The Bullpen Gospels (19 page)

My new, yet old, teammates started filtering into the park around 2:30 in the afternoon. I had good reunions with the guys I knew. The guys I didn’t know walked up and shook my hand and said their names with a cordial smile. I said mine in the same fashion. It was all standard operating procedure.

Real introductions don’t happen here. I may be on the team on paper, but I’m not part of the team until everyone feels comfortable with me. That takes time. It’s kind of like being one of those people who document the behaviors of gorillas in the wild. You have to give the gorillas time to get acclimated to you, or they may tear your legs off and beat you with them.

It’s tough to be the new gorilla even if you’ve played with a lot of the guys before. It was easy coming together with the Lake Elsinore team because we all started together. This squad had already gone through its formative period, and I’d have to ease in. The Lake Elsinore team was also younger than this squad, more immature and inexperienced, which gave me an instant leadership position. Here I was just another reliever. With a guy like Randy at the helm, it could be assumed this Double-A squad was also more rigorous and professional. Only time would tell, but I thought it best to act a tad more professional until I had a better read on things, which didn’t take long to get.

While I finished trying on my new Missions jersey, I watched the team interact. The Latin players huddled together, speaking in hurried Spanish tones. A few position players sparked a card game and sat at the clubhouse’s lone table arguing over the amount of plucks to go for. Others sat at their lockers punching keys on their cell phones while the rest stared up at a lone television screen watching ESPN commentators argue over the relevance of today’s sports headlines. I pulled my pants up.

When I hitched up the waistline of my new pants, the cuffs of the legs came up as well, way up. The scrunched elastic foot holes sat inches above my ankles, around my shins, Greg Maddux style. I thought I picked out a longer pair. I took the pair off, checked the label—36 inches—and scratched my head, Then as if something could have magically changed by my reading of the dimensions, I put the pants back on again—still too short.

“They’re all that way,” Drew Macias said. Our first reunion in Double-A happened almost exactly like it did in spring training—me putting pants on. He had made this team out of camp and was happy to see me back on it. He walked over to my locker, watching me fumble around in my new uniform.

“What do you mean? These should be a good four inches longer.”

“First, good to see you again. Second, the pants should be, but they’re not. Grady made the Missions alter all our pants.” He rolled his eyes when he said it and made a cuckoo gesture.

“Good to see you too, buddy, but wait,” I said, eyebrows furrowed in disgust, “all our pants will look like this on me?” I pulled down one of the pant legs, which sprang back up when I let go. I jerked it down again, then tried to go through my delivery. When I kicked, my pants crawled back up my shin, again. Finally, I resorted to taking the pants off, standing on the legs, and wrenching the waist up in an effort to lengthen them.

“It sucks, dude. You know how Grady is about pants. When he came to town, he got pissed at everyone for not showing sock.” There was an organizational rule forbidding pant legs the right to extend to the shoe or cover it, anyway—a rule that has irritated the hell out players since its creation. “So,” Drew continued, “he had the Missions’ tailor alter all the pants down to thirty-two inches to prove his authority.”

“Isn’t this taking it a little too far? I mean, I wasn’t even here. Why do I have to wear Little League pants?” I felt like Huckle-berry Finn in a pair of high-water overalls.

“It’s stupid. I feel ridiculous in mine too! Guess we all get to rock the dirty mid look.”

“I feel like a clown in these.” All the stretching had gained me maybe an inch when I put the pants back on.

“We got guys with big-league time on this team, and they have to wear the same pants. One of the guys has a World Series ring!”

“One of our guys has a World Series ring?” I said in a whisper, forgetting about the pants. I looked around the room trying to spot him. I eyed the ring hand of all the big, burly players. Surely, the man possessing a World Series ring looked herculean, like a dude from a romance novel cover.

“Yeah, Wooten does. You didn’t know that?” Drew looked at me quizzically. Most of the guys retained this detail from spring training. I did not, considering I was most likely preoccupied with fielding breasts or getting a ball up my ass.

“You know I don’t know baseball heritage. I don’t even know everyone on our big-league club right now.” Fact.

Drew shrugged his shoulders. “Woot,” he called, “show Dirk your ring.”

One of the guys playing cards looked over at Drew, then nonchalantly extended his ring hand like the Godfather, revealing a ring the size of a grapefruit. I almost felt unworthy gazing upon it. Then I saw the owner. My notions that a World Series champ would look like a longhaired Adonis were slightly off because Woot looked more like one of the fat kids on the chess team. Short dark hair and a few extra tires, he sported a golfing visor, no shirt, and a pair of mandatory too-short pants. All things considered, he looked better in his pants than me.

Woot spoke in a high-pitched, nasally voice sarcastically declaring, “If you pay me, I’ll let you touch it.” He paused and thought to himself for a second. “Actually, I’m not doing too well this hand, so I could extend that offer to other things if the price is right.” He looked down at himself and then back at me. “I won’t charge much.”

“World Series Champion, ladies and gentlemen,” Drew said, laughing himself. He slapped me on the shoulder. “Welcome back. Enjoy the pants.”

“Thanks.”

A cry came from the other side of the locker room, “Goddamn it, you stinky little bastard! I’m going to sew your fucking ass shut!” Ox roared. He shot out of his seat and threw his glove at Manrique Ramirez or “Reek” as he was christened for just such behavior. Manrique laughed like a Mexican Tickle Me Elmo, delighted by his own stink and Ox’s disgusted reaction.

“You won’t be laughin’ when I—” The stink settled in on Ox and derailed his monologue, his face shot several different directions, trying to find uncontaminated air. “Christ! Did something crawl up your ass and die?” Manrique waved his hand in a scooping motion to propel more of his stink at Ox. Players within the blast zone began to wilt as the stench crept through the locker room.

“It smells like a sick baby’s diaper,” one cried, falling.

“It smells like bad Indian food covered in burned hair,” another said, exiting the area. Manrique laughed harder, delighted with his brew. More gloves were hurled at him.

“Wash your ass once in a while you dirty Mexican,” Ox said. As soon as Manrique’s mustard gas had cleared, Ox was back in the area to serve up some punishment

“Eh, eh, eh! Get off me, you fucking Yeti!” Manrique squealed.

Manrique was not a big guy. Actually, he was small and wiry and carried a look on his face that made it seem that he was perpetually caught off guard. Manrique was Mexican, as Ox so delicately noted. In locker rooms, race is not treated as politically sensitively as lobbying parities would like it to be. We are all one race, the baseball-playing race, and only recognize the colors cut into our uniform’s fabric. We are the ultimate melting pot. We hand out slurs, low blows, and putdowns like candy in a multi-cultural parade.

“What did you call me?” Ox was doing his best to fight through Manrique’s slapping hands to deliver some good kidney shots. Ox was not angry about the name-calling. He loved it actually. It was Ox’s love language to be called names by his little Mexican brother. But Ox was still Ox, and when Manrique farted, farts that are mercilessly putrid, Ox would be the first to beat on him for it. Who would have thought a guy like Ox would be so passionate about air pollution?

Punishing Manrique for clearing the room with his emissions was not a very well thought-out idea. As Ox planted punch after punch on Manrique who was now scrunched up in the fetal position, the tension caused him to fart again, point blank on Ox. It sounded like a log going through a wood chipper.

“Goddamn!” Ox cried. He covered his face with the collar of his shirt. “You are one stinky motherfucker!” he said, releasing Manrique to block his nasal passages better.

Manrique laughed to himself, very pleased to escape his predators like a skunk.

“Nice going, Ox,” came criticisms from scattering players.

“I’m going to fix this right now.” Ox grabbed a shoe from his locker, then grabbed Manrique. “I warned you, didn’t I?” Manrique squirmed while Ox tried to wedge a shoe into his ass.

“Good to see Ox hasn’t changed,” I remarked to Drew.

“Ox change? Impossible.”

“Hey dude, how are you?” This was Jon Dalton. He’d come over to welcome me back to the league. He was wearing a pair of spandex sliding shorts and nothing else. He extended one hand to shake while the other was unmistakably stuffed in his shorts, fondling himself—perfectly normal behavior for Jon.

“I’m good, bro. How are you?”

“Great, I’m great,” he said, tickling his Elmo. “Don’t fucking live in the apartments up here, by the way.”

“Okay. Why not?”

“Why not! Why fucking not?” Dalton was the coolest-headed crazy person I’d ever met. He was fearlessly rebellious, a tad hyperactive, but by no means stupid. He went to Citadel Military Academy, a full-on military school full of drill sergeants and hard asses. When he got out of line, he paid a healthy price for it. Consequently, he learned two things: first, if you are going to cut loose, get your money’s worth in case you get caught, and second, don’t get caught. He and the army did not mix well, though he deviously kept up appearances, toeing the line of trouble without paying the full price for it. Sure, he made a few mistakes here and there, but he learned from them, and the stories gained made it more than worth it. He was smart enough to know how to cheat the system, cautious enough to make sure he didn’t get caught, and hyper enough to guarantee cheers and laughter from his teammates.

“Dude,” he continued, “during our first road trip of the year, a storm caved the roof of our apartment in.”

“What?”

“Yeah, my roommate and I came back, and the fucking living room was a pond. There were leaves and branches and bird shit all over the place. Everything was ruined.”

“Holy crap! What did you guys do?”

“The apartment people moved us into another place, but a lot of our stuff was wrecked, which they wouldn’t pay for.”

“Wow, that sucks.”

“You’re telling me!” He stopped the conversation abruptly, then, “Hey, you got a dip on you?”

“No, I don’t—”

“You don’t dip, that’s right. What are you, Mormon?”

“Why does everyone keep saying that?”

“I need a dip. Nice pants. Excuse me.” He walked off, hand still on his piece. “Thompson! Give me a fucking dip. You owe me like forty!”

“I’m going to get dressed,” Drew said, and he walked off.

“I’m going to look stupid,” I said to myself, and stared down at my pants.

After batting practice, while the rest of the guys ran from the steamy gulf humidity for the comfort of the locker room’s air-conditioning, I went to the pen to toss a light side session. I needed a tune-up after the trek I had to get here. Fifteen fastballs and ten breaking balls later, I felt like a pitcher again.

Soaking wet from the sauna-like conditions, I stumbled into the clubhouse to a party that had started without me. When I opened the door, I could hear the bass blaring. Five steps into the clubhouse and I could feel the steady pulse of a cranked sub-woofer. Grandmaster Flash singing “White Lines” permeated the sanctum, almost completely drowning out the laughter of the team. When I turned the corner into the main locker room, there was Dalton riding around on an electric scooter. Where this scooter came from or how it got into the building was beyond me. The rest of the team had spaced chairs like cones on some kind of racetrack for the driver to weave in and out of while he sped around the locker room.

Ox was nearly falling over laughing so hard. Drew pushed chairs out into the middle of the track. The rest of the team stood off to the sides trying not to get run over. I remained in the doorway, unsure of my own safety.

Dalton rounded a corner, and ran over someone’s shoes, getting them lodged in the front wheel. The scooter screeched to a halt, but “White Lines” continued. Dalton picked the shoes out from under the tire, then threw them into a nearby chair, shouting like an angry mother, “Whose shoes are on the floor?” Dalton was obviously upset that the rest of the team did not take track safety as seriously as he did.

He punched the throttle again and the scooter whirred into motion, sending him on a collision course with another chair. He narrowly dodged, jerking the scooter around and inches away from running over someone’s Xbox, also lying on the floor. Like the scooter, I could not tell where the Xbox materialized from, as they are not commonly found in away-team locker rooms, but then again, neither are scooters.

“Oh, that was a hard one, watch out for the Xbox!” Each time he made a lap, or made up a lap, the team rearranged the chairs to make it harder. He snaked his way through as best he could, as fast as he could, sometimes kicking out to steady himself as he kept the speed up. Considering the track was only thirty feet by twenty feet with twenty-five chairs, a couch, a table, and an Xbox, he was pretty good.

Guys started throwing gloves and hats at him. The ones that missed were purposefully run over.

“Excuse me!” Dalton screamed as he barreled toward me. I sidestepped, and he flew into the hallway. Three seconds later, there was a crash in the training room, followed by laughter, followed by Eddie screaming. I turned to go investigate, but noticed no one else had moved to look, standing there as if it were all a normal occurrence. Woot walked in from the bathroom, looked around the clubhouse, then said, “Where’s my scooter?”