Out of My League (15 page)

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Authors: Dirk Hayhurst

BOOK: Out of My League
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Chapter Twenty-seven
It was a terrible day for baseball. The temperature hit its lowest point since our arrival in Portland, which felt twice as cold considering we had just come from ninety-degree Arizona heat. Batting practice was canceled due to marble-size hail. Those courageous enough to venture onto the field for any kind of pre-game activity were rewarded with soaked shoes, freezing fingers, and welts on their necks. We soon began to doubt the home opener would actually happen.
Self-amusement during weather delays is a fine art among baseball players, and while management debated over how much precipitation was too much, players broke out cards in the clubhouse. Many of the boys decided they would use the delay time wisely, sharpening their poker skills in preparation for the much-anticipated trip to Sin City. We weren’t the first Portland team to think this way, which may have explained the clubhouse’s rather robust collection of mismatched poker chips—leftovers passed down from generations of players hoping to beat the house. There was also a Connect Four game, Uno, a mangled Monopoly set, and some checkers that had poker chips being used as stand-ins to the normal chips.
Eating is another common use of player downtime. Those not honing their gambling skills wandered in and out of the clubhouse’s food pantry, where they grazed on sugar and fat like mindless cattle. Since players paid more in clubhouse dues in Portland, the snacking was better, offering a wider selection of ways to increase one’s waistline: industrial-size tubs of cheese balls, Red Vine licorice, Oreos, Pop-Tarts, animal crackers, chips, chocolate, and a soft drink fountain featuring five flavors. If Stan were here, he would have had a heart attack.
In our boredom, we filled plastic party cups full of sodas and pantry snacks and parked ourselves either in the middle of the clubhouse at the casino, or in front of one of the clubhouse’s two sets of televisions and couches located on either side of the room.
Presently, one television was showing a Cubs’ game featuring Joe Morgan as the color man. The other showcased the latest VH1 reality show,
The Flavor of Love,
starring Flava Flav and his flock of debutantes.
“Where’s the remote?” bellowed Myrow. “I can’t take him anymore. We have to mute this idiot or change the channel.”
“I hate it when people try to hold on to their fame in desperate ways. They should know their time has passed and move on. It’s disgraceful to fight it,” said Bentley.
“Never happen. This clown has too many fans,” said Myrow.
“Only because they don’t know any better,” sighed Bentley. “They’re disadvantaged, really. Your average viewer will believe whatever a celebrity figure tells them to believe. That’s why they have so many guys like him doing this kind of thing nowadays.”
“What y’all talking about?” asked Dallas, forcing his way into a seat between the pair.
“Joe Morgan,” said Myrow. “He’s terrible.”
“And yet,” added Bentley, “he’s remarkably gifted at giving himself on-air blow jobs about how great he once was. If you drank a shot every time he started a sentence with ‘I,’ you’d die of alcohol poisoning before the fifth inning.”
“Ain’t fucking guys who are always talking ’bout themselves just the worst?” Dallas asked. “It just pisses me off when I hear a guy do that. Makes me want to smack ’em right in their fucking face.”
Bentley lifted an eyebrow at Dallas. “Yes, well”—he rattled his plastic cup—“I think I’m going to refresh my cheese balls.” He got up, leaving Myrow with Dallas.
“Listen to him!” Myrow pointed at the television. Morgan was saying something like,
I’m not going to lie to you, the only way to know if this kid has what it takes to be an everyday player is to see him play every day, someday.
“Gee, thanks for not lying to me about that, Joe.” Myrow picked up the remote and aimed it at the television. “Why do people feel the need to ruin perfectly good baseball by letting Morgan commentate on it? Hayhurst,” Myrow called to me, sitting on the clubhouse’s sister couch with Ox, Frenchy, and Hamp. “What channel is Flava Flav on?”
“VH1, a few channels up,” I called back.
Myrow changed the channel, crossed his legs, and smiled. “Now this is bold television. They should let this guy commentate for the Cubs, that would break that curse.”
 
A few hours—and several cups of cheese balls—later, the weather gave up trying to defeat the ultra-weather-resistant turf field and allowed the home opener to proceed. To kick off of another year of Beavers baseball, several opening day festivities were held. The team was dragged up to the concourse to pass out swag to fans entering the gate. New graphics and player bios celebrating the team’s new logo flashed across the video board in the outfield. First pitches were thrown by quasi-famous figures and, finally, our mascot, Lucky the Beaver, was presented in the grandest of ceremonies: a grounds crew member drove Lucky to home plate on a Gator brand ATV. The fans cheered moderately.
Kip Freckles got the start. He was absolutely paramount in our clinching of the Texas League last year, and this year, it was almost as if he picked up right where he left off, going a seven strong innings while allowing only one hit: a solo home run. This dominating start was great for Kip, but terrible for me and the rest of the bullpen crew who sat freezing our asses off in the pen. As night fell, so did the temperature. We heaped on all the spare clothes we had, anything to keep warm. We cut up socks to make headbands, used training towels as scarves and blankets, even huddled together to share body heat despite the fact that Ox nearly puked when he touched Bentley’s ultra-soft skin. When the weather got ugly and spit out icy mist, we pulled up our hoods and took as much as we could before evacuating.
The Beavers’ pen was situated down the left field line, completely exposed to the elements, which was a bad thing considering the weather. However, since there was a back door entrance to the clubhouse, this was easy to forgive. A back door entrance meant we could sneak into the comfort of our home locker room if the weather turned, or we needed a potty break, or we just got bored. We could gorge ourselves in the pantry, text-message our fiancées, or, like Dallas was fond of doing, fight with our baby-mommas via cell phone away from the prying eyes of the manager.
Equally nice was the amount of nooks, crannies, and cover the Portland pen provided us to screw around in. I’m not sure what it is about boys and forts, but I know that if given the choice, a reliever will always take the bullpen that feels like a fort over the one that doesn’t. Luckily, behind the exposed portion of the pen was a towering wall of ivy behind which the grounds crew’s equipment was stored. This was another fine development as relievers and power tools mix quite nicely, like last year in Tulsa, when the Double A relief crew made bets on what would explode when run over by a tractor. I love science.
Connected to the secluded ivy portion was a path tracing the hidden side of the outfield wall. Follow it and you could reach the hand-operated scoreboard in left field, or visit the opposing team’s pen in right. Opposite the path was a staircase that rose to overlook the field. It was like a lookout tower, shielded from the elements, from where a player could watch the game and sip hot cocoa. Or, in the case of Dallas, an excellent vantage point from which to rate the quality of boobs in the beer garden, which, incidentally, also neighbored the pen.
“Why the fuck would you wear that out in this weather?” asked Dallas, staring down a young lady putting her own kegs on display in the beer garden. “That’s what I hate about girls. They know what they’re up to, they want you to look, but when you do, they get all pissed off at you for it.”
“She can get pissed off at me all she wants,” said Ox. “I might even let her smack me around a little.”
“Oh, she’s looking!” said Dallas. “Everybody wave.” All of us waved hello to her. She did a double take. Ox even invited her over to the pen, waving his big mitts at her to join us. She smiled and refused, holding up her beer as an excuse.
“You can bring that,” said Ox.
She shook her head no, then turned away. We kept staring at her, though, long enough that when she turned around to look at us again, she started to get uncomfortable. It was at this point a gentleman she was with moved seats to be next to her and block our vision. For his trouble, everyone in the pen booed him.
“Fucking douche bag.” Dallas waved his hands at the noble gentleman blocking our eyes. “What the fuck’s she doing with him? Look at him.”
I looked over at the gentleman in question. He seemed like a decent guy, firm chin, dark hair, easygoing smile.
“Fucking rat-faced, white-trash pussy. You know she doesn’t want to be with him. I mean, you can just fucking tell,” said Dallas.
A couple of the guys laughed at Dallas’s comment, at the unwarranted ferocious quality to his candor. It was like he took the whole thing personally.
“Jesus, man, you might want take off a few layers and cool down, Dallas,” said Ox, slapping Dallas on the side.
“What?” Dallas looked at Ox. “It don’t piss you off to see a hot chick with a fucking turd?”
“She looks happy to me,” I said. The girl was laughing at something the gentleman said, though we were too far away to hear it.
“Then why’s she down here in the fucking beer garden?”
“For the beer?” I answered.
“A chick with hammers like that can get beer in any bar in this town. She’s down here ’cause she wants players to notice.” He said it like a paranoid detective solving a crime that took place in his head.
“What if she’s just here for baseball, and has nice hammers? No agenda?”
Dallas shook his head. “Girls always have an agenda. Even when you think they don’t, they do. You can’t trust women. This girl wants our attention. If I wasn’t married I’d prove it to y’all right now. I could walk right over there and get that bitch’s number like nothing.” He snapped his fingers, still staring at the girl.
“While she’s with another man?” I asked skeptically.
Dallas looked at me like I was incompetent. “Hell yeah. We’re the ones in the uniform, man. We’re the ones people pay to see.” He leaned back and crossed his legs. “She might laugh or be embarrassed, but she’d give it to me. Besides, if she says no, there’ll be another one tomorrow night, ya know?” He laughed after he said this, looking around to everyone else on the team as if to invite them to share in his mirth. I didn’t think it was funny, though, and my lack of laughter did not sit well with him.
“Don’t be so judgmental, Dirk. Fuck,” said Dallas.
“What? I’m not,” I said.
“I know what you’re thinking,” continued Dallas. He made a mocking face in imitation of my own, which, if Dallas’s version was anything to go by, must have been one of smug contempt. “Like you never did anything bad in your life.”
“I ...” I threw my hands wide. “How did I get on trial here? I don’t see things the way you do.”
“You’re judgmental, that’s why.”
“I don’t think I’d make the same decisions as you, that’s all.”
“Better hope your girl sees things the same way you do while you’re gone.”
There was a collective tensing in the pen as everyone in earshot had just heard a statement that crossed the line. If I were Dallas and he me, fists would have been in the air by now and fellow relievers would have been fighting hard to pull us apart. Whether it was fear or prudence, I couldn’t pull the trigger. I just sat there and took it.
“That’s fucked up,” said Ox, speaking for me.
“Yeah, Dallas, that’s fucked up,” repeated Hamp.
“I didn’t mean nothing by it,” he pleaded to his jury of peers. “I’m just saying the world ain’t perfect. Shit happens.” Dallas then smirked at me, begging me to counter.
The words were there, burning in me, but they caught in my throat as I knew what would happen if I said what I was thinking. Instead, I got up and left the pen.
Chapter Twenty-eight
We won the home opener game, soundly beating the Fresno Grizzlies 8–4, and Chip got his first homer.
“Nice poke, big man,” I said to Chip as Luke, Chip, and I entered the apartment.
“Thanks, bro,” said Chip. “Tried to get in on me, but he didn’t get in there far enough.” Chip took an imaginary swing and sent an imaginary ball over an imaginary left field wall.
“If you keep this pace, you’ll hit 142 bombs by the end of the season. Think you can do it?”
“I’m gonna try,” said Chip.
We spread out in the apartment’s living room/bedroom. I sat on my bed, Chip fell into a lawn chair, and Luke, who didn’t get to play tonight, took dry cuts with a bat he’d brought home with him.
Winding down after a game is different for each player. Some of the guys went out for drinks, others home to their families. Chip, Luke, and I sat in a living room on inner tubes and lawn chairs staring at each other.
We must have sat there for a good ten minutes in silent boredom when Luke, taking a final cut, announced, “This sucks.”
“Yeah,” I said, falling back on my bed.
“Oh,” said Chip, moving as if he had the answer to our problem in the pack he carried with him to and from the field. He opened the sack and produced two cans of Gatorade protein shakes. “Breakfast,” he said, and got up to deposit them in the fridge.
Luke’s and my shoulders slumped: false alarm.
“You got a television in that bag?” I asked.
“Nah, bro.”
“This sucks,” Luke said again.
“Yes, I remember you saying that,” I said to Luke.
Luke rested the bat over his shoulders and looked at me, “You know what we need?”
“Besides pretty much everything,” I mumbled.
“We need some cards. You got any?” Luke looked at me.
“I’m sorry, I don’t,” I said.
“That sucks,” said Luke.
“Maybe if we all take a piece of the locker room home with us, like Chip did, we could have all the best stuff from the locker room here by the end of the season. Chip, you think you can fit one of those barrels of cheese balls in your pack?”
“What are you going to do with a barrel of cheese balls, bro?”
“Smuggle one here and I’ll show you. We could fill the bathtub—”
“Maybe the neighbors have cards?” asked Luke. He was scowling, indicating he was in deep, tactical thought about how best to secure cards.
“Oh, Lord. Look at the man’s face.” Chip pointed at Luke. “Luke’s gonna go kill somebody for a pack of cards.”
“Are you going to kill the neighbors, Luke? If you do, raid their fridge while you’re at it.”
“I wouldn’t kill anyone for cards,” said Chip. “Maybe for Monopoly. I’d dominate all of you at some Monopoly.”
Luke did not respond to our helpful suggestions. He was too focused on the planning of Operation Card Game. Realizing Luke had checked out, Chip turned to me.
“I heard your boy Dallas was giving you some shit today.”
“Where’d you hear that?” I asked.
“From him. His locker’s next to mine. Dude doesn’t shut up. It’s gonna be a long year with him as a locker buddy.”
“Tell me about it,” I said, thinking of how not fun life in the bullpen would be this year with Dallas in it.
“If I was you, I’d tell him to worry about his own mess of problems and stop making up drama for you.”
“You can’t tell him anything, Chip. Me specifically. He hates me, always has. Always thinks I’m judging him. And, because of some violent history between us, he knows he can say what he wants because I’ll take it. Because I won’t fight him.”
“Man, you don’t gotta fight him. You just—”
“If I say anything he doesn’t like, it will come to that. He’s like my brother, you say something critical and his answer is to fight you. And I can’t afford a fight with a prospect. If Dallas and I did get into it and the brass had to make an example of someone for fighting, it would be me. I need this opportunity, so I don’t have a lot of choice but to take it.”
“Okay, man, but shit ...” Chip’s facial expression tried to say what his voice couldn’t. “Maybe we should have Luke here take him out for you.” Chip looked back to Luke, who was still staring at the door. “You really gonna go ask the neighbors for a pack of cards?” asked Chip.
“Yeah, why not?” said Luke.
“Well, if you do, don’t go ask these folks for any,” said Chip, pointing at the far wall that served as the shared wall of Chip’s room and the neighboring apartment. “Last night through the wall, I could hear them having sex.”
“So?” said Luke and I.
“It’s two dudes, bro.”
“Oh.” Luke and I cringed.
“They was going at it, screaming at each other.” Chip raised his voice and put his hands up. “
You like that, baby, you like it when Daddy does that?”
“Oh no!” Luke and I cringed harder.
“Yeah, they were getting after it. I just lie there like ...” Chip made a face of stark, wide-eyed shock. “I almost came out here to sleep with you.” Chip gestured to me. “You’d roll over and I’d be there, smiling at you.”
Luke shook his head, returning to his thoughtful scowl. “I don’t think that’s a big deal, it’s just cards.”
“Alright.” Chip kicked back in his seat. “Go ahead, then. Go on over there and tell them the three dudes living in a two-bedroom apartment right next door need cards at eleven p.m. ’cause we’re bored. Next thing you know, they’re gonna be knocking on our door every day, like”—Chip’s voice and hands went back up—“
Hey, can we borrow a cup of sugar? Maybe a cup of penis?”
“That’s not going to happen,” said Luke.
“Special delivery,”
continued Chip.
“We got something in this box, just for you!”
Chip pretended there was a box sitting on his crotch.
“What if they’re black guys and they only like you?” asked Luke.
“Oh, no, no, they ain’t black. I can tell you that.”
“How do you know?”
“First, no black man, gay or otherwise, is going to squeal like them boys did.” Luke and I laughed, but Chip pointed at me and said, “You laugh, but you remember what I said when your wedding night comes.”
“Hey, my wife promised to be very gentle.”
“Second,” continued Chip, “I haven’t seen any black people in this town since we’ve showed up. What are the chances of all of us living in the same place and two of us are gay?”
“He’s right,” said Luke. “Portland is a very white city. There probably are more gay guys than black guys here.”
“Finally, y’all hear any bass? No. We been here three days now and I have yet to here any bass rumbling through the wall. They are definitely not black.”
“Are you homophobic, Chip?” I asked.
“Pssh, no, I ain’t homophobic. I’m hearing-dudes-have-butt-sex-through-wall-ophobic.”
“So, you wanna switch rooms?” I asked, holding up my pair of earplugs.
“Uh-uh.” He waved a tsking finger at my question. “I hit a home run tonight, I ain’t changing a thing. I hope they have sex every night if it means I keep hittin’ home runs. Hell, I might record it so I can listen to it on the road, if that’s what it takes.”
 
Chip hit a home run the following night. I didn’t ask him if the noises on the other side of the wall had anything to do with it, since it was far more fun to assume that every time he had a good night with the bat, our neighbors did the same.

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