Out of My League Page 5

  Players may joke about the remote feel of some of the smaller burgs that host minor league teams, but in The Jungle, you really do travel through areas where natives live in huts and livestock must be cleared from dirt roads for the team bus to advance. Winter Ball takes you to a part of the world that is less developed than the United States, but this doesn’t mean it’s not without its own unique charms—like paying you upwards of ten grand for a month of service. Fact is, unless you’re a big leaguer, you can’t beat the money down there, and ten grand feels like a hundred grand when you’re a minor leaguer used to living off paychecks that make a shoe shine boy snicker.

  The cash incentive makes competition for jobs fierce, and the demand for results even fiercer. The rivalries are so fierce that the turnover on pitching is like a miniature stock exchange. If you want to make it in The Jungle, you have to win, period. Go down and suck, and you’ll get sent home with no second chances. Even if you come back to the States and roll up an all-star season the following year in American ball, The Jungle doesn’t forget. It wants people who can win on its turf, and it will pay top dollar to get them. It’s not uncommon for teams in Winter Ball to pay proven winners obscene amounts just to pitch in one game. On the other hand, it’s not uncommon for Winter Ball teams to send players packing after one bad outing.

  Some players say this is a more pure form of baseball, that it’s survival of the fittest and thus the only way to play. Others say it’s a mockery of the sport and that it turns players into hired mercenaries with no loyalty. Most don’t care about the ramifications and just want to see the money and where to sign. I would fall into that category, and Adam knew it, especially since I just called begging him to get me out of my grandmother’s house, or at least help me find a legal way of getting her committed. But, as quick a fix as Winter Ball could be, I was reticent to pull the trigger.

  I had my reasons. First, the money, as good as it is, doesn’t always show up. There have been cases of guys not getting paid what their contracts stipulated, or not getting paid at all. Did I really want to give up my off-season just to run the risk of getting stiffed? Then, there is always the rumor mill of guys experiencing everything from theft to abduction in some of the more volatile cities. I couldn’t verify how much of that was truth or just locker room tales gone wild, but when your agent is telling you to take comfort in the fact that your driver is strapped and a very good shot, you at least have to think it over. Finally, there are things a player values doing during his off-season that can’t be bought away, and that was the part really holding me back. I just didn’t want to admit it to Adam.

  “I’m sorry, Adam. I don’t think it’s for me this year,” I said.

  “You’re telling me you’d rather work at a television store than make ten grand playing baseball?”

  When he said it like that, I wanted to lash myself as a penance for my stupid emotions. I remained committed. “Yeah, I just don’t think I want to risk it.”

  “There’s no risk. They love Americans!”

  “You’re right, I’m sure those stories about fingers mailed to parents in exchange for ransom payable to local drug lords are greatly exaggerated.”

  Adam groaned in the background, and I realized this great debate regarding me as a pitching gladiator in The Jungle would continue unless I came up with something more respectable than fear.

  “Look, I believe you, Adam,” I said. “I’m sure it’s safe as long as you can run faster than the bad guys, but I’m talking about the safety of my arm, here. I put a lot of mileage on it this year. You know how I insist on throwing so many touch-up bullpens between outings? Those add up! I may not have had a huge amount of recorded innings like a starter, but my stats don’t include all my warm-ups and shutdowns in the pen. Do you really want me to go play for a team that wants to win so bad they don’t care if I break? Is ten grand really worth a busted arm to you? I have to keep the big prize in mind.”

  Adam paused to assess my new evidence. Self-preservation sounds a lot like investment preservation if you say it right.

  “You have a point there,” said Adam. “That’s what I like about working with you, Hayhurst. You’re smarter than the average minor league misfit.”

  “One of us has to look out for me,” I said.

  “Hey! I’m always looking out for you. Most guys I have to talk into staying home and resting. I’m just trying to get you down there because I know you wanna get off your grandma’s floor. You called me, remember.”

  “I appreciate you thinking of my economic circumstances,” I said, “but you know how baseball players are about their superstitions. If I want to have another good year, I have to stay here and fight with grandma. It’s like Rocky and Apollo Creed.”

  “Alright, Shizzle, have it your way. I just want you to know you’ve pitched yourself into a better situation and you have options.” He paused, anticipating I might say something. I didn’t. “Well, go give Grandma hugs and kisses for me, and if you change your mind, you know where to call me.”

  “Will do. Thanks again for the offer and have a merry Christmas.”

  Adam cut me loose. I closed my phone, set it on the table, and continued flipping through the circulars as I tried to rationalize what I’d just done. Instead of taking a first-class flight to tropical sunshine, I’d be working through holiday madness at Circuit City. My stomach turned at the thought of lost wages. I could just see myself, Winter Ball check in hand, cartwheeling into the bank to cash it. I could see myself in a resort, slurping drinks from coconut husks, smoking cigars with a drug lord who promised to “solve” all my grandma problems if I just kept winning. Then I looked at my reflection in the windows of my grandmother’s kitchen and realized I was going nowhere except work in about twelve hours. There was no beach, no cigars, no tropical drinks. I was a prisoner in a cell of shag carpeting and plastic-covered furniture. My agent had just tried to spring me and I volunteered to stay behind. What the hell was I thinking?

  My phone buzzed. The vibration sent it scooting across the table where I snared it and answered, “Hello?”

  “Hi, honey, how are you?” It was Bonnie.

  “I’m good, you?”

  “I’m fine. Just wanted to call and hear your voice before I started work.”

  I smiled and plopped my head on my hand. “I’m glad you did,” I said.

  “Did you talk to Adam?”

  “Yes. We just finished.”

  “And?” She hung on my response.

  Bonnie was the reason I was staying around. The only reason. If I had tried to explain that to Adam, he would have slapped me through the phone, and rightly so. I was turning down the first life-changing chunk of cash I’d ever been offered for a girl I met on an Internet dating website four months ago. For God’s sake, where did I think this was going to go?

  But there it was, whispering in the back of my head, that voice, that silly, irrational, not-to-be-listened-to voice that knew Bonnie would say yes if I asked her to marry me right now. The thought had bounded through my head almost every waking moment these last few months, tempting me with ideas about futures and happiness and smashing cake into faces. It brought me dreams of a life not lived on Grandma’s floor, where words like virginity were no longer cause for my mom to pry or my teammates to laugh. It even controlled my hand to unconsciously take hold of Cosmopolitan magazine when the words “How to Know You’ve Met ‘The One’?” were plastered across the top. Lately, that little voice had been screaming at me, every time I looked into my grandma’s irritated face, every time Mom explained she was going to come back because my dad promised to get help. Every time I looked into Bonnie’s soft brown eyes. Maybe Bonnie was a chance to build a refuge? Or maybe it was just another soon-to-be-killed baseball romance? I had to know.

  “I said no.”

  There was a silent stretch while Bonnie considered what it meant. “That means I get to keep you for a few more weeks! Oh honey, that makes my day.”

  She didn
’t know it, but her reaction just made mine too.

  “Bonnie, I’d like to talk with you about something I’ve been thinking about lately. I was wondering what you thought—”

  “Hello, Miss Abigail. You look beautiful! Is that what you’re going to wear on the big day?” said Bonnie, extra cheery. Then, returning to me, she said, “I’m sorry. My client is here. Can we talk more tonight?”

  “I have to be in early tomorrow because of extended holiday sales hours.”

  “I’ll be setting up for the Share Day event all day tomorrow. Can we talk after?”

  “I have to pitch against the Walsh team.”

  “You’re still coming, though, right? We’re still going out afterward, right?”

  “I wouldn’t miss it,” I reassured her.

  “Can it wait till then?”

  “Sure, I guess.”

  “Great, I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  We said our good-byes. Tomorrow was a long way away, affording plenty of time for me to lose my nerve.

  Chapter Eight

  In my line of work, there is always someone with a bat standing between me and my goal. So it should come as no surprise that the person keeping me from reaching Bonnie’s concert on time was sixty feet way, with a chunk of lumber in hand.

  If you want to get to the top in this game, you’ve got to be a flexible opportunist. It’s a competitive industry, and no one has any sympathy for why another player gets chosen over you; not because you don’t want to go play ball in The Jungle; not because you’ve got a date with your girl; and especially not because you couldn’t find a place to throw during the off-season. When I have the opportunity to throw to a catcher on an angle in the winter, I have to take it. But, as is usually the case, there were a few strings attached. Winter facilities are hard to find, and tonight’s use of a catcher came along with a complement of college hitters from local Walsh University who wanted to test their bats against a pro guy’s fastball the same evening as Bonnie’s concert.

  I was just bringing my arm out of off-season hibernation, so it wouldn’t be much of a test. As a matter of fact, I came into it purely to get my body used to throwing off a mound again. I failed to take into account the ego factor of young male competitors, and soon, what was meant to be a friendly, knock-the-rust-off practice session turned into all-out testosterone warfare.

  Now batting, the Walsh University baseball team captain. He was a husky dude with a buzzed head, bulging arms, and blunt skull. He got into his stance at the plate like a power lifter, taking practice swings that could topple a bull elephant. Pine tar was slathered all over his bat and caked onto his helmet. Wrists taped, fingers taped, bat taped, he rolled up his sleeves to show how dedicated he was to bicep curls, not to mention the art of shaving his forearms. Finally, he adjusted his crotch while scowling at me, as if I’d done something to make him uncomfortable down there.

  Hitters are stupid. If they weren’t, they’d be pitchers. No one in their right mind would pick the side of the game that considers three out of ten good unless they’re slightly unhinged. I would bet if it were a real game, this guy would have on enough eye black to make him look like a member of KISS. I would bet he has a tattoo on him someplace, like an iron cross or a band of barbwire, or a mystical Chinese symbol meaning “strength” that really means “jackass” because no one who gets a Chinese tattoo knows how to read Chinese. I’ll bet he definitely fake tans, Nairs his package in the desperate imitation of his favorite porn star, and spends Saturdays stacking emptied Natural Light beer cans into silver pyramids on the coffee table.

  In his last at bat, Captain Curls here may have gotten a hit off me. He may have earned the high fives and butt slaps of his teammates, but I doubt it. Of course, it’s hard to tell what’s earned when you’re pitching in a batting cage in a modified storage barn in the winter—everything that comes off the bat flies into the netting with what seems like home run force.

  I toed the facility’s bike ramp turned pitching mound and went into the stretch position. Our catcher, a teammate of Curls, was also acting as our umpire. So caught up was he in the fear of who to side with in this matchup—the pro guy or the team captain—he simply ran through signs like a slot machine until I nodded.

  After I picked which finger I wanted to throw, I came set, kicked, and stuck a winter speed fastball on the corner. Curls fouled it back for strike one with a massive uppercut that would have sent the bat bursting through the ceiling and into a plane if he let go of it.

  Moans of “Oh, he just missed it,” echoed through his entourage.

  “Almost got you there,” said Curls, grinning at me.

  Did he really just say that? What a douche bag, I thought. I said nothing, of course, but reloaded on the mound, kicking and firing my response with a high and tight fastball, sending Curls spinning out of the box with a little chin music.

  “Almost got you there,” I said.

  Curls enjoyed this, the trash talk and the competitive anteing; you could tell by the way it seemed to charge him up. It was as if these little boasts were micro tests of manhood and winning them justified all the extra trips he made to the tanning bed.

  Watching him thrive reminded me of what it was like to be young and full of naïve stupidity. Poor bastard; if only Curls knew what was out there ahead of him, waiting to tell him to pick up dog turds. I almost felt sorry for him as I let a changeup tumble in for a called strike two.

  Curls leered at his supposed teammate umpire/catcher. “Whose team are you on, anyway, dickhead? That was six inches off the plate!”

  “What? He put it right in the spot!”

  “Your mom puts it right in the spot.”

  The ball was returned. I reloaded and fired again, another fastball fouled. Next came a change for a ball. Then a fastball for the kill that just missed. Then a change spit on. Soon we were in a full count and the adrenaline had reached its peak.

  “You’re not going to walk me,” said the suddenly confident captain.

  “I have no intention of it,” I shot back.

  “I’m staying in here till I get you or you get me.”

  “Right, because that would happen in a real game.”

  “You scared?”

  “Am I scared?” No, but I was aware of the situation. I knew if he got a hit off me now, after all this buildup, I’d never hear the end of it. Bested by a douche bag with a tattoo that read “egg roll,” inconceivable! My only option for clear-cut victory was to punch him out. The problem was, it was too early in the winter to take my curveball or slider off the shelf. I could roll a big sloppy hook in there for ball four, or a slider that doesn’t slide and catches that long, ogre swing. I needed something else from my bag of tricks. Something he hadn’t seen yet, maybe ever.

  “Okay, big dog. My best versus your best,” I said.

  “Best fastball?” He salivated.

  “Best fastball. I’m putting it right down the middle,” I said, charging him up. “All you have do is hit it.”

  “Alright then, let’s do this!” he said, finishing our exchange of action movie dialogue. Curls offered a toothy grin, knuckled up on his bat, and dug in.

  I reset on the bicycle ramp and put my best weapon to work: my brain.

  Baseball players are funny, predictable creatures, especially when they’re young. When the pressure is on and intensity is turned up, it’s natural to try to do too much—a classic shortcoming that’s plagued the breed for years. When that big payoff moment arrives, pitchers rear back and try to throw their arms off, only to miss the spot by four feet or get clubbed off the wall. Hitters swing like berserk Vikings only to whiff or watch their bats explode in a shower of splinters. Sometimes intensity is the enemy. Sometimes less is more. Sometimes a player needs to slow down and realize that by adding to the drama, you’re just playing into the other guy’s adrenaline high.

  For the payoff pitch, instead of my normal, methodical delivery of coming set and kicking, I came set, held, then s
tepped instantly home in a sharp, abbreviated motion, almost like I was picking off to the plate. I knew I wasn’t going to throw that hard this way, but what I lost in velocity I made up with the element of surprise.

  Captain Curls stood loaded at the plate, timing me in anticipation of a juicy heater. Instead, a 70 mph batting practice heater lazily lumbered right down the middle to a confused hitter who watched it float by.

  Remorsefully, his catcher and teammate, the dickhead, called him out.

  Instantly Curls’s minions turned on him. “Dude, how do you not swing at that? It was right there!”

  “Shut the hell up!” protested Curls. “That’s not even a legal pitch, right? That’s not a legal pitch, is it?” he said, glaring at his catcher. “He can’t do what he just did!”

  “I, I don’t know, dude,” sputtered the catcher.

  Curls dropped his bat and stared at me. “What the hell was that crap?”

  “You striking out. Perfectly legal,” I said, stepping out of the cage. To be honest, I wasn’t sure if it would work. I never had enough guts to do something like that in a real game. Coaches always talk about how effective a little timing variation is at screwing up a hitter, but it can also screw up a pitcher. I decided I’d have to hold on to that little trick.

  “That wasn’t your best fastball,” continued the captain.

  “Best is such an arbitrary term,” I said, changing my shoes and stuffing my glove into a gym bag.

  “You’re done? You can’t leave us on that.”

  “Sorry, gentlemen, I have to. I got a date tonight and you’re out of time.”

  “You got a date? You’re blowing us off for a girl?” Like a group of seventh-graders, they all oohed over my admission.

  “Easy, princess. Don’t be mad at me because things didn’t work out in there the way you wanted.”