Out of My League

by Dirk Hayhurst

  Screaming caused me to take the phone away from my head. There was the sound of jumping and ecstatic laughing. Then, when she calmed down, she brought the phone back to her head. “I have to tell my parents. I have to wake them up!”

  Bonnie ran down the hallway and blasted through her parents’ bedroom door. I was standing in the middle of left field now; I’d wandered there during Bonnie’s attempt to turn the call into an X-rated chat line. Though I was very much in the Portland outfield, I was also very much in Bonnie’s parents’ bedroom. From my dual location, I could hear stadium trash collecting commingled with the sound of Bonnie’s mother freaking out that someone had broken into the house. Bonnie rehashed the news, and though I didn’t catch much, I did hear Bonnie’s mother say, “Praise the Lord,” followed by Bonnie’s father saying, “Amen. Now go back to bed ’cause some of us have real jobs.”

  Bonnie exited as instructed before telling me, “They both said congratulations.”

  “Did you tell them you were excited to have lots of sex with me?”

  “I would never say that to them. My mom’s head would explode.”

  “I think you should have led with that, kicked the bedroom door open and screamed it at them. That would have gotten their attention. It got mine.”

  “This got their attention just fine.” She shut her door. “Oh my God, and now you’re a big leaguer! I’m so proud of you! This is so awesome.”

  “Yeah, it’s so surreal. And they say the pants up there are ultra-sexy too.”

  “Who else have you told?”

  “No one. You’re the first person I called.”

  “You didn’t call your parents? Honey, you have to call them. You can call me back. I won’t be going to bed now!”

  As instructed, I got off the phone and dialed my parents. The phone rang and rang and finally, just when I thought I was going to get kicked to the answering machine, my mom picked up.

  “What’s up?” she said, tailoring her greeting to the caller ID.

  I tried to play it cool. “Took you long enough.”

  “I was watching the SciFi Channel and I couldn’t get up from the recliner. Whaddya want?”

  “Is Dad up?”

  “No, why?” A munching noise came through the phone indicating she was eating.

  “What are you eating?”

  “Just the popcorn stuck to my shirt. What do you want or did you just call to ask what I was eating?”

  “Go wake Dad up.”

  She scoffed, “What? Why? Your dad’s in bed.”

  “Well then, get his ass out of bed. I want to talk to him now!” I demanded outrageously.

  “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, alright, hold on.” Mom marched upstairs and woke Dad.

  “What?” he asked, his voice surprisingly awake, probably from being trained to wake on command from the days my brother stumbled in drunk.

  “Put me on speakerphone.”

  “Alright.” He took the phone from his head. “Christ, I can’t find the button. Pat, what button is it? Don’t know why they have to make ’em so damn small.” After much laboring, the phone clicked over to speaker. “Alright, go ahead.”

  “Mom, Dad,” I announced majestically, “your son is going to be a big leaguer.”

  “What?” Mom stammered, though she’d heard me fine.

  “I got the call. I’m going to the Show to replace Maddux in the rotation on Saturday.”

  “What?” This time Mom screamed it.

  “I said I’m going to the big leagues!”

  My mom started wailing like a hysterical idiot. “Oh my God, Dirk. Oh my God, Sam! Sam! Sam!” Her voice was deafening over the speakerphone.

  “What, what, what? For fuck sakes, woman, I’m right here. I heard him.”

  Mom got real close to the phone so it sounded like she was shouting at me. I had to tell her to talk at a tolerable volume on multiple occasions as she mined every single detail of the event and what it meant for the future of the free world. As I recounted the whole thing to the pair of them, some of the guys walked out of the dugout entrance heading to their cars and shouted at me, in emotional, schoolgirl voices, “Oh Mommy, Daddy, I’m going to be a big leaguer!” Then they made kissing noises. I gave them the finger.

  “Maddux, huh?” said my dad. “Well, that’s good.” He cleared his throat. “That’s real good. You earned it, kid ... Replacing Maddux.” He was happy, I could tell by his voice, which seemed genuinely touched to the point of breaking into emotion. I could just see him nodding his head and smiling like he did when the good music played, repeating to himself the verse about me taking Maddux’s spot in the rotation.

  “This came at a great time. What a great wedding present,” said Mom.

  “I know, right?”

  “We’re going to have to get the MLB package now so we can watch you,” said my mom. Then, as she realized what it meant. “Oh my God, Dirk. You’re going to pitch on television—in front of millions of people. Millions of people! Oh my God, oh my God! I’m going to have a heart attack watching you pitch. Jesus Christ almighty, this is going to kill me.”

  Chapter Forty-seven

  It was pathetic how little I had to pack. I could fit my entire wardrobe in my suitcase, which, though new at the beginning of the season, was now beat to hell from a full year of red-eye flights and playing demolition derby with twenty-four other minor leaguer suitcases.

  The only outfit I didn’t stuff into my battle-damaged bag was the suit I’d cobbled together from pickups at the Goodwill and Chip’s donated shoes. That’s what I was traveling in. I’d spent the whole season wearing it with no concern about what anyone might think of me, but that changed today. I was on my way to a world of luxury automobiles and custom apparel; I would be like a peasant boy standing before the royal court.

  I was supposed to fly out on Friday and meet the team in San Francisco. Though I was arriving well before the Friday night game started, I was told explicitly not to show up at the park before the day of my start. I wasn’t sure why this was such a big deal. In fact, I thought it would be a good idea for me to get there the night before and get my feet wet. I didn’t dare question it, though, lest I sounded ungrateful and undeserving.

  Because my flight was on Friday but I got my news on Tuesday night, my last few nights in Portland were like being stuck in limbo. Though I was both a big leaguer and a minor leaguer, I wasn’t allowed to play with either team. Every time I goofed around like normal, practicing new pitches or conditioning by throwing the Aerobie with the boys, I got yelled at by players who thought I was crazy for risking my dream job. “What if you hurt yourself?” they’d ask. I’d tell them it was no different from any other day I’d have fun at the park, that this was all just part of my routine and it was important to treat life as normal, but they insisted it wasn’t normal. They insisted I was a big leaguer now and I was just tempting fate to screw everything up. They told me war stories of guys who cut themselves on beer cans the night before their plane flights, guys who twisted ankles or pulled obliques, guys who tore their labrums playing catch. I believed them, of course, why wouldn’t I? I had everything to lose at this point, and soon I started treating myself as if I was made of porcelain.

  It was great to know I was going to the big leagues, but finding out three days ahead of time turned out to be a bad decision. With nothing to distract me from the impending climax of my crucible of a baseball career, I started to get nervous. I started asking other players with big league experience for comfort. Instead, I got admonitions grounded in hearsay and wives’ tales about what I should do up there under penalty of rookie death, as well as things I should never do under penalty of rookie death. Often these tales contradicted each other, but the one thing I took away from them was that, if I could be sure of nothing else, I could at least be sure the experience was probably going to kill me.

  When Friday morning came, the Beavers’ clubhouse crew came and gathered up all the apartment furnishings. There was the po
ssibility I’d go up to make the start and then get sent right back to Triple A after the game, but since the apartment lease was up at the end of the month, I’d have to move out, regardless. In fact, Chip, via the aid of his short-lived big-league paycheck, had already moved into a hotel a few days before. I watched the furniture loads leave the building, one after another, the disassembling of my last moments as a career minor leaguer. My air mattress, Memory Foam, and linens were all donated to the Triple A stockpile of home furnishings. Our pot, pan, and the ironing board on which we shared so many meals. Our television that distracted Luke and Chip’s kids. The lawn chair I got drunk off Kool-Aid in while watching Harry Potter. Even the extra paper towels we used as bath towels because we forgot to buy actual bath towels. Seeing it empty made the place feel barren. Not because of a lack of furniture, but because of a lack of memories. Or, maybe it felt that way because when my air mattress left, it revealed how clean the carpet was before we moved in since we’d failed to vacuum during the season.

  When it was time to leave, I put on my suit, hefted my bags, and took a cab to PDX. As we rolled along, I watch Portland pass from the back of a cab. The nervousness subsided for a moment and I slipped away. It was not the trees or the buildings I beheld; rather I saw my life projected on Portland’s landscape like it was some giant screen showing my history as the feature presentation.

  I could see myself playing T-ball, running the bases in the wrong direction. I could see my Little League teams eating ice cream, even after we lost. I could see summer leagues where my parents fought favoritism to get me playing time, the awkwardness of high school, the donning of a letterman’s jacket, a scholarship to college.

  Then, the memory of my initiation into professional baseball. I was drafted in the eighth round. The contract came overnight in the mail. I signed with shaking hands and went out to celebrate with my family at a cheap Chinese restaurant. It was the last time I could remember everyone in my house being excited enough about my baseball career to put aside the drama. I had made it into the elite. I was going to get paid to play baseball, and though I didn’t know how little I’d make at the time, I didn’t care. I would have walked through fire for the chance to play and, indeed, I did.

  I paid the cabby robotically and checked in at the airport in a fog. On an escalator inside the airport, people buzzed by like worker bees. Did they know what I had just become? Did it matter to them that I had been made sports royalty? A treadmill spit me out in front of my gate, and as I stood there in front of it, in front of my future, I couldn’t help but think of the years of my career spent spinning my wheels to get here. I remembered the demotion I took to spend my fourth year in A ball. That feeling of helplessness, and how all the hope I had to keep fighting slipped away. I remembered the anger and outrage, doubt and pain. I remembered the consuming jealousy as those around me moved forward while I was left behind, written off as a washout, told I was a bust. I remembered what it was like to resent baseball, to hate it.

  How many times had I gone through airports like this? Traveling away from home and loved ones to try my hand at being a better string of numbers than the next guy? How many times had I sat in the back of cabs, navigating unfamiliar streets for a chance at a chance? How many bus trips to nowhere towns for nobody teams? I’d seen six years of my life pass by staring out windows, looking into an uncertain future with nothing to hold on to except the old cliché, “As long as you have a jersey on your back, you have a chance.” I was a long shot, a non-prospect, and if the things websites wrote about me were true, I wouldn’t be standing here. I had turned my career around and put myself back on the map. I had beaten the odds and refused to be written off. I had learned. I had grown. My dues were paid in full, and it was time for me to take hold of my purchase. The culmination and inspiration for every dream, doubt, and drop of sweat was waiting for me at my destination, and I was flying to meet it first class.

  Chapter Forty-eight

  Compared to the bargain bin motels that touted Frosted Flakes in turnstile dispensers, the big league hotel in San Francisco was a palace. Granite countertops and cherry desks with ornate lamps and bonsai trees; chandeliers of gold and crystal; life-size murals, mood lighting, and Muzak that didn’t make you want to rip your ears off. The plane had crashed, I was convinced of it. The plane had crashed and I was dead, and at any moment, angels were going to throw me out of the place.

  There was a store in the lobby where you could buy a suit or an expensive watch, and a restaurant that promised excellent steak if you had an excellent bank account. Marble beneath my feet, crystal above my head, surrounded by smiling, well-groomed people who stood ready to assist me. I wanted to fall to my knees to kiss the floor of this temple. In fact, there was a strong feeling that at any moment the whole scene could break into spontaneously choreographed dancing with me twirling around the place singing my joy as bellhops pushed high-note-hitting waitresses around on luggage carts.

  The lady behind the check-in desk greeted me with, “How may I help you, sir?”

  I stared at her in wonder, and then I got to say words that made me feel like I was declaring, “Let there be light,” and actually had all the power to back it up. “Yes,” I began with a smooth, deep voice, “my name is Dirk Hayhurst, and I’m a player on the San Diego Padres. I believe you have a room for me?” Boom, that just happened.

  I expected the words to knock the woman behind the desk over with their sheer awesomeness, but she stood firm and replied, “Oh, wonderful,” before punching away at the keyboard.

  “Looks like I do have a room for you, Mr. Hayhurst.” She handed me my key and gave me directions to the door it would unlock. “Would you like someone to take up your bags?”

  My bags were parked beside me with the one marked with the giant Padres logo sitting prominently on top. I made sure all the tags and labels faced out as visibly as possible. If bystanders didn’t recognize me, at least they would recognize the logo, and maybe do the math that I was a player, and then whisper about me in that way I’d always dreamed about, ever since the concept of celebrity through sport had first entered my brain. If I would have had a big league ID card, I would have dropped it in the middle of the crowded halls announcing, “Silly me, always dropping my big league ID. Us big leaguers can be so clumsy sometimes.” I wanted to be noticed. I wanted to shout and tell the whole world that yes, Dirk Hayhurst was a big leaguer, the approachable, praisable kind who carried his own luggage!

  “No thanks, I can handle it.” I left the front desk and paraded my way to the elevators. I kept note of every stray look that lingered on me or my luggage and even of some that didn’t. Then, while strutting down the hallway, I ran into Luke.

  “Hey!” we shouted at the same time.

  “Congratulations!” Luke followed up. We traded a man-hug. I knew he was here, of course, and had we not run into each other in the lobby, I’d have searched him out immediately.

  “Thanks, man, wow, I can’t believe this is for real.” I grabbed his shoulders with both hands and squeezed them in my excitement.

  “It sure is, man, you earned it. When I heard you were coming up, I was so happy for you—told you to keep your head up, didn’t I?” He whacked me in the side in that atta-boy way.

  “I know you did, thanks. What a great time for this to happen, huh?”

  “Is there such a thing as a bad time to get a call up?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Sure. How’s Bonnie taking it?”

  “She’s ecstatic.”

  “That’s great. That’s just great.” Luke’s words meant a lot, but his face said the most important stuff. The knowing way he smiled while looking off to some familiar memory told me he was recalling the moment he was in my place. Every player who has been through the experience knows just how wondrous it is. It can’t be summed up in one moment but through a series of them chained together as we players enter our new life as a big leaguer in its full spectrum. The first-class flight,
the big league hotel, trying to get people to notice your team bag: they were but the tip of the iceberg. Luke recalled these moments when he saw the elation on my face; those, and many more I had yet to know.

  “You’re starting tomorrow, right?” Luke looked back at me. His face changed, indicating he knew something I didn’t.

  “Yes.”

  “Nervous?”

  “Oh my God, am I ever.” In fact, every time I thought about it I got shaky.

  “I got something that can help you with that. Come with me.”

  We got into an elevator with glass panels exposing views out over the city and its historic buildings, bridges, and bay. It all seemed too surreal. I’d been to San Francisco once before, but not like this. I was a tourist then. I thought buying crap in Chinatown was the coolest thing ever. Now I was a reason people toured.

  Luke watched me as I took it all in. He chuckled to himself.

  “You going to be my catcher tomorrow?” I asked.

  “Nope. I’m not even going to be here tomorrow.”

  “What! Why?”

  “Got sent down. They told me last night. I leave for the airport in about thirty minutes.”

  “Was it to make room for me?” I felt terrible. I knew who came up and went down was out of our control, we were just pawns. Still, Luke was a friend, and it was hard to know if I was mixed up in his descent.

  “Not your fault. Tactical decision by the brass. Bard’s coming off the DL. Don’t worry, I’ll probably be back in a couple of days when they expand the roster for September.”

  “And you are cool with this?”

  He shrugged. “I made it, I caught Maddux’s 350th win, and I’ll probably get to come back in September. I can hang out in Portland for a few days. At least this way I’ll get to play every day again.”

  I had forgotten that Luke’s main role in the Bigs this year was to sit on the bench. He seemed excited to play again, even if it was in Triple A, which I’ll admit baffled me because we’d always joke about how we’d happily collect splinters in our ass as long as we were collecting the Big League minimum. I didn’t articulate those thoughts, since now didn’t seem like the right time for such talk.