We all watched him as he worked the ball onto the spike, pounding it over and over again.
“Five bucks says he makes a shish kebab and roasts it on the heater.”
“I may take you up on that bet,” said Bentley, staring at Z.
“If something living comes out of that ball, I’m done. I quit,” said Hamp.
We were all wrong. In the next strike on the ball, Z missed his mark and stabbed himself in the hand with the spike.
“Ieeeee! Coño! Coño! Diablo! Mamma—heuvos!” He grabbed his hand as blood gushed forth.
“Speaks Spanish about as good as any other Latin guy I know,” said Ox.
“What a fucking dumb-ass,” said Dallas.
“Z, go see the trainer. Comprende? Trainer?” said Fish.
“No, no,” said Z. “Iz okay.” He started wiping large splotches of blood on his pants legs, then sucking on the wound.
“Z, you need to see the trainer,” persisted Fish.
Z got up, still sucking on the wound. He walked toward the heater, at which we all jerked back for fear he would stick his hand on the glowing red metal part and cauterize the wound. Z kept walking, though, hopping the fence and returning into the forest.
“What the hell?” We traded baffled expressions.
Minutes later, Z returned. He’d picked some vegetation from behind the fencing area and was chewing pieces of it in his mouth, and pressing it into his hand, which had stopped bleeding.
“Now I have seen it all,” said Hamp.
“Where do they find these guys?” I asked.
“Iz fine,” he said, smiling at us. “Iz okay. No trainer.”
“I wanna know what he rubs on his arm after he pitches,” said Ox.
After the game, we got our first paychecks of the season. They were sitting on our locker chairs waiting for us to discover them when we walked in from the field. It was a big moment for me since this year’s paycheck would be the biggest paycheck of my player career—the first time I saw a comma in my earnings since receiving my signing bonus in 2003.
I carefully tore off my paycheck’s perforated edging, opened it, and stared at the number. A nauseous surge of anxiety hit my stomach where glee should have been. I turned the paper over in my hands, then looked at it again. Then, in a cold sweat, I spoke aloud to the paper in my hands. “Is this right? This can’t be right.” I spun around to see the other players in the locker room. “Is this right?” I called to anyone who would answer.
Other players were looking upon their checks with wrinkled, angry faces. Heads twisted in confusion before going back to the checks for a second inspection. Fingers traced deduction lines, then silent counting indicative of mental math, then, like me, the desperate search around the room to see if someone was playing a bad joke.
“This can’t be right,” I said, answering my own question, then diving into my check again.
Chip spoke to me from a few lockers down. “Tax in Oregon is harsh, bro. And, don’t forget, you’re missing two days’ worth of pay.” He didn’t seem upset about his pay, of course. His check was that of a free agent. A few hundred missing from a seventy-thousand-dollar-a-season salary is a lot different than a few hundred missing from a salary barely reaching fifteen thousand.
Chip was right about the two days missing, but, even after I factored those days in, my pay was still much smaller than I expected—almost three hundred dollars smaller. That was six hundred a month gone, over three thousand for the season! I sat down and gripped the check so tight I thought it might rip in two. In fact, if it weren’t for my desperate need of the money, I would have ripped the check up in protest and fried it on the bullpen heater. But whom would I be protesting? My own stupidity for not considering the deductions for playing in a major city?
Guys around the room were having similar reactions, especially the first year Triple A players who seemed shell-shocked. Most of them had signed for large bonuses, one of the reasons they made it to Triple A so quickly, so I didn’t feel too bad for them. In fact, I expected their checks to be less than mine, but when I asked them about what they made, it turned out to be more than me.
“How is that possible? How are you making more than me and I’ve been playing three years longer than you?” I asked Frenchy after consulting his numbers.
“I don’t know, man. I don’t know. Maybe there was a mistake?”
“There’s no mistake,” said Luke. “It has to do with the original contract you signed under, how it was negotiated, the way the pay level’s scaled, and so on.” He regurgitated this information in a sterile tone; then, looking at my devastated face, he offered a sympathetic frown and said, “Sucks. Sorry, dude.”
My anger was building. It was my sixth year and this paycheck was less than what some of the third year players were making, and there was nothing I could do about it. What the hell was the point of all this time spent in the minors if you made less as you went up?
I felt like a fool. I didn’t factor in the local taxes, the state taxes, and all the other deductions that get taken out of a paycheck when I blissfully planned out my future in Triple A. My outlook for the future crumbled, falling down on me. Reality set in. I had to pay off Bonnie’s ring. I had to pay the rent. I had to save for a wedding, scratch up airfare, and provide for a wife I hadn’t even proposed to yet. Where was this money going to come from? How did I not see this? I thought of my poor pitching numbers, my poor earnings, my poor living arrangements. Maybe my parents were right; maybe I had no idea what I was doing.
I meandered drunkenly back to my locker and sat down, collecting my head in one hand while squeezing my paycheck in the other. We were not playing at home and I was glad of it because, if we were, I would have needed some strong Kool-Aid to come to terms with what I was experiencing. When I finally had enough strength to lift my head again, I noticed my cell phone’s notification light was blinking; I had a text-message from Bonnie. The message read, “I found my dress!”
My head fell again.
Chapter Thirty-six
An outdated team bus worked as a shuttle, taking us from the stadium back to the dilapidated La Quinta hotel the Sky Sox used as their hosting hotel. It was across town, a trek for the old bus as it groaned in protest on the mountainous grades. I sat in the back, as far from all the other occupants as I could, and dialed Bonnie. Her cheery voice came through the line, and I didn’t dare start the conversation with my news and steal her wedding dress thunder.
“It’s beautiful,” she said. “I was debating on a few others, which were nice, but then this guy, who you’d swear just got back from that convention you told me about if it wasn’t for the fact that his wife works there with him, told me to try some dress randomly.”
“Uh-huh,” I said, looking out the window. Snow was falling past the bus windows, and cars sloshed by on the slickened road. I sat low in my seat with my knees pressed up against the back of the seat in front of me.
“But”—she was getting excited now—“when I walked out of the dressing room, you just knew it was the one. Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at me. The guy who suggested it said, ‘Oh, girl, that’s the one. You’re a princess. A hot princess.’ ”
“Uh-huh,” I said.
“I was worried it was a little too modern for my mom, but she really likes it.”
“That’s great,” I said, rather disconnected.
Our conversation paused for a while. I wasn’t faking my enthusiasm very well, and Bonnie was on to me. “What’s the matter?”
“I got my first paycheck today.”
“Oh? What are you going to buy with it? A ring, perhaps?”
“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” I said.
The starkness of my tone must have caught her off guard because her response was one of concern. “What do you mean?”
“The check is way short. When I calculated it for the season, it’s thousands short. I didn’t consider the taxes here. I just don’t get it.”
“No, I think I made a mistake.”
“I don’t understand. How could you make a mistake?”
I let my head hit the bus window. “I don’t know, Bonnie. I saw the numbers before I signed this year. I knew what they were going to be, but this still seems wrong. Maybe I wanted to believe this year was going to be better than it really could be. Maybe I was being arrogant. Maybe I lied to myself. Maybe I knew this was going to be the situation and I just refused to accept it. I don’t know.”
“What are you saying to me?” The concern in Bonnie’s voice shifted to fear.
“Maybe I bit off more than we can chew here. Maybe it was stupid for me to think we’d be able to do this.”
“Babe, we’ve talked about this, you should pursue your dream.”
“But I can’t fund a life in the real world while getting paid peanuts in some dreamscape.”
“Don’t worry about the money,” she said.
“I have to, Bonnie. Someone has to. We have rings to pay for, flights to book, hotel stays, and all the other stuff I haven’t even thought of that I’m sure will pop up for the wedding.”
“Don’t worry about the wedding,” said Bonnie. “I’ve got that covered.”
“I’m not worried about the wedding. I could care less about the wedding. I’m worried about paying the bills!” My voice spiked over the rumble of the bus and traffic, pulling a look from a few other guys on the bus.
Bonnie didn’t respond immediately, but when she did, “I’m sorry” was all she said.
“No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I care about our wedding, honey. I’m just scared we’re going to be in a bad situation financially trying to do this in the time frame we planned.”
“Do you want to change the date?”
“No, I want to do this. I’m just afraid we’re going to have regrets.”
“I don’t have any regrets,” said Bonnie.
I sighed deeply, “I know you don’t but ...”
“But what? You do?”
“I just don’t ...”
“Don’t what, honey? Tell me.”
“I don’t want to be my parents.”
“Your parents have very different circumstances than we do. Your dad had an accident. Stuff like that changes a family.”
“No, honey, you don’t understand. The reason my dad got up on that roof in the first place was because of money. Before the accident, we still fought and that’s what we fought about. We didn’t have enough to pay someone else to roof the house, so my dad elected to do it himself. That’s why he fell, that’s why he’s angry, that’s why all the crap that has ever happened in my family has happened. Money. You can tell me it doesn’t matter all you want because your family has always had it, but it always matters. I guess I just wanted to believe it didn’t.”
“What can I do to help?”
“Nothing, honey. Nothing.”
Bonnie sat with me in silence for a bit. Then her positive tone came back. “Well, if we cut back on the ridiculous stuff we can save money all over the place. There are so many stupid, unnecessary expenses in weddings, I’m confident we can save whatever you don’t make this year. We can make our own cake. We can make our own table decorations. There is a lot we can do. The more we save up front, the more my dad gives us as a gift, which will take the burden off you, right?”
“I can’t do that to you. I can’t rob you of your day because of my bad decision-making.”
“It’s our day.”
“I’ll feel terrible.”
“Don’t. Don’t, it’s one day. You need support and that’s what I’m doing.”
“Is there anything I can do to help?”
“Yes,” she said sternly. “You can pitch great, honey. You can kick some ass for me.”
Chapter Thirty-seven
Though Abby would have told me it was a mistake, I thought of Bonnie the next time I took the mound. I thought of what she asked me to do for her just before she offered to sacrifice her dreams so I could chase mine without distraction. I didn’t visualize her face when I pitched, or hear her voice in my head, or some other Hollywood trick. I simply thought about not letting her down by doing what I had the power to do. I used it as motivation to focus on the present, the hitter, and my pitch selection. I wasn’t just facing the hitter one smart pitch at a time, I was facing the rest of my life, one smart pitch at a time.
There are two parts to being a strikeout pitcher. First, you have to throw strikes. A lot of young pitchers seem to forget this part. They worry far too much about the batter hitting their throws before the count becomes a strikeout scenario. In short, they nibble, throwing as many balls as they do strikes. This means high pitch counts, early exits, and pressure situations wherein the pitcher must throw something in the hitting zone at the risk of walking the hitter if he doesn’t. A strikeout is as much the first two pitches as it is the third and final pitch, even though it’s the final pitch that gets the call.
The second thing a strikeout pitcher must do is know how to put a guy away. For some pitchers, this is done courtesy of their one nasty out pitch; the one they got drafted for; the one Baseball America raves about. For everyone else, getting punch-outs revolves around knowing what a hitter’s weak point is, and setting them up to exploit it.
I had never been referred to as a strikeout pitcher. I always relied on forcing contact and letting my fielders do their job—this was the Grady Fuson way. However, if there was one thing that makes a pitcher stand out, it’s Ks. I knew from experience I could throw enough strikes to get myself into strikeout situations; I just needed to convert them. Since I threw the standard four-pitch mix—fastball, curveball, slider, and change—I knew I had all the tools I needed to make those conversions happen if I read the hitter properly. The only thing I was missing was the conviction to rule information given to me from the hitter as more valuable than that given to me by the brass.
After I got home from our road trip, I went to work. I sped up on the mound, pitching with conviction. You could see it in my body language as I stalked around the mound. I borrowed Luke’s scowl and Chip’s swagger, and although the batter came to the plate with the weapon, I put him on the defensive. I attacked hitters, challenging them to fight me off or be retired.
There were times I lost the fight, but more often than not, I won. I threw up zeros and punched out hitters—more than I’d ever struck out any previous season. I never tried to do what I couldn’t do. I just took what I had and attacked with it, processing what the hitter gave me and making adjustments as I went. Soon my strikeouts were twice that of my innings pitched, nearly five times my walks, and my ERA had shrunk to a 3. I was on fire.
Then, injuries started happening in the big leagues. Estes got a call to go up, just like we all suspected he would. Soon others headed north, fill-ins and backups mostly, but the Big Club was scuffling, losing twice as many games as they were winning.
The organization vigorously shuffled players, looking for people who could get the job done. New faces came into town, and the face of the Beavers started to mutate. Guys on the major league DL came in to do rehab; guys from Double A came to fill in the upward domino effect; and guys from other teams got claimed off waivers. At one time, we had a bullpen with eleven pitchers on it, counting rehabbers. It was an exciting time to be a Triple A baseball player. There was lot of opportunity for guys doing well.
After a day game during a trip to Omaha, Luke got called in to the office and was told he was heading to the big leagues. After playing for nearly seven seasons, his time had finally come.
There was a line of players making their way up to Luke to congratulate him. Some talked at length with him, others simply wished him well and smacked him on the ass. I yelled at him and ran up to hug him like an excited mother. “Congratulations!”
“Thanks, man.” Even his scowl couldn’t hold up to my hug.
“This is great! I’m so
happy for you!”
“Yeah, this is amazing. I can’t believe it,” said Luke.
“I can. You earned it.”
“Thanks, bro.”
“When do you leave?”
“I fly out tonight. Shane is going to come to the apartment and pack up my stuff and send it to San Diego to meet me.”
“Wow, just like that,” I said, marveling at it all.
“Yeah, this changes everything. I was really starting to wonder if I should keep going.”
“Glad you did now, huh?”
“Affirmative.”
“You know about the rule about picking up this month’s rent since you’re a big leaguer now, right?” I said, citing an obscure, but incredibly relevant to me and thus instantly remembered rule.
“There is no rule.”
“Oh, I beg to differ. I heard if you get called up, you pick up the rent for the guys stuck behind since you’ll make twice that your first night in the Show.”
Luke’s scowl came back.
“Come on, man, you’re screwing Chip and me by leaving.”
“Alright. I’ll do it. If I’m up there for the rest of the month, I’ll send you a check for the rent. It’s on me.”
“Awesome.” I fist-pumped. “I knew living with you was a good choice. Does this also mean I get your room?”
“Oh, that’s right”—Luke pointed his finger at me—“you got your girl coming into town in a few days, don’t you? Talk about perfect timing. Are you going to propose while she’s here?”
“Yeah, big visit coming up.”
“How you going to do it?”
“I was thinking the Portland Rose Garden would be perfect. I walked up there once last year and it was beautiful. They have every variety of rose on earth there, and in the heart of it all is a spot called the Japanese Gardens. It’s like another world there, with rock gardens and waterfalls. You can see the whole city from a lookout, and”—I started daydreaming about it all—“there is a little bridge that stretches over a koi pond, surrounded by Japanese maples in a kaleidoscope of colors. It’s like something out of an ancient watercolor. I think I’m going to propose there. I’ll hire one of the team’s photographers to camp out at a certain time and photograph the whole thing without Bonnie knowing. The place is gorgeous and the pictures will really put it over the top. We’ll immortalize it there, on top of the world and surrounded by flowers.” I snapped out of the dream and looked back at Luke. “What do you think?”
Out of My League Page 19