Out of My League (28 page)

Authors: Dirk Hayhurst

BOOK: Out of My League

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Chapter Fifty-one

I was naked and scared, stranded atop that patch of red dirt like an orphaned child. A crowd of loaded expectations surrounded me, eyes trained on my every movement. Twisted, scrutinizing faces pressing down, squeezing my breath into short, labored gasps. Cameras zoomed in past the cold sweat on my brow, past the darting eyes under the bill of my hat, and right into my soul. My teammates, whom I’d known for all of the last four hours, stood impassively at their posts waiting to see if I’d survive, or self-destruct in a flourish of pants-wetting and vomit. I was now a cog in the machine of big league baseball, simultaneously the greatest and the least in an industry that devours its weak. The more I tried to look confident, the more I was reminded I wasn’t. It was pointless to pretend this was the same game I’d played for the last twenty years of my life. It was not. It was the only game in the only league that would ever truly matter, and I was tied to the hood of it as we barreled recklessly into my destiny.

At this point I think it was safe to say I’d lost my mind. Not in the sense I was insane, although it very well could be construed that way as my thoughts were no longer mine to control. Up they wandered into the press box: to the strokes of the pens recording my “mound presence”; to the minds of my pitching coach and the general manager; to the lips of fans belching, “Who the hell is this guy?”; to the clicks of the cameras and even to tomorrow’s headlines—all of this struggle would be summed up in a paragraph pronouncing me a success or a failure.

I wanted it all to stop, but since I knew it wouldn’t, I wanted the first hitter to get into the box so I could put my body on autopilot and forget about the world around me. If I could just close the hatches and dive under the chaos of the big league experience, I could disappear into the current of pitching. The rhythmic action of winding and releasing, of focusing on the moment, that routine would become my savior. But the extreme speed at which I was moving blew the hatches wide. I couldn’t get a grip on them, or myself. There was no shutting it out, no taking control, just the umpire saying, “Batter up!”

Four seasons ago, in 2005, when I was in class High-A in Lake Elsinore, California, Dave Roberts joined the team on rehab assignment. He’d just been traded to the Padres from the Red Sox where, so the legend goes, he stole the most important base in the history of playoff baseball. The Red Sox were facing certain death at the hands of the Yankees in the 2004 playoffs. Roberts, a short, quick guy, was brought in to pinch run for Kevin Millar, a round, slow guy. In the bottom of the ninth, Roberts took second with two outs at the risk of ending the season for the Sox. He put himself in scoring position and was later driven in to tie a game the Sox would go on to win. This event is believed to be the spark that lit a history-changing fire. Not only did the Sox come back from a three game deficit and win the next four, which had never been done in the playoffs till then, they also went on to win their first World Series title since 1918 via a four-game sweep. Dave’s stolen base was considered the “Steal of the Century” and helped break the infamous “Curse of the Bambino.” The dude was a Red Sox legend—hell, he was a baseball legend—and there he was sitting in his underwear eating a PB&J in my minor league clubhouse.

The 2005 season was a terrible one for me. It crushed my confidence and left me wondering if I was truly meant to play baseball. Naturally, I took Dave’s arrival to be a sign from the heavens. I
had
to speak to him, he was a world champion, after all. Surely his words would be prophetic, and, if not, at least I could get a ball signed.

If he were a pitcher, we might have shared some type of transcending bond, but he was a position player, a fast, muscular, position player—we had nothing in common. I was too afraid to approach him in the wild, so, from a safe distance, head bowed in reverence, I asked if he would tell me even a whisper of what it was like to play in the big leagues. With class and clarity, he set down his sandwich and spoke to me of the marbled halls of the Bigs, where the chosen sat on golden thrones around shrine-like lockers. Where fortunes were won and lost in seconds and inches. Where the masses cheered their champions to victory, and spent ludicrous amounts of money on domestic booze.

When he finished, with starry eyes I asked if he thought poor, pathetic me could ever be one of those great men someday. This was what he said: “Don’t let anyone sell you short, you can make it to the Show. But when you get there, no matter what the reason is, remember you’ve earned the right. You’re a big leaguer and you belong. It’s a state of mind.” I thanked him, tucked his deep and powerful words away, and then ran to a computer to see the worth of his autograph on eBay.

Ironically, Dave Roberts was not only the first active big leaguer to tell me of life in the Bigs, but also the first batter I would face there. As he strode into the box, I thought of our special conversation. Was he thinking of it right now too? I wanted to call time and remind him of the moment we shared: me, young and naïve; him in his underwear with peanut butter. I wanted to tell him that even though I could have gotten about fifty bucks for that ball he signed for me, I didn’t sell it. Maybe he’d be moved by my sentiment, and since he’d already made a boatload of cash in his career and would retire a legend, would he be a real chum and strike out? I had to put those thoughts out of my head, however, because Bard was throwing down fingers and it was my cue for my first big league fastball.

Considering how sloppy I was in the pen, how much I’d dwelled on what could go wrong, and how Dave Roberts was baseball royalty, it should come as no surprise that the thought chugging through my head as I wound for my first pitch was,
Don’t hit him, don’t hit him, don’t hit him.
Dave seemed to take on the characteristics of a bulls-eye as I kicked and uncoiled on the mound. Out flew the most distracted, anxious, and uncommitted pitch of my career. The pitch that would punctuate the sentence after my name in the annals of baseball record books was in the air, and a split second later it was caught—ball one, not even close.

Roberts squatted, spun his bat around showing bunt, and might have if it wasn’t such an obvious miss. Bard flicked the baseball back to me and I reset. Even while I was getting the sign for the second pitch, I kept thinking about the first one. My brain tried to make sense of it all while my body kept going forward, propelled by adrenaline like some amped-up pitching zombie. Before I knew it, the second pitch was out of my hand and the count was two balls and no strikes.

My second pitch was a bigger miss than my first. The ramifications of walking the first batter of my big league career on four pitches danced in my head like demons around a funeral pyre. I stepped off the back of the mound and went to get a lick of rosin. I tried to calm down, but even as I licked the rosin, I felt the umpire watching my rosin-licking technique. I became acutely aware of every nervous twitch or touch, and even though I vigorously licked my fingers, my tongue was too dry to assist me. Soon I was winding again and ball three was out of my dry, rosin-less hand and into the stretching glove of Bard. Three balls, no strikes.

Time was called.
Oh, for Christ’s sake, three pitches in and I’m already getting a mound visit?
Bard jogged out to me, packed the ball into my mitt, and told me to work down in the zone. An explosion of thoughts went off in my swirling head. Guilt for disappointing him; anger for him telling me to work down in the zone because where the fuck else did he think I was trying to work, the backstop? Fear: I wanted him to tell me it was going to be alright, that I was going to survive this, maybe hold me for a few seconds before he left; betrayal because Dave Roberts didn’t seem like he knew me, after all we’d been through, that bastard!

“I gotcha, bro, I’ll get it down, no problem.”

The next pitch was a strike but a merciful one, more gift from the umpire than rediscovery of my ability. In response to this, Dave stepped out of the box and took a breather.
What the hell do you need a breather for, Roberts? I haven’t thrown a pitch below the belt yet! Get back in the box you ... you ... you false friend!
Dave leisurely dug back in and I took the next sign, wound, and promptly missed for ball four.

Dave scurried off to first base, where he was an even bigger threat than at the dish. Every chastisement I’d ever received from coaches about how lead-off walks score rained down on my confidence like a shower of clubs. I took a deep breath, thought of some advice Hoffman once gave me concerning pulling bad thoughts from my head and throwing them away when pitching in a rough situation, then dismissed it. I wasn’t about to lay hands on the snarling swear words snapping in the kennel of my brain.

Ivan Ochoa dug in at the plate while Roberts led off first. I was told before the game, should this situation happen, to expect bunt, but also to expect steal, to pitch fast but remain under control, to be careful but aggressive, to defend but attack—complicated even if I wasn’t drunk on a cocktail of hyperexposure. Soon it was two balls, no strikes again.

What the hell is wrong with me? This is just ridiculous
, I thought.
My first start in Triple A I punched out the side, now I can’t even throw strikes!
I got the ball back and stared down at it in my glove, screaming at it telepathically, demanding that it obey.

Ochoa dug in. Roberts led off. I watched Roberts, Ochoa watched me, Bard watched Roberts, Balsley watched me. Somewhere my mom lit up her third menthol. Roberts inched off the bag. I thought about doing the “slide step” to home, but scratched the idea because I wasn’t throwing strikes, and when you aren’t throwing strikes, it’s not time to be Mr. Fancy Pants with your motion. When I made my pitch, Roberts broke for second. I ducked Bard’s tardy throw and Roberts slid in safe.
Dammit!

After his theft, Roberts called for time as he’d gotten some dirt in his eye from sliding. I wanted to run over and tackle him and put my fist in his eye.
Wouldn’t that be something,
I thought.
My first big league game and I go nuts beating on Dave Roberts?

Dave was just doing his job. He was a good guy. Expecting him to remember an inconsequential little leaguer like me was ridiculous. I had to let it go, it wasn’t personal. I had a job to do. If Dave was on my team, I’d be proud of him—I’d hock his signature on eBay all the time, but I’d be proud of him. However, when he took third on a bunt single the very next pitch, I wished to God I’d tackled that false-friending son of a bitch at second!

Chapter Fifty-two

With a man on first and third and no outs, and only one strike thrown, for the first time all day a singular concept took over my mind: making it out alive. Some refer to this moment of a pitcher’s clarity of purpose as “locking in,” although this is usually accompanied by a pitcher doing something authoritative, like punching out the side. Me, I fell behind on Randy Winn before trading a groundout with the scoring of Dave Roberts—the first out of my career, a force at second. I gave up a double to Aaron Rowan right after that, which scored Winn. Next came a long fly out by Pablo Sandoval, a dude everyone called Kung Fu Panda. With two outs and a man in scoring position and Bud Black standing next to the bullpen phone, I finally ran into the first batter I knew from the minor leagues, Travis Ishikawa.

I liked Travis, especially right now. As strange as it sounds, he was the closest thing to a friend I had at the moment. I didn’t know him, never talked to him once in my life, but I liked him because I knew I could get him out. I’d done it before in the minors. The rest of these guys were immortals as far as I could tell, but Travis was a guy trying to get a foothold in the Show, just like me. I found my confidence against him, as well as my breaking ball, and got him to dribble a grounder to second for the third out.

Music played to mark the end of the inning. The fans cheered the Giants’ good fortune. I walked off the field trying to look strong and impassive, but I was a wreck. I took my sweaty glove off and sat on the bench. A trainer handed me a cup of water and a dry towel, which I used to swab my head down with. That was the longest inning of my life. It felt like I’d played nine full with how emotionally exhausted I was. I sipped the water and looked out onto the field, watching my guys fight their guys, knowing I was supposed to be leading and not panting to keep up. Zito was making it look easy, throwing strikes, probably using his well publicized yoga training to keep his mind from self-destructing. He had two outs by the time I finished drinking one cup of water.

I crinkled my empty cup and tossed it to the floor. Chase Headley, aka Chase the Magnificent, was up to bat. Chase’s arrival in the big leagues was foretold by prospect magazines and media guides for the last few years now, and he’d never failed to deliver. He was an organizational building block, and he had the luxury of knowing it all season long. I, on the other hand, was not. My time here was as much an audition as it was anything else. Yet, we were both here. No one could ever take today away from me. I would always be a member of the elite fraternity of big leaguers, prospect or otherwise. I could always say I got to wear the uniform, and bore my grandkids with repeated tales of how it was the scariest, longest, most mind-blowing day of my life.

But the goal now was no longer to make it to the big leagues. Now the goal was to stay there. The hype on who would make it to the Show might not matter anymore, but I realized as Chase stood arguing a called strike three to end the inning that the hype on who would stay could matter a great deal. The way I got here meant I wouldn’t have the luxury of second chances if I didn’t pull myself together. As Chase slammed his bat into the rack, I put my hat back on and ran back onto the field. I had seven warm-up pitches to figure out what the hell I was doing.

It took me half an hour to get through my first half inning. It took Zito less than ten minutes to manage his second. Thankfully, my second went much smoother. Fellow Kent State standout Emmanuel Burriss flicked a single up the middle, then stole second base, but relief came in the form of the pitcher.

I could say that I struck out Zito to end the inning, but no one says that. Zito’s the pitcher, and anytime a pitcher comes to the plate, they are generally acknowledged as an automatic out. There are a few athletes out of the bunch who can hit and pitch, but they’re a dying breed. Now we are trained strictly to bunt so as not to be completely useless, but to sacrifice bunt only since we are a bigger liability on the base path than at the dish. To claim with any kind of pride that I punched out the pitcher would be like having pride in entering puberty. I struck out “the pitcher” and got Dave Roberts to ground out to end it.

The next inning, Zito and I switched roles as I came to bat. I threw right-handed but I hit left-handed. Back when I was a kid, when my dad thought I was going to be a left-handed power hitter, he told me that lefty was the way to go since it would put me closer to first base. Unfortunately for him, I was slow, which really wasn’t that bad, I guess, since I couldn’t hit either. Saying I couldn’t hit is actually a nice way of putting it; I was an embarrassment at the plate. Over the years, as my pitching kept me afloat in the game, teammates handy with the lumber would pepper me with their guaranteed hitting fixes on how to stand, swing, step, and track. Looking back now, I wonder if they were just messing with me as I never became comfortable at the plate, let alone consistent, and I swung like I was trying to pull-start a lawn mower. In six years of minor league ball, I’d never recorded a hit. My batting average was a career .000. I was as out as out could get, and I hadn’t even stepped in the box yet.

Since pitchers know that no one expects them to do anything productive at the plate, some of them treat a two out swing-away situation like free pulls on a slot machine. They swing as hard as they can and hope for the best. After all, who cares if they strike out? That’s what they’re supposed to do. I, however, entered that box with one goal: not to embarrass myself.

There is some kind of etiquette about tapping the catcher’s shin guards when you come to bat the first time. I wasn’t sure exactly what I was supposed to do. I wanted to look cool, but I think I just kind of poked him with my bat head. “Take it easy on me,” I said. “It’s my first time.”

The catcher said nothing. I swallowed. Zito wound.

Usually, the first pitch from one pitcher to another in a swing-away situation is a fastball, sometimes referred to as the courtesy fastball in case you’re the type of pitcher who feels like swinging and usually ending the at bat on the first pitch. After that, it’s all breaking stuff because ESPN highlights look better when the strikeout total next to your name is higher.

I took the first pitch. Courtesy or not, it’s remarkably easy to lay off pitches when you know you can’t hit any of them. That doesn’t mean they can’t hit you, though. Lefty on lefty is scary as hell. Zito’s arm angle had me edging farther and farther away from the plate on each pitch, but when Zito uncorked that huge hook of his, I bailed out completely. I thought for sure it was going to decapitate me, but when I opened my eyes and looked to the catcher, the pitch was caught just out of the zone for a ball. I was certain I would see his hook again after my reaction, but it didn’t come. Zito fell behind on me, and then, as fate would have it, he walked me.

I completely blanked. I was not prepared for this contingency. I stared stupidly at the umpire because ball four did not compute. It had been years since I’d been on first base, and I had no idea what to do there. Out of instinct, I actually took a step toward the dugout before it registered I was going the wrong way. I tried to play my error off like I was just going to give the bat back, forgetting they had people who collected them. Then, instead of cutting my losses and heading to first, I stepped back into the box and looked dull-faced at the umpire again.

“First base is that way,” said the umpire, gesturing with a tilt of his head.

“Yeah, r-right. Thank you, sir,” I said. I dropped my bat and jogged awkwardly down the line.

I actually made it all the way to third base, but I didn’t score. When I arrived there, the umpire asked me when was the last time I was at third base. I said I didn’t know. He laughed. Then he told me which direction was home, in case I got lost again.

Back on the mound, I made it through the third inning one-two-three, earning a shot at the fourth. We were still trailing 2-0, but I felt like I was winning if only because I finally had a good inning. If I had another good inning, I might see the fifth.

The Giants had other plans, though. Kung Fu Panda roped a double off me to start the fourth. My dear friend Ishikawa struck out. Then Rich Aurilla grounded out, moving Sandoval to third. With two outs and “The Pitcher” on deck, the executive decision came for me to intentionally walk Emmanuel Burriss to get to Zito.
God bless the National League
, I thought,
where you can always rely on a pitcher to kill the momentum.

Zito dug in, Panda led off, Bard flashed a curveball. We needed this out so no reason to gamble with a courtesy fastball. My first hook came in for a strike. My second garnered a hack from Zito that looked remarkably similar to my own. When I got the ball back, I thought of how cool it would be to tell my friends I struck out Barry Zito, a multimillionaire, with my curve.

As expected, Bard flashed two fingers for the bender. I came set. Checked the dancing Panda at third. Measured up Zito. Locked on home and hurled a hook that was meant to get me through my third scoreless inning. Zito grabbed his bat and yanked his lawn mower with all his might, squibbing the ball aloft and just over the heads of my infielders. It landed in shallow right for a hit. Panda scored to make it 3-0 Giants.

God damn you, Zito!
my mind exploded.
You’re ruining my life! You were supposed to strike out, this is the National fucking League!
The fans were all applauding yet laughing at the same time ... I didn’t think it was that funny.

Apparently neither did Bud. He was on the horn to the pen after Zito dinked his RBI single. Soon I could hear the crack of leather coming from the bullpen. As it was, I had a tight pitch count and a short leash. Now I was staring at the top of the order with two runners on.

Dave Roberts was up again, and I knew if I didn’t get him out this time around, I would be out of the game. I was pissed off, but it was not distracting. Actually, the anger I was feeling helped me tune out the overwhelming fear of failure I’d been operating under since I’d shown up. I was pissed at everyone and everything, and as long as it had a hold of me, the ramifications of what could go wrong on my next pitch didn’t seem to affect me. I wound and pitched at Roberts in attack mode, and, for my effort, he yielded a ground out to get me out of my jam.

Soon after we were off the field, and I was cooling off, Balsley informed me that Cha Seung Baek would be batting in my place. I was offended by that. Not that I wasn’t going to get to pitch another inning, and not that they didn’t ask me how I felt, but because they had the audacity to take me out of the lineup when I had a 1,000 on-base percentage.

After the game, reporters surrounded me asking what my debut felt like. I didn’t know what to say other than the clichéd stuff about dreams coming true. This is what every athlete says after they make their debut, and I now understood why. It’s way too complicated to explain all the emotional overload in a snappy sound bite. Saying it was a dream come true sounds way better than saying, “Between trying not to wet myself, wanting to kill Barry Zito, hoping a meteor would crush me, and forgetting where first base was, a no-decision is great!”

The reporters seemed satisfied, and so did the coaches. I wasn’t called in to the office after the game to be told I was going back to Triple A. After everyone showered, ate, and left for the afternoon, I was still part of the club.

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