Bottom of the Ninth

Standing on the mound, I wipe the sweat from my brow and wonder how in the hell am I going to get through this. This is my first game in the majors and it couldn’t be going any worse. The stadium echoes the restlessness of the fans and I can’t but think that my heart is going to explode if it gets any louder. With every player and fan’s eyes transfixed on the heap of red clay I occupy, I can’t help but feel seemingly alone, desperate for anything or anyone to come help me. Deep breath; calm down, focus. All that stands between my shaking legs and glory is sixty feet six inches. One more strike and I can walk off this field victorious. One more strike. The catcher calls my bread and butter pitch, inside fastball. I try to remember the tens of thousands of times I had toed the rubber, stared at the batter with ice water running through my veins, and blown him away. This is your destiny, you’re a warrior; you’re a winner. Ninety percent of winning is believing that no matter what happens after you release the ball, you will come out on top. The other ten percent is forgetting that there’s a possibility of fucking up, that in a matter of seconds you could be walking off the field feeling so small that Simon Birch would have to kneel down to look at you. I look at the batter and start rehearsing apologies to my teammates. Where did everything go wrong? At what point did I accept the fact that I wasn’t invincible? My heart skips a beat, knowing the answer to that question is resting under six feet of earth in a cherry oak coffin. As chills run down my spine, I step on the rubber and close my eyes, letting the familiarity of gripping the laces take over. With one last effort I windup and release the pitch, sending a baseball towards home plate with all of my hopes and dreams left hanging in the wake…

- - - - - -

Growing up we all had heroes, some of us idolized rock stars or our favorite athletes. I was one of the millions that I looked up at our fathers in awe, our prepubescent brains thinking that the world revolved around the man who brought us into the world and occasionally told us he could take us out of it. I can remember him taking me to Wrigley Field one summer a couple hours before the game started, lifting my scrawny six year old ass onto his shoulders and telling me with misty eyes that one of the greatest thing a man could do in his life was to follow his dream. Looking out from the outfield at perfectly manicured grass, the crack of the bat against the ball reverberating in my ears, and feeling the energy this sanctuary exuded, I knew why he was crying. He had a chance to follow his dream, to play this game, but opted against it when he found out my mom was pregnant with yours truly. I was the proverbial curve ball that life always seems to throw when you least expect it. I hold that day close to my heart, sharing peanuts with my old man in the center field bleachers, soaking in every anecdote about the game and life that he told me. At some point between Ryan Sandburg hitting a game winning home run and walking through the crowded streets hand in hand with my pops, I decided that baseball was my calling, my dream. I wanted to grow up sharing my success with a man that had his chance at it taken away, and nothing was going to stop me.

Eventually I was drafted by the Boston Red Sox, signing for little more than a bus ticket to rookie ball and enough money to buy my parents dinner. I didn’t care how big the contract was, I had an opportunity to capitalize on a dream and to make good on a promise I had made to myself. I was, in my mind, destined for greatness. Upon arriving in Gulf Port, Mississippi at the start of the minor league season, I was clued in that greatness started in a shitty three bedroom apartment filled with cockroaches the size of dip cans and a stench that soaked into every pore of your body. I shared the place with three other players: a shortstop from the Dominican Republic named Miguel who spent his paychecks on new Nikes and weed, a lumbering giant named Tex who was from of all places Sandusky, Ohio, and a catcher named Andy who spent his days waxing poetically about whatever foul piece of trailer trash he picked up the night before. After games we would venture downtown to drown the misery of “living the dream” at the bottom of countless Bud longnecks, making absurd accusations about the sexual prowess of each other’s mothers and talking about making the big league roster with a ethanol gleam in our eyes. That gleam wore off rather quickly as I didn’t win a game my first six starts. The hitters were stronger, more selective, and crushed every mistake I offered up into the cheap seats. I spent countless nights on the phone with my dad, listening to him offer encouragement and tell me that I had to get over it all, that I was a ballplayer, a winner. More importantly I was his son. Losing was out of the question. One particular night while nursing a glass of lukewarm beer, replaying that the memories of all the women I had struck out with the past month and a half, I noticed a petite blonde waitress in the corner smiling at me. She had piercing blue eyes and an ass that made me wish I had been born a piece of Charmin toilet paper. I approached her with as much confidence as a beaten man could, mustering out a meek hello.

“I only smiled because you look like hell” she said.

She had one of those sweet southern accents that made you think it was possible for her to tell Jesus Christ himself to go fellate the devil and get away with it.

“Well aren’t you just the next Mother Teresa?” I shot back, simultaneously pissed and smitten.

“No, I’m even better. I serve beer. Mother Teresa never did that, did she?”

I’m going to fall for this one.

“Probably not, but then again she never wore a mini skirt so high the Pope had to question his vow of celibacy.”

“Does looking at me make you questions yours?”

“I’m not on one.”

“Oh, just figured that was the case since you’re in here every night and always leave alone” she said with a smile that conveyed with a sense of satisfaction, knowing she had just figuratively kicked me in the nuts with a size 16 steel toed boot.

A couple beers later we had progressed from insulting one another’s existence to ripping our clothes off each other in the foyer of her house. Drunk, softer than Elton John in the girls’ locker room, and perfectly content to stare at her curves for the remainder of the night, I rolled over to fall asleep with a smile on my face. I was back in the game

Eventually I found my rut, and shot through the minor leagues. Every level was home to a new city that offered nothing but motivation to play well enough to get out there. I was no longer content with staying in third rate motels, sharing my bed with vermin (insect and human alike), and waited impatiently for The Call. Every fall the big league team calls up a select few prospects, some for the proverbial “cup of coffee” and others to see if they can handle the pressure of having forty five thousand sets of eyes locked firmly on their every move. At the end of a long road trip that had seen our team bus break down four times, a player get deported, and an entertaining double dildo show from two chicks in our Richmond hotel, I was called into the manager’s office. This was it, it’s going to happen. With my sphincter pinched so tight you couldn’t fit a penny nail up it with a sledgehammer, I closed the door and sat down.

“My bags are already packed, where the am I going?” I asked our manager, smiling from ear to ear as the words left my mouth.

“That depends on what you decide. I’ve got good news, and I’ve got bad news. I’m not going to ask what you want to hear first, because the good news is going to turn into a nugget of shit after I tell you this. Your dad has had a heart attack. Your family wants you to come home right away. The big club called earlier today and wanted you to hop a flight to Boston for this home stand, but the choice is yours.”

He continued talking, but in that moment in time he could have been telling me where Jimmy Hoffa was buried and the secret to making a girl orgasm through telekinesis and I wouldn’t have heard a word. All I could think about was getting home. My dad was a pillar of strength, the type of man who earned instant respect in a room just by looking at him. He was the end all be all to what a son looks for in a role model, inspiring you to reach for greatness simply because you want to be half the man you thought he was. He couldn’t possibly die; he hadn’t sat in a big league stadium and told the little kid sitting next to him that his son was out on the mound and that if he wanted to he could do the same exact thing when he grew up. He hadn’t sat in a church pew, watching his son’s eyes light up when his bride walked down the aisle. He hadn’t held his grandson in his arms, telling anyone within ear shot that even though he was so ugly it was like looking in a mirror, he would love him anyway. He hadn’t sat with his wife on my back porch in the off season as grandchildren played in the yard, content with how his life has turned out. He hadn’t seen or done any of these things yet, and as I rushed to the airport I said a prayer to whatever god that was listening to keep him around long enough to be able to.

I threw a fistful of bills at the cab driver, grabbed my bag, and opened the door to cab while it was still moving. The hospital where I had been born now looked dilapidated and depressing, a mirror image of the mood I was in as I walked through the sliding doors. As I opened the door to his room I choked back the knot in my throat and saw him lying there, helpless and seemingly alone in this battle. Desperate for anyone or anything to help him. I hugged my mom and sister, and turned to my hero who with eyes half open and his breath heavy, told me to come closer. I pulled up a chair, took his hand in mine and with the machines beeping and my mother crying in the background, and had what would turn out to be our final conversation. We talked until he could barely stay awake, sharing our love and respect for another through stories of years past, embracing the moment to tell one another the things that we regretted not saying enough while we had the chance. When I broke the news that I had been called up, he squeezed my hand hard, like he had when we were walking out of Wrigley Field. With tears of pride falling down his cheek, he told me that he wanted me to go. That night, as a family, we stayed at his bedside during his final moments on this earth until he passed silently in his sleep. A week later I was standing on the mound in Fenway Park, making my major league debut.

- - - - - -

As the pitch leaves my hand and makes a bee line to the catcher, everything slows down. It was as if someone pulled the plug on reality and I was left standing there, soaking in what should have been one of the most exciting moments of my life. In a slice of time that’s barely long enough to blink your eyes, I think about backyard barbeques. I think about the smell of a new glove, breaking it in with my dad in the backyard. I think about the bare white walls of his hospital room, the look of a defeated man. I think about the smile on my parents faces when we got the call I was drafted. I think about life, and love, and happiness. I think about my mom crying at the funeral. Reminiscing about beautiful days long gone and the open wounds of new memories I now carry, I think about him. The batter starts to swing at the pitch and I can almost picture the ball screaming off the bat and into night sky. He misses and it’s over. As the fans scream and my catcher comes out to hand over the ball from my first major league victory, I fall to my knees. In the middle of this modern day sanctuary, I celebrate by burying my face in my hands and crying. I cry for every man, woman, and child who has never gotten the chance to live their dream, and I cry for those who have. I cry for the times in life when you go into battle armed with only memories of loss and come out on top. I cry for my mother and my sister. When there isn't anything left to cry about I get off my knees and walk to the dugout, stopping only to watch a father put his smiling son on his shoulders and walk away.