The Bullpen Gospels (14 page)

“Did you guys see that girl in the stands?” Stubbs asked.

“There’s like a million girls in the stands, Stubbs.”

Stubbs rolled his eyes. “Well I know, he-he, but did you see the one right next to us?” He pointed at her. We all turned in our chairs to pick out the chick in the stands. She was wearing a tight white shirt and jeans, and was surrounded by middle-aged kids.

“I wonder if she’s a teacher.”

“Why would you wonder that?”

“Because of all the kids around her.”

“Maybe she’s the big sister?”

“No, she looks like a teacher to me, he-he.”

“I didn’t know they had a specific make to them.”

“Are you going to talk to her?”

“How? What am I going to do? Yell at her in the middle of the crowd?”

“Send her a ball-o-gram.” Meaning, write the message on a baseball and toss it to her.

Stubbs sat for a second to consider the option. “Do we have baseballs we can spare?”

“We don’t have any more scuffed ones, but we can use a good one for this worthy operation,” Rosco said.

“We’ll write it off as an entertainment expense,” Slappy said fumbling with his fistful of change.

Stubbs fished out a ball from the bullpen ammo bag, then asked one of the waitresses in the Diamond Club beer garden for a pen. Taking the pen to the ball, Stubbs wrote, Teacher or student? on it. Then he walked over to the base of the stadium seating containing the girl in white.

Stubbs pointed at his lady. She looked confused. He pointed again, this time showing the ball, making pantomime motions of his intent to throw it to her. Other fans started begging for the ball like dogs panting at the dinner table. Stubbs explicitly expressed whom it was for and tossed it to the girl. She caught it, then looked at the ball. She looked back at Stubbs, who slyly mouthed, “Write me back.” It was the baseball equivalent of passing notes with
Do you like me? Check yes or no.

“Do you think she’ll write back?”

“I don’t know. I think she might, but she looked confused,” Stubbs said.

“She’d better write. That was a good baseball,” Slappy said.

“If I would have taken it over, she’d write back for sure. I don’t know about you though, Stubbs. You might have scared her off,” Rosco said.

“He does have a big one,” Pickles echoed.

“Fuck you, guys. Ladies love my style. I’m cuddly, he-he.”

“And can fit in most overhead bins.”

“Screw you.”

This lady must have dug Stubbs’ style, because five minutes later, the ball came back. The lady in white walked over and returned the ball-o-gram to sender. Stubbs caught her toss, rolled it around until he could find the reply message, which simply said, “Teacher.”

“See! I told you she looked like a teacher! He-he.”

“That doesn’t mean anything Stubbs. She could have written that to imply she wasn’t a kid. Or even that’s she’s a freaky kind of girl, you know, like she’ll teach you a thing or two big boy.”

“Hey, hey, hey! Now we’re getting someplace. You gotta find out Stubbs,” Slappy said, grabbing Stubbs’ shoulders. “Dealing with little jerk-off kids all day, dreaming of meeting a professional athlete at night. She needs an outlet! You gotta find out!”

“Okay, okay!” Stubbs said, wrenching free of Slappy’s grip. Stubbs set to writing his next letter on the remaining ball space. “Want to come over to my place and play after school?”

“Wow, that’s a bold move! What if she’s not old enough? That statement to an underage girl is incriminating as hell.”

“Well, she couldn’t say she was a teacher if she wasn’t old enough.”

“No, no, no. She could totally say that. Girls lie about shit all the time,” Slappy insisted.

“You were the one that wanted me to write her back, Slappy.”

“I still do.”

“Are we going to see you on
How to Catch a Predator
someday, Slappy?” I asked.

“What? No! Come on. I’m just saying she could lie. Look, if she writes back she’s definitely freaky.” He rubbed his hands together.

“But if she’s not of age, then it doesn’t matter.”

“It does matter if she’s not of age. You could get in trouble, Stubbs.”

“Only one way to find out,” Maddog said. We all looked at Stubbs, who held the ball. It was his decision.

“Oh what the hell!” Stubbs got up and made his way to the stands. He delivered the ball and walked back. None of us spoke as we waited. Five minutes later the ball was returned to us with the following words: “What happens if I’ve got detention? I’ve been a very naughty girl.”

“Ohhh shit!” the pen roared.

“Wow, he-he.”

“You gotta find out how old she is man.”

“She looks older to me. Definitely over eighteen, like young twenties, for sure.”

“I don’t think it matters at this point.”

“Yeah, what kind of underage girl writes this kind of stuff down?”

Stubbs wrote out the request and made the pilgrimage to the stands for a third time. Again, the ball came back, this time with the following: “Old enough to teach, but young enough to tease. Amy, twenty-five years old, 951-
^{*** ****}
.

“Wow, who would have thought it would be that easy?”

“Never underestimate the power of a man in uniform, boys,” Rosco said.

“Are you going to call her?”

“Heck, yes, I am, he-he.”

“Oh, we gotta know how that goes down.”

“I wonder what her students think right now?” Pickles said.

“I’ll bet they all wish they could be you, Stubbs!”

“I’ll bet they don’t—most of them are taller than you.”

“Screw you, guys!”

I walked through the clubhouse doors around 2:00 in the afternoon. I put my backpack down and checked the itinerary on the dry erase board. It read Pitchers’ Stretch at 3:15, Position Players at 4. There was a note under the Kangaroo Court list that said Offenders, Pay Your Fucking Fines!

Pickles was standing naked in front of the big screen with a pair of sunglasses on. He was rocking out to “Free Bird” on Guitar Hero. He tells everyone he plays better naked—you get used to it. As long as he doesn’t use his “extra mic” in the song, we’re fine. Several of the other guys were perched around the place, watching Pickles go, like at a real rock concert. He’s fun to watch play, not because he’s naked, but because he really gets into the music, windmilling the guitar and drop-kicking furniture when he hits climactic notes.

I picked my way around the awestruck spectators and dumped my stuff into my locker. You may think it’s strange, grown men sitting around watching a naked man play digital guitar. Maybe it is, but you get used to that too.

I changed, threw on some sandals, and made my way back to join the crowd. I was going to sit on the floor in an open area, but before I could, Slappy grabbed my shoulder and told me not to.

“Why not?” I asked.

“Tiny threw up there, last night.”

“What do you mean, last night? When? We were at the Diamond Club.” The front office keeps the club open for the boys every dollar beer night.

“No, after the Diamond Club. Tiny was so drunk that he didn’t want to go home to his host family, so he came back here and crashed on the couch. He rolled over and threw up on the floor there.” Slappy pointed at the damp spot I was about to sit in. Tiny must have taken liberal advantage of the free brews for players rule.

“He went to the bathroom and threw up there a few times too, then passed out, and slept on the floor in there.”

“He slept on the bathroom floor?” I said, mouth open and hand stuck to forehead. I looked into the bathroom where the floor was wet from some mysterious leak. At least I hoped it was a leak.

“Yeah. It was fucking hilarious. You should have seen it,” Slappy roared.

“Come to think of it, the place does smell a little worse than usual. Did you take pictures?”

“Yeah, but he doesn’t know it yet, so don’t tell.”

“Oh, that’s going to be great blackmail.”

Pickles was just getting into the “Free Bird” guitar solo. We watched him rock, destroying the expert setting as if he wrote the song. He played it through its completion, maxed out all the points, and then tossed the guitar down as if he were bored. He faked a yawn and walked away. Some of the guys applauded.

“You done, Pickles?” Seth asked.

“Yeah, I’d play more, but I can’t get more perfect than perfect,” he said, strutting around.

“Good. Now put some fucking clothes on; I’m sick of looking at your naked ass.”

“I’m not naked.” Pickles tipped his shades so he could just see over the rims. “I got sunglasses on!” He then bounded over to his locker and started putting on real clothes.

Frenchy and Brent selected two-player mode now that the master was done. Frenchy picked up the extra guitar, but Brent just stared at Pickles, not wanting to touch it because “the master” had rubbed his junk all over it. “You need to clean your guitar off when you’re done, Pickles. It’s got wiener sweat on it.”

“I know. It’s how I mark my territory,” Pickles said, jerking up a pair of sliders.

“That’s sick,” the irritated Brent complained. Staring at Pickles’ guitar, Brent slumped his shoulders and went into the training room to get a pair of rubber gloves and some sanitary wipes.

While he was gone, Seth stole the remote and changed the channel to something other than video games. No one griped much. Guitar Hero is live in concert every day in our clubhouse, so a break is always welcome.

Seth changed the channel to some elimination date show on MTV, and again the boys were transfixed. Tiny walked in shortly thereafter. Slappy clapped his hands together and greeted him with, “Well, well, well. Look who it is. How you feeling today, broken arrow?”

“I’ve felt better,” Tiny said. He walked to his locker and sat down on his dressing stool. His face was like a bad watercolor portrait. He made changing into his uniform look like a workout.

“I’m surprised you don’t have some incurable rash growing on your face from sleeping in the bathroom last night,” I said.

“I suppose Slappy told you everything.” Slappy just put his hands up as if to say, “What did you expect?”

“Yeah, man, I can’t believe you heaved on the clubhouse floor,” I continued. “This is my fourth year here, and I don’t remember anyone puking in the clubhouse.”

“I did?” Tiny asked. He was in mid change, about to put on his shorts, but stopped to check out the place I was pointing to. “I don’t remember that one. I remember puking in the bathroom, but not there on the floor. Remind me to tip Ephrian for cleaning it up.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Slappy said, grinning maliciously. “I don’t think you’ll have any trouble forgetting this stunt. Not if I have anything to do with it.”

“You’re one to talk Slap-nuts,” Tiny said. “You made out with one of the front-office chicks last night. You fucking savage. You took her into the kitchen and sucked her face for like an hour!” Tiny thought he had some dirt on Slappy, but you could never have dirt on Slappy because he didn’t care. He once slept with a chick who was so hammered on cranberry and vodka that she puked on him in the elevator before he got her back to his hotel room. He took off his shirt and they did their thing. The next day when she was sober, he made her buy him a new shirt. Then he never called her again. Standard Slappy operating procedure.

“Yeah, I did make out with her,” Slappy said, nodding his head with pride. “And then, get this, and then, Buschmann took her home! I hope he realized I got her warmed up for him!
God
, girls are such sluts. They try and make you think they’re not, but they are!” he said, oblivious to anything that may have made him look bad.

“You didn’t tell me that part Slap,” I said. “Which girl was it?”

“I don’t know. The only fucking one that looked decent out of the pack.”

“You must have been really drunk—they were all bad looking.”

“I was. That’s normally how I end up with most of the chicks I get with.” Slappy was completely unashamed.

Tiny shook his head as he pulled up his long, uniform socks. “No shame at all. Zero. What a savage.”

“Why am I a savage? She’s the one that made out with me, then left with Buschmann. She’s worse than I am. I’m telling you, girls, all of them—sluts.” Slappy was so passionate about certain things that he made you question your own position, even as you realized he was completely nuts. He had just enough truth in every argument to make him impossible to dismiss outright.

Almost on cue, the girls on the elimination dating show were taking turns kissing some guy to convince him not to eliminate them. Slappy busted up laughing when he saw it. “I told you! I rest my case. Girls are way worse than guys.”

“Impossible,” Seth said. He wriggled his way out of his comfortable spot on the couch and turned to face Slappy. He’d been listening the entire time, just waiting for a chance to chime in. In the clubhouse, you can hear what everyone is saying, so you’re in every conversation whether you want to be or not. Most minor league clubhouses are so small, you can hear everyone’s goings-on, unless they are specifically trying to keep it private. Players will add their two cents to any conversation at any time.

“Guys run on pure hormones. It’s what the porn industry is built around. I can’t believe girls could possibly be worse than guys,” Seth continued.

“See, that’s where you’re wrong.” Slappy was getting wound up now that he had someone to debate with.

“Great, now you got him going,” Tiny said. He’d finished putting on his uniform and was now walking over to the Gatorade machine with a dollar. He needed some electrolytes after the night he had. In the upper levels, Gatorades are free. Here, however, you’ve got to spend a buck if you want one. Tiny put his dollar in the machine and it ate it.

“Piece of shit!” he yelled, punching the thieving machine. He didn’t love tap it either; he beat the hell out of it. That machine ate more dollars than it vended, and we broke it several times in retribution.

Slappy paid no attention to Tiny’s siege on the vending machine. He was focused intently, listing his reasons on why girls were worse than guys. Unfortunately, the “man on vending machine” violence distracted me, so I only caught the end of it.

“And if you do the math, the average girl holds about fifty penises in her lifetime.”

“Fifty penises? Fifty? You’re out of your mind. Maybe twenty, but no chance fifty,” Seth countered.

“I can’t believe you are arguing about this. You should know better, Seth,” Maddog said, sitting on a beanbag chair with a huge dip in it. He had been silent the whole time too, save for when he’d spit into his empty Gatorade bottle. He loved watching Slappy go.

“Sometimes his bullshit is just so ridiculous you have to straighten him out,” Seth said.

“It’s not bullshit. It’s math. It’s numbers, and numbers don’t lie. I’m working with empirical fucking evidence here!” Slappy said.

Guys were coming in and changing throughout the conversation. Because the crowd for the debate reshaped so frequently, it was often paused and reexplained so that newcomers who wondered why in the hell Slappy was talking about fifty penises could catch up. Maddog, Brent, Frenchy, Pickles, and I all sat in a row watching it unfold. Seth, Tiny, Stubbs, and Frenchy argued for the under. Slappy, Pickles, and Lunchbox claimed the over. Yordanny tried to steal the show with stupid stories of his own, but was ignored. Blanks and some other position players just walked away, tired of hearing Slappy argue about something as stupid as the average penis-handling level of American females. I don’t know where the rest of the guys were, but they were missing out.

It ended ultimately in a stalemate. Slappy said most sexually active chicks touch about three to six wangs in high school, at least one a month in college, around a dozen when they got out of college, and, with the current divorce rates in America, at least two in their marriage years. Seth said it was less because the kind of chicks Slappy was used to were desperate to begin with. He also said Slappy’s math didn’t account for nuns or lesbians. Slappy countered with porn stars, but the peanut gallery agreed “sexual professionals” shouldn’t be included in the sample. All in all, it was a fascinating discussion, utilizing the full brainpower of the average minor league team. It was concluded just in time for batting practice that girls today are probably more slutty than we think, and if needed, we could prove that fact to anyone complete with supporting graphs, charts, and migration patterns, if necessary.

After batting practice, we retreated from the hot desert sun to enjoy a snack and a break before the start of the day’s game. The clubbie put out a spread, the guys beat upon the vending machine until everyone got a Gatorade, and text messages were returned.

Pickles picked up his axe and went to turn on Guitar Hero, but I stopped him. There were more important things to be done during this break. There was Kangaroo Court. Today was the first paycheck of the season.

Kangaroo Court is a team-created legal institution made up of peers and elected judges. It’s how the team regulates all the stupid and unprofessional things that happen during a season, using a system of fines and mock legal proceedings to embarrass transgressors.

There are no real laws and no set fines, and the whole thing is one big social normalizer. When we believe someone has broken an unwritten law of the Kangaroo Court, aka did something stupid, we write down the stupid act, suggest a fine, list a witness, and put the written offense in the Kangaroo Court Fine Box (an appropriately marked shoe box) located in the middle of the clubhouse.

During court, a chosen player empties the fine box and reads the offenses to a panel of peer-elected judges, typically composed of a pitcher and a fielder and one other player to break ties. The act is weighed for its stupidity, comedic value, and relevance. It is then fined accordingly. If an accusation brought before the court does not cover all the requirements, with special emphasis on making the team laugh, the judges can vote down the stupid act, in which case the person who wrote the offense must pay the fine for wasting the court’s time. This ensures that players make their fines as entertaining as possible, the real point of why we have court.

The accused can contest a fine, in which case the court will hear his plea. If he does an excellent job of refuting the accusation, meaning he makes everyone laugh and embarrasses the person who wrote the charge. The judges may overrule the case, effectively reversing the fine. The judges may still fine both parties even if the whole case is funny, just because they can and because the collected money goes toward a party during the All-Star break.

The court recognizes that not every player is a natural, comedic speaker. This is why lawyers can be purchased. If the party in question cannot afford a lawyer, the court will appoint one for him. The accused has the right to remain silent as all misspoken admissions to drunken stupidity can and will be used against him in the Kangaroo Court of Law. In the Kangaroo Justice System, the players are represented by two separate, yet equally important groups: the players who investigate crime, and the vindictive pack of minor league degenerates who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories.

Last year’s group of players, now the Double-A team, had such great chemistry that Kangaroo Court became a prime-time event. Full-out legal battles with reenactments and key-witness testimony were brought in. Though usually held the same day paychecks were dispensed, we began making up excuses to have “emergency sessions” of Kangaroo Court.

Last year, a player on the team by the name of White Chocolate, named because he was the blackest white guy any of us had ever met, got caught with porn at his host family’s house. If the offense had been written as simply as I just described, he may not have gotten fined. Instead, those crafty court masters who made last year’s legal proceedings so much fun exhausted every avenue of humor they could.