Wherever I Wind Up (37 page)

It’s still alive. Thank you, Nick.

The Mets have never had a no-hitter in their fifty seasons of baseball, a span of nearly eight thousand games, one of the more bizarre and inexplicable streaks in the history of the game. Everybody in the ballpark knows it, including the pitcher. With Nick’s play in right and the knuckleball I have going, I allow myself to think this could be the day. I follow my regular routine in between innings. I drink some water, towel off, and take a little walk. Hamels retires us in order, so the game remains scoreless and I am right back out there, facing Placido Polanco.

Polanco grounds out to open the seventh, and next up is Shane Victorino, a switch-hitter who has taken to batting right-handed against me after having almost no success left-handed. I fire a knuckleball for a strike, then he takes one for 1–1. I get the ball back from catcher Mike Nickeas and go right back at Victorino with one more knuckleball. It feels good leaving my hand, but it doesn’t have much dive to it. Victorino turns on it and crushes a line drive to left. Nobody is catching this one. It goes for a double. The crowd stands and cheers me, and they stand for a good while.

I look up at the ballpark around me. I am having my usual resistance to being celebrated, but my awareness of it is helping me get better at accepting it. I stand on the Citi Field mound and feel good and strong. I don’t have to hide under the stands because people want to salute me and I don’t feel worthy of it. That’s ancient stuff.
You don’t live there anymore,
I think.
You live here.
So I just stand there and listen and tell myself:
It’s okay to let these fans applaud you.

It is perfectly okay.

I give myself a few more moments to be sad about losing the no-hitter, then turn my attention to Ryan Howard. On my first offering, Howard bounces a ball up the middle, scoring Victorino. Two batters, two hits, and faster than you can say Tom Candiotti, the no-hitter and shutout are both gone. I am on the hook for a loss, and really sad about it.

On the bench in the dugout, I know I’m done if we get a man on, because I’m up fourth this inning. With two outs, pinch hitter Val Pascucci, just up from the minors, drives a home run over the left-field fence to tie the game. The dugout instantly fires up, euphoric that we’ve finally broken through and that the game is tied. Terry calls me back and Ronny Paulino pinch-hits for me and grounds out. I am relieved that I at least won’t get my fourteenth loss.

David Wright hits a double in the bottom of the eighth, scoring Ruben Tejada with the game-winning run. We win the second game too.

After the sweep, I walk back to my hotel room along a dark and desolate Queens street, elevated subway tracks overhead and Grand Central Parkway underneath. The trains clack. The cars rush. I wonder who all these people are and where they are going. I keep walking. I know for once where I am going, and know that it is God who is guiding me there.

In my hotel room, I call Anne to check in and see how things are at home, and then I write in my journal about the finish of my fifteenth season of professional baseball, and the quiet joy I get from knowing that I was trustworthy, and that I belonged. I write, too, about conquering fears and managing regrets and letting myself live in the present—not just on the mound, but everywhere; about learning to not worry about the next week or month or year, but rather to put all my energy into living the next five minutes well.

If I keep living the next five minutes well, I know I’ll be exactly where I’m supposed to be.

Finally I say a prayer of thanks to God for taking a broken man and making him whole, for being my Redeemer, graciously giving me a second chance as a pitcher, as a husband and father, and as a Christian man. I know my journey is nowhere near complete. The point isn’t to arrive. The point is to seek, to walk humbly with God, to keep walking and keep believing even though you know there will be times when you make mistakes and feel lost. You keep seeking the path, and He will show you the way.

Thank you, merciful God, for all these blessings and more, for giving me the courage to stop hiding, and the courage to find a new way.

I turn out the light. I close my eyes. I have hope.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Ten weeks before this book was published, I climbed to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro, more than 19,000 feet above the African continent. It was a life-changing journey for me, not just because I felt as though I could see forever, but because being on Uhuru Peak at dawn’s first light filled me with rapture for God and the majesty of His world.

In the course of my ascent with companions Kevin Slowey and Dave Racaniello, I had to overcome nausea, altitude sickness, extreme fatigue, and fierce and unrelenting wind and cold. It was soworth it, for reaching such a peak filled me with profound reflection and gratitude, both for my life and for the life story you have just read.

It was spring of 2008, early in my season with the Seattle Mariners, when I first felt called to write a book about my life. I use the word “called” because I literally felt something outside myself tell me to start writing. Whether the voice was God’s or my own creative psyche, I can’t say for sure. Probably it was a mixture of both. I started writing on an inflatable mattress in a rental apartment in Tacoma, Washington, and soon became so terrified by the process, and what I was putting down in my notebook, that I stopped and didn’t pick it up for two years, when it became clear to me that God really did want me to tell my story—and tell every aspect of it.

I was given a gift during those two years. A few men emerged in my life who helped me deal with the fear and affirmed to me that I had a story worth sharing, no matter how painful the process might be. Thank you, Stephen James, not only for giving me the courage to face my past but for teaching me how to seek truth and grow towards being an authentic man. Carter Crenshaw, our pastor at Nashville’s West End Community Church, was a spiritual rock and the same loving, loyal, godly friend he has been for years. Jason Robbins was an equally steadfast friend and constant source of encouragement. Michael Karounos helped shape the vision for my story and cared enough to tell me the truth even when it was hard to hear.

Thanks, too, to my friend Mike Jones, who offered fresh eyes and valuable editorial input; to George Vecsey of
The New York Times;
and to Teri Thompson, executive sports editor of the New York
Daily News
. George wrote a column about me in the
Times
at the end of the 2010 season, and subsequently referred me to Esther Newberg, his literary agent, who, with Teri’s help, partnered me with Wayne Coffey. Esther took an immediate liking to the project, even though I annoyed her to no end by insisting on calling her “ma’am.” She warned me that she might drop the project if I didn’t drop the “ma’ams,” so I did, and then Esther did what she does best—finding the perfect landing spot for the book—with David Rosenthal’s new Penguin imprint, Blue Rider Press.

David was a believer in the book from the start. He was unwavering in encouraging me to write the book I wanted to write, and despite being an ardent Mets fan, he never once leaned on me to rip anybody. The whole Blue Rider team—Aileen Boyle, Sarah Hochman, Gregg Kulick, Linda Rosenberg, Garrett McGrath, David Chesanow, and Dick Heffernan and his superlative sales group—matched my enthusiasm and believed in this first-time author from the outset.

I don’t think “thank you” is strong enough to express my gratitude to Wayne Coffey, who is much more than a writer to me. He is an answer to prayer. His writing expertise and wise tutelage allowed me to give my story a voice. Our countless hours together—whether on the phone or at venues ranging from Nashville to Citi Field to Port St. Lucie to various National League cities—produced much more than a narrative-shaping dialogue. They transformed a working relationship into a friendship that has been more valuable to me than even the pages that we pored over. I’d also like to express my gratitude to the other Coffey people, especially Wayne’s wife, Denise Willi, a national tennis champion whose patience throughout this process was even more stout than her forehand. Alexandra, Sean, and Samantha Coffey have become three of my most loyal fans, and I appreciate them, too, just as I appreciate Frank Coffey, who taught Wayne how to play center field back in the day, for his invaluable editorial input.

All I can say about my mom is that I am blessed to be her son, for she is as courageous and loving and good-hearted as any person on this earth. I love you, Mom. To Billy and Lynn Caldwell, and Uncle Ricky, thank you for all your love and for always being there, and to my sister, Jane, and her daughters, Abby and Kaitlyn, love and blessings to you for being in my life. To my dad, you taught me and gave me so much in my early years, and I love you for that. It is my prayer that renewed closeness and honesty will be in our future.

Much thanks to Susan Waynick for her love and provision in my early years.

Will, Ben, and Bo Bartholomew are the three best brothers-in-law a man could have—the brothers I never had—and Sam and Vicki Bartholomew are the patriarch and matriarch of a wonderful Christian family. A special thanks to Bo, whose selfless friendship was always a motivation for me to relentlessly pursue a relationship with Jesus Christ.

Finally, I’d like to thank my wife, Anne, and our children, Gabriel, Lila, Eli, and Van. They had to be without a husband/father for more than a year while I spent my days either playing baseball or writing. They rarely complained while I gave them much less than they deserved. You are the greatest treasures of my life. To Anne, thank you for loving me in the middle of the darkest hours of my life. Your love for me when I couldn’t stand myself saved my life, and I will never forget that. You stayed by me and stood with me and more than anyone, helped me to have hope and to heed the words of Thomas Merton, author of my favorite prayer:

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

INDEX

Alcoholism, 27, 59–60, 319

Alderson, Sandy, 36–37, 217–18, 302, 304, 308

Alexander, Lamar, 116

Alligators, 117–19

Amber III, 22, 58

Ameristar Casino Hotel, 203–4

Anderson, Garret, 148

Anderson, Mike, 61

Anderson, Rick, 267

Anderson, South Carolina, 222

Andrews, James, Dr., 105–8

Ankiel, Rick, 126–28, 305, 311–12

Antony, Rob, 244

Aquinas Junior College, 15

Arizona State University, 76–77

Arm path, pitcher’s, 253

Ash, Gord, 198, 227

Atlanta Braves, 102, 276–77

Baichu, Rohan, 318

Baker, Scott, 268, 270

Balfour, Grant, 212, 223, 227

Ball Four
, 4

Baltimore Orioles, 160–61

Bark in the Park, 130

Barnwell, Chris, 205–6, 222, 224, 227

Bartholomew, Anne.
See
Dickey, Anne

Bartholomew, Ben, 115

Bartholomew, Bo, 46–51, 115

Bartholomew, Sam, 114, 179–80

Bartholomew, Vicki, 47, 108–9, 114

Bartholomew, Will, 115

Baseball America
, 91–92, 96

Baseball gloves, 66–67

Batey, Trent, 68

Batting titles, 293–94

Bauer, Rick, 181

Beards, 281

Bedard, Erik, 253

Belle Meade, 47

Bellhorn, Mark, 136

Belmont University, 67

Beltrán, Carlos, 216–19, 299, 305, 324

Beltre, Adrian, 249

Benson, Kris, 88, 91, 93

Berroa, Ángel, 223

Bertman, J. Stanley “Skip,” 92–94, 100

Bird, Larry, 1, 172

Blanco, Henry, 288, 298–300

Blass, Steve, 127

Bosman, Dick, 97, 133, 141

Boston Celtics, 172

Boston Red Sox, 141, 171, 175, 251

Boulanger, Mike, 183, 190

Bourn, Michael, 314

Bowers, Bob (R.A.’s uncle), 320

Bowers, Helen Gilbert (R.A.’s grandmother; MeeMaw), 24–25

Bowers, Leslie (R.A.’s mother), 15–18, 22–23, 57–60, 113–14, 319–20

Bowers, Ricky (R.A.’s uncle), 25–27, 42, 81, 88, 131, 171–72, 319

Bowers, Robert Green (R.A.’s grandfather), 24–26, 319–20

The Boys of Summer
, 4

Brantley, Jeff, 137–38, 200

Braun, Ryan, 293

Bavasi, Bill, 247–48