July 2008

Lakeland, Florida
Mercantile Stadium

“Gord.”

“GORDOOO!”

Slumped against the side of his locker, Gord was jarred from his daydream by the shrill, high-pitched voice of Lakeland’s third baseman, Tyson Dante. At five feet six and 145 pounds, Dante resembled a jockey in the Kentucky Derby rather than a major leaguer prospect, but the kid could flat-out hit. His average had never dipped below .350 at any point in his life. Currently, in his first year of A ball, he was humming along at a .358 clip. Growing up in the baseball mecca of Southern California, the worst average of Dante’s high school career was .520.

Initially dismissed because of his diminutive stature, Dante had something of a Napoleon complex. A short fuse, coupled with an abrasive personality, made him a polarizing figure in the Wildcats’ clubhouse. When Dante was hitting well, he was a great guy. But, if he was struggling or, God forbid, went hitless in a game, then it was best to keep your distance. The shards of smashed bats that littered Lakeland’s clubhouse floor and the dents in the walls could attest to that.

“What do you want, Lilliputian?”

“Where did you — what do you keep calling me ‘Lilliputian’ for? What does that mean?”

Baseball players were considered to be some of the dumbest athletes on the planet. A lot of them went straight to the minor leagues from high school, bypassing a college education completely. And Dante was basically an idiot savant. He was a genius when it came to the art of hitting. He could spend hours talking your ear off about his craft, but he was completely useless in social situations or intelligent discourse. For Gord, it was like having his very own Rain Man.

Baseball wasn’t exactly rocket science. Hockey and basketball at least required technical proficiency and the memorization of set plays and schemes. At its root, baseball was essentially a Cro-Magnon exploit: See ball. Hit ball. Catch ball.

“It’s from a show on MTV.” Gord decided it was best not to confuse his bewildered teammate. “I think I saw it on Cribs.”

“Oh. Okay. Cool. That’s a sweet show.”

“What did you want, Ty?”

“Did you move my spikes?”

Gord glanced at Dante’s locker and noticed his teammate’s spikes lying slightly askew in front of his pock-marked wooden stool.

“Your spikes are right there,” Gord said, pointing to Dante’s worn, dark blue Mizunos.

The cleats had seen better days and they smelled like an open carton of milk curdling on a windowsill in late August. Dante thought the spikes brought him luck, hence his reticence to get a new pair. The rest of the team pretended the rank odour didn’t exist, so long as Dante kept ripping the cover off the ball.

“Yeah, I know, but they’re in the wrong spot.”

Gord was exasperated. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Each shoe has to be pointed toward the centre of the clubhouse, exactly a batting glove width apart. The laces have to be tucked into each shoe with the top eyelet empty. Look at them. They’re all over the place!”

Each spike was pointed toward the other at a forty-five-degree angle. A wisp of the left spike lace flopped haphazardly on the cement clubhouse floor. Gord, a wry smile playing across his face, looked back at Dante.

“I guess I nudged them when I was looking for my iPod. Please accept my sincerest apologies.”

Dante was undeterred. “That’s not good enough, Gord. If my spikes aren’t in the right place when I come in, I can’t hit that game.” A light bulb flashed on in Tyson’s head. “THAT’S why I went 1 for 4 last night!”

Gord stood up to leave, lest he be forced to listen to an in-depth, pitch-by-pitch analysis of Dante’s previous night’s at-bats. Once Tyson got going, he was impossible to stop. After fifteen minutes of such mind-numbing minutiae, the poor soul stuck in the conversation would be searching for an ice pick to jab into his brainstem.

“Where are you going?” Dante asked.

Gord turned and flashed a shit-eating grin. “To shag flies. Someone has to catch those droopy Texas leaguers you float into the outfield every batting practice.”

Dante bent down to reconfigure his spikes. “Fuck you.”

It was days like this that reaffirmed Gord’s love for the game of baseball. The cloudless Florida sky was so clear and blue, it hurt his eyes. The forest-green grass of the outfield cushioned his feet as he tracked fly balls. The infield dirt was so smooth and free of imperfections that it resembled brown glass from Gord’s position in short right field.

The only sounds that reverberated through the empty stadium were the sharp crack of the bat, the smack of the ball into rawhide leather, and snippets of baseball talk that were washed away by the warm southern breezes.

Simply put, it was a perfect day for baseball.

Pre-game batting practice was always an exercise in organized chaos. The position players were divided into groups of three. Each group got five rounds of batting practice in the cage, and each round consisted of five swings per player.

The groups not in the cage took their positions in the field to either shag flies or take grounders, all while working on their footwork and positioning. One protective screen was set up behind second base to collect batted balls, and one was set up in front of first base to protect the team’s one-bagger while he received throws from the other infielders.

Coaches were often positioned to the sides of the batting cage to hit ground balls to select fielders. At any time, four balls could be in play at once, so it was imperative for players to stay on their toes.

The keys to a successful batting practice session were speed, flow, and an accurate, authoritarian batting practice pitcher. The Lakeland Wildcats’ batting practice pitcher, Tim Reid, fit that description perfectly and ensured that the first two criteria were followed.

Squat and barrel-chested, Reid was a retired police officer who, thirty years earlier, had been a minor league teammate of Tom Conrad’s. His intense personality and no-nonsense approach to the game had earned Reid the moniker of “Badger” among Lakeland’s players. Of course, no one dared speak Reid’s nickname in his presence, as there were rumours that he had maimed his share of criminals during his drug-busting days. One such tale involved the Badger’s lopping off a drug dealer’s fingers with shears to extract information. A story like that had to be true.

Ironically, no one had ever heard Reid raise his voice in anger. If something pissed him off, Reid would shoot the offending party an icy glare to voice his displeasure. Invariably, the message was received, and the questionable behaviour ceased.

A few years ago, according to several reputable sources, a loudmouth rookie had told Reid to “Go fuck himself” when asked to do wind sprints after a game. The next day, the kid’s locker was cleared out, and he was never heard from again. Some theorized that the rookie had been banished to an independent league team in some one-stoplight, Podunk town in rural Idaho. Others maintained that he was fish food off the Gulf Coast. Either way, no one had ever mouthed off to Reid and survived to tell the tale.

Besides his role as team disciplinarian, the Badger was an invaluable member of the staff for the way he conducted batting practice. Players did not walk or jog under Reid’s eye. They ran. They ran to join their group at the plate, they ran to their positions in the field, and they ran to collect stray balls.

Each player got exactly five pitches per round. You did not wait for a grapefruit in your wheelhouse. You hit the ball where it was pitched or you missed a swing. Some players, Tyson Dante especially, tried to goad Reid into getting an extra pitch or two. A quick glare from the Badger was all that was required to shoot down such a request.

The players put up with Reid’s hard-ass, old-school approach for two reasons: one, they were terrified of him; two, he was the greatest batting practice pitcher most had ever seen.

Reid had the uncanny ability to pepper seventy-mile-an-hour fastballs into the strike zone for hours on end. He never tired, his velocity never dipped, and it took him about twelve seconds to zip in five pitches. This breakneck pace meant there was no time to slack off on the field. Laziness was non-existent on Lakeland’s roster.

Gord was bent over at the waist, resting a hand on each knee. Perspiration dripped off the front of his nose and dark sweat stains slowly enveloped the breadth of his light blue warm-up shirt.

Mercifully, one last line drive signalled the end of the forty-five-minute session. Gord and a fellow pitcher picked up the protective screen behind second base and started toward the storage shed beyond the left field bleachers. Coach Reid’s gruff, nicotine-strained voice cut through the air.

“Mattis! Skip wants to see you.”

Gord left his teammate to struggle with the cumbersome screen and hustled toward the first base dugout. Jogging by Reid, he asked, “What’s this about?”

Reid hooked a thumb toward the dugout. “Don’t know. He’s in his office.”

Tom Conrad sat in the manager’s office with his feet propped up on the cheap metal desk. He was filling out that night’s lineup card when Gord knocked on the open office door.

“You wanted to see me, Skip?”

Conrad, his wire-framed glasses perched at the tip of his nose, peered at Gord over the top of a thick binder crammed with paper. “Yes. Gord. Come in.”

He motioned to an antiquated chair that sat in front of his desk. Gord, ignoring the torn fabric and mysterious stain that diagonally bisected the seat cushion, took a seat, and Conrad dived right in, straight to the point. “You know I’ve always been a fan of yours. A lot of these guys look at you like a big brother. It’s your second year on the squad and you provide a viewpoint that the guys respond to: advice that’s not from a coach.”

Gord swallowed hard, knowing that qualifying criticism was sure to follow those kind words.

“That being said, your on-field performance hasn’t been where I had hoped. Being my left-handed specialist, I know you haven’t gotten a lot of work.” Conrad shuffled through the papers on his desk. “Let’s see: fifteen innings, 5.50 ERA,1 twenty hits, two walks, and ten strikeouts. My biggest concern is your batting average against: .302.” He raised his eyebrows, waiting for an explanation.

“I’m throwing strikes, but I’m catching too much of the plate. My arm feels good.” Gord paused and looked Conrad straight in the eye. “Tom, I know I can turn this around.”

Conrad met Gord’s gaze and surveyed his oldest player for a moment. “I think you can, too. And I’m going to give you every opportunity to do so. Here’s the thing: as you know, we drafted seven pitchers in the June draft. Once we get them all signed, they’ll be sent to the Gulf Coast League. Our top arms from rookie ball will be coming to Lakeland and we need spots for them. The front office has targeted a couple of our guys as ‘make or break.’ You’re one of them.”

Gord understood where Conrad was going with this speech. At twenty-four years old, he was ancient for A ball. The organization was basically giving him an ultimatum. Produce or take the train.

Conrad continued his monologue. “Starting tomorrow, I’m going to use you as my long guy out of the pen. Based on your conditioning, I know you can handle the increased workload. You have six weeks. If we see marked improvement in that time, I’ll convince the front office to keep you. If not, then we’ll have to …” His voice trailed off.

Conrad hated cutting players. Back in his hell-raising days, he never gave the process a second thought. Coherence wasn’t a certainty with Conrad back then. Caring about the emotions of his players wasn’t even on his radar.

Now, with his new-found faith, the process affected Conrad worse than the kids whose dreams he shattered. Most of the players he released had no backup plan: no education, no skills outside of their ability to play baseball. After cutting a player in his office, both parties would often emerge with tear-stained faces and red eyes.

Gord appreciated his manager’s candour. “Thanks for being honest with me, Tom. And for the opportunity to prove myself to the organization. I won’t let you down.”

“I know you won’t.” Conrad smiled. “Okay, Gordie. Get back out there and get loose.”

Walking back through the clubhouse, Gord encountered Danny Johnson hurriedly trying to tie his spikes and put his uniform on at the same time. Johnson squinted at Gord through bloodshot eyes. The smell emanating from his pores was a mixture of Jack Daniels and, knowing Danny’s track record, unsatisfactory sex.

“Where did you end up last night?”

Danny grinned at Gord through the suffocating headache his Jack and Coke-induced hangover had provided. “I fucked a Mom last night. She was thirty-one, with two kids. She dropped me off at the park after she took her son to tennis camp. Unreal.”

Gord looked at Danny with a mixture of shock and wonder. “How was she?”

“Amazing body; fake tits. You could tell she had a couple kids, though. It was like trying to fuck a parachute.”

Gord winced at the mental image Danny had just created. “Conrad’s in his office. He hasn’t noticed you’re late. Let’s go toss before he does.”

Gord situated himself on the right field foul line, approximately fifteen feet in front of the clay warning track surrounding the field. Danny stood across from Gord, perpendicular to the foul line. Capping the distance between them at one hundred feet, they started off with light tossing to warm up their arms and defuse any mechanical kinks that might crop up during the initial phase of their catch.

Their conversation meandered between Lakeland’s chances against their opponents, the Sarasota Redbirds, and the more intricate details of Johnson’s activities the previous night.

Apparently, Danny’s lady friend was a waitress at Billy’s Beach Bar and Grill in downtown Lakeland. A constant barrage of cheesy pickup lines and saccharine compliments, plus a steady diet of tequila shots at the end of her shift, had enabled Johnson to coerce the woman to take him back to her place. They were greeted at the door by her mother, who was pulling babysitting duty for her twice-divorced daughter.

Danny’s moral ambiguity aside, it was hard not to admire his go-for-broke approach. The kid had brass balls and did not discriminate when it came to pursuits of the flesh. With his arm draped around the inebriated daughter, he bravely faced the enraged mother, on the downslope of middle age, and had the audacity to suggest a threesome.

Not surprisingly, the request was vehemently denied. But Johnson was somehow still able to sleep with the daughter and emerge with his scrotal possessions intact. Such is the life of a young professional athlete with a seven-figure bank account.

Their conversation eventually stopped completely, as Danny moved farther away from Gord to stretch out their arms. Now, the only sound between them was the whir of the ball as it smacked into the glove.

Gord threw with Danny most days, except when either was scheduled to pitch. Danny had the best arm on the team, and his long-toss capabilities were legendary amongst his Lakeland teammates. Most guys on the team were able to throw just under 300 feet with relative ease; some of the stronger arms reached significantly north of that distance with a parabolic arc and a crow hop. But Danny was on an entirely different level. He could throw 350 feet with minimal effort.

Without breaking a sweat, Danny reared back, took one step forward and unleashed a missile that exploded into Gord’s glove 325 feet away.

Goofing around before batting practice one day, Danny stood at home plate at Mercantile Stadium and tried to throw a ball over the centre-field fence, 405 feet away. Putting everything he had into his magical right arm, Johnson let fly with a toss that defied logic. Jaws slacked throughout the park, as the ball disappeared over the centre-field wall and came to rest beside a Buick parked in the ancillary parking lot of the stadium. Danny could throw a ball farther than most Wildcats’ infielders could hit one.

Gord loved the challenge of long toss with Danny. Gord himself could break the 300-foot barrier, but beyond that, his throws usually bounced and rolled to Danny at the other end of the field. Gord used the long-toss sessions to keep his arm strong and injury-free during the season.

The experience also forced Gord to acknowledge a sobering realization: he would never have the innate ability of a talent like Danny, so he had to compensate by working harder than his counterparts to ensure his survival in the cutthroat world of minor league baseball.

As their session drew to a close and Danny moved back to distances achievable by regular humans, Gord recalled a seminal moment in his career that also revolved around long toss. To him, it was his turning point in the game and, although he didn’t know it at the time, it would ultimately fuel his development from a middling talent into a legitimate prospect. His thoughts took him back to Ann Arbor and the fall of 2000.

1 ERA = earned run average.