The Bullpen Gospels (8 page)

I may have had my share of embarrassing moments with Coach Castrate, but overall, camp was going well. I was pitching well, collecting outs, and throwing a mile or two harder, thanks to a deal I made with the guys running the radar gun, at the cost of a log of dip and a six-pack. During those days of spring success. I found it easy to believe all was at peace. Good days at the park have a way of ironing out life’s wrinkles.

I knew, however, from way more experience than I’d like, things don’t go well forever. Whether here in spring or on a team this season, I would struggle again. A moment I sincerely dreaded. If good moments make you carefree, the bad ones suffocate you.

Of course, I couldn’t control my results; all I could control was my approach, but sometimes the results control the approach. I had a lot of failures in my career. Even my successes felt like failures, seeing how I had nothing to show for them. When I failed, it felt so colossally taxing, I became afraid of the slightest potential of it happening each time I took the mound. Soon, it was the only thing I expected myself to do.

It’s easy to talk about success when failure doesn’t mean anything. To me, failure meant a lot. It was something along the lines of self-destruction or imprisonment. It felt like an angry scream from my dad, or an intoxicated fist from my brother. It’s what motivated me, punished, me, and branded me. It was my very wicked master. Thus, each success I had this spring was tempered by the looming shadow of my possible meltdown. Sure I was happy about the results so far. I was doing well, but more importantly, I wasn’t blowing it.

It doesn’t take an all-star to realize this way of thinking was wrong, though, I’ll admit, I never really thought about much of what was going on in my mind until this year. I never thought about quitting before this year either. I needed some answers to big questions. Like, why did the Baseball Reaper show up to only my games, and how could I perform at my best if I was always afraid of the worst? What do you do when all the stars in the canopy of your baseball life turn out to be holes?

I think I would like baseball better if it had superheroes in it. Coping with the game and its uncertainties would be so much easier if there were guys captaining teams who could bench-press trucks and freeze things with their breath. I could always look to their fearless example for inspiration and morale. They’d have all the answers, and if they didn’t, they could just look majestic until you forgot what you were asking. Unfortunately, baseball has no spandex-clad heroes. It does, however, have the next best thing: players with multiyear contracts. That would have to be enough.

Just after the halfway point of spring training, Trevor Hoffman was scheduled to address the minor league pitching staff. Every year during spring training, a big-league pitcher who’s had a good amount of success comes over to talk shop with the minor league pitching horde about what helped them. They talk about what they overcame to get to the golden shores of multifigure contract bigleaguerdom. In previous years, we’d talked with the likes of Rick Suttcliffe, Greg Maddux, and Jake Peavy. This year it was Hoffman’s turn, and I was thrilled.

Despite the lack of merchandisable superpowers, Hoffman was one of my heroes in uniform. He was one of the few remaining players who had not fallen victim to the pitfalls of the sport via performance enhancers or media persecution. He was an icon in the game and someone I thought of as above and beyond the rest of us. If anyone had answers to deep questions and fears, surely it was him.

Why I thought so highly of Hoffman is tough to explain. He had staggering success, but lots of players had that, and I didn’t care much about them. Money was another by-product of a sports star in his stratosphere, and, again, I wasn’t wowed by every player to bling his way onto a magazine cover. Recognition from an early age was a big part, but I never really followed baseball when I was young. I didn’t collect cards or memorize stats or dress up in the jersey of my favorite team and learn to cuss at bad plays with my dad. All the Little League teams I played on made fun of my sports neglect, as if my lack of baseball knowledge were an unforgivable sin, but I didn’t have time to hassle myself with icon worship. I didn’t like watching sports, and when I did, I turned the volume off so as not to be annoyed by announcers incessantly prattling on about how great they once were. I preferred to read comic books.

I encountered Hoffman in the pages
of ESPN The Magazine
. Someone had stuffed a Spider-Man comic book into it on the bookshelf in the dentist’s office waiting room. The article was skillfully crafted, making Hoffman sound amazing, larger than life, as if he threw laser-guided fastballs and Jedi mind-trick-caliber changeups touted as the best in the game. I read how the stadium went super-freak when he entered in the ninth to the rockin’ sounds of AC/DC and how it was one of the most electrifying moments in sports. It was kickass stuff I had no idea baseball players could do. I thought they just argued about which wife had the cooler upgrades. In that article, Hoffman was like a superhero.

I was so excited to hear Hoffman speak, Larry wanted to punch me in the head. Ox told me I was borderline gay, and Brent said he wouldn’t sit near me because he was afraid I’d embarrass him. It wasn’t that other guys weren’t excited; it’s that I was “Star Trek geek at a convention” excited about it, which tended to freak my friends out. They didn’t understand because they didn’t see how great my expectations were. If anyone could shine a light into my baseball universe, I knew it would be Hoffman, and I couldn’t wait to hear the pearls of wisdom straight from my hero’s mouth.

After breakfast, before morning meetings and Lars’s joke, the minor league pitching troupe marched over to the major league side of camp’s bullpen area. We all sat Indian style on the grassy portion of the big-league pen, turning the mound into a stage: what better place for a pitcher to address a crowd?

Grady started the meeting, offering some forgettable introduction, as if it were needed, and then out came Hoffman to take the stage. Up he strolled, majestically, the first time I had ever seen him take the mound without musical accompaniment. He placed his hands on his hips and, in a very gym teacherly way, said, “Good morning everyone. Thanks for letting me come out here and speak with you today.”

I love how really smooth celebrity folks say stuff like “Thank you for letting me,” when they could say, “You’re lucky I bothered to waste my time with you insignificant peons.” Actually, that’s about what my first real interaction with the guy went like. He didn’t call me a peon, but that didn’t stop me from acting like one.

My first bona fide encounter with Hoffman came in my second spring training. He actually approached
me
. Hoffman, or Hoffy, as we folks who are on speaking terms with him call him, came into the lunchroom after what I’m sure was a long day of keeping baseball full of magic and wonder. I’m not ashamed to say I watched him like a little peasant boy gazes on royalty. He grabbed a hot plate of food, a glass of refreshing Gatorade, and a plastic fork. Then he walked over to my table.

I almost spilled my drink in my lap. I thought,
It’s him. It’s Trevor Hoffman!
He looked at me with that “destined to be bronzed on a plaque” face of his and said, and I’ll never forget it, “Hey, can I borrow your salt?”

Nothing came out as I stared at him like a mental patient, choking on my tongue.

He picked up the salt and sprinkled some on his food, despite me.
Look at his salt-sprinkling technique—masterful!
I thought.

He placed the salt back down, and I still couldn’t make any words come out. He looked at me again, and in a very uncomfortable way said, “Uh, thanks.” Pretty amazing stuff.

Today Hoffman got right to the point, launching into a speech about preparation and routine. About not only how practice makes perfect, but how it’s not just practice at the pro level, it’s a way of life. Successful athletes control all the variables. They are disciplined with their rest, eating, workouts, and love lives. They set goals and reach them.

Next, Hoffman started talking about how good and bad thoughts influence our ability, how negative thoughts can defeat us before we take the field, and how positive ones can help remove doubt. He said he talked to himself, confessing, “When I have a bad thought, like I think I can’t make a pitch or I worry about a negative result, I stop myself, pull the thought out of my head, crumple it up, and throw it away.” Then, to demonstrate, he took his hand up to his head, grabbed an imaginary object floating next to his ear, pulled it away from his head, crunched it up, and threw it on the ground. Whoa!

Hoffman finished his speech with a customary message of hope, telling us we could all make it to the bigs someday because stranger things have happened. He said that he, for example, was drafted as a shortstop, and his legendary changeup didn’t come along until later in his career. Then, before closing, he put his hands back on his hips and in a very magnanimous way said, “As long as you have uniforms on your backs, you got a chance.” I expected him make a dramatic exit, like flying off into the clouds. Instead, he opened up the floor to questions.

Some hands popped up while I mulled over his words. To be honest, his speech disappointed me. It was like Captain Kirk talking about what it’s like to work with his producers and not about fighting Klingons or firing photon torpedoes. He didn’t even talk about sexing up green chicks. I wanted more. I needed more. He was supposed to tell me the meaning of the baseball-player life and why I wore my secret decoder jersey. Where was all the deep, mind-blowing insight? Most of this stuff was on the wall in my high school guidance office.

Unsatisfied, I started thinking of a question to force depth out of him. I set my vocabulary to stun and threw my hand up. Hoffman’s gaze came down on me, “What’s your question?”

“I was wondering,” I said, “what kind of mantras or psychological routines you operate under? Do you have beliefs that you inculcate yourself with to remain focused and directed as a player?” I thought the question was deep, intelligent, and perceptive. Surely, a man of his greatness was impressed by it. Hoffman stared at me as if I just asked him what testicles were.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa there, buddy. I don’t know about all those big words. ‘Mantras’ and ‘inculcating,’ whew!” he chided, smiling at the rest of the guys as if to imply
what’s with this guy, huh
? Brent’s head dropped, Ox snorted. “Why don’t you try and keep it down to a level we can all understand. We’re just baseball players here, pal.”

The minor leaguers surrounding me begun chuckling. Partially because I just went Rambo with a thesaurus and partially because if Trevor had simply snapped his fingers like the Fonz and said, “Laugh now!” everyone would have.

“Are you trying to ask me what kind of things I think about to stay in my element?” he said, offering me a rephrase.

“Uhm…Yeah, that’s it,”

“Well, what I do…” and he went on to list a series of things I didn’t hear because I was too busy trying to calculate just how badly I embarrassed myself in front of my peers and a baseball demigod. When Trevor finished his answer, he looked back to me and asked, “Does that answer your question?”

“Oh yes, yes it does, thank you,” I lied.

“Any other questions?”

No one else dared raise his hand, not even to ask the quintessential Hoffman must know of, “How do you hold your changeup?” I had officially snuffed out the meeting, and we sat awkwardly looking at the floor while Hoffman towered over us.

“Well those were all very good questions, and I wish you all the best of luck.” On that, off he went to sit on his throne of saves.

The assembly broke and I walked like a black sheep to the minor league side’s morning meeting. Lars told his joke, we stretched, and camp moved around me while I remained stuck in the dialogue of Hoffman’s speech in search of a hidden message.

How could I be so stupid? How could I be so nerdy? Was I destined to look like an idiot in front of the guy? It would probably be the last time I would ever have a chance to talk with him, and I asked him how he inculcates himself. Why didn’t I just ask him how he held his changeup? Then we could have spent the rest of the day flinging changeups at each other like mini Hoffmans.

Besides, what did I expect him to say to me that hasn’t been said before? Was he going to petition the big-league squad to call up a man with my all-star caliber vocabulary? Was he going to invite me over to his house to sip hot cocoa while we wore matching sweaters with embroidered
H
’s? The purpose of his talk was to offer advice to his fellow employees on how to do their job better, and he did just that. What else would he do?

I guess it was my fault; Hoffman never asked me to put him on a pedestal. He never asked me to grade him under unrealistic expectations. He was just doing his job the best way he knew how, which was pretty damn good whether it was the way I imagined it or not—so much for my moment of heroic inspiration.

Later on in the day, I took the mound in a scrimmage against the Cubs. I was slated for one inning of work, which I wasn’t locked in for, not after the morning meeting. I got blasted and found myself surrounded by base runners, pulling bad thoughts out of my head, struggling to escape. When the last out was made, I went into the dugout and plopped on the bench, took off my hat, and hung my head. Ox came over to me, slapped one of his big meat hooks on my shoulder, and asked, “So, what mantras or psychological routines did you inculcate yourself with to get your ass kicked out there today?”

In the last few days of camp, with cuts looming visibly in the distance, my Double-A pitching group gathered and was told the positive, uplifting news that all of us were potentially on the chopping block. Our pitching coordinator informed us that cuts were coming, and we should all take the next few days of opportunity very seriously. “I am not trying to scare anyone,” he said. “I am just trying to let all of you know the situation. There are not a lot of jobs to go around this year. Most of the spots we have are already decided on. Some of you guys may be operating under the assumption you have a job locked up, and I am here to tell you that you may be disappointed.”

I can’t imagine how a person could leave that meeting with a smile on his face. He was trying to brace us, maybe motivate us, but all we heard was, “I am not trying to scare anyone, but I have to tell you, most of you are screwed and you should be terrified; in fact, most of you are dead men pitching.”

Every spring training there will be releases, and we know why teams have cuts. The organization brings in players, gives them a chance, and then takes the best. It’s how the business works. But understanding it and dealing with it are two very different things. I didn’t appreciate the doomsday message, no matter how good the intentions were behind it. All it served to do was compound my already overloaded mind with worries and concerns about the future of my career. Then, after I firmly intended to make the best of whatever shot I’d left, my remaining chances were stripped from me, thanks to a horrific bout of food poisoning.

Starting as soon as I got back to the hotel that night, I spent the rest of the day, as well as the next two, on the toilet—well, mostly the toilet. Later, when my butt started to bleed, I lay in the bathtub with the shower running on me and just crapped straight down the drain so I wouldn’t have to endure the pain of wiping. It was the worst bout of sickness I’ve ever dealt with. Every seven or so minutes a team of horses wearing cleats raced through my intestines and opened fire on the toilet with scattershot.

A few trainers resided with us at the team hotel, stationed there in case of emergencies like mine. They provided me with enough Imodium to pave a driveway, but it had no effect. After chugging the bottle, I informed them my situation wasn’t improving, and they said I’d have to hold strong until the next day when I could see the team doctor.

“I have to come into camp and see him?”

“Yes.”

“What if I crap my pants in the van before I get to camp?”

“We don’t recommend you do that.”

“But it’s like clockwork, every seven minutes Godzilla attacks my ass and—”

“You’re going to have to come in. There’s nothing else we can do for you. You’ll have to hold it. Sorry.”

“How am I going to sleep tonight?”

“It should calm down once it expels everything out of your system. Just make sure you keep drinking water.”

“But what if it doesn’t calm down?”

“It should. Keep taking your meds; keep drinking water.”

I kept drinking fluids like the trainers told me to, but things didn’t slow up. The fluid only served to turn solid expulsions into watery ones. When Larry came in later that night, he asked what was wrong with me. I told him I contracted an extremely rare, highly contagious disease and stage one was explosive diarrhea.

“Yeah, I’ll bet you did [spit],” Larry said.

I was lying on the mattress in the living room/kitchenette like our last conversation. This time I was wearing only a bath towel. My hair was wet and matted to my head, still wet from my last trip to the shower/toilet. I didn’t bother to change back into a full outfit in between trips because I’d only take it off again the next time the horses rounded the track. I used the towel as a kilt and covered my shoulders with a blanket.

Larry was again standing in the doorway, fellow hotel-room-bound players walking by and peeking in. I knew more of them by this point in the camp, some waved, others flicked me off—both can mean hello in the world of minor league baseball.

“No. I’m serious,” I said. “In stage two, your wiener swells and gets all lumpy, like a chewed wad of bubble gum dipped in nerds. In stage three, it falls off. Like in those pictures they showed us at the drugs, sex, and conduct meeting.” It was one of several mandatory meetings we have in spring training and by far the most memorable. Because Professional Baseball is one of those job titles that attracts women of a certain make, ones we commonly refer to as beef or cleat chasers, the opportunity to get into some sexually related trouble is much higher. You don’t know where some of these eager ladies have been. Since men are visually stimulated, the speaker used some of the nastiest visuals imaginable. If you weren’t sick before you entered the lecture, you would be once you left. Hell, you might join a monastery.

“Good thing you don’t use it for anything [spit],” Larry said.

“That may be true, but I’d still like to keep it around for sentimental reasons. We’ve had a lot of good times together.”

“Jesus-age, man, this place smells like a sewer.” Larry let the door shut as he walked around the room trying to find a spot that didn’t reek. There wasn’t one.

“You’re one to talk. I endure this from you on a regular basis.”

“Mine smells more like jerky; yours is straight asshole.”

“I can’t help it, I got food poisoning or a virus or a curse or something. I might crap a plague of locusts next, at the rate I’m going.”

“Well what am I going to do? What if I gotta shit too? [spit]”

“I don’t think there’s even any toilet paper left.”

“I’ll just go down to the one in the lobby then, I guess.”

“I hope you blow up that toilet like you do here. Don’t flush it. Leave it for some poor sap to stumble on. You’re good at that.”

“At least I’m consistent [spit].”

My stomach started to rumble. “Here we go again; it’s like clockwork man.” I got up and scampered into the bathroom with my legs pressed together, slamming the door behind me. If you were standing outside, you would have heard the toilet seat of my throne come up, me sit down, and then the sound of air-compressed water, followed by splashdown. I wanted to use the shower, but I didn’t want Larry to know he was bathing in my repurposed toilet.

Larry stood outside the door. It’s funny. I can’t stand the sound of people going to the bathroom, but when I’m around the boys, it’s so commonplace that it doesn’t register. At the training complex, the bathroom houses seven stalls. After breakfast, all the stalls will be full of minor league asses. It’s more like a library than anything because everyone who comes in to make a deposit brings his favorite reading material, crossword, or puzzle. Some people read Harry Potter, others
USA Today
. Public bowel movements are so common in this line of work, it’s considered bad etiquette if you don’t offer the paper you were reading to the set of panted ankles in the stall next to yours when you finish.

“So what do you really think you got? [spit]” asked Larry, who was apparently leaning on the bathroom door.

“I have no idea, bro, but it’s terrible. I wish I could just drink Drano and flush it all out.”

“What are the chances of me getting it?”

“Again, no idea, but I stopped using your toothbrush just in case. Ern…hold on…more on the way.” I went again. Larry laughed from the other side of the door. Something about bowel movements will be funny to men until the end of time.

“So, what are you thinking about cuts after today’s feel-good message?” Larry asked.

“You mean, who do I think is going to get cut, or how do I feel about them in general?”

“Who do you think is going to get cut? [spit]”

“I don’t know. I’ve been throwing well, but after being bounced around all season last year, I got a strange feeling that I’m expendable.”

“Yeah, I hear you there. I’m getting worried myself.”

“You? You throw in the low-to-mid nineties with a nasty hammer. How could you be worried?”

“Grady is systematically getting rid of guys who have track records of injury. I don’t think he likes me, the surgeries and all. Besides, they got me out of indi ball, and don’t got shit invested in me [spit].”

“I don’t buy that. They’ve developed you for the last two years and promoted you to Double-A; they have to like you. They love hard throwers. At least Earp does.”

“I don’t think his opinions count for too much anymore.”

“Well, then I guess it was nice playing with you. We can go play on the same church-league softball team when we get chopped.”

“I don’t think you’re going to get chopped, and I’m not going to go play church softball—you can’t drink in church league [spit].”

We could have spent all day telling the other how they weren’t going to get axed. Even if we thought the other would be released, we’d rather boldface lie about it than say it. No baseball player will ever tell another baseball player his future is over. If someone believed the object of your heart’s ambition was unattainable, would you want to hear that person say it?

It’s the hardest for middle-of-the-pack players to feel safe. They’re lukewarm and in the gray, unsure if it’s their time to get spit out or not. If you know you’re on your way out, you can prepare accordingly. Call your uncle in the oil well company, get an internship with a bank, or finish your degree. You can hop out of one profession and get tied up in another one before the reality of what happened sets in and you find yourself back in Grandma’s basement, consumed with your failure.

Everyone frets about cut day, either for himself or for a good buddy who is trying his damnedest to hang on. It can be a very depressing time. The lockers are quieter, coaches less jovial. We all know what it means. For many, being released means the end of a dream, or a fantasy, or a lie, depending on how they made their way to the pros.

I didn’t say much after Larry said he wouldn’t play church league. I suppose I could’ve kept telling him about how I was sure I was going to get released, fishing the barrel for his reassuring compliments. I didn’t want to talk about it anymore because I knew no matter what we decided, we weren’t going to affect the outcome.

I just didn’t want to be jerked around. It may sound crazy, but it’d be such a relief to know I’d no chance at all. None. Then I could say I did all I could; I could close the book and walk away from it with no regrets. Instead, I’m supposed to live by the mantra, “If you have a jersey on your back…” Is that a chance I want? Don’t keep me around as an innings mopper or a babysitter. Don’t lie to me; don’t postpone my life with false promises. Is that too much to ask?

“I have to tell you Larry, you’re kinda weirding me out lurking outside the door while I’m throwing mud in here.”

“My bad. I was just thinking and you know how rare that is.”

“Well, don’t think too hard. We’re baseball players after all, just ask Hoffman.”

“By the way, what in the hell does ‘inculcate’ mean? [spit]”

“It means to instill an attitude or a belief by persistent instruction.”

“Like brainwashing yourself?”

“Yeah, I guess you could call it that too. Inculcate is a nicer way of saying it.”

“Shit, I thought it meant you got something pregnant. Like, I hope the Domos don’t inculcate my sister [spit].”

“If she hasn’t gotten pregnant yet, chances are she never will.”

“You gonna be able to play tomorrow, or will you still be inculcating the toilet?”

“I don’t know. I see the doctor in the morning and I hope to the Lord above he can make this stop because it’s killing me.” “
And maybe my career
,” I thought. Of all the ways I imagined I’d go out of this game, explaining to my grandkids that I crapped myself out of a job was not the one I expected.