The Bullpen Gospels (27 page)

The Missions took three out of four from the Rough Riders. We had proven to ourselves we could handle one of the best teams in the league, mix fun with talent, and still brew up victory. By the last month of the season, we had a clear-cut sense of ourselves, an undeniable purpose, and a taste for winning. We went after the league with a vengeance.

If ever there was a time for montage music to be played, it was during this time of my baseball career—something sweet, rocking, and all together satisfying. The boys from San Antonio found ways to win, manufacturing them out of raw will and determination. We took early leads, made astronomical comebacks, and occasionally just did some good, old-fashioned ass-kicking. Come the last week of the season, we mathematically clinched a spot in the playoffs, an accomplishment you’d swear impossible had you seen us play only a month or so earlier.

When we locked our spot in for postseason ball, we were rewarded with Tott’s champagne and watery domestic beers, not for drinking, but for soaking. The bottles and cans sat packed in ice-filled coolers like clubhouse centerpieces. As we filtered in from the victory, we all grabbed hold of bottles and popped the corks of our Tott’s champagne rifles, but did not dare spill a drop of the liquid in celebration until Randy had a chance to address us, pronouncing us victors.

He came in, pleased, but under control and focused, with a bottle of champagne in his own hands. We stood, elated and giddy, some with jerseys untucked, others with hats spun backward, others in just socks. “Hey, couple things, guys,” Randy said, gesturing with one free hand, armed with a thumb-capped bottle in the other. “We are, as of today, the second-half winners. On behalf of the staff and myself, I’d like to say congratulations. You earned it. You kept fucking grinding it out, and you earned it.” Then, he smiled at everyone, spread his feet and started shaking his bottle. “But”—we armed ourselves as he spoke—“you still got work to do!” He let it rip, hosing us down. We followed suit, turning the center of the room into a fountain of cheap champagne. Our clubbie watched the floor accumulate hours of future cleaning as we danced around like natives, wrecking the place.

The work Randy referenced was a little thing called winning the Texas League—no easy feat. We did, however, do our best to make it look that way as we swept Frisco in three games to clinch our berth in the championship series. Before ten days had passed from our last champagne spraying, we were in the locker room again, standing in front of Randy with another round of bottles, awaiting his words.

Randy came in for the second time, a thumb pressed over the top of his bottle. “Alright, we got everybody?” He looked around at us, all of us ready to imitate firefighters. “Look at you guys—you’re already on this shit, aren’t you?” What could we say. We had a taste for winning, and much to the chagrin of our clubhouse manager, we got to trash the place like idiots every time we won three games. “You guys keep pushing, just keep pushing. We got one more series. Someone’s gotta win this shit, might as well be us!” That was his cue, and we wasted no time dumping booze like abolitionists. When we were finished, our clubbie stood in the middle of the mess and shouted, “I hope you beat these fuckers so I can watch you wreck someone else’s clubhouse for a change!”

After we finished dumping everything we could on everything we could, we mingled about, talking about the coming championship series. Those of us who were still around to recall the colossal defeat of the Cal League spoke about how the coming game would be a second chance. Other players, first timers to veterans, spoke excitedly about the chance to play for some jewelry. The only person who seemed slightly bummed was Chase because he knew a September call-up was a very real possibility, and even though winning the Texas League would be grand, collecting big-league paychecks was a lot more exciting. We double max fined him.

Being in the playoffs is an experience all to itself. During the regular season, if a team doesn’t win a game, it can be written off as another day in the grind where developing prospects is the focus, and wins and losses a side effect. In the end, the only level that really matters is the big leagues, and no one will remember how terrible the minor league teams were that gave birth to a big-league star. Teammates on those squads get along as best they can because they have to tolerate each other while they reach for individual goals.

The playoffs, however, are when a minor league team is really, truly a team. There are no prospects. There’s no time for worries about being outshined for a promotion or lack of playing time. All that matters is winning, in any way possible. Players root for each other because all interests are suddenly entwined. There’s a ring to be won, and no one can strip you of the title of champion once you receive it. It’s an experience that bonds players together in a way that a regular season can’t. And like so many other experiences that reach our hearts and our desires, it has the ability to crush you, unlike any regular season defeat can.

We were on a one-way course with destiny, a chance to define ourselves as capable players even if the media in its infinite wisdom only thought a handful of us were worth a damn. We could win something for ourselves and no one else. We could be champs. To do that, we would first have to beat the Springfield Cardinals, the best team in the league. The Missions, the former worst team in the league, would take on the best team in a battle for the Texas League crown.

The Cardinals came to our house for the first two games of our possible five-game set. Chase the Magnificent smacked a home run in his urgency to end the series, get a ring, and go to the big leagues. We rolled over the Red Birds, 6–2. The next night, the Birds answered back in similar fashion, beating us with the same score, 6–2. I pitched two innings of relief in a losing effort, allowing one of the runs that cemented our defeat. When we left San Antonio for Springfield, the series was tied.

In game 3, Frenchy beat the Birds like a drum. He punched out six, allowing one run, and managed to collect two hits for himself at the plate. We won 3–2, thanks to his masterful performance, and I could have almost punched him in the head for ever doubting his ability.

Come September 15, we were leading the series 2–1 and had a chance to win the whole thing.

Next to Hammond Field the Cardinals’ home in Springfield is a park. It’s small, and clean, and green. There is a walking track that winds around tufts of soft grass, artistic mobiles, and blooming flower beds. Stay on the path long enough, and you will come to a fountain.

In search of a calm before the night’s coming storm, I stopped at the park before entering the stadium. I walked the trails, admired the art, and watched bees float from flower to flower. Then, like I did two years ago, I plopped on the grass and lay out like I was making a snow angel.

There were no screaming fans, no hot dog smells, and no Baseball Reaper. A cool breeze pushing clumps of clouds through the blue sky stretched above me. I was floating with them, tumbling off to some place, blown by the breeze. Tonight could be the last game of the season. Another season finished—a season that I almost never started.

The sounds of laughing children broke the silence. I sat up and searched for the source. Ahead of me, the park’s fountain, apparently time activated, had begun shooting spouts of water from dozens of water jets. Up the squirting water went, like water fireworks, before coming down and splattering on the smooth stone surface beneath. The fountain was built flush with the ground level. If you walked the path and stepped on the fountain at the wrong time, it might squirt you, a scenario the kids thrived on.

Like tribal warriors chasing after elusive prey, they ran the width of the fountain, shirts off, screaming as they went. Some anticipated which holes the next burst would come out of, some ran recklessly, lunging at each spout as it came. Some stood still, soaked, knees knocking and arms tucked in, with chattering teeth forming a smile.

The jets seemed to play with the children, staying just out of reach or biting them from behind with playful nips. The children kicked and swatted them, sometimes standing on them, sometimes shouting at them for escaping. Around and around they danced, until the jets built to a crescendo and erupted in a steady fountain of water, drenching the children completely before coming to a stop.

Parents stood outside the splash zone, forming an audience to watch the children play. They happily lived through their children, ready with dry towels for exhausted, soaked heads. I sat in the grass, content to watch, though I did feel tempted to join. This was not my moment though—this was theirs—and all we spectators could do was enjoy watching those few living it.

When the fountains stopped, I ran my hands across the tops of the grass blades.
What would the children do if they caught the water?
I thought. Of course, they never would. They could never hold on to it. The water would never come home as a trophy or a pet. Catching the water was never the idea. Experiencing it was.

The crowd was teeming, even before the Cardinals took the field. Springfield, Missouri, fans knew baseball. They knew what was going to happen tonight, and extra motivation via some stadium staff cheer squad was unnecessary. En masse, they formed a sea of organized crimson—red hats, red shirts, red towels, face paint, signs, foam fingers, and plastic megaphones. The energy was almost tangible, waves of sound pressing our uniforms as we walked to the field. The Cardinals’ faithful were a formidable tenth man, and we felt like true baseball players in their presence.

I was happy, I admit, to be shielded from them in the pen, which felt more like a bunker than a cage this day: three walls of concrete and one of chain-link fence protecting us from the madness about to go down.

Some players think a big game requires an extra shot of intensity. Truth be told, big games require players to slow down. Emotions are already running at intense paces. Anxiety is in high supply. Big games are won by those who can keep control of themselves. Intensity can be a liability. Some exhaust themselves worrying about the game before it starts.

Mike Ekstrom, or “Ek,” our quiet, unassuming, right-handed fourth starter, who spent most of the season buried in a book or quietly taking in the day’s events, went through his stretch motions while the crowd brought itself to a boil. Whether it was his enigmatic persona or a focused sense of duty, the crowd, the day, the magnitude of it all, seemed to bounce off him.

This was the first time Ek would pitch in the playoffs. Our sweep of Frisco did not require us to call upon his services. The break we had while Springfield won its series allowed time for our rotation to reset, bringing our 1, 2, and 3 back around. Now game four was here, and it was Ek’s turn.

Autumn had begun its slow creep across the Missouri landscape. The air was cool, and the wind carried a chilled bite, reminding us we were in the playoffs. Bulbs flickered on the stadium’s scoreboard. Its massive LCD board flashed bios and compared lineups. The PA announcer read off our batting order in a less-than-enthusiastic voice while the Imperial March from Star Wars played in the background. Then the order for the home Cardinals was read, each name evoking raucous enthusiasm from the crowd. A montage of highlights showcasing the St. Louis Cardinals lineage was played on the big screen. Legendary music, playing over clips of great Cardinals moments in the past showed in the hope of blessing the future. The lights were lit, the anthem was played, and the crowd roared like a lion. We were not impressed.

In the first inning, we scored three and Ek blanked the Cardinals. Come the second, we scored four more. We knocked the Birds’ starter out of the game before he could record six outs. Ek snubbed the Cardinals again in the second inning, and by the time the third rolled around, we were comfortably in the driver’s seat, seven to nothing.

In the pen, we scampered about the place like flighty school-girls. I think we would have held hands and bedazzled our jersey pants if we could have.

“Hayhurst, you gonna get shit-faced?” Dalton asked.

“No. I am not getting shit-faced.” I rolled my eyes.

“But you’re still drinking, right?”

I’d made a promise to the boys. If we won the whole thing, I’d have my first drink to commemorate it. I vowed I’d never drink while my brother was doing it, but now that he had had sobered up, I could finally raise my cup with my teammates, something I’d been waiting for a long time, at the very least, to experience. The boys loved this little extra incentive, and to be honest, I liked it too. For so long, drinking was something I looked down upon for the chaos it sparked in my family’s life, but this was one chance for me to see it used to celebrate something great.

Even though I was okay with joining in with the boys in what would be the best moment of my baseball career, I was not cool with getting trashed. One would be enough, thank you very much. Besides, I heard it tastes like piss.

“If we hold on to this, I am,” I confirmed.

“Oh, we will, baby!”

“So you aren’t gonna get wrecked to commemorate it?” Dalton asked.

“No, dude.”

“Well, I am!” Dalton cried. “I’m gonna get shit-faced and watch
Road House
!”

“
Road House
?”

“
ROAD HOUSE
, BABY!
ROAD HOUSE!
”

In the fifth inning, I went into the clubhouse to take a whizz. The clubhouse attendants were busy hanging up plastic over our lockers, thick, clear tarps to protect our personal belongings from the streams of poorly aimed champagne. I watched them work, taping it to the ceiling, covering every exposed section of the walls and lockers.

I know it’s sacrilege to the baseball gods to believe a game is won before it actually is, but it was hard not to think it when the locker room was already prepped for the victory party. If there was any doubt, a banner reading 2007 Texas League Champs! was stretched across one of the walls. I permitted myself to believe it was really going to happen.

I returned to the pen in the top of the sixth, in time to watch our left fielder hit a home run, putting us up eight–zip. Ek pitched seven scoreless before being relieved by Rob, who put up a zero of his own. The offense never stopped, and by the time the ninth, the last inning of the year, rolled around, it was twelve nothing.

Blade would receive the honor of closing the game out. He would also be the person crushed at the bottom of the pile of ecstatic Missions uniforms when we came roaring onto the field to celebrate. When he left the pen, we cheered him into his destiny. All we needed were three more outs.

With so much anticipation flowing through the pen, we were borderline ridiculous. We practiced approaching the bullpen’s exit gate and opening it, like a fire-drill escape exercise. No one wanted to be the last person onto the field when we won it.

“I want to be last,” Ox corrected.

“What? Why?”

“So I can jump on and crush you motherfuckers.”

“You might kill someone.”

Ox smiled at the thought of it.

“You can go first,” I said.

When the inning started, we stopped worrying about exit strategies and stuck ourselves to the fence. A season of getting outs just to have a chance at getting these.

“Come on, Blade!” we cheered, but he couldn’t hear us from the pen.

The Cardinals, who spent the entire game rolling over to our onslaught, suddenly decided to muster some resistance. They singled, then hit a two-run blast to put them on the board.

I’m sure Blade wasn’t happy, but I felt almost charitable about it. I was glad to see the Cardinals didn’t get shut out in the last game of their season, on field, during the championship series. However, my mercy transformed into concern when Blade walked the next two batters and allowed another single.

We were still up ten. In any other situation, there would be no cause for alarm. But this was not any other situation. This was
the
situation of the year. The emotional, ecstatic anticipation turned into neurotic what-ifs.

The pen phone rang. Abby wanted Moreno up. No sooner did he start throwing than he was in the game, and the score was 3–12 with no outs. A wild pitch brought it to 4–12 and a single, 5–12. Our first out was made after the fifth runner scored, but if the Birds kept this up…

Seven runs was still a huge deficit to overcome with three outs. The law of averages was still in our favor. That didn’t stop the bullpen from graduating to a full-on freak-out. Just a minute ago, we were cruising with a ten-run lead. Now we watched the Birds put up five without recording an out, and there was nothing we could do but watch from the confines of our square in the outfield.

When the score hit 7–12, I started to kick myself. All that talk about having a beer, all the talk about winning, all that talk of
Road House
! What was I thinking? I felt sick, like all the happy butterflies in my stomach had just died gruesome deaths. Panic hit.

“What the hell did we do?”

“THE BALL BAG!” Dalton screamed.

Some idiot, probably me, had packed the ball bag. A universally accepted no-no that always seemed to warrant punishment from the baseball gods, which I almost started to believe in. Thinking about winning and acting on those thoughts were different. Packing up your equipment in expectation of a predictable ending usually ensured the unpredictable. It was more than stupid—it was heresy!

Dalton grabbed the rosin from the ball bag and threw it back into the bullpen. When another hit was recorded, he took the ball bag and dumped everything out. I stood in front of the pen’s chain-link fence, squeezing the links with my hands.

“This can’t be happening…not again,” I mumbled.

“Come on, Moe! Come on, baby!”

Cheers arose. Futile cheers that came from our bullpen but were trampled over by the Cardinals’ war machine in the stands. They had come alive now, cheering their hearts out for their hometown boys. They were marvelous and horrifying in their intensity. There were no mathematical probabilities to them; no deficits too deep to overcome. I watched the scene on the field play out, completely helpless, feeling like I did those years ago when I watched the Cal League championship slip away.

Turning to the boys I said, “If we lose tonight, we’ll lose tomorrow. There is no way we come back after a heartbreaker like this.”

“They will have all the momentum,” Ox said.

“If we are going to do it, we have to win it here.”

El Gato wound and delivered. The ball was struck, a deep but tilting foul. Venable had a bead on it. We grabbed the links of the fence as we watched him track it, squeezing the fence like a throttle:

“Come on Will! Come on Will!”

The ball came down. Venable’s body was out too far to stay balanced, and he went down with the ball, glove out across the grass, reaching to make the catch! Two outs.

“HELL YA!” we cried in unison. We shook the fence to vent our energy.

“Attaboy, Willy!”

“One more fellas, one more!”

“Come on, Moe! Come on, baby!”

One more. That’s all we needed. The Birds were down to their last out, but baseball has a way of making one little out impossible to get. In an attempt to confuse it, our catcher called time and walked out to the mound. There was nothing he could say that wasn’t obvious by the situation, but the conversation wasn’t important. He could very well talk about candlesticks or fried chicken. He was stalling.

We were slowing down the Birds. They were riding a surge of adrenaline, a fire fueled and stoked by the crowd. Our battery was trying to put it out by starving their need for action. A long enough lull and the energy would dissipate, and the Cardinals would once again be aware of their dilemma.

The umpire, not immune to the energy, hurried our pitcher along, though he resisted as long as he could. The players reset. The crowd’s engine turned over, firing up again. Moreno looked for the sign. Fastball, just what he wanted. Leg kick hand break, and then the ferocious uncoiling down the mound to where he let it loose.

The ball was struck by a hitter who had batted around. He topped it, sending it spinning across to third base like a bouncing boobie to Chase. Chase scooped, stepped, and threw it across the infield. The ball seemed to move in slow motion, spinning like any other and, at the same time, unlike any I’d ever seen. It seemed to stand still, as if the field, the stadium, and the whole earth itself moved around it. It carried the expectation of a 147 game season on it, the culmination of every drop of sweat, every sacrifice, and every hope. Thousands of eyes watched, dozens of hearts pushed, and one outstretched glove caught the ball that ended the 2007 Texas League season. We had won it all.

I made it to the gate first, but my emotions were driving me at a reckless pace, and I couldn’t get the latch open. All the practice I put in, and I was rendered impotent like a freshman fumbling with bra hooks. I began punching and jerking on the fence, finally resorting to kicking it open.

The rest of the pen was on top on me. Suffering from the same adrenaline stupor, they would have pushed me through the fence or simply knocked it down had I not gotten the gate open. When it flung wide, we burst through like a raging river. Across the outfield we ran, screaming wildly.

I was in a full sprint, my arms raised in a V with both fists clenched as I crossed the infield dirt. Ox and Dalton tore off their jackets and threw their hats as they ran. We were set to collide with the mountain of teammates already forming on the pitcher’s mound. Arriving last, we landed on top of that screaming pile of uniforms. Underneath, we could hear cries for mercy from the crushed. They begged us to relent, crying they couldn’t breathe, that something was going to break if we didn’t get off. Ox got off, jumped back on, and rolled around on the top like a pig in mud.

The voice of the announcer, the same one who called our names to the demonizing tones of Darth Vader, announced us as champions. The crowd mustered hollow congratulatory applause. Then the announcer took a cheer offering for the slain Cardinals, and the place erupted one final time for the fallen.

A stage was erected on the field, directly behind home plate. Our team was called together and presented a trophy, the prize of the Texas League. We clamored to touch it, to feel the tangible proof of a championship. League officials made speeches, coaches offered magnanimous words, and pictures were taken. Microphones and the people who wielded them chased around key players for marketable insight, but no one wanted to linger on the field. There was a celebration waiting for us in the locker room, and we wasted no time getting to it.

As we entered the locker room, champagne bottles were again handed to us like rifles. The stereo blared hip-hop, and guys squealed and screamed like children ready for birthday cake. We popped the corks of our bottles and held our fingers over the barrels, awaiting firing orders. Randy entered when we had all gathered and attempted to give us a victory speech, but he didn’t get far before streams of champagne cut him off because every trigger finger was an itchy one.