The Bullpen Gospels (21 page)

Room service woke me in the Midland Hotel. In my delirium I did not think to put the Do Not Disturb sign on the door before crashing into bed. The maid knocked once, then opened the door, and popped in.

“No service,” my roommate groaned.

“No serveeze?” the maid echoed.

“No service”

“No serveeze?”

“Si, no fucking serivico or whatever…”

“No serveeze?”

“NO FUCKING SERVICE, GO AWAY!”

She stood there for a second longer, casing our room or something; then she said, in a calm yet garbled voice, “Oh, okay, I come back later.” She shut the door.

When I woke again, rain was coming down. It was pouring outside and in. The roof leaked. Buckets, dozens of them, strategically positioned under dripping hallway sections tried futilely to stem the flow. Some of the buckets were full to the brim, overflowing onto the floor, soaking the carpet, and forming large puddles that I foggily stepped into in my socks. The water was starting to leak into my room under the door, though, thankfully, nothing was dripping from our ceiling. Where the hell was I?

Time travel—that’s a good way to describe it. After a thirty-six-hour travel binge, I was on a new team in a new town a couple thousand miles away from where I started the season. A matter of hours was all it took to remove me from the presence of my old teammates and crudely graft me to these new ones. That is how travel in the minors is though—harsh, immediate, and tiring, with a few hours on a plane, a few hours on a bus, and a few hours on a boat maybe if the roof keeps leaking. The most surprising part, however, is how fast a person adjusts and how quickly he forgets those individuals he played next to only days ago. I was no longer a Storm but a Mission now for however long it lasted.

I took the second shuttle bus to the field. I slept right up until I had only minutes to catch the shuttle. Dalton (now fully clothed) rode with me, as well as two other members of the pen: Boris the Blade, one of the team’s closers, and Handsome Rob, the well-groomed, well-educated dean of the bullpen. Blade was the darker humored of the new pair, who enjoyed lighting the fuses of his fellow teammates and joyously watching them explode. He had a knack for sniffing out weak points. Handsome Rob, on the other hand, enjoyed judging the stupidity of fellow teammates and then pronouncing some insulting verdict. Rob was older, always well dressed, and spoke with an air of refinement. It was like being made fun of by Mr. Belvedere. Blade and Rob worked off each other well: one would instigate, while the other, too noble to instigate, would judge. I would have to be mindful of my behavior when around them.

After arriving, we strolled from the bus, across the walkway to the entrance of the hallway leading to the Midland visitor’s team locker room. On opening the doors of the hallway, two crazed, angry dogs assailed us.

“Jesus Christ! What the fuck!” Dalton screamed.

The dogs, about the size of poodles, were locked in small kennels. They belonged to the visiting clubbie. Apparently, he let them run free when the teams were not present. When teams showed up, he locked the little ankle biters in tiny cages and, for some strange reason, placed said cages by the dimly lit clubhouse doorway. When the doors opened, the dogs ambushed anyone walking in with such ferocity that one would think they’d kill us all if they could get free.

Dalton did not like being startled. So he bent down to the cages and started barking at the dogs that barked back, biting at the gaps in the cage. The three of them barked at each other for a minute or so; then Dalton started kicking the cages screaming, “Shut the fuck up you stupid little rats! Grrrrrr, grrr rarf! Rarf! Rarf! Yeah, keep growling. I’ll flush you down the fucking toilet!” He kicked the cages again.

“That’s really working. Real mature,” Rob said to Dalton, as the dogs continued barking with renewed fury.

“Rarf! rarf! Fuck you, dog. You want a piece of me? Grrrrr!”

“Are you really trash talking the dogs right now?” I asked.

“Wow Dalton, don’t be such a pussy—they’re just little dogs,” Blade said. The dogs really were no bigger than cats.

“I don’t care what size they are. What are they doing here?” Dalton asked.

“Scaring the shit out of you,” Blade said.

“Yeah, you looked like Hayhurst did the other night when he almost walked into your dong.”

Dalton relented on the dogs for a second and looked up at me. “Yeah, you should have seen your face when you got Spider Manned, Hayhurst. You looked like—”

“I just had a dong shoved in it,” I interrupted, not amused.

“Oh, don’t act like it’s your first time,” Blade chimed.

“True, but I usually get paid for the other times it happens.” You have to roll with punches, or you’ll just get more of them.

“How much do you charge?” Rob asked.

“If you have to ask, you can’t afford me.”

“Touché.”

Dalton put his hand on the top of one of the kennels in order to stand up. The dogs nipped where he placed his fingers and scared him again, pissing him off even worse. “Goddamn fucking rats!” He started kicking the cages again. “SHUT UP!”

Dalton stood up and looked to the rest of us. “Where’s the clubbie at? Who the fuck puts caged dogs in a dark doorway? I’m going to lock him in one of these cages.” He marched down the remainder of the hallway and kicked the doors open. We followed.

Entering the clubhouse proper, Dalton could be heard yelling at the clubbie from around the corner, and every so often the words “dog” and “rat” could be heard. Blade and Rob went to their lockers and I to mine. On the far side of the lockers, more activity was brewing.

Woot was bent down behind yet another reliever’s bare ass with a permanent marker. This reliever went by the name Ward and worked as the team’s lefty specialist. Ward, like Wooten, was also a former big leaguer with years of experience. If his thickly accented voice didn’t make it clear he was from the Bronx, then the sharp, quick-witted New York banter surely would. Ward had a mouth that (1) never stopped running and (2) was missing teeth. His ADD explained the first part, why he never slowed down and possibly his current, yet-to-be-discovered, exploit involving an artist and his ass. The missing teeth were due to bad dental care, despite the popular theory that someone knocked them out. He wore a mouthpiece to fill in the blanks.

Taking the job more seriously than a man inscribing another man’s ass should, Woot made Ward move into better lighting so he could get a proper angle. The portrait was just as interesting as the canvas: Eddie, the team trainer. Woot drew a plump, round face with slanted eyes and short, buzzed hair. A mouth stretched from one cheek to the other, divided down the middle, of course. Though Eddie did not have acne, Ward’s canvas did.

When the portrait was finished, Ward strutted into the training room, bare ass hanging out.

“Hey Eddie, check out this new tattoo I got.” Ward bent over and showed Eddie Woot’s masterpiece. To make sure there was no doubt who was represented, Woot wrote EDDIE over the work. “This way I can always remember you,” Ward said.

Eddie was using the ultrasound wand on someone’s arm at the time, but that did not stop him from attempting to kick Ward in the canvas.

“Hey, take it easy, you’re gonna smear your face!” Ward protested.

Eddie launched rolls of athletic tape at Ward until he ran from the office.

“How’d he like it?” Wooten asked, as Ward scampered out.

“Oh, he loved it,” Ward said, smiling broadly.

“Don’t come crying to me the next time your arm hurts,” Eddie said while standing in the doorway of the training room.

“I wouldn’t do this to you if you’d just make me another PSP. You’re freaking Japanese bro, you can turn this dip can into a Nintendo.” Ward tossed the dip can at Eddie who batted it aside.

“Yeah, I could,” Eddie said, “but I’m not going to make one for
you
.”

“Awww, come on, bro, don’t be that way,” Ward said, smiling again.

“You draw a picture of me on your ass, and you want me to do you favors? I’m glad your PSP got stolen.” Eddie turned back into the training room.

I was suiting up at my locker while the Ward Show was in progress. I looked over at Manrique, who was also watching.

“What’s the deal with Ward’s PSP?” I asked.

“He say someone broke into his room and take it. He’s such a dipshit.” Manrique let out a chuckle, which Ward caught wind of.

“What you are laughing at?” Ward said, staring down Manrique. “It’s your cousins that took it. You tell them I want it back!”

“They not give it back, but they sell it back to you for a good price, since you’re my friend.”

Ward did not have a reply to that. Manrique, surprisingly coolheaded, trumped Ward’s rampage of ADD. So, as Ward often did when he did not have a reply for a target outsmarting him, he switched targets. “Eddie, EDDIE!” he shouted at the training room door. “Reek admitted his family stole my PSP. I need the number for MLB security!”

“Good for Reek’s family, I hope they enjoy it,” came the shout from the training room.

Ward was on his feet and marching into the training room now. “Why are you so mean, Eddie? I’ve been the victim of a serious crime against my person.”

“You drew my face on your ass!”

“Because I love you.”

“Get out of my training room, you fucking jack-o’-lantern!”

“Oh that’s low, bro, that’s low. Why do you have to bring my teeth into this?” Ward feigned injury, though he was anything but. “Just when I was ready to forgive your people for what they did to us in Pearl Harbor, you go and say something like that.”

Rolls of tape could be heard colliding against the wall of the training room. Ward came running out like a solider escaping gunfire. Aware of the events, Blade spotted an advertisement for a PSP in a Best Buy circular. He cut it out and took it into the locker-room pantry. Using tape from one of the rolls launched at Ward, he taped the ad to a milk jug in the refrigerator. Over the ad he wrote: Have you seen me?

I had relocated to the microwave in the pantry watching a bowl of Easy Mac spin in circles when Blade came in.

“Don’t you think he’ll be pissed when he sees that?” I asked.

“He won’t see it.”

“How do you know?”

“Have you seen his teeth? It’s obvious he doesn’t drink milk.”

Midland’s park was brand new. Some of the luxury boxes weren’t even finished yet. Yet, from what was complete, the place was shaping up to be a fine park. Everything from the dugouts to the scoreboard was miniature big league. The field was sunken, meaning it was carved out of the ground, placing the playing surface below the surrounding area’s ground level. Grassy berms surrounded the park where fans sat out on blankets and towels. The bullpen was, like in Corpus Christi, a real pen situated beyond the left field fence. Instead of fencing on all sides, concrete walls twelve feet in height made up three of the four walls.

At the start of the game, Ox, Rob, Dalton, Blade, Ward, and I sat in the pen. However, since the weather was still poor, raining off and on with a constant drizzle since the start of the game, my fellow relievers decided to head into the comfort of the clubhouse. The game was viewable via live video feed in the clubhouse, and I would have gone with them, but someone needed to stay behind to play catch with our left fielder when the Missions came out to play defense. I, being the new guy, drew the short straw by default and was left in the pen to hold down the fort in the wet.

The game started to drag along, as it always does when you want it to go faster. Pitchers took their sweet time pacing around the mound, there were an excessive number of time-outs and foul balls. Officials came to talk weather. All I could do was sit in the pen while my parka turned into a wet blanket. Days like that sucked. It’s not raining enough to get the game called and grant us an off day, but it’s still soupy enough to ensure that we’ll play in slop for nine full innings.

I kept my glove dry by wrapping it in a towel and placing it under the bullpen’s bench. The rain wasn’t coming down in buckets, or even big drops, but its persistent misting was enough to wet down everything, including the seats formerly occupied by my teammates.

With no one to talk to, I amused myself by flicking sunflower seeds through links in the fence, folding airplanes out of gum wrappers, and spinning paper cups into the ground to see if I could get them to stand upright on impact. I could just imagine my teammates right then, happily playing cards and drinking coffee from the comfy couches of the warm, dry clubhouse. They could probably see me, the camera zooming in on me while the announcers commentated on how stupid I was for remaining—those bastards.

I was right when I said something was watching me, though it wasn’t the players in the clubhouse. It was something with eight eyes. A tarantula the size of a baseball cap had come out of its hiding place to escape the flooding. It had covered most of the distance between the wall and the bench when I turned to see it. I did a double take, and when I looked back the second time, I sprang out of my plastic chair, flipping it over into the muck in the process while yelling, “Holy fuck!”

The tarantula was huge. Eight beady eyes with thick brown legs. It’s true: everything is bigger in Texas. It kept coming at me as if it were hungry for me. I grabbed my chair and held it out in front of me like a lion tamer. “Rarrrr! Yawh, Raarrrrrrr! Get out of here!” I made pushing motions with my chair. The beast stopped, its long front legs hanging in the air motionless, as if it were deciding.

I hate spiders. Hate ’em. I don’t think a lot of people can fault me for that as they aren’t the cuddliest creatures in the animal kingdom. I realize this one, as big as it was, was only a fraction of my size, but fear makes you think crazy things. I thought that if it got too close, it could leap on me and bite into my neck or some other exposed fleshy part of my body. Then it would drag me off to its hole and finish me off. When the relief crew came back, they’d wonder where I went.

The tarantula stopped thinking and continued toward me. I shook the chair at it and called it names, but apparently tarantulas don’t speak English and I didn’t know Spanish. I tried kicking dirt at it, but the ground was too soggy. And if I threw the chair and missed, I would be defenseless. I was still in reach of the bullpen’s complimentary seed bucket—another Double-A perk—which contained both packets of seeds and Double Bubble chewing gum. I grabbed the bucket and starting throwing gum at the monster. I only threw the regular flavor at it because the blue raspberry flavor is my favorite.

The beast spread its feet out and stopped as gum landed around it like artillery fire. I stopped. Maybe it was ready for a truce. It was hard to tell what it was thinking or what it was looking at because it could have been looking in any or all directions. It started to retreat! Victory.
“That’s right spider! This is my house!”
My triumph was short-lived as the spider redirected toward my glove tucked under the bench. “No, get away from that! Bad tarantula!” I resumed firing gum at the beast but only served to speed him on his way.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. I dumped the rest of the contents of my ammo bucket onto the murky ground and went after the tarantula. Creeping behind it with my upside-down bucket, I skillfully slipped the plastic container over it for the capture. My glove was safe, but what was I going to do with the tarantula now that I had it contained? Payback.

Dalton was the first of my fellow relievers to return to the pen around the fourth inning. I sat casually with my legs crossed next to an overturned David Sunflower Seeds bucket, which suspiciously made tapping noises from within.

“Hey Dalton, would you be a pal and hand me some gum from the seeds bucket there?”

Dalton stood eyeing the bucket, which moved slightly.

“What the fuck is in there?”

“Why, seeds and gum, of course.”

“No, there’s something in there.”

“Maybe there is, and maybe there isn’t. Why don’t you take a look.”

Dalton tentatively stepped to the bucket, put one hand on the lid, and tipped the edge up to look inside. The arachnid shot out at Dalton, who dropped the bucket and ran to the other side of the pen. I got up and picked up the bucket, and with a scooping motion, I plucked up the tarantula and caged him once more, this time in the pail, not under it. I was mobile, in pursuit of Dalton with a bucket full of tarantula.

Dalton took a begging tone with me. “Come on man! I heard stories about those things jumping on people and biting them.”

“You know I heard those same stories, actually.” I started to close the distance between him and me with the bucket stretched out in front of me like garlic aimed at a vampire.

“Seriously, I’m not a fan of spiders, bud.”

“What’s not to like? You could always bark at it until I left you alone.” I kept coming, Dalton moving toward the pen gate. The game was going on now, and if he left the bullpen, he would be in play. You could hear the spider clacking against the sides of the bucket with its hairy legs.

“Alright, that’s enough…” Dalton whimpered.

“He just wants to be friends. Here, why don’t you hold him for a while.” I reared back with the bucket and made as if I were going to shovel pass the beast onto Dalton. I was faking it, but that’s all I needed to do to run Dalton out of the pen with his hands up screaming like a schoolgirl.

“Now who got Spidermanned?” I called after him. “Make sure you check your bed tonight!”

The rest of the relievers passed Dalton on their return approach to the pen. They came in with quizzical looks on their faces.

“What’s wrong with Dalton?”

“Look in the bucket.”

Each one of them looked into the bucket and jerked back in surprise, all except Ox who peeked in and said, “Aww, look at that little fucker.”

“What do you think we should do with it?”

“We have to stick that thing in someone’s locker!”

“Hell no, I’m keeping it and training it to defend my hotel room,” Ward said, probably thinking of his missing PSP.

Before we could decide how best to use our new pet, we were interrupted. There was no phone in the Rock Hounds’ visiting bullpen, and Abby didn’t use hand signals either. Instead, he equipped the pen bag with yellow walkie-talkies. One in the bag, the other with him in the dugout. The static-garbled sound of Abby’s voice beeped in over the handset.

Ox picked up. “Go ahead, Abby.”

Beeping, static, “Get Hayhurst up. Deago’s only got about ten pitches left.”

“Roger that.” Ox pulled the talkie away from his ear and looked over to me, “Get ’er going, big dog.”

“Ten pitches? Did he not know this move was coming, like, fifteen pitches ago?” I asked, moaning my complaint.

I popped up, slipped out of my wet parka, and took to the mound. Woot was in the pen now, standing behind the bullpen’s dish, ready to receive. I tossed, trying to put a little more on each one, three pitches for every one pitch our starter threw.

After I reached max effort fastballs, I flipped my glove hand at Woot to indicate curve. A few hooks later, I pulled the glove back for changeup. Next, a flick left for slider. Who knew how many of these I’d use once I was out there? Maybe none, maybe all. I knew one thing though: it’s always nice to have options, and I readied as many as I could before Deago burned up his few remaining pitches.

Two singles put runners on first and second. “This is his last hitter,” came the call over the walkie-talkie. I started rushing, trying to get the most of what time I had left. I threw a slider in the dirt; Woot blocked it, but the ball was scratched and muddied. “Shit, can one of you grab me a new one?” I called to the boys still standing over the bucket. I was wasting valuable time. Just as a new ball was flipped to me, it landed in my glove to the sound of a crack on the field—grounder to third. Headley scooped it, threw it to Kazmar at second, who then threw to MJ at first—double play, inning over.

I took a deep breath and disengaged the rubber. I must have made forty tosses as fast as I could just to sit back down again.

“Hey! Your first dry hump in Double-A!” Ox called. He gave me a high five. The rest of the crew did the same.

“It was good for me, Woot. Was it good for you?”

“I’ve had better.”

“Hayhurst’s got the next inning. Hayhurst’s got the next,” Abby called in.

“Roger that, Top Heavy,” Ox replied. He pointed to me, then pointed to the field. “Looks like you’ll get some after all.”

As I jogged from the pen to take the game mound in the fifth inning, I called back to the boys, “Hey, you guys be good to Spot while I’m gone!” They stood over the bucket drawing lots for whose locker they should hide it in.

“You just worry about pitching!” they called back.

Worry? I had wanted to get back up here so badly I was ready to quit when I didn’t make the team out of camp. But I was back now, and I wasn’t going to make the same mistakes I did before—all or nothing, with no half measures and no worries.

Two innings later, I had put two zeros on the scoreboard. I listened to the rest of the game from the warm, comfy confines of the locker room with my arm in a bag of ice and a tarantula in my locker.