I didn’t say anything.
“Oh, come on, Dirk. That’s funny.”
“Whatever.”
“Wow, you’re in a bad mood, huh?”
“Is it that obvious?”
“Well, let’s talk about baseball. Do you know if you’re going to make the Triple A club?”
I thought of how hard it would be to explain to her all of the possibilities that could derail a shot at Triple A. I thought of how hard it was explaining it to myself. “Camp is over in two weeks, call then.”
“Fine. How’s Bonnie?”
“Mom, the last time we talked, you and Dad told me getting married was the same as pissing my life away. Now you want to chitchat like that didn’t happen?”
My mom let the receiver go silent for a minute or two. I lay down on my bed and stared at the spackle on the ceiling.
“I don’t understand why you are still so upset about that,” said Mom.
“How can you not understand that? I’m trying to take my life my own direction right now, and instead of supporting me, you and Dad are both resistant to it. It’s like you think I’m fucking up my life by splitting myself into a person who doesn’t strictly focus on baseball.”
“We’re not resistant to you.”
“Then what, you don’t like Bonnie?”
“She’s a wonderful girl, we love Bonnie. We love whoever you love.”
“Then why, when Dad told me he didn’t think Bonnie was the one, did you not say any of this? Why did you say you’d only believe it when it happened?”
“I don’t know,” Mom said meekly.
“Bullshit, you do know.”
“I didn’t feel it was my place.”
I grabbed my head. “Not your place? Well, then, whose place is it? You’re my mom, you’re his wife.”
“That’s right, I am his wife, Dirk. And for the last couple of years I haven’t wanted to be. You have no idea what marriage is like, what it can turn into when things fall apart. Your father is right: you don’t know what you’re getting into. You’re starting a relationship at the expense of things you’ve wanted your whole life. You’ve been spending the last how many years of your life doing this job, and now you’re okay with not doing it anymore for a girl? The last thing you want to have when you start a life together is regrets.”
“I won’t have regrets walking away from our family mess, Mom. And if for some reason I do, I wish you’d just support me instead of telling me I’m going to fuck my life up.”
“We just want you to be happy.”
“Are you happy?”
“No! No, I’m not. I can’t remember the last time I’ve been happy.”
The conversation stopped for a long stretch of time. One thing children do well is criticize their parents, and I was so full of criticisms I had no room for sympathy. I knew she was in a bad place. I knew she was unhappy in her relationship with our family, but so was I. I hadn’t enjoyed my relationship with my family for the last several years. I too wanted out and was hoping to make my break into something better with Bonnie. I didn’t want to be told what dangers I might be headed toward by people I never wanted to be like. I didn’t want to listen to anything she had to say. If she wasn’t for me, she was against me.
“Your dad is bipolar,” Mom said, breaking the silence.
“Did Grandma say that too?”
“No, the doctor did.”
“What doctor?” I sat up again.
“Dad came home from your grandma’s angry ’cause she went nuts on him. He got into it with me because he couldn’t make any headway with her and he needed someone to yell at.” The customary casual tone she used for all the stuff she recited to me left her voice in favor of a more serious tone. “I told him everything you probably wanted to. He got the gun out of the closet and ran me from the house with it. I left, and I only came back to make sure he wasn’t dead.
“He didn’t do it,” she continued. “He cried for hours, but he didn’t do it. I took him to the hospital when he was calm enough to go. I thought he was going to have to be committed, Dirk, I really did. I thought he’d finally lost it. The doctor who checked him out asked me if he’d ever been treated for bipolar disorder.”
Mom went on to explain how, given my dad’s extreme mood swings, it was worth trying to treat him for post-traumatic bipolar disorder, since the other options were more severe.
“So, what does this mean?” I asked.
“I don’t know. It will take a while to see how the medication works on him. But if it doesn’t, Dirk, I ...” The phone went blank again as I waited for her to finish, but she never did.
“So, what if it doesn’t work?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Would he go to an institution?”
“He would never let that happen.”
“What does that mean?”
“This isn’t your mess, remember. You just worry about you, okay? You’re good at that.”
“What the hell does that—”
She hung up.
Chapter Twenty-one
I pulled JiC duty again the next day. Since my conversation with Ox and Frenchy, going over to the big league side of camp no longer felt like a lottery ticket opportunity. Now I felt a lot like one of the red shirts in Star Trek: nameless, faceless, and the first to die. Convinced the event was a waste of time, I didn’t pay much attention to the major league operation. Instead, I spent most of the day in my head, trying to decide how I should feel about my phone call with Mom.
I knew things were getting worse with my dad, but I wasn’t sure if I should care or not. After so many years of watching the family tear itself apart, I’d developed a sort of immunity to it. As much a survival trait as anything else, there are only so many knock-down, drag-out fights a group of loved ones can have before their hearts become callused, and mine was pretty tough these days. I almost wanted there to be casualties now. Thinking in such a way felt cold, even in my hotheaded state, but it might actually solve the problem. My dad didn’t want to live anymore; he hadn’t wanted to for years. The only activity he seemed to share with the family was fighting. My mom was miserable and wanted out; so did I, and so did my brother.
It was surprisingly easy for me to wash my hands of it all. I was going to be married, I thought, heading off in my own direction. Maybe my mom, despite her anger, was actually right? Maybe I should worry about myself and let the dead bury the dead? Besides, what could I really do from here anyway?
The big league bullpens always have more goodies than the minor league ones, a fact not lost on a guy who never exited it, like me. I’d gotten good at sifting through all the gum, candy, seeds, and bars available to me during my stints as a blowout counter measure. I had stuffed my pockets full of the choicer-flavored gums and was adding to a wad lodged in my cheek, mulling over the next step I should take with my family, when I spotted the great Trevor Hoffman making his way across the field. He always had such a regal gait, like he was gallivanting his way through some Renaissance-era court, not a baseball field. The bullpen coach, Darrel Akerfelds, accompanied Hoffman, as well as another gentleman dressed in a Padres uniform.
Like Maddux, Hoffman was a hero of mine. I took every opportunity to watch him move on a baseball field. Unfortunately, each time I’d been called to JiC, Hoffman had been MIA. Today, he was here in all his splendor, and yet it was not him I watched but the unidentified person in full Padres dress walking next to him.
Unlike Trevor, this person did not move gracefully, but slowly and methodically. Indeed, he labored for steps as it didn’t seem like his legs’ natural inclination was to obey him. His right hand was curled up slightly, and his right arm stuck to his side like an injured wing. Even so, he walked along wearing an expression that exuded joy, doing his best to match the pace of Hoffman and Akerfelds, who, in turn, did their best to match his.
When they arrived at the bullpen gate, Hoffman found a chunk of outfield grass to stretch in while Akerfelds t
ended to bullpen business, hanging charts and rosters near the pen’s phone box. The mysterious man stood near the gate, using the solid construction to steady himself while he watched the players loosen. Occasionally, one of our boys would walk by and slap the mystery man on the shoulder and say, “Hey, Stump. How you doing?”
“I’m doing great, buddy. How are you?”
“Good, man. Real good. Looking for a win today.”
“You know it,” said Stump.
Sometimes the conversations would stretch longer, revealing that Stump had trouble recalling a word or a two, stammering to get them out. Sometimes he would trace the word in the air in front of him with this left hand until it came to him or the person he was talking to did so for him. I marveled at this. Not because I’d never seen a handicapped man before. In fact, this wasn’t even the first time I’d seen one on a baseball field. Rather, I stared at Stump with transfixed eyes because he looked remarkably like my dad, except happy.
“Excuse me,” I said, looking to one of the players nearest me in the bullpen.
“Heath,” said the player, introducing himself and reaching to shake my hand.
“Dirk,” I said, taking his offer. “I was wondering, what is the story behind Stump?” I looked back at Stump, who was laughing with someone.
“Oh, Mark?” asked Heath. “Mark Merila? Everyone calls him Stump. He used to be the bullpen catcher for the Padres until he was struck with a brain tumor back in ’05. He had a seizure on a subway train to Shea Stadium, that’s how they found out.” We both looked over at Stump, smiling and talking with the players who stopped to chat with him. “He’s a great dude, a medical miracle,” said Heath.
“You ready?” Hoffman called at Stump.
“I’m ready, big man,” Stump said.
“Then quit jackin’ around and let’s get to work, man,” said Hoffman, pretending to actually be angry, which made Stump as well as everyone else laugh.
Stump ambled to the white foul line parallel to Hoffman’s patch of grass in the outfield. About sixty feet away, Hoffman stood, ball in glove, at the ready. Akerfelds handed Stump a catcher’s mitt, which Stump worked on to his left hand before putting it up as a target for Hoffman.
Stump looked so much like my dad it was uncanny. Not only did their faces share similarities, so did the way their afflictions manifested in their bodies and movement. I actually moved toward Stump to make sure he wasn’t some supernatural thing, some figment of my imagination. I simply could not believe there was a man on earth with so many similarities to my father, and so merry. However, when Stump lifted that mitt, I realized I was watching something supernatural.
Now it was me who needed the gate’s support, as what happened next was the single most beautiful thing I’d ever seen on a baseball field. Stump’s range was obviously limited given his condition. Even so, no one stopped him or told him what he was about to do was dangerous. They paid him the biggest compliment they could, which is to say, they acted like nothing was out of the ordinary. Of course, the person with the largest role in the execution of this event was Hoffman, who shouldered the responsibility of putting the ball in Stump’s mitt, or as close to it as possible. I suppose it should come as no surprise that, of all people in the game, baseball’s all-time saves leader was up to the task. This isn’t to say Stump didn’t make it look easy catching every ball thrown to him.
After receiving each throw, Stump turned his mitt over so Akerfelds could collect the ball and throw it back to Hoffman. The cycle repeated until Hoffman finally confessed, “I’m good, Stump. Thanks a lot.”
“Anytime,” Mark said.
I didn’t want them to stop throwing. When they finished, it was all I could do to not burst from the pen and ask if I could pitch to Mark. But as I stood there, holding on to the gate, I realized I didn’t want to pitch to Mark, but to my dad, that I would give anything to see him happy, if it meant we could share a moment like Hoffman had just shared with Stump.
Then I realized that it was only minutes ago I’d convinced myself that my dad killing himself didn’t matter.
“Where’s the players’ bathroom?” I asked Heath.
“Out the gate, second set of double doors.” He pointed to the path. “There’s two sets, you can use whichever.”
I got up and left the bullpen. Walked past fans asking for autographs. Pushed through the double doors and into a bathroom where I turned on the faucet, before collapsing into a corner where I wept.
That night, when I knew my mom was at work and I was sure she wouldn’t answer, I called her cell phone. “Hey. It’s me,” I said when the voice mail picked up. “I was just thinking. When Dad looks like he’s feeling down, you should put on some of his music. A little music therapy or something. I think he’d like that. I’ll ... I’ll talk to you later.”
Chapter Twenty-two
The end of camp had come, and cuts were upon us. It was the hardest camp I’d ever been through as there had never been so much that was unknown. When I did get my chances to pitch, I pitched well, but had I pitched enough? Unfortunately it was too late to do anything about it now. This spring training had run its course, and the bulk of my audition for a Triple A job would ultimately rest on what I did last season.
I took comfort in knowing I had made the most of all my opportunities, including following all the ass-kissing rules off the field: laughing at Grady’s jokes and agreeing with Earp’s criticisms. I told them what they wanted to hear any time they were willing to hear me tell it. Of course, this didn’t stop me from agreeing with the rest of my teammates that the brass were assholes whenever they needed to hear it. In fact, as the locker room ran quiet in reverence for the cut day’s fallen, I found myself saying exactly that to guys who’d been let go. I told them that, once they made it to the Bigs with some other team, the bastards who released them would rue the day they got rid of them. It was a bullshit line, the kind you say to keep the tough and macho feeling secure when they want to cry like little children, but it was the least I could do since saying it to them felt way better than having someone say it to me.
I was still on the Triple A roster at the start of the day and, normally, seeing your name on a roster at the start of a cut day is enough for a player to know he’s made a team. Not me. Last year, I made the Double A list but, by the time the day was over, I was heading to High A cursing the bastards I spent all spring sucking up to. Things could change in a heartbeat this time of year, and even though I wanted to relax now more than ever, I refused to let my name on a list make me feel comfortable.
I spent the day watching over my shoulder, waiting for some coach to pull me off the field and break the bad news, but it didn’t happen. Morning meetings were held. Stretch came and went. Pitchers’ fielding practice, batting practice, and the last simulation game of the spring, all passing by like normal.
Then, as we came walking back to the lockers from our final workout, I turned the corner, laughing blissfully along with Ox and Frenchy, and ran into Grady. I instinctively took a step back as Grady locked eyes on me.
“Shit,” I mumbled.
Ox and Frenchy looked at me but kept moving when Grady said, “Excuse me, boys, can I borrow this guy for a second?”
My heart stopped. I shook my head no ever so slightly in hopes the guys would refuse to let me leave their escort, but they moved on obediently, leaving me behind.
Grady walked me around the corner of the complex. “I wanted to talk to you about where you’re going to be playing this year,” he said.
“I figured,” I said, dropping my head and bracing myself for bad news.
“We’re going to put you on the Triple A roster. You’ve earned that. You had a tremendous year last year, and we’re looking for you to repeat it.”
My head shot up immediately, searching Grady’s face for some hint of sarcasm, but there wasn’t any.
“Now,” Grady’s rusty voice changed course, “that doesn’t mean things can’t change during the season.�
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“Of course.” I nodded my head like a faithful player.
“I could see you picking up starts in Double A this year, if necessary. Or Triple A, perhaps. You’ll be the long man, and you may move around a little bit, but Triple A is where you’ll start.”
“I’m not going to get a phone call tonight about how you’ve changed your mind, am I?” I asked.
“No,” said Grady. “You can relax. For now.”
I let out a sigh of relief. “That’s awesome,” I said. “Thank you for the opportunity.”
“You earned it. Now keep earning it.”
“I will,” I said as the realization of what I’d done washed over me. I had made the Triple A roster. I was going to Portland. I was in line for a shot at the Show. I was going to get the extra pay I needed for a ring. Bonnie would get to see me sooner. Everything was lining up. This was fantastic!
“Try not to fuck it up,” said Grady, “Now get out of here.”
“Gladly,” I said, and I went to pack my locker in preparation for the biggest season of my life.
Chapter Twenty-three
“I made the Portland squad!” I shouted into the phone.
“That’s great, babe! That means”—Bonnie shuffled some papers in the background—“we can go by calendar A. I can see you in just over a month!”
“Calendar A?” I asked.
“I mapped out a couple of calendars around your possible team schedules.”
“Wow,” I said.
“So, are you going to be ring shopping now? Like, in the next thirty days?”
“Is that a heavy hint or what?”
“I’m excited, honey! You’re going to Portland. I get to see you soon.”
“Oh, is that it? For a second there it sounded like you were focused on a ring.”
“I’m just saying, it would be nice.” She dropped the charade. “Oh come on, I’m a girl, of course I’m excited about the ring!”
Out of My League Page 12