July 2008

Orlando, Florida

After the piss-poor performance in Vero Beach, Tom Conrad, as promised, put the team through a series of diabolical conditioning drills when the Wildcats returned to Lakeland. After forty-five long minutes of shuttle runs and wind sprints, Conrad mercifully ended the punishment and left the majority of his players lying in the outfield grass gasping for air. The late July sun, coupled with the oppressive Florida humidity, made it feel like they were running on the surface of the sun.

But the drills had the desired effect on the team as the Wildcats embarked on a five-game home-winning streak the next day. Lakeland fired on all cylinders during the homestand: the offence hit over .300 with runners in scoring position, the pitching staff had an ERA under 3.00, and the defence had their longest errorless streak of the season.

Gord appeared in two games during the winning streak. Technically, he cobbled together a stat line considered a “quality start” by the baseball intelligentsia: 6 innings pitched and 3 earned runs.

A quality start was recognized as giving up three runs or less in six or more innings pitched. Truthfully, it was a pointless statistic created by the math nerds who ran the baseball operations of most clubs.

Gord, like most pitchers, didn’t take solace in the fact he produced a quality start. Why? Because three earned runs in six innings computed to a 4.50 ERA. A pitcher should never be satisfied with an ERA above four. In the minor leagues, a 4.50 earned run average got you pink-slipped out of the game.

You show me a pitcher happy with meeting the minimum requirement for a quality start, and I’ll show you a loser, Gord thought.

The Wildcats were en route to the Global Sports Complex for the first game in a series against the Orlando Buccaneers. Gord, listening to his iPod, read the stat sheets on the opposing lineup. Tom Conrad had told him to be ready to pitch a couple of innings.

Danny Johnson suddenly appeared at Gord’s side and playfully whacked him on the shoulder.

“What’s up, Danny?” Gord removed his earbuds.

“You throwing tonight?”

“Yeah, Tom has me scheduled to throw a few. Why?”

“Put those babies down,” Johnson quipped, motioning to the stat sheets. “I’m starting tonight, and my arm feels fucking unreal. I’m going at least eight.”

“Sure thing, Ace.”

“Mark me down for at least twelve punchouts, too. Maybe you can make a bunch of little K signs while watching my dominance from the bullpen.”

“Do you want me to call ahead to the Buccaneers and tell them to not bother showing up?”

“Funny guy. I’ll let you get back to your Hannah Montana CD.”

Gord laughed heartily. “Okay, buddy, go sit down. You don’t want to tire yourself out before all of those strikeouts.”

Lakeland was up 5–0 in the top of the eighth inning. To say Danny Johnson was cruising did not do his performance justice. He was destroying the Buccaneers. Not only was his fastball sitting consistently at ninety-five with late life, his curveball was an absolute hammer.

After each strikeout, Danny would spin off the mound and give a little point to Gord, sitting in the Wildcats’ bullpen down the left field line. Gord could do nothing but shake his head in amazement at his precocious roommate.

The seventh inning ended with Danny’s thirteenth punchout of the game. Gord waved a white towel in recognition of Danny’s uncanny prediction and to signify his submission. Danny pointed at Gord one last time as he skipped off the field to soak up the adoration from his impressed teammates and coaching staff.

Amazingly, Danny had thrown only eighty-four pitches through seven innings, despite all of the strikeouts. He was startlingly efficient. Danny had faced only one three-ball count all night and had relinquished only two infield singles.

Steve Anderson shouted down to Gord from the other end of the bullpen bench, “You better get comfy, Gordo. There’s no way any of us are getting near that mound. This is Danny’s night.”

“Yeah, no shit. I’m riding the pine pony for the rest of the game.”

“What’s the team record for strikeouts in a game?” Anderson asked no one in particular.

“Fifteen,” Jeff Merkle piped up.

“He’s getting that for sure,” Anderson replied.

A call came in over the bullpen phone. Tim Reid snatched it up before it had a chance to ring twice.

“Mattis!” the Badger growled. “Johnson’s finishing this game. Warm up and throw a bullpen down here to stay sharp.”

Gord had already thrown long toss and stretched before the game, so his body was basically warm. However, his arm and shoulder were slightly stiff from sitting on the bench for seven innings.

The few hundred fans scattered around the ballpark were in the middle of an off-key rendition of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” for the seventh inning stretch. Gord stood up and joined them.

He made slow arm circles forward, loosening his joints. The circles got progressively bigger and faster, while he tested the limits of his range of motion. Next, he grabbed his glove and inserted two baseballs into the webbing. With the glove in a pincer grip in his throwing hand, Gord bent over at the waist and swung his arm forward and backward between his legs.

Then, he made clockwise circles from the same position. He stood upright and dangled his pitching arm at his side. He raised his left arm until it was perpendicular to the ground and returned it to the starting position for a total of twelve repetitions. Swinging his arm straight out in front of his body, he began making figure eights with his weighted glove, stretching the small muscles of his forearm and increasing the motility of his elbow ligaments.

At this point, the rest of the pitching staff stared at Gord in bemused wonderment. They always got a kick out of Gord’s intricate stretching ritual and needled him about his obsessive behaviour. Sometimes they deliberately miscounted out loud, hoping to mess with his rhythm.

Gord knew he looked goofy, but he’d done the stretches since he was in high school. If he skipped them, he felt uncomfortable on the mound. The last thing a pitcher needed was concern over whether or not his arm was warmed up enough.

The final stretch of Gord’s routine once again had him bent over at the waist. He aggressively swung his left arm from in front of his body to directly overhead. He repeated the process ten times in rapid succession. It made him look like a wind turbine.

Sufficiently warmed up, he headed to the bullpen mound. At the same time, Danny jumped out of the dugout and raced to the middle of the diamond for the bottom of the eighth. Gord gave a quick nod to backup catcher Aaron Carmack, indicating that he was ready to begin throwing.

With one eye on the field watching Johnson’s assault on Lakeland’s strikeout record, Gord lightly tossed with Carmack, who was crouched behind the plate. Gord’s first ten throws were slow, arcing fastballs. Their purpose was to establish a solid mechanical base before he increased velocity. Once Gord was confident that he could replicate his delivery, he motioned to Carmack that he was going to start throwing harder. Coincidentally, Danny had just finished his own warm-up pitches and was about to deliver the first pitch of the inning.

Carmack set up on the corner of the plate, adjacent to the left-handed batter’s box. Gord peppered fastballs at 80 percent velocity into this vicinity over and over again. Carmack rarely moved his mitt. They repeated the same process on the other side of the plate.

Danny struck out the first batter of the eighth on four pitches. Fourteen strikeouts. The second hitter, the Buccaneers’ leadoff man, flared an opposite field single to short right field. This marked the first time all game Orlando’s offence was able to “touch green.”

The third batter of the inning worked the count to 2 and 2. Danny momentarily forgot about the runner on first base and threw the fifth pitch of the at-bat from a full windup. The runner took second base uncontested, while the pitch was in the dirt for ball three.

With a commanding lead, Lakeland’s infield good-naturedly bashed Johnson for his brain fart.

“Hey, stay hot, kid!”

“We throw from the stretch in this league, Bonus Baby!”

“That steal’s on you, Johnson!”

“That’s a fine!” Steve Anderson yelled from the bullpen. Gord laughed and nodded in agreement.

The incident would undoubtedly be addressed at the next hearing of Lakeland’s Kangaroo Court.

Dave Rockwood called time and went to the mound to chat with a sheepish-looking Danny. Rockwood wanted to calm his pitcher down and tell Danny to forget about the mental error. He also needed to remind Danny of the signs with a runner on second. This was the first time a runner had reached second base all game, so Rockwood wanted to make sure they were on the same page.

When play resumed, the Wildcats’ battery decided to go with a 3–2 off-speed pitch. Danny snapped off a backdoor curve that fooled the hitter, but bent around the plate. Ball four.

Runners were now on first and second. Danny kicked the dirt in front of the mound in disgust, angry at himself for relinquishing his first walk of the night. He took a deep breath. There was no way he was going to lose his shutout on a mental mistake and a walk.

Quickly getting ahead of the next hitter 0–2, Danny was poised to tie the team record. He reared back and let fly with a high, outside fastball. The batter was looking heat, but with two strikes could only muster a short, protective swing.

He sent a humpback liner toward second base. The runners moved on contact, as the Buccaneers wanted nothing more than to break their goose egg. Lakeland’s shortstop, Chris Mills, drifted over, snared the ball, and touched second base. Double play. Inning over.

As the Wildcats hustled in for the top of the ninth, Gord continued his work in the bullpen. He worked on two types of curveballs: backdoor hammers that right-handed hitters gave up on and big breakers that bisected the middle of the plate, leaving left-handed hitters with jelly in their legs. Carmack kept his glove eight inches off the ground. He wanted Gord’s breaking balls to finish low in the zone, out of harm’s way in a real game.

The Wildcats went down suspiciously fast in their half of the ninth. Everyone wanted to get the game over with and see what Danny had in store for his final inning. Though the home team faced a five-run deficit, the crowd was still very much into the game. They understood what a rare opportunity it was to witness such an incredible pitching performance.

On the mound, Danny wore his heart on his sleeve, and tonight was no different. He paced around the hill, waiting for his teammates to finish slinging the ball around the horn. He hopped up and down like a prizefighter, waiting for the batter to take his position in the box.

At this juncture in the game, Danny was too charged up and jittery to be able to finesse off-speed pitches over the plate. No, he was going to finish this game off with his best pitch: a darting fastball that occasionally threatened triple digits.

Back in the bullpen, Gord began the final phase of his throwing regimen: a simulated inning where the pitches, balls, and strikes were called by Aaron Carmack. Since there were no batters, Gord instituted a unique set of rules for this exercise. There were no walks. In the event of a fourth ball, it was assumed that the batter fouled the pitch off, no matter where the ball was located.

The requirements for what constituted a strike were extremely stringent. The zone stretched from mid-shin to upper thigh; anything above crotch level was deemed too high and called a ball. This forced Gord to work in the bottom half of the strike zone. He had to live down there to be successful. This exercise drilled that maxim into his head and forced his release point to adjust accordingly.

Danny faced the bottom third of the Buccaneers’ order in the home half of the ninth. Orlando’s seventh hitter was a wispy, freakishly strong kid from the Dominican Republic. He could hit the ball a mile, but his swing was way too long and overly aggressive to make consistent contact. He corkscrewed himself into the dirt after every swing.

Three fastballs up in the zone later, each one higher than the last, and Mighty Casey had struck out for the third time in the game. Fifteen punchouts for Danny, which tied Lakeland’s team record.

Gord worked through his simulated inning with surgical precision. Each pitch he threw lived on the outer edges of the plate. Carmack never raised his glove higher than sixteen inches off the dirt.

Every player on the Wildcats’ roster was on the top step of the dugout shouting encouragement at their ace. The crowd cheered every strike call by the umpire. They no longer had an allegiance to the Buccaneers. They were now just fans of the game.

Dave Rockwood wasn’t even giving signs at this point. He just held his mitt out as a target and waited for Danny to burn in another fastball. The count ran to 1–2 on the second hitter of the inning. Danny reared back and painted the outside corner with a two-seam fastball. The pitch had started outside and the hitter gave up on it. He was flummoxed to see the ball run right back over the black.

The radar gun behind home plate registered ninety-six miles per hour. Danny was throwing just as hard in his last inning as he was in his first. The bat never left the hitter’s shoulder. The home plate umpire thrust his right arm into the air. Sixteen.

Gord focused his attention on Carmack’s glove and finished off his session with two wonderful changeups that dipped and dived down low, a fraction of an inch off the plate.

Watching Danny pump fastballs and be successful, while he had to bite and nibble, was an ironic moment not lost on Gord. He realized that, while they were on the same pitching staff, he and Danny were solar systems apart in terms of their baseball ability and eventual career arc. It was unlikely Danny would still be in A ball by Labour Day. A promotion to Double A seemed imminent.

On the other hand, Gord was barely treading water in Lakeland. Pitchers with his stuff were a dime a dozen. While he had begun to show signs of improvement from earlier in the year, how much of it was attributed to his being so much older and more experienced than the young, free-swinging lineups he faced on a nightly basis? Was he getting hitters out with talent, or was it just guile and a high baseball IQ acquired through more years of seasoning?

Gord joined the rest of the bullpen on the bench to watch Danny put the finishing touches on his masterpiece. Wanting to end with a flourish, Danny deserted his mechanics and threw the first two pitches way out of the strike zone. 2–0.

“Come on, Danny, stay on top of the ball. Finish square to the plate,” Gord chided softly. He turned to face Aaron Carmack. “Rockwood should go talk to him.”

Sure enough, Lakeland’s catcher called time and jogged out to the mound for a quick conference with his hurler. Danny nodded in agreement with his catcher’s words. Rockwood patted Danny lightly on the back and returned behind the plate.

The chat worked. Danny quickly evened the count at 2–2. Focusing all of his energy into one last pitch, he took a deep breath, came set, and fired. The batter had no chance. The ninety-eight-mile-an-hour fastball was practically in Rockwood’s glove before the hitter had a chance to start his swing.

Seventeen strikeouts! A new team record! Danny pumped his fist in victory. He met his catcher halfway between the mound and the plate, and thanked Rockwood for calling such a terrific game. Lakeland’s bench emptied as the team rushed out to congratulate their ace. The guys in the bullpen hopped off the bench and joined the fray on the field. Jogging to meet the rest of the team, Gord smiled, thoroughly impressed with the pitching prowess of his roommate.

He knew that he would never be able to match Danny’s electric stuff. But, as he demonstrated during his bullpen session, Gord had the ability to put the ball wherever he wanted when he was “on.” In fact, it was this ability to throw strikes that led to his employment in minor league baseball in the first place. Without his transition from a thrower to a true pitcher, Gord’s baseball dream would have ended long before the end of his university career.