TOSSEDBaseball's a long season. It's always a long season, and once it's over, you're relieved. You're always relieved. But only for a little while, because then, the winter comes, and you realize something. You realize it all at once, like a switch clicking on. You realize that your wife and your kids and the house and this SUV that you're driving through a Biblical ice storm on the way to the Garden City Mall to pick up that last minute Christmas present that you forgot for your son, all feel like a FUCKING PRISON! At this point you wanna break out of that prison. And it's at
this point in time, when we're gearing up to start the new season, that I would like to share with you a story from the early part of my career.
I was throwing in the Dust Bowl League for the Toledo Mudskippers; the Big Club's Double-A affiliate. After an impressive year in Single-A with the Portland Green Sox, I was promoted to Toledo with hopes of quickly moving on to Evansville and then (Baseball Gods Willing) to the Show. But as things turned out, that didn't happen. I injured my throwing arm during the two seconds out of the day that I take batting practice. Being a pitcher, I didn't take much batting practice. Oh I took my fair share when all was said and done, but in this instance I have no idea what happened. I swing Lefty and throw Righty, so when I heard something pop in my elbow on my backswing I shit my pants.
You think I'm joking, but I literally shit myself in the batting cage and had to waddle like a bow legged penguin back to the trainer's room. I collapsed on the trainer's floor. Skip, our trainer took one look at me and laughed so much that he almost shat himself too. Now, I took this popping noise in my elbow seriously. But at the same time, I wanna play. I'm young, I'm twenty-two, I'm ready to make an impact, I don't wanna go on the sixty day Disabled List when I'm ready to make some moves! My thoughts raced as a twenty-two year old.
Long story short, I cover up the injury. My arm starts hurting when I pitch and it shows in my work. The trainer's pissed and ownership is pissed. I was a top prospect and they didn't want to lose me to injury. My coach Whitey Forrester is beyond pissed. Whitey finds out I've been hiding an injury for a month and a half and he wants to kill me. Instead he yells at me; reads me the riot act. He says that not only am I letting myself down, but I'm letting my team down and that's no kind of ball player to be.
I take a few weeks off and I'm back. My elbow feels better and I have an odd string of starts. Starts where I'm limiting the opposition's offense. But I'm just not getting those wins. My offense can't score and it's driving me crazy. If I let up a run, the other guy pitches a shutout. If I let up three, we score two, If I lay a six run dinosaur egg in the first inning and dominate the next five innings, it doesn't matter cause my team can only score five.
One day I say to myself, "Ok, You can't rely on anyone out there but yourself. So you're gonna take this game in to your own hands throw up a fucking zero. So that's what I did, I threw up a zero; through eight and a third innings. Then they took me out and of course our closer blew it in the ninth, but I felt good about what I did.
It takes me a few more starts before I really get that good feeling back in my arm. Then, I feel good. I top ninety-nine on the radar with my Fastball. My Slider steals across the plate with what I consider "Mariano-Esque" movement. My Change-up freezes the best hitters in the league. I'm winning games now. I started the season one and seven. Now I've got six wins in a row under my belt. I cut my E.R.A. in half and I'm going six innings a game consistently.
Here's where the story starts.
We're in Bedford Falls. There are literally twelve people in the stands. No one comes to minor league games. We have a 1:05 start time and the sun is unmerciful. However, I'm on the mound and my arm feels God like. I can go nine innings if necessary. The first inning goes smoothly; I strike out two and get a grounder to short. The second inning comes and I run the count full on the first batter. He fouls off a few. I rear back and throw him a fastball. Bam! I nail one on the outside corner for a strike.
"Ball!" Shouts the umpire. I curse the Ump under my breathe. That was a strike. He knows it was a strike. I'm thinking about that pitch and all of a sudden I find myself in a bases loaded, no out jam. I was feeling good about this game, now I'm wondering if I'm gonna get outta the second. I get Stankiewiezc to pop out to the catcher. One out. I strike out Gomez on three pitches.
"I'm almost outta this."
Fernandez hits a first pitch screamer to short. The throw looks late, he's safe.
"Out!" Screams the first base umpire. The River Rats' manager explodes out of the dugout and races towards first to tear the Umpire's head off. Fernandez was safe by a mile. I know it, Fernandez knows it and you sure as hell bet the first base umpire is gonna know it by the time the River Rats Skipper was done with him.
I've got to explain something about Dust Bowl Minor League baseball. Sometimes we only had three umpires a game. This was one of those games. Without one umpire dedicated to every base, umpires are often out of position on critical calls. It just hurts the game.
Fast forward to the sixth inning. I haven't let up any runs to this point and we've got the lead thanks to Sanchez's clutch two-run homer. My arm's feeling good. I can go as long as I have to. The first batter grounds one to third. Easy throw, he's out by a mile.
"Safe!" says the first base ump. Are you kidding me?
"What a fucking make-up call" I half mumble, half shout.
"What did you say?" Inquires the umpire.
"I said," loudly "that was a fucking make-up call."
"Watch it buddy!" Shouted back the ump.
"Yeah, yeah." I said.
Now I'm really pissed. Our third baseman makes a quality play; the kinda play that any ump who doesn't read braille on a regular basis gets right, and this schlub trying to amend his earlier screw up decides to call him safe. Well, guess who that affects. That affects ME.
The next batter lines one into short right field. The runner on first rounds second and heads for third. We've got him, he's gonna be out by a mile. Here's the throw - it's on line and ahead of the runner - third baseman grabs the ball, applies the tab in plenty of time and I pump my fist in the air and scream "Yeah!!" Cause that felt good.
"Safe!" Says the second base umpire. What! Are you kidding me?! Again with this? He was blatantly out.
"That's two make up calls mother fucker" I fume. the left side of the infield umpire runs up to me.
"What was that?!" He shouts.
"I said," and I shouted this loud enough so that all twelve people in the stands could hear, "That's TWO - MAKE - UP - CALLS - MOTHER - FU-CKER!"
"YOU ARE OUTTA HERE! GET OFF MY DIAMOND!"
"YOUR DIAMOND!? YOU DON'T BELONG OUT HERE! YOU WEREN'T EVEN IN POSITION TO MAKE THE CALL!"
"YOU'RE DONE! GET OFF!"
"WHATEVER, THAT WAS A FUCKING MAKE UP CALL - AND YOU KNOW IT!" My manager Whitey Forrester comes running out of the dugout and pulls me off the field.
Whitey argues for a while. He does his best Earl Weaver impression. Whitey gets tossed too.
We lose.
After the game Whitey calls me in to his office. Whitey's a stout round little old guy, maybe seventy-five or eighty, been around the game his whole life.
I walk in to his office. His feet are up on his desk, his pipe is in his hand.
"Sit down kid." Whitey grunts through his smoke cloud.
"You gonna pay the fine?" Whitey asked. I was going to receive a fine for cursing at the umpire and arguing the call. It wouldn't be more than fifty bucks.
"Fuck that" I said, "I'm not paying no goddamn fine." Whitey paused for a moment and took a drag off his pipe.
"Good." he said, "Fuck the fine. That jizz biscuit blew the call. I wouldn't pay it. Now get outta here."
The months passed, the end of the season neared and the deadline for paying the fine came. For all my talk, I had to pay it. You had to pay it or face a hearing, and from what I'd heard up to that point, that didn't sound like any fun. We were in Daytona which happens to be where the Dust Bowl League's commissioner's office is located. Before my start I went up to the Commissioner's office.
In the elevator I took out two twenties and a ten, wadded them in a ball and shoved the thing in my pocket. I got off on the twelfth floor. It was the top floor. The room was ordinary. There was a secretary seated at a table to my right.
"Excuse me" I said to her.
"Can I help you?"
"I'm here to see the commissioner" I told her who I was and why I was there.
"Please have a seat, he'll be with you in a minute." Before I could sit down, she buzzed me in to his office.
The commissioner was a trim man, fit, in his early forties with glasses, a sweaty brow and a 1940's feel about him. A ceiling fan spun quite loudly above our heads and his suspender straps looked like they'd been digging a painful ridge in his shoulders all day.
We exchanged pleasantries and then quite abruptly he said,
"So, you got the money?"
"Yeah," I said. "I got the money... But this is bullshit." I took the fifty bucks out of my pocket, shoved it in his sweaty palm and left.
I threw seven innings that day. We beat Daytona 1-0.
-jw
