Long Shot (57 page)

I guess baseball loosened me up for that sort of thing. You can’t succeed as a ballplayer, or an athlete of any kind, if you’re unwilling to put yourself on the line. I was blessed to be fairly free of the fear of failure—except for when it came to playing first base. In San Diego, fortunately, I didn’t have to do that.

There was only one significant downside to being with the Padres, and it wasn’t their fault. Petco Park is a canyon. It’s considered the most “pitcher-friendly” stadium in the big leagues, which makes it a bitch for hitters. I still wonder what numbers I might have put up in four hundred at-bats at Citizens Bank Park. We played three games there that year, around the Fourth of July, and I enjoyed it to the extent of six hits. Meanwhile, Lieberthal was into his eighth week on the disabled list.

• • •

We were a couple of games up in first place, with everyone else bunched closely together, when we arrived in New York in early August. The Mets and their fans were hospitable only to an extent.

Before the first game, the scoreboard guys played another video of me, to the tune of the Beatles song “In My Life,” which was nice but a little schmaltzy, and the fans did a singsongy “Mike Pee-OTS-a” cheer when I got to the on-deck circle for the first time, which was also nice and not too schmaltzy. Then the Mets swiped four bases on me and beat us, 3–2. The next night, I threw out Endy Chavez trying to steal second in the second inning and he immediately jumped all over the umpire, as though there was no conceivable way the call could be right. His body language said, “What the
hell
? Are you
kidding
me?” I’m thinking, come on, I can’t throw anybody out? Get the fuck off the field. The crowd seemed kind of taken aback that I could still do that, on the order of, why’d we get rid of him?

Pedro Martinez was pitching for the Mets. They were up 4–0 when I took him out to right-center in the fourth inning. The fans gave me a standing ovation and kept it up until I went out for a curtain call. Somebody told me it was the first time a visiting player had ever gotten a standing ovation after hitting a home run at Shea Stadium. Somebody else told me it was reminiscent of when Tom Seaver returned for the first time in 1977, after being traded to the Reds, and beat the Mets with a complete game. Frankly,
I don’t know which was more satisfying—the incredible reception or hitting a home run against Pedro.

In the sixth, we were still down 4–1 when I got him again. This time, the crowd response was more along the lines of polite applause, like, oh, wow, great . . . all right now. The Mets were trying to nail down a division title themselves. When Pedro walked Giles and Cameron with one out in the eighth, Randolph brought in Aaron Heilman to pitch to me. I had the distinct feeling that if I homered again, which would give us the lead, my welcome would be worn out in no uncertain terms. Heilman threw me a changeup on the first pitch and I drove it deep enough to Beltran in center field that both runners were able to tag up and advance. Unfortunately, that was as close as we got to winning a game in New York. The Mets completed the sweep the next day and suddenly we found ourselves trailing the Dodgers, tied with Arizona.

We dropped as many as four games behind in early September, then put together a couple of nice little winning streaks. The club and I both finished strong—the season hadn’t beaten me down bodily or emotionally, like the past several had—and, by taking our last four series, we wound up in a dead heat with the Dodgers. Since we’d beaten them head-to-head over the course of the season, we were declared division champions. Our reward was drawing St. Louis in the first round of the playoffs.

We belonged where we were, but at the same time I knew we’d have to be at our very best, and catch some breaks, to win or even make it to the World Series. A similar thing could have been said for the Cardinals, who’d won only eighty-three games during the regular season, five fewer than we had. In retrospect, it was evident, four innings into the series, which team had destiny going for it.

Game one was scoreless, Peavy versus Chris Carpenter, when Pujols came to bat with a man on base. He skied a pop-up over my left shoulder, back toward the screen, and when I got there I grabbed the mesh, not realizing it wasn’t tight. It gave, I lurched, my toe stubbed against the concrete, and the ball fell out of my mitt. Naturally, Pujols proceeded to hit a home run.

After the inning, Peavy let me have it. He did that a lot, actually, and I didn’t mind, because he wasn’t trying to embarrass me. He was just a supercompetitive, straight-up guy, not unlike Bochy in that respect. He said, “Why didn’t you catch that fucking pop-up?”

I said, “Why’d you hang that three-two fucking cutter?” We got along. But we couldn’t beat Carpenter, who was rolling.

Bochy sat me down for the second game, which wasn’t the reason we got shut out or Pujols picked up three more hits. Chris Young had it working and
we won game three when the series switched to St. Louis, but the next day Carpenter wrapped it up for the Cardinals. They had found it. Next thing we knew, they were beating the Mets—who had eliminated the Dodgers in the post-Piazza playoff round—to take the pennant, and then the Tigers in the World Series. Damn.

The Padres held an $8 million option on me for 2007, but, in spite of the way everything had worked out—I’d finished at .283 with twenty-two homers and sixty-eight RBIs, while the three-headed monster had collectively produced more home runs than any catching combination in all of baseball—I was under no illusions that they’d exercise it. I’d be thirty-eight and unlikely to catch another ninety-nine games, like I had in 2006. For that matter, I didn’t expect to be back in San Diego at a reduced rate, either. Lozano and I were looking for a contract in the neighborhood of two to three million, and we knew that Kevin Towers wouldn’t be able to get that past Sandy Alderson, the Padres’ CEO. Sandy was looking for fresh faces, to the extent that he let Bochy get away to the Giants even though Boach had just won the division with a team that wasn’t particularly loaded. Bochy’s replacement was Bud Black, a former pitcher who wasn’t especially keen to keep me.

Once again, I turned my attention toward the American League. This time, gainfully.

The Oakland A’s had just won ninety-three games, and Billy Beane was casting around for a veteran to replace the bat and presence of Frank Thomas, who’d given them thirty-nine home runs as the designated hitter before leaving for Toronto as a free agent. Smart guy that he is, Beane understood that I’d put together decent numbers in the toughest hitters’ park in baseball and produced very well away from it. Refreshed by the West Coast, I’d posted my best slugging percentage since 2002. I’d remained relatively healthy. I didn’t seem to mind a small market or daunting field dimensions. And defensively, I shaped up as a hell of a DH. (The A’s already had a fine, durable catcher in Jason Kendall.)

Beane proposed a two-year contract for around $15 million. Honestly, though, I didn’t know if I had two years left in me. I wasn’t altogether certain that I’d enjoy the American League, either. Or Oakland, as far as that goes.

Danny thought I was being ridiculous. He said, “Mike, take the money. You can always ask for a trade or retire if you want. But that’s guaranteed money.”

I told him, “Nah, I just want a one-year deal.”

I left six and a half million bucks on the table. But eight and a half for a season of DH’ing?

Dude.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Our first child, Nicoletta, was born on February 3, 2007. Otherwise, out of habit and stubbornness and against the advice of the A’s, I’d have probably reported to spring training with the pitchers and catchers.

When I finally got there with everybody else for the first time in my career, I had with me five catcher’s mitts, three of them brand-new and still wrapped in plastic. I understood the DH part of my arrangement with Oakland, but a large portion of my constitution as a baseball player involved working with pitchers. I felt I had a lot to contribute along those lines, whether I actually caught ball games or not. I mentioned to our rookie manager, Bob Geren, that I’d be happy to do bullpen sessions in the spring if he needed an extra set of hands. He said hell no. He had his orders from Billy Beane. At one point—nervous, I guess, that I’d catch a foul tip on the toe or finger, or maybe get hit in the head with a backswing for the umpteenth time—they actually took my gear away from me.

I have to admit, it kept me focused and ready to hit. Traditionally, I was not a quick starter with the bat, but I swung it well in Phoenix. I was feeling strong. That was officially confirmed when a Japanese television crew staged a strength test across the major-league camps, using a grab-and-grip contraption with a meter connected to it. They tested Pujols, Ryan Howard, Roy Halladay—practically everybody, as far as I know—and nobody could match my number. The A’s had signed me for power, and it was nice to know that I could still muscle up as well as anyone. The new gig was going to be interesting.

It certainly began that way. We opened on the road at Seattle and Anaheim, with me hitting cleanup between Milton Bradley and Eric Chavez. Seattle was rough—what the hell do you do on the bench with no pitcher to study and the rest of the guys on the field?—but in the first game against the Angels, I came up in the ninth inning with two outs and two hits under my
belt, facing the ace reliever, Frankie Rodriguez, who the next year would set the major-league record with sixty-two saves. On a one-one pitch, it felt like old times. I sent the ball just to the right of center, like I used to, and it traveled about as high and far as it often had, landing well back in the bleachers. Huston Street set them down in the ninth for the win.

It was a four-game series, and I scorched it for ten hits. Frankly, it surprised me a bit. For most of my career I had emphasized base hits and been unwilling to give them up for more home runs, but I’d finally accepted the fact that my average would have to suffer in the interest of power, which, given my lack of speed, I couldn’t do without. For whatever reason, though, it didn’t go down that way in April 2007. The homer against K-Rod was the only one I would hit that month, in spite of playing nearly every day. I’d certainly have understood if Geren had dropped me out of the four-hole, but he evidently shared my confidence that the power would show up in May, as usual. There was no reason why it wouldn’t; the DH role was going easy on me.

In fact, I wouldn’t have felt thirty-eight at all if the music in the clubhouse weren’t hurting my ears the way it did. When it comes to music, I feel I’m as open-minded as anybody out there, but we had a young roster and, well,
man.
I like rap just fine—hell, I was wearing gold chains back when Olivia Newton-John was getting physical—if it’s classic rap, or even the new stuff when there’s a strong rhythm to it. As a thrash-metal guy from way back, I feel like I can handle some rough language and graphic lyrics; but some of the more contemporary rap is so blatantly hard-core that even an old Slayer and Anthrax man like me has a tough time dealing with it. I guess it’s a matter of age and tradition both. You have to understand, I came up with the Dodgers when the stadium music consisted exclusively of Nancy Bea Hefley at the organ. When that was cut back to modernize the atmosphere—to make the ballpark sound like every other ballpark—they turned to entrance music, with each player picking a theme song. With the Mets, I recall Tony Tarasco coming to the plate to an X-rated, in-your-face rap number that had the whole stadium sounding like a bad-ass clubhouse. Can’t say I cared for that.

But at least the young pups on the A’s could appreciate my familiarity with music (if not my considerable skill on the air drums). Huston Street, who was only twenty-three, enlisted my help in picking his closer anthem, even though I’d whiffed on behalf of Braden Looper. It was still my mission to wean the bullpens of the world off “Enter Sandman” or even “Hells Bells.” For Street, I suggested “Man in the Box,” by Alice in Chains, but he wasn’t buying
it. Eventually we compromised on “Hate Me Now,” by Nas, which, for me, was a damn big compromise. Judging by the season he had, it worked for him.

I don’t think the guys were quite as tolerant of my humor, though. Before one game, I advised them, “Everybody be alert out there. We need more lerts.” They just looked at me with blank stares. I felt like a
dad
in that clubhouse. I was the stodgy old conservative, although, politically at least, Street lined up on the same side. Naturally, that made him a smart guy in my book. He even discussed art with me. On the sly—I didn’t want to get fined for thinking like a catcher—I talked a little pitching strategy with Huston and whoever wanted to sit in.

Anyhow, it was all good. Until the second day of May, at Fenway Park.

I was at second base in the sixth inning, with two outs and a runner also at first, when Bobby Crosby rolled a grounder to Mike Lowell at third. Lowell backhanded the ball in front of the bag and was intending to just take a couple of steps back and stomp on it. But I’d gotten a good jump for a change and was closer than he’d expected. His only play was to lunge and tag me. I swerved, fell, and Lowell fell on top of me, crushing my right shoulder. It was a grade-three acromioclavicular (AC) joint separation. Designated hitting had failed to keep me off the DL.

The next day, Beane traded with San Diego for Jack Cust, an outfielder who had been around for a while but played in only seventy games for four different teams. Billy saw something in him that others hadn’t—mostly, a combination of power and the willingness to take a walk—and almost immediately Cust became our DH. He did well. He, in fact, became practically the quintessential Billy Beane (in other words, Moneyball) player.

In light of that, the A’s were in no hurry to bring me off the disabled list. By the middle of June, when we were eight games over .500, I felt I was ready to go; but they kept putting off my activation. When I pleaded my case, Beane told me that there was no room for another DH—and he wanted me to start
catching.