Out of My League

by Dirk Hayhurst

  Bentley dropped the subject,

  “Nah,” said Ox, throwing a paw on my shoulder. “Diggler here doesn’t need a prenup. He didn’t meet his girl in the baseball scene.”

  I never expected Ox to defend me on something like marriage. I gave him a thankful smile.

  “And, since he’s never used his penis for anything creative, he’ll be afraid to cheat out of embarrassment.”

  “Thanks Ox, you’re a real friend.”

  “Anytime, bud. Anytime.”

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Later in the series, back at the hotel, the boys were starting to get paranoid about an entirely different category of cleat chaser. One of our infielders said he was cornered in the elevator by two transvestites who asked if he’d like to join them in the hot tub. Another player was catcalled by a guy who looked a lot like Bluto from the Popeye cartoons wearing a prom dress.

  Anto, despite the hotel demographic, insisted I join him at the hotel bar for dinner. Anto couldn’t eat the spread the team we were playing, the Bees, put out post-game. It was something covered in mushrooms, and a brown sauce he said would make him puke upon contact with his tongue. He said he needed a Philly cheesesteak and french fries or he would surely die of malnutrition, and then he said he needed me to protect him while he ate because if he got hit on by a dude his stomach would get queasy and he wouldn’t be able to finish.

  While Anto ate, a few male guests strolled in. Since not all of the transvestites in the hotel were wearing gowns, you had to look for signs. Anto stopped and watched them with suspicion.

  “Give me a drink,” said one of the new guests. “A stiff one, I mean real stiff. If I’m going to hit on one of the ladies out there, I’m going to need some serious ‘help.’ ”

  The joke made Anto’s stomach settle, and he continued eating. Meanwhile, the gentlemen passed the test and went about their business, talking about sports and cars and shooting horned animals, and all the other stuff men talk about at bars. However, as time passed, the bar slowly filled with odd-looking characters, but since none of them sat by us, Anto felt okay to stay.

  “You guys want anything to drink with your meal?” the bartender inquired. I think I was making her mad as I was only drinking water and eating the free nuts while Anto stuffed himself with grease.

  “We should probably order a drink,” I said to Anto. We were eating at the bar, after all.

  “You kiddin’? The prices on booze in this town are friggin’ ridiculous.”

  “It’s Salt Lake,” said the bartender, acknowledging the exorbitant prices for liquor. “Not the best place to be a bartender.” She said it sadly, like she never made any money doing her job because of the tyrannies of abolitionists. This, of course, motivated us to buy something out of sympathy.

  “I’ll have a Jack and Coke,” said Anto.

  “I’ll have a ... a Kool-Aid,” I said.

  “I don’t know what that is,” said the bartender.

  “It’s got vodka and Sprite,” I said.

  “And cranberry?” she asked.

  “Sure, why not,” I said.

  “Oh, a blush,” she said, and whirled away to mix it.

  Soon the drinks were presented in front of us. Anto’s brown drink and my own drink, as pink as the gem in Bonnie’s engagement ring—with a little lime garnish.

  “Oh, that’s a nice touch,” I said, taking the little lime out. “She even put a little sword in it for me.” I swashbuckled Anto’s arm.

  The conversations across the bar stopped as the interest started focusing my way. I sipped my drink. Whispering broke out. I took another sip.

  “Why are they all looking at me funny?” I said out of the corner of my mouth.

  Anto, formerly oblivious to my drink in favor of his meal, gasped, “Dude, your drink. Stop drinking the drink.”

  “Are you kiddin’?” I said, imitating him. “The prices for booze in this town are friggin’ ridiculous.” I thought I was very funny.

  “You’re in a hotel full of gay guys and you’re drinking a friggin’ salmon-colored drink. And quit poking me with that friggin’ sword.” He smacked my hand away. “Either everyone thinks we’re one of the queens out there, or they think you’re going to bait the queens in here by drinking it!”

  I looked around the bar. I had attracted a few disgusted looks, like that of the gentlemen who needed the “stiff” drinks, and a few stiff looks, like those from the gentlemen wearing makeup.

  “So this is what it’s like to be a girl who sits near the bullpen?” I muttered.

  “Did you just say this is what it’s like to be a girl?” asked Anto. “You’re gonna find out pretty soon if you don’t get rid of that drink.”

  “It cost seven dollars!” I said.

  “Then hurry up and drink it.”

  “I can’t drink it fast. I don’t have good booze tolerance yet,” I pleaded.

  Anto shook his head and went back to eating, only at double the pace.

  “Fine,” I said. “Bartender, I can’t drink this. Give me a beer.”

  “What kind of beer would you like?” asked the bartender.

  “Oh, I dunno, give me something that tastes good.”

  “Oh my friggin’ God. Who are you?” asked Anto.

  “What? I just want to like what I drink, is that a crime?”

  “Oh, come on now, guys, don’t fight,” said the new voice of a gentleman sitting down next to us.

  Our new barmate was a taller fellow. He had a very, very close shave, nearly waxed. He had a little blush of his own, except his accentuated his cheekbones. His arms were shaved and adorned with bracelets. He wore a V-neck, which seemed to be the dress code around the hotel lately. He smiled at me very pleasantly. In the time it took me to acknowledge the man who sat down next to me, Anto started gagging, produced his wallet, put money on the table, and excused himself before he vomited, leaving me behind.

  “Where is your friend off to?” asked the man.

  “He’s upset with me,” I said, shifting awkwardly.

  “Oh, that’s a shame. But there’s more fish in the sea. Sometimes they just jump right in your boat, right?”

  “I ... Yeah.” I finished my seven-dollar beacon of gayness in one solid gulp. Screw tolerances.

  “What are you drinking?” my friend with fine cheekbones asked.

  “I’m sorry. Really. I’m not interested. Excuse me.” I slapped a ten on the bar and got up.

  “You know,” said my gentleman caller as I started away, “it’s guys like you who are the worst. You pretend you’re offended when it’s obvious you’re interested. Well, get over yourself. I’m not going to chase after you, princess.”

  Mouth open, I gaped back at him.

  “Oh, too late now, honey. The bar’s closed.” He spun around on his stool.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  By the time I hit the mound in game three, it was already well out of control. Actually, that was probably why I was called in. Manrique self-destructed, walking six while allowing eight runs, all earned. It was one of those starts that’s hard to watch, more an execution than outing. At least the pen knew to be ready early since it was only a matter of time before we took over. I knew I was going to be out there for a while, and this would afford me a real chance to shine. Unfortunately, shining is not what happened.

  Whatever had attacked me back in Portland followed me here. I hit spots, but hitters put the bat on the ball anyway. Infield hits, broken bats, and then, when someone did get a solid piece of the ball—boom—ERA damage. I gave up five runs in three innings. I’d only made two outings as a Beaver and my ERA was already a 7. As the runs came in, I started to get increasingly angry on the mound and, when I was finally removed from the game, I voiced my frustration in a hurricane of glove-muffled swears.

  On my way back to the locker room, I hung my head, wondering how long I would be in Triple A if I kept having outings like this. My confidence was starting to wane. Baseball wasn’t the only
thing riding on good outings. My mind shifted to Bonnie, the future, my parents, my grandmother—even the cocky face of that asshole Dallas.

  “Hey, Hay, come here for a second, would ya?” Abby, the team’s pitching coach, called me to his office for a private conference while the rest of the team stripped down post-game. “What did you throw to Sandoval?” Abby kept his own score sheet that had a column for recording which pitch was thrown to which batter. He kept his own records of every game, so he probably knew what I threw, though I answered him anyway.

  “Curve,” I said.

  “Why?” Abby bluntly asked.

  “Well”—I looked away, frustrated from reliving my costly mistakes—“because I trust it enough to throw it anytime I want.” I thought this was a solid answer. Coaches always want to hear that you are confident in your stuff.

  “That’s just dumb,” said Abby. “Weren’t you reading his swings? He was behind on your fastball,” he said as if everyone in the stadium knew this. “He pulled your change, but fouled the heater. You did him a favor, is what you did. Did him a favor with that curveball.”

  “Are you saying that wasn’t a good pitch?”

  “He hit it, didn’t he? His bat told ya it wasn’t a good pitch.”

  “Yeah, but hitters hit good pitches, that’s what they get paid for, Abby.”

  “They get paid just as much to hit dumb pitches too, don’t they?”

  “Half those hits were luck! Infield cue shots, broken bat jams—”

  “’Maz’n’ how lucky them hitters is when you don’t read their swings,” said Abby.

  “Fine, but I threw my best pitch in a count I was ahead in, and he hit it. I’d throw it again if I had to because I trust my stuff. Isn’t that what pitching is about, trusting your stuff?”

  “You can trust it all you want, but if it’s the wrong pitch, you can trust it’s gonna get hit.”

  I wanted to keep fighting Abby, not because I didn’t believe what he was saying to me, but because I was angry about my outing and I didn’t want to be shown the errors of my ways while I was fresh from making them. But Abby was right, and as easy as it would have been to say it was someone else’s fault, that the other team was lucky, or that the Baseball Gods were against me, in the end, the blame was mine, and mine alone.

  “Fuck”—my angry baseball player way of saying you’re right—“I wasn’t thinking about his swing, I was thinking about being nasty. I was thinking about strikeouts, I was thinking about trying to get to the big leagues ...” I took a deep breath, then stood there in silence, bracing myself in the door of Abby’s office.

  Abby shifted back in his seat and looked into me.

  I’d been coached by Abby for the last two and a half years, and I knew that nothing he told me was done so for vindictive reasons, even when my competitive frustration made me feel otherwise, even when I blew up on him. Abby wanted all of his pitchers to succeed, including me, a tall order considering no two pitchers are alike.

  Some pitchers are hardheaded and need a firm ass-kicking to keep them on the right path. Some are doubtful and need a good coddling from their own minds to survive. However, no matter which part of the spectrum a pitcher spends most of his time in—belligerent or uncertain—at some point in his career, he’ll experience both extremes.

  A good pitching coach knows this about his staff, usually from experience as a player himself. He knows that each of his pitchers requires a unique psychological prescription, and that the time and way the prescription is administered is just as important as the dosage itself. Sometimes it has to come in the middle of a rough inning. Sometimes it has to come after the game is long over. And sometimes, just like when a mother has to mix medicine with sugar to make it go down, it has to come in a way that’s borderline manipulation, since there are pitchers paranoid enough to fry their brains trying to figure out why a coach is medicating them at all.

  A quality pitching coach understands what kind of person his pitcher is, not just what kind of person he thinks his pitcher should be. He never lets his own fame get in the way, or cuts them out of a mold. It’s a subtle art with relationships at its core, because if a pitching coach can’t relate, he’ll never get the dosages right, and the wrong medicine is worse than none at all.

  “You’re learnin’, is all. You read them hitters next outing and you’ll see a world a difference,” said Abby. “But when you go out there, you can’t think about nothing but what’s in front a ya. The hitter tells you what you need to throw, and no one else.”

  “But,” I said, “Grady likes it when I throw my changeup and hook.”

  “You ain’t pitching to him, though, is ya? They like it better when you’re a putting up zeros.”

  “Ya, I guess,” I said.

  “Ain’t no guessing about it. You get outs pitching to that hitter, you’ll always have a pitch they like to see.”

  I nodded my head at his simple logic.

  “Can’t lose your cool out there, though. That ain’t you. When I seen you get mad out there, I says to myself, ‘That ain’t Hay. He don’t do that.’ Can’t let things you got no control over get control over you.”

  “I just want to do good since the Bigs are so close.”

  “Shit, everyone wants to do good. Everyone wants to make it to them big leagues. You think pitching different’s gonna get you there any faster?”

  “No,” I said.

  “No,” he concurred. “Alright. One inning, one hitter, one smart pitch at a time. Lot a season left—lot a season ...” Abby’s voice trailed off as he looked through his notes. “Get you some ice, Hay. You’ll be back out there soon.”

  Abby dismissed me into the locker room, and even though I wasn’t pleased with how things went on the field, I felt better about it thanks to our talk. Abby knew that I spent more time in the doubt-filled side of the pitcher psyche. To his credit, he never outright babied me, which would have been more insulting than anything, and he never browbeat me so bad I felt like pitching was pointless. What he did do was an excellent job of keeping me from going over to that dark side all pitchers feel the pull toward when they’re close to something grand and feel like they’re blowing it.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  On Monday, after losing a day game with the Bees, we packed up and hopped a flight to Colorado Springs, home of the Rockies’ Triple A team, the Sky Sox. Sky Sox Stadium is the highest-altitude park in baseball, even higher than the infamous Mile High Stadium that houses its parent team, where ERAs commit suicide upon eye contact.

  Like Salt Lake City, Colorado Springs offered gorgeous views of towering mountains. However, unlike Salt Lake, there were no pretty girls, or warm weather. We sat down the line on an unforgiving, bun-freezing aluminum bench. There were a couple of plastic lawn chairs, but only enough for the older guys who rested upon them like thrones.

  The Sky Sox provided the pen with an oil-burning heater that looked like a miniature jet engine. It pumped out enough heat to melt our lawn chairs or set our uniforms on fire. Though its intensity was significant, its area of effect was limited, and we had to take turns standing in front of it to get warm, but not so close as to combust ourselves.

  “Goddamn,” said Ox. He was bending over, letting the heater warm his ass. “This feels tremendous. I might have to get one of these for the house.”

  “Careful, big man, or you’ll melt a hole in your drawers.”

  “These fucking pants deserve to be melted. Besides, there’s no one here to watch this game,” Ox said, gesturing to the stands, which were virtually empty.

  “Why people build stadiums in towns with weather like this, I’ll never know,” said Bentley.

  “They say if you want to make a small fortune in minor league baseball, the best way to do it is to start with a large one,” I said, standing up and taking a turn in front of the ass heater.

  “Has anyone seen Zarate?” asked Hamp.

  We all looked around. “No.”

  “Wasn’t he just
out here?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t remember. He’s like a ghost,” said Fish.

  “Did he get sent down?” I asked.

  “No, he was definitely on the plane. I know because Reek has to help him out with all the English stuff.”

  “I don’t think he speaks much English,” I said.

  “I don’t think he speaks much Spanish,” said Ox.

  “I think he’s part Aborigine,” said Bentley.

  “Maybe we should talk to him in clicks and pops?” offered Hamp.

  “I never see him eat spread either. I don’t know how he survives,” said Bentley.

  “He’s probably out behind the stadium hunting feral cats with blow darts.”

  “Who gives a shit?” said Dallas. “He’s a strange fucking bird. Yesterday, I saw him spray his armpits with fucking hair spray thinking it was deodorant.”

  “Yeah, but if the pen phone rings, he appears out of nowhere, like he was always there,” said Fish.

  “It’s his witch doctor magic,” I said.

  “You think if we whistle for him, he’ll show up?”

  “He’s not a dog.”

  “Just scream his name or something.”

  “Z!” screamed Fish. “Z!”

  There was a rustling in the tree line just behind the bullpen fence. A dark navy jacket broke through and Z appeared, looking at us with wild eyes.

  “Uh, Abby was looking for you.”

  “Ahbee?” said Z.

  “Yeah, he wondered where you went,” lied Fish.

  “Ahh.” Z nodded his head but there was no way of knowing what he had heard.

  “What the fuck were you doing?” asked Dallas.

  Z held up a couple of waterlogged baseballs he had found. Probably batting practice balls struck over the fence but never retrieved. He made his way to the pen with his new clutch, hopped the fence, and joined us again, showing us his collection.

  “That’s great, Z. You found some fucking baseballs. We got a whole bag of ’em right there,” said Dallas.

  Z nodded appreciatively at Dallas and sat down. We all sat down as well, exchanging Twilight Zone looks like we were sharing a roster with some alien. We half-expected Z to sit on the balls and try to hatch them when, instead, he picked up a long metal tarp spike, usually used for holding the bullpen tarp down during bad weather, and proceeded to bang the ball into the sharp end of it.