Cheney Stadium is the home of the Tacoma Rainiers, the Mariners’ Triple-A club. Before that the Oakland Athletics ran the team, and before them the San Francisco Giants. Mark McGwire and José Canseco started at Cheney, and so did Juan Marichal and Willie McCovey. And besides them there must have been hundreds of guys who didn’t make it, guys you’ve never heard of, who weren’t quite good enough to take that final step into the major leagues.
I felt that history as I dressed, felt it in the air around me. The adrenaline started flowing through me, pumping me up. I tried to block out everything negative. Baseball, I told myself, just think about baseball. Nothing but baseball. There’ll be time after the game to sort out the other things.
Before we took the field, Coach Cliff gave a little speech, and when he finished the guys let out a roar, a roar of pure desire. They wanted it. And I wanted it too.
I was swept along with them up the runway and onto the field. Once I was on the diamond, I fell into my normal pre-game routine—a little running, a little batting practice, some infield.
There were probably a thousand people at the game, way more than what we had for any regular season game. My father, mother, and grandfather came right down to the backstop. They called to me, huge smiles on their faces, and I waved. “Go get ’em!” my father shouted.
When it was Chehalis’s turn to take batting practice, I warmed Josh up along the sideline. We were totally out of sync off the field, but on the field we fell right into our regular rhythm. It was throw and catch, throw and catch, throw and catch. I knew his pitches like I knew myself.
Finally it was game time. We were the home team, and our fans rose and cheered as we took the field. I settled in behind home plate and looked out at Josh and the other guys. The outfield grass was lush and green, the dirt infield immaculately raked. It was by far the best field I’ve ever played on.
The ump yelled, “Play ball!” Josh took his final warm-up toss. I fired the ball down to second. It went around the horn and came back to him.