Out of My League (25 page)

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Authors: Dirk Hayhurst

BOOK: Out of My League
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Chapter Forty-six
It was nearly 11
P.M.
by the time I made it out of the spontaneous locker room party held in my honor. Everyone wanted a turn at whacking me on the back and telling me they had a feeling I was going to get the call. Ox told me he was proud of me and that I’d better go shove it up someone’s ass in the Show to make them sorry for waiting so damn long to call on me. Other guys said good luck, offered their best, and gave me unsolicited advice. It wasn’t until one of the older journeymen players told me my news was just as much my family’s as it was my own that I had the wherewithal to break out of the festivities and make some long distance calls.
I pushed open the dugout doors and made my way out onto the field’s turf. The sound of blowers herding stadium trash into piles on the stairs echoed through the place. The light arrays that illuminated the field were cut down to only a handful of lightbulbs, under the glow of which the grounds crew raked and pounded dirt. To avoid the noise, I walked down to the home bullpen, to my favorite spot next to the ivy. There, I pulled my cell phone from my uniform pants rear pocket and dialed Bonnie.
“Hello?” came the groggy voice of my fiancée. It was 2
A.M.
her time.
“Hey, honey, were you sleeping?”
“Yeah ...” she mumbled. There was the sound of ruffling blankets followed by the distinct din of head plopping onto pillow. “It’s okay, I was dreaming of you.” Her breathing hissed through the receiver indicating she’d probably laid the phone on the pillow next to her head.
“Well, sorry to wake you but I’ve got some—”
“We’re getting married,” she continued mumbling. When she’s not really awake, her voice has a drunken fairy quality to it, sweet yet incoherent like she was high and about to pass out.
“Yes, yes, we are, but—”
“I wish you were here,” she said, chuckling to herself before adding as naughtily as she could muster in her state, “in my bed. I was having a sexy dream about you.”
“I wish I was there too, but—”
“Less than fifty days,” she said. “Then we can have sex.”
“Uh, yes. Yes, we sure can.”
“We’re going to have lots of it.”
I looked around the stadium, paranoid that someone else could hear where this conversation was going. “Of course.”
“I’m excited,” she said, though the words came out like someone mumbling in their sleep.
“Me too, but—”
“What are you wearing?”
“Bonnie, I’ve got some
big
news.”
“That’s great. Are you wearing those baseball pants? I like those.”
“Bonnie, I need you to wake up and think about why I would call you this late at night to tell you I have big news.”
After a moment or two, her pillow breathing stopped cold. Then, all manner of fabric noise from her overstuffed, princess-quality comforters reverberated through the phone. The creaking of the bed told me she was sitting up. Finally, the loud voice of a fully awake and head-against-phone Bonnie surged through the line. “You’re going to the big leagues! Oh my God, you’re going to the big leagues!”
“You know, I’ve only been waiting my entire life to say this to someone and you just go and steal my thunder.”
“You are!” She got hold of herself. “I’m sorry, you’re right. You say it. Let me hear you say it.”
“Bonnie, I’m going to be a big leaguer. I got the call.”
Screaming caused me to take the phone away from my head. There was the sound of jumping and ecstatic laughing. Then, when she calmed down, she brought the phone back to her head. “I have to tell my parents. I have to wake them up!”
Bonnie ran down the hallway and blasted through her parents’ bedroom door. I was standing in the middle of left field now; I’d wandered there during Bonnie’s attempt to turn the call into an X-rated chat line. Though I was very much in the Portland outfield, I was also very much in Bonnie’s parents’ bedroom. From my dual location, I could hear stadium trash collecting commingled with the sound of Bonnie’s mother freaking out that someone had broken into the house. Bonnie rehashed the news, and though I didn’t catch much, I did hear Bonnie’s mother say, “Praise the Lord,” followed by Bonnie’s father saying, “Amen. Now go back to bed ’cause some of us have real jobs.”
Bonnie exited as instructed before telling me, “They both said congratulations.”
“Did you tell them you were excited to have lots of sex with me?”
“I would never say that to them. My mom’s head would explode.”
“I think you should have led with that, kicked the bedroom door open and screamed it at them. That would have gotten their attention. It got mine.”
“This got their attention just fine.” She shut her door. “Oh my God, and now you’re a big leaguer! I’m so proud of you! This is so awesome.”
“Yeah, it’s so surreal. And they say the pants up there are ultra-sexy too.”
“Who else have you told?”
“No one. You’re the first person I called.”
“You didn’t call your parents? Honey, you have to call them. You can call me back. I won’t be going to bed now!”
As instructed, I got off the phone and dialed my parents. The phone rang and rang and finally, just when I thought I was going to get kicked to the answering machine, my mom picked up.
“What’s up?” she said, tailoring her greeting to the caller ID.
I tried to play it cool. “Took you long enough.”
“I was watching the SciFi Channel and I couldn’t get up from the recliner. Whaddya want?”
“Is Dad up?”
“No, why?” A munching noise came through the phone indicating she was eating.
“What are you eating?”
“Just the popcorn stuck to my shirt. What do you want or did you just call to ask what I was eating?”
“Go wake Dad up.”
She scoffed, “What? Why? Your dad’s in bed.”
“Well then, get his ass out of bed. I want to talk to him now!” I demanded outrageously.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, alright, hold on.” Mom marched upstairs and woke Dad.
“What?” he asked, his voice surprisingly awake, probably from being trained to wake on command from the days my brother stumbled in drunk.
“Put me on speakerphone.”
“Alright.” He took the phone from his head. “Christ, I can’t find the button. Pat, what button is it? Don’t know why they have to make ’em so damn small.” After much laboring, the phone clicked over to speaker. “Alright, go ahead.”
“Mom, Dad,” I announced majestically, “your son is going to be a big leaguer.”
“What?” Mom stammered, though she’d heard me fine.
“I got the call. I’m going to the Show to replace Maddux in the rotation on Saturday.”
“What?” This time Mom screamed it.
“I said I’m going to the big leagues!”
My mom started wailing like a hysterical idiot. “Oh my God, Dirk. Oh my God, Sam! Sam! Sam!” Her voice was deafening over the speakerphone.
“What, what, what? For fuck sakes, woman, I’m right here. I heard him.”
Mom got real close to the phone so it sounded like she was shouting at me. I had to tell her to talk at a tolerable volume on multiple occasions as she mined every single detail of the event and what it meant for the future of the free world. As I recounted the whole thing to the pair of them, some of the guys walked out of the dugout entrance heading to their cars and shouted at me, in emotional, schoolgirl voices,
“Oh Mommy, Daddy, I’m going to be a big leaguer!”
Then they made kissing noises. I gave them the finger.
“Maddux, huh?” said my dad. “Well, that’s good.” He cleared his throat. “That’s real good. You earned it, kid ... Replacing Maddux.” He was happy, I could tell by his voice, which seemed genuinely touched to the point of breaking into emotion. I could just see him nodding his head and smiling like he did when the good music played, repeating to himself the verse about me taking Maddux’s spot in the rotation.
“This came at a great time. What a great wedding present,” said Mom.
“I know, right?”
“We’re going to have to get the MLB package now so we can watch you,” said my mom. Then, as she realized what it meant. “Oh my God, Dirk. You’re going to pitch on television—in front of millions of people. Millions of people! Oh my God,
oh my God!
I’m going to have a heart attack watching you pitch. Jesus Christ almighty, this is going to kill me.”
Chapter Forty-seven
It was pathetic how little I had to pack. I could fit my entire wardrobe in my suitcase, which, though new at the beginning of the season, was now beat to hell from a full year of red-eye flights and playing demolition derby with twenty-four other minor leaguer suitcases.
The only outfit I didn’t stuff into my battle-damaged bag was the suit I’d cobbled together from pickups at the Goodwill and Chip’s donated shoes. That’s what I was traveling in. I’d spent the whole season wearing it with no concern about what anyone might think of me, but that changed today. I was on my way to a world of luxury automobiles and custom apparel; I would be like a peasant boy standing before the royal court.
I was supposed to fly out on Friday and meet the team in San Francisco. Though I was arriving well before the Friday night game started, I was told explicitly not to show up at the park before the day of my start. I wasn’t sure why this was such a big deal. In fact, I thought it would be a good idea for me to get there the night before and get my feet wet. I didn’t dare question it, though, lest I sounded ungrateful and undeserving.
Because my flight was on Friday but I got my news on Tuesday night, my last few nights in Portland were like being stuck in limbo. Though I was both a big leaguer and a minor leaguer, I wasn’t allowed to play with either team. Every time I goofed around like normal, practicing new pitches or conditioning by throwing the Aerobie with the boys, I got yelled at by players who thought I was crazy for risking my dream job. “What if you hurt yourself?” they’d ask. I’d tell them it was no different from any other day I’d have fun at the park, that this was all just part of my routine and it was important to treat life as normal, but they insisted it wasn’t normal. They insisted I was a big leaguer now and I was just tempting fate to screw everything up. They told me war stories of guys who cut themselves on beer cans the night before their plane flights, guys who twisted ankles or pulled obliques, guys who tore their labrums playing catch. I believed them, of course, why wouldn’t I? I had everything to lose at this point, and soon I started treating myself as if I was made of porcelain.
It was great to know I was going to the big leagues, but finding out three days ahead of time turned out to be a bad decision. With nothing to distract me from the impending climax of my crucible of a baseball career, I started to get nervous. I started asking other players with big league experience for comfort. Instead, I got admonitions grounded in hearsay and wives’ tales about what I should do up there under penalty of rookie death, as well as things I should never do under penalty of rookie death. Often these tales contradicted each other, but the one thing I took away from them was that, if I could be sure of nothing else, I could at least be sure the experience was probably going to kill me.
When Friday morning came, the Beavers’ clubhouse crew came and gathered up all the apartment furnishings. There was the possibility I’d go up to make the start and then get sent right back to Triple A after the game, but since the apartment lease was up at the end of the month, I’d have to move out, regardless. In fact, Chip, via the aid of his short-lived big-league paycheck, had already moved into a hotel a few days before. I watched the furniture loads leave the building, one after another, the disassembling of my last moments as a career minor leaguer. My air mattress, Memory Foam, and linens were all donated to the Triple A stockpile of home furnishings. Our pot, pan, and the ironing board on which we shared so many meals. Our television that distracted Luke and Chip’s kids. The lawn chair I got drunk off Kool-Aid in while watching
Harry Potter
. Even the extra paper towels we used as bath towels because we forgot to buy actual bath towels. Seeing it empty made the place feel barren. Not because of a lack of furniture, but because of a lack of memories. Or, maybe it felt that way because when my air mattress left, it revealed how clean the carpet was before we moved in since we’d failed to vacuum during the season.
When it was time to leave, I put on my suit, hefted my bags, and took a cab to PDX. As we rolled along, I watch Portland pass from the back of a cab. The nervousness subsided for a moment and I slipped away. It was not the trees or the buildings I beheld; rather I saw my life projected on Portland’s landscape like it was some giant screen showing my history as the feature presentation.
I could see myself playing T-ball, running the bases in the wrong direction. I could see my Little League teams eating ice cream, even after we lost. I could see summer leagues where my parents fought favoritism to get me playing time, the awkwardness of high school, the donning of a letterman’s jacket, a scholarship to college.
Then, the memory of my initiation into professional baseball. I was drafted in the eighth round. The contract came overnight in the mail. I signed with shaking hands and went out to celebrate with my family at a cheap Chinese restaurant. It was the last time I could remember everyone in my house being excited enough about my baseball career to put aside the drama. I had made it into the elite. I was going to get paid to play baseball, and though I didn’t know how little I’d make at the time, I didn’t care. I would have walked through fire for the chance to play and, indeed, I did.
I paid the cabby robotically and checked in at the airport in a fog. On an escalator inside the airport, people buzzed by like worker bees. Did they know what I had just become? Did it matter to them that I had been made sports royalty? A treadmill spit me out in front of my gate, and as I stood there in front of it, in front of my future, I couldn’t help but think of the years of my career spent spinning my wheels to get here. I remembered the demotion I took to spend my fourth year in A ball. That feeling of helplessness, and how all the hope I had to keep fighting slipped away. I remembered the anger and outrage, doubt and pain. I remembered the consuming jealousy as those around me moved forward while I was left behind, written off as a washout, told I was a bust. I remembered what it was like to resent baseball, to hate it.
How many times had I gone through airports like this? Traveling away from home and loved ones to try my hand at being a better string of numbers than the next guy? How many times had I sat in the back of cabs, navigating unfamiliar streets for a chance at a chance? How many bus trips to nowhere towns for nobody teams? I’d seen six years of my life pass by staring out windows, looking into an uncertain future with nothing to hold on to except the old cliché, “As long as you have a jersey on your back, you have a chance.” I was a long shot, a non-prospect, and if the things websites wrote about me were true, I wouldn’t be standing here. I had turned my career around and put myself back on the map. I had beaten the odds and refused to be written off. I had learned. I had grown. My dues were paid in full, and it was time for me to take hold of my purchase. The culmination and inspiration for every dream, doubt, and drop of sweat was waiting for me at my destination, and I was flying to meet it first class.

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