Out of My League

by Dirk Hayhurst

  The last game had ended, the season was over, and everyone was rushing to catch flights home. I’d probably get taken off the forty-man roster within the week. I’d probably never talk to Hoffman again after today since his contract negotiations weren’t going as planned with the big club. I couldn’t imagine him closing for anyone else, but baseball was full of things I didn’t understand, even when looking at it from the top down. Welcome to the big leagues.

  “My pleasure,” said Hoffman. “You’re interesting to talk to. You’re definitely deeper than your average guy.”

  “Thanks, I think.”

  “And hey, you’re still going to do a lot of great stuff on this field,” he said. “But, personally, I think the best part of you is what’s off the field.”

  I’m not sure if I blushed when he said that part, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I did.

  “Good luck with that book you’re writing,” said Hoffman.

  “Oh, thanks. And good luck with everything you’re up to.”

  “Thanks, kid. Enjoy your off-season, and congrats on your marriage.”

  I shook his hand after he gave me the last ball back, not as a boy star struck by a baseball hero, but as a friend. Then, after packing my own bags, I said my farewells to Chip and Luke, Frenchy and Anto. I tipped the clubbies, wished all the coaches I had words for good-bye, took one final pack of Fig Newtons, then wheeled my bags to the door of the Padres’ locker room and stopped. I might never be here again, I thought. I took one last big breath of big league Padres air, exhaled, and then walked away.

  It was a long plane flight back, but when I got off the jet, there was a little brown-eyed girl waiting for me.

  “Welcome home,” she said, taking my hand.

  “It’s good to be back,” I said, lacing my fingers in hers. “So where to, Grandma’s house?”

  “No,” she said. “Never again. From now on, the only woman you’ll ever come home to is me.”

  The night before the wedding, I sat in the apartment that would be our first home. My groomsmen came over for a few hours to keep me company in my last moments as a bachelor. They apologized for not throwing me a bachelor party. I forgave them, explaining that the big league club threw one for me already. When they asked for juicy details, I described the sultry curves of the Hooters girls in attendance, the flowing tequila, and the X-rated party on our private jet. Then I told them it was best they didn’t try to re-create the scene—they agreed wholeheartedly.

  As an alternative to their party planning services, I enlisted them as carpenters and mechanics. The apartment was full of boxes of unassembled Ikea furniture, including the box containing my new bed frame. If I was going to get the apartment assembled in time to carry my wife across the threshold to more than stacks of Swedish furniture boxes, I needed their help.

  After our assembly work, we stayed up late listening to music, talking about life and love and baseball while splitting a six-pack. Slowly but surely, the apartment started to come together. Then, when everything was assembled except the bed—which I felt I had the sacred duty of doing myself—my groomsmen slapped me on the ass and told me to enjoy my last night as a single.

  Since I’d come home from the season, everything had been moving at warp speed. Each day leading up to the Big One was rife with one issue or another. There were the rehearsal dinner, showers, trips to furniture stores, arguments about seating arrangements, lease signings, final decoration choices, registry checks, shuttling family from the airport ... I almost found myself wanting to go back to baseball again.

  When the door clicked shut and the groomsmen left, it was just me in the apartment. Things finally started to slow down, and I had time to think about what was going to happen in less than twenty-four hours. Things I’d known were coming for months now took on a new, terrifying shape. Like mountains on the horizon unworthy of my immediate attention, they had snuck up on me so slowly I didn’t realize they were here until they were just outside my window, blotting out the sun with their gargantuan size. Holy shit, it hit me, I was about to get married! I was going to be responsible for another human being for the rest of my life! I was going to have to be completely naked in front of a girl! I was not prepared for this!

  I flung open the door, but my groomsmen were already gone. I was alone. The walls began to close in on me. The apartment was no longer “our first place,” it was now a prison with Ikea furniture barricading me in. The unhung picture frames, the quilt from Bonnie’s grandmother, the plastic tubs full of unpacked clothes. This was it, this was how my run as a swinging single was going to end. No fireworks, no autobiographical documentary, not even a girl jumping out of a cake with tassels on her boobs. It was just me, foreign cardboard, an empty six-pack, and a place for the washer and dryer to get hooked up.

  I needed to talk to someone, but not Bonnie—that was forbidden. The only real option I had was my parents, and though a conversation with them at this point could do more to talk me out of getting married than talk me into it, I decided to risk it.

  “Hello?” my dad answered. I heard the sound of late night television in the background, then its departure at the striking of the MUTE button.

  “Hey, Dad,” I said.

  “What are you doing up?” he asked.

  “I can’t sleep.”

  “Nervous?”

  “I guess. I don’t know. I wonder if I’m doing the right thing. I mean, I just got back from baseball, I haven’t had any time to really think about how much my life has changed, and now I’m getting married and it’s going to change again.”

  “Little late to be thinking about this now, ain’t it?”

  “Yeah, I know it is.”

  “Sounds like cold feet.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe more like confused feet.”

  “What are you confused about? You love this girl, don’t you?”

  “I do. But the rest of my life is a long time.”

  “Yeah, it usually is.”

  “What if, you know, this is the wrong decision?”

  “There ain’t no right or wrong to it,” he said.

  “What if we, well, what if something happens to us like it did to you and Mom?”

  “You can’t be thinking like that now, Dirk.”

  “But I am,” I said. “I can’t stop thinking about that kind of stuff.”

  “Well”—he cleared his throat—“if things go bad, then they go bad. You’ll work through ’em. But you can’t always think about how bad things can go.”

  My dad let the phone sit idle for a moment, then he began again with a more introspective tone. “I guess I can’t blame you for worrying about it. We ain’t exactly the Brady Bunch. But, like I told you, you work through it. What you have to remember is, you’re not in it alone. That’s the strength and weakness of marriage—you never have to go it alone.”

  “Never alone,” I repeated.

  “You don’t get married for yourself, you get married because you’re better together than separate. Your mom and I fight, every couple does.” He chuckled to himself. “I guess we might be more passionate about it than your average couple.”

  “You think?” I added sarcastically.

  “Well, we have a family tradition to keep up.”

  “I don’t want to keep that tradition going,” I said.

  “So don’t,” he said, assuredly. “I’ll tell you, your mom and I haven’t been the best at showing you the right way to live, but we’ve been great at showing you the wrong way. I’d say you did pretty good at learning what not to do from us, and you don’t have to worry about turning out like us because you two aren’t us. You need to let that go. You need to stop being afraid of stuff that ain’t yet happened and may never.”

  “I know,” I said. “I thought I had a handle on that.”

  “What changed?”

  “Getting my ass kicked in the big leagues. I guess I’m afraid any of my dreams can turn sour now.”

  “That’s just baseball, Di
rk.”

  “It was more than baseball, Dad. It was my life’s pursuit.”

  “Well, there is always next year,” said my dad.

  “What if I blow this marriage like I did baseball?”

  “You didn’t blow it in baseball, Dirk.”

  “I don’t think the coach up there would agree with you on that,” I said.

  “Oh, fuck that guy,” said my dad. “I’ve coached for a long time and you never tell kids who are out there getting their ass kicked for your club that they don’t got what it takes. Look, Dirk, we may not be great at fluffing you up with encouragement, but one thing we Hayhursts are real good at is telling other people they can shove their opinions up their fucking asses. That’s what you need to do with this guy’s.”

  “I guess,” I said, smiling at my dad’s enthusiasm.

  “Ain’t no guessing about it.”

  “Alright,” I said. “I’ll try.”

  “Good!” said my dad. “But that don’t make your feet warmer, does it?”

  “No.”

  “You’re still afraid of marriage, aren’t you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, let me tell you something about that fear. Remember when you asked me about why I never went down to the wall in the backyard to pitch no more? It’s because I was afraid. I always enjoyed playing, pitching the most, but after you saw me there fumbling around on the mound, I felt embarrassed of how ridiculous I must have looked because I couldn’t do it like normal anymore.”

  “But you were making it work,” I said. “You were doing it your own way. There is nothing wrong with that.”

  “I know that now,” he said. “But, as busted up as I was then, it’s worse now. I can barely get a spoon in my hand let alone a baseball. I can’t walk as good neither, let alone wind up.”

  “I’m sorry, Dad,” I said, feeling like it was my fault.

  “You ain’t got to be sorry. The point is, I quit doing something I enjoyed because I was afraid I’d embarrass myself, or that I’d do it wrong, or shit, I don’t know, that the world would end or something. I figure you’re in the same boat now, except you’re walking away from more than a lump of dirt in the backyard. You can’t let some asshole with a negative opinion slow you down, or what you think the people around you are thinking of you. You gotta stop doubting yourself and do what you know how to do. And stop taking more out to that mound than you need to get the job done, for Christ’s sake. You go out there with the weight of the world on your back, no wonder you ain’t getting anybody out.

  “Now, listen, Bonnie’s a good girl for you. I told you that. You two are better together and she’s going to help you. I think she already has. She comes along and all of a sudden you’re in the Bigs. You couldn’t get your ass out of A ball with all the other girls you dated. You need to let her help you. That’s the mistake I made, Dirk. When I got hurt, I didn’t want anyone’s help because they didn’t know what it felt like to be me. Now I’ve lost years of my life I ain’t never going get back ’cause I wanted to figure it out alone. I hurt a lot of people acting that way.” He rumbled out a deep chuckle. “There’s another example for you not to follow.”

  I didn’t say anything for a long stretch after my dad finished his point. I just sat on my floor, surrounded by a half-assembled bed. It was the first silence I shared over the phone with a family member that wasn’t awkward. I could hear my dad un-mute the television in the background, but I didn’t mind. He didn’t tell me he had to go, but he gave me space to think nonetheless.

  “Dad,” I said, finally.

  “What?”

  “We should play catch sometime.”

  “Oh yeah?” he asked, skeptical.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “It won’t be much of a catch, Dirk. If I can even get a mitt on my hand.”

  “We’ll get it on there,” I said.

  “Well, even if ya do, you’d have to throw the ball right in my mitt ’cause I can’t catch for shit. And, no offense, but judging from how your big league time went, I don’t know if you’ll be able to do that,” he said.

  “Funny, Dad, very funny. I’ll hit your mitt, and if I don’t, I’ll just hit you.”

  “That’s fine. I won’t feel it anyway. That’s the silver lining of nerve damage.”

  “I didn’t know it had one.”

  “Not many, but you take what you can get.”

  “I wish I could turn off my feelings, sometimes,” I said.

  “No, you don’t,” he said. “Besides, you can’t. So make the most of what you can feel and stop overanalyzing it.”

  “Alright,” I consented. “I’ll try.”

  “Good. So,” he switched gears, “you ready for tomorrow now? Or am I going to have to hold your hand all night?”

  “I’m ready,” I said, smiling. “Thanks, Dad.”

  “Whatever,” he said. “Get some sleep, tomorrow’s a big day.”

  Chapter Seventy-four

  It was a beautiful day for a wedding. The landscape of the Holden Arboretum had put on its best autumn colors in honor of the event. We wanted the whole day to feel like a party with friends plus a wedding, not a formal ceremony. There was no pomp or pretense anywhere to be found, not in the homemade center pieces, the buckets of iced IBC root beer, or the casual way my dad, wearing nothing but blue jeans and his least stained T-shirt, milled around the place talking to Bonnie’s dad about which band was more significant to the era they grew up in.

  So far Bonnie’s and my plan was going perfectly. In fact, in light of the extensive plotting we did to map out exit strategies should either of our families have a meltdown, the smoothness with which things were running was unexpected. My mom followed Bonnie’s mom around, making sure things were getting done. My brother talked with Bonnie’s cousin about machines they had ripped apart and put back together. My groomsmen did their best to put up with Bonnie’s Army-proud brother’s promises of gutting me should I hurt her. And over it all you could hear my dad’s laughter at the recitation of Bonnie’s dad’s favorite e-mail forwards. Families are so cute when they behave.

  I stood on the bridge in the middle of the arboretum—far enough away to watch it all but not participate. There was a cone of silence around me once again, not unlike the one around me before my first start as a rookie in the Show. This was my Big Day, and everyone was giving me my space so I could get into the “I do” zone.

  Peering over the railing I stared down at my reflection in the pool below. I was wearing a white tuxedo with a white vest and a white tie. I even wore white Chuck Taylors, special-ordered with the date, OCT 5TH, 2008, stitched across the heel. The reflection staring back up at me was a man I didn’t know a year ago. He was one with a new life built from his own two hands, and a few lucky breaks. He was a big leaguer, a minor leaguer, afraid, and courageous. He was a man with new reasons and new confidence.

  “What you looking at?” came a soft voice from behind.

  I turned to see Bonnie, walking up the bridge. She was breathtaking in her white dress. Her was hair done up and a pink daisy was tucked behind one ear. She had a pink ribbon wrapped around her waist and tied in the back like a bow, as if she were a gift that was about to be given to me.

  “You,” I said, staring at her. “You look amazing.”

  We’d hired photographers to follow us around and do casual shots so we could capture the action as it happened. Presently, they were capturing what could only be described as awe over the woman I would be doing naughty things with come nightfall.

  “Do you like the dress?”

  “It’s perfect.”

  “You look good, too.”

  “Thanks, check out my shoes.” I turned around so she could see the date-stitched backs.

  “Awesome!”

  Bonnie came over and kissed me. Cameras clicked to immortalize it.

  “So who are all these people?” asked Bonnie, pointing at the pack of guests watching us from afar.

  “That li
ttle guy there who looks like a really excited lawn gnome, that’s Don. He’s one of my old high school coaches. He gets me leads on places to throw in the winter. Next to him, the guy with the thin-rimmed glasses and slicked-back hair, that’s Adam, my”—I corrected myself—“our agent. That couple next to him, the auburn-haired lady with the warm smile standing next to the dignified gentleman wearing high-water pants, that’s Dee and Steve Farber. They were my host parents one year during college summer league. And that foursome your brother is showing his knife to, they are my best men, Josh, Chad, Tim, and Lavern.”

  “Is that your other grandparents?” Bonnie asked, gesturing to the senior couple who just came in.

  “Yep. She’s much nicer than the grandma you met. Just don’t get her grandma talking about religion or you’ll get letters of handwritten King James scripture about why the world is going to hell for not interpreting the Bible correctly.”

  “Oh no,” said Bonnie. “They’re talking to my grandparents. My grandma is in the Church of Scientology. You have no idea how many times I’ve been told that I could heal myself by performing my own miracles. If they find out what the other believes—”

  “I got it covered,” I said, putting a hand up to stop Bonnie from worrying herself. I whistled at one of my groomsmen. He turned to face me, and I went through a series of signs, not unlike a third base coach would give to a base runner. He nodded, signaled back, and went over to the two elder couples where he cordially broke between them, asking them effusive questions about what they did during the Great Depression and so on.

  “How did you do that?” Bonnie looked at me.

  “I can’t tell the other team my signs,” I said. “It’s a rule.”

  “But we’re on the same team.”

  “Not yet, not for at least another half hour. I can’t take any chances. I can’t be too sure you’re not going to back out on me.”

  “I’m not going anywhere. My parents spent too much on this, they’d kill me.”

  “Are you sure? This is your last chance to run away and pursue that no-strings-attached life as a rodeo clown you’ve always wanted.”