The Bullpen Gospels Read online

  “There,” he said, as if he had done me a favor.

  “Do you, uh…do you want me to sign one for you? A lot of people like that kind of thing.”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure? I mean, I am a real pro athlete.”

  “No.”

  “I’ll go ahead and sign one for you and you can give it to your wife or son or…”

  His eyes came out of the dark clefts of his dense silver eyebrows. His face, so worn and beaten, still had such intensity. “Look at me kid. What in the hell am I going to do with a goddamn baseball card?”

  “I, uh…I just thought it would make you feel good,” I said, and then smiled.

  “Make me feel good?” he heckled. “I live on the goddamn street!”

  “Well, I know, but—”

  “Do you know why?” he interrupted. I did not, and my blank expression proved it.

  “’Course you don’t, why the hell would you bother to find out?”

  “…”

  “My wife got sick. I lost my job, and our insurance went with it. With no insurance, we couldn’t afford to keep her in medicine. Then”—if he was remorseful, it was buried in his frustration—“she died, ’cause I couldn’t get a job to pay for treatment. We were married twenty years. Twenty years! I lost everything trying to keep her with me and now she’s gone. I got nothing and nobody. I walk around, and everyone thinks I’m on the street ’cause I’m some crackhead or something. I live handout to handout, and you think you’re just gonna fix it all with your goddamn baseball card?” He stared right through me, his words stealing the noise out of life around us. Then he picked my card up and looked at it again. “Oh, you look real good underneath that jersey, don’t you? Not a care in the world.” Then he crumpled the card in his dirty hand, and tossed it at me. “You can keep your bullshit card.”

  All I could muster was, “I’m sorry.”

  “You can keep that too!”

  I sat at the table, trying to escape his gaze.

  “Can’t a man just get a meal here?” he bellowed. “I gotta get preached to before I can eat so I started comin’ late. Now, I gotta listen to your bullshit about how great your life is?”

  I fumbled in my pocket and pulled out his meal ticket as ordered. As I plucked it free, the entirety of my pocket’s contents poured forth. Baseball cards and meal tickets splattered on the floor. Cards, worthless cards, with glossy pictures of an inconsequential idiot littered the space at our feet along with precious meal tickets written with a ballpoint pen on nothing more than shards of scrap printer paper.

  I bent down on one knee and picked up the mess as fast as I could. The ragged man watched me labor at his feet. He wore black workman’s boots that were falling apart. One boot had duct tape wrapped around it and both soles looked like blown-out tire treads.

  “Looks like those shoes have had it?” My voice was back to normal. I must have found my natural tone somewhere in the mess on the floor.

  The ragged man kicked out one shoe. “These pieces of shit? Bought ’em at the Super Walmart just a month ago. One month! They’s already fallin’ apart.”

  “Why didn’t you take them back?”

  “Won’t let me. Didn’t believe me, and I didn’t keep the receipt neither—I finally got enough money to buy me some decent shoes and this is what I got.” He mumbled curses, looking down at his feet.

  This time of year in Ohio, the cold weather turns from snow to rain almost every other day. The ragged man’s feet had to be wet; there was no way, with so many standing puddles of slush-filled water, he was keeping his feet dry.

  I looked to my feet. I was wearing Bass Company boots, fancy leather workman’s boots but not for working—they were too dressy. I got them a few years back with some extra Christmas money and kept them in fine condition, only wearing them when the weather necessitated.

  “What size are your boots?” I asked.

  “They’re a ten.”

  It was in my brain. Something was pulling at me. Maybe it was always there, and I just did my best to tune it out. My mouth started talking, “You wanna switch?”

  “What?”

  “I’m asking you if you wanna swap shoes?”

  The ragged man frowned at me as if I were playing a cruel joke. Then as if this was a bet he couldn’t afford not to take, he wiped his face, tugged his matted beard, and said, “I’ll switch, but you’re the one getting the raw end of the deal here, pal.”

  “I’ll be alright.”

  “Okay then,” he said, and he wasted no time kicking off his mangled boots. I unlaced mine, slipped them off, grabbed the pair together gently above the tongue, and handed them to him. He kicked his across the floor to me to complete the trade. He placed my boots on his feet and tied them up.

  “How do they fit you?”

  “Real good, these are real good, and”—he took some steps—“fit perfect, like they was made for me.” Reaching down, he pressed the tip of the boot to indicate where his toe snugly stopped. Then he almost began to smile, but stopped himself and eyed me with suspicion.

  “Enjoy man. They’re all yours.”

  His eyes and face changed, almost softening. The wildness left his countenance. He seemed like a person, like a man, a broken one but no longer disconnected. As cracked and cold as it was, his face began to warm. Maybe it was the way I viewed him now, maybe he was always that way.

  “Thank you,” he said, in voice of the most genuine appreciation I’d ever heard. “This is a great kindness you’re doing.” The rough grains of his voice had smoothed out, and for a second I thought he might tear up. Instead of speaking, he reached out a dirty hand. Without hesitation, I took his hand in mine, and we shook.

  “Thank you,” I said, stunned by it all. I gave him his meal ticket, and out of my life he walked in his dry, new boots, enroute to a chicken noodle meal that was mmm-mmm good.

  Having nothing else to wear, I put on the ragged man’s old boots. They were, as I expected, soaked through. The damp soles discharged icy water into my socks on contact, and I almost tripped when the blown-out soles caught the corner of the steps. Wet, cold, blown apart, those boots were the best shoes I’d ever worn.

  I didn’t know that man in rags, and he didn’t know me, but we knew how to treat each other because of the clothes we wore. Yet, something deeper than stained rags, dirty hands, glossy pictures, and clean uniforms took place between us. In that moment, both awkward and perfect, something happened I didn’t quite understand. For a moment the burden of baseball left my shoulders, and I wasn’t a player to be labeled. Though I didn’t understand it all right there, I knew my life in the game was going to change.

  Chapter Five

  My grandma didn’t exactly come to see me off as much as she came to stare eerily at me one last time for good luck. She lurked by the open garage door, safe from the harmful rays of direct sunlight, watching me like some carrion bird, as if I might take a dump in her yard. I threw my big suitcase and my Padres-issued equipment bag in the back of the cab and smacked the top of the trunk signaling I was ready to go. Then, despite myself, I managed to play good grandson long enough to hug my grandma even though the risk of being bitten on the neck was considerable.

  At the airport check-in counter, I was informed that my bags were both overweight by about ten pounds. It’s hard to pack six months of stuff in one suitcase and an equipment bag. As I forked out one hundred dollars for the overages, I promised myself I’d ship my stuff next year. Then I recalled, I’d promised myself I’d do that last year.

  Airplanes can be depressing, especially when you wind up with a middle seat between two chubby businessmen. When I boarded they followed me in, squeezing into the seats on the left and right of me and forcing me into that awkward game of chess involving armrest space. If this were a team flight, my compatriots and I would be smacking each other on the back of the head by now, ringing call buttons, annoying the stewardesses, and generally making asses of ourselves. There is safet
y in team numbers, a confidence not present when you’re alone. As it was, I pretended I was a mime, and flipped open SkyMall magazine while the business brothers broke out their BlackBerrys.

  While I marveled over SkyMall’s life-changing ingenuity, the brothers sparked up a conversation, speaking through me as if I were invisible, rambling on about widget sales and gross national product or something. Suddenly excited, they hit on some bar they knew in the area they were headed to and how they were going to get ripped, how there was a dancer there, and how if their wives knew about all of it, they’d be in the doghouse—again. They laughed very mischievously, like the Dukes of Hazzard business edition, and might have shared high fives if my head wasn’t in the way.

  I gave up on SkyMall and made a break for my iPod. I had to rummage through my carry-on to get at it, dredging up all the items I had packed in the process, including the worn chunk of leather I passed for a glove. When I took out my mitt, the Duke Brothers took interest.

  “You a ballplayer?” Bo Duke asked from the window seat. He motioned toward my glove.

  “Yeah,”

  “College?”

  “No, professional”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, I’m reporting to spring training today.”

  “Oh, right on, man. What position do you play?”

  “I’m a pitcher.”

  “Righty or lefty?”

  “Righty, unfortunately.”

  “How long you been playing?”

  “This is my fifth year.”

  “Hey Luke, this guy plays professional baseball, how about that?” He called to his buddy, but there was no way he couldn’t have heard me as tightly as we were packed in.

  “Oh yeah?” Luke Duke said from the aisle seat. “What position do you play?” he asked me, but the guy by the window answered.

  “He’s a pitcher”

  “Righty or lefty?”

  “He’s a righty who wishes he were a lefty,” Bo said.

  “How long you been playing?”

  “He’s been playing for five years, Luke.” I didn’t even know the guy sitting next to me and already he was talking as if he edited my Wikipedia page.

  “Got any time in the big leagues?”

  “No, no time yet.” I answered for myself.

  “So you’re just a minor leaguer then?”

  What’s that supposed to mean? “Just a minor leaguer?” What are you, just a vacuum cleaner salesman? “Yes, sir, I’m just a minor leaguer.” I exhaled.

  “Well, keep playing, never give up. You’ll hate yourself for the rest of your life if you do. You’ll wake up every day and feel terrible about it.” He said it, and then sighed, shaking his head as if I just brought up a dead relative.

  How was I supposed to respond to that statement? Did he really need to drop the “hate yourself for the rest of your life” line? There are a lot of people out there with sports-themed regrets, but this was a tad excessive. I nodded very mime-like.

  “I’d still be playing today if I hadn’t had kids,” he continued, forcing an empty laugh before elbowing me in a “know what I mean” type way, but I didn’t.

  “Did you play pro for a while?” I asked.

  “No, I got my girlfriend pregnant in high school and had to quit ball to get a job. The kid ruined my dreams of playing. Don’t have kids. They wreck your life!” Again he laughed in an inside-joke kind of way, and again I didn’t feel as if I was on the inside. I laughed with him to make him feel better.

  “Yeah,” he continued, “I was one of the best players on my high school squad. I was looking at colleges and was going to try for the pros, but life gets in the way, you know?”

  “Yeah, that’s a shame,” I said. “Someone should really tell life to quit doing that.”

  “I had a knockout curve,” he continued, staring off into dreamland, “and I had to have been throwing at least ninety miles per hour. We didn’t have radar guns or nothing, but all the guys told me I was throwing real hard.”

  “Oh. Wow,” I said, highly doubtful but mastering it.

  “Yeah, she said she was on birth control, but I don’t believe it. She knew I was going to be something special. She thought she’d just lock me down, you know?”

  “Hmmm.”

  “My advice to you, buddy, don’t trust women.” He stopped and looked at me with a queer smile. “I’ll bet a guy like you gets women after him all the time, what with being a ballplayer and all.” He stared at me as if I had the power to possess women with my uniform. I thought about the only woman in my life, my grandma, and felt the urge to tell him she was available. Instead I said, “Oh you know it, man! All the time,” and elbowed him back.

  “Attaboy! Don’t ever give it up son, trust me. Say, you know my cousin’s kid has one hell of an arm. Do you think you could get me in touch with a scout to come watch him? I think he’s got what it takes. I’ve been working with him. Taught him the old hook.” He wrung his arm as best he could in our tight seating to demonstrate.

  “Looks like a good one.”

  “Yeah, it’s nasty.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  “So, can you get me in touch with a scout?”

  “Yeah, sure. We do that all the time.” We never do that.

  “What do I do, just give you my info then?”

  “Yeah, I’ll pass it on to the Padres for you.”

  “Ooh, the Padres?” he cringed.

  “Yeah, why?”

  “Um…I was hoping you could get the Yankees.”

  “…”

  I spent forty-five minutes I’ll never get back listening to Luke’s life story before the plane touched down in Chicago. He handed me his card as we exited the plane. I threw it away as soon as he was out of sight.

  The long connector flight to Phoenix had me sitting next to a senior couple. They wore big, Terminator-style sunglasses that covered up their whole head. They had to use the bathroom every fifteen minutes and kept complaining about how much they hated today’s music compared to the good ol’ days when you could understand lyrics and women didn’t dress like hussies. When they saw my mitt, they asked me if I was a ballplayer. I told them it was a present for my kid brother in Arizona. I told them he was having an operation due to a rare disease called turf toe, and he was going to be off his feet for a while. Baseball was his favorite sport, so I got him the glove from this really nice, caring, and handsome pro pitcher named Dirk Hayhurst, who played for the Yankees. They said they’d keep an eye out for him. I told them my name was Eric Heater. They said it was shame I didn’t play baseball with a name like that.

  Chapter Six

  Car after car came buzzing around the Phoenix terminal while I lingered in the shade, hiding from the high-voltage sun. Cops made people who loitered too long move; families hugged hello and good-bye. I stood curbside with my luggage looking for the Padres shuttle van, a plain, white, eighteen-passenger van, with one small sign that read Padres printed out on standard computer paper and taped to the bottom right of the windshield. About a half an hour after I landed, it scooped up me and a few others and whisked us to our team hotel.

  The Padres’ spring training hotel is a Country Inn and Suites nestled right up against the highway about fifteen minutes from the Peoria Sports Complex. It’s a nice place, and everyone who was with the Padres before it relocated to the Inn and Suites says it’s a palace compared with the dump the team used to be put up in.

  I liked the hotel because it had free, fresh-baked cookies in a glass jar at the front desk. This year, the hotel desk also featured an eye-candy dish courtesy of a well-stacked blonde sporting a tight Padres’ T-shirt. She smiled as I approached, my luggage in tow. Undoubtedly, she would become the object of regular player attention, fielding stupid questions, direction requests, package inquiries, pillow-fluffing needs, mattress-fluffing needs, and other after-hours activities.

  I, for example, led off with, “Hi, I’m a player with the Padres. Can you tell me where the check-in
is?” even though there were a series of bold signs clearly directing new arrivals, besides my previous years of check-in experience. Nevertheless, she gave me thorough directions in a giggly, bouncy voice that made it completely worth it.

  I hefted my luggage to the conference room as directed. Inside were members of the organization’s training staff, which doubled as secretarial staff this time of year, imprisoned behind stacks of papers.

  Checking in for spring training can be a hassle. There’s a heap of paperwork to be signed, answering questions ranging anywhere from “Do you have drug allergies?” to “Does it feel like razor blades when you pee?” I’m sure it’s important to the organization to get all urinating habits out in the open, but the biggest part of check-in is getting a room and roommate.

  There are only so many suites in the Country Inn and Suites, and a smart player spends the whole year kissing up to trainers to make sure he can score a suite with his buddy the following year. So when I hit the check-in room and met two new faces, I didn’t see new trainer friends, I saw a year’s worth of ass-kissing out the window.

  “Name?”

  “Hayhurst, Dirk.” Upon my utterance, the questioner sifted through a pile of names and sheets, found my information, and marked me off as arrived.

  “Do you have any suites left?” I asked, as he worked.

  “I don’t think so,” he said, absently shuffling, “I think we gave them all out.”

  “Well, I hate to play the seniority card, but I’ve got five years in this hotel, and if I was ever going to use seniority to get a perk, it would be on this issue. I’ve been looking forward to a suite all off-season, and believe me, if you spent a whole winter at my grandma’s, you’d look forward to it too. Besides, there can’t be that many older guys in-house this year?” Most of the other guys in my age bracket were at big-league camp, found places outside the hotel, or were fired.

  The trainers sighed and cycled through the rooms. I’d been grinding it out for half a decade, and if I wasn’t going to make it out of this camp, at least I could have a nice winter vacation in Arizona in a room with a refrigerator and a goddamn microwave.