doesn’t always go over well with those keeping track. I’m sorry I made you look bad.”

  “That’s okay—it made for a good story,” I said dismissively, as he scratched his name across the white leather. “Do you think it would be better if it wasn’t like that, if we weren’t placed on pedestals?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Do you think people like you could change that?”

  Hoffman looked up at me, “I think all people could change that, not just me.” He handed me the last ball.

  “You know,” I said, “there weren’t many players I cared about while I was growing up, though I always kept track of you. You were one of the players that inspired me to chase my dreams. I was excited to get up here, if for no other reason than just to say I played on the same field as you.

  “But when a person gets to the big leagues, he realizes that the people in the bigs are just people. Heck, some of the guys up here are dirtbag savages just like the knuckleheads in the minors. Not everyone lives up to the expectations, and not everyone is safe on his pedestal. I guess that’s just life, but I want to tell you Hoffy, you met every one of my expectations, for whatever it’s worth.”

  I took a moment to look out at all my guests, listening to me tell them a story about life in the big leagues, which was really just a story about life, and smiled.

  “I’m sure a lot of guys had kissed Hoffman’s butt in his career. Guys do that to big names in the industry, but that wasn’t why I said it. I said it because I wanted to tell a person who was great in the game that I respected him more for who he was than what I thought he was. I knew him as a real, genuine person, and that’s what I valued. Baseball wouldn’t make my marriage work, just like it didn’t make so many other things work, but a man of integrity can make any profession seem heroic by how he lives while doing it.

  “Hoffman told me I paid him a very high compliment, and he was very flattered. Then he said words that I will never forget. He said that the conversations we’d had touched him. He said they made him think about baseball in ways he’d never thought about it before. He said, with absolute sincerity, that the best part of me wasn’t in the locker room or on the baseball field, but beyond the lines. Just like the best parts of us aren’t in our jobs or stations. He said there was more to a person than just what they do, and that only a real person, not an icon or an image or a jersey, can take a job that puts a man on a pedestal and use it for something selfless.”

  I stopped there and let the words settle on my listeners. Relaying the story was the easy part. The next part was a little more spontaneous.

  “When I signed my contract to play professionally, I thought that was the best moment of my life. When we won the Texas League, I thought that was the best. When I put on my big-league uniform, I thought the same. Then there was that moment, the one I just told you about with Hoffman—truly, an amazing experience I will never forget. Yet, as amazing as it was, it pales in comparison to this.” I reached down and picked up the hand of my wife.

  “I may be a big leaguer, and that is something I have always wanted to be, but I will always be a man first—a man in love with this woman right here. And it takes a man, not a uniform or a title, to do that. It takes a man to care about people. I am a man, a very lucky o
ne, who’s just married a woman way out of his league, even if it is the bigs!”

  Silverware struck glasses, and my wife stood up and laid one on me that made everyone hoot and holler. Cups were raised in the honor of something much bigger than a minor league championship, even though there were far fewer fans present. Flowers were thrown, even though no one checked for velocities. A garter was caught, but no one was called out.

  Just before my wife and I left for a very special All-Star break in which I planned to bust an extremely long slump, I felt another thick hand grab me from behind. I turned to face my father. He wore overalls to my wedding, and Mom combed his hair. His hand fell from my shoulder, slid down my arm, and grabbed my hand. His calloused, crippled digits labored to form a firm shake. He wrung my hand, and then for the first time in God only knows how long, he pulled me in for a hug.

  We embraced for a few seconds, with me in my wedding uniform and him in his overalls. Then he said words I’ll never forget. “I’m proud of you Dirk. I’ve always been proud of you.”

  Thank you, Dad.

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  Copyright © 2010 Dirk Hayhurst

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  Library of Congress Control Number: 2009937074

  ISBN: 978-0-8065-3396-4