Have Glove, Will Travel_ Adventures of a Baseball Vagabond - Bill Lee [23]
Had Andre hit .200 with popgun power, he could have turned pirouettes on the dugout roof in a pink frou-frou without arousing the slightest reaction from our fans. But he was one of the most dangerous sluggers in the league and regularly pounded our pitching staff.
The team had not provided a scouting report on Andre; I had no idea how to pitch him. He displayed the batting stance of a dead pull hitter. Galarraga crouched far off the plate, as if he wanted us to challenge him inside. My catcher, Bruce Bochy, noticed the same thing and called for a hard sinker, low and away, just off the edge of the strike zone. Perfect. We both assumed Galarraga could never reach that pitch and hit it with authority. Until he swung. That’s when we discovered the Big Cat’s arms stretched nearly as long as his legs. His bat covered so much plate, he tagged that ball on the sweet spot and smacked a double deep into the right centerfield gap. Two runs scored.
When Galarraga batted with runners on first and second two innings later, he set up closer to home, as if he again anticipated that sinker away. I started him with two fastballs high and inside. He refused to bite at either. With the count 2–0, I threw the Cat a changeup away, figuring he would still be looking for something hard and low. He kept his hands back and popped the ball up, four hundred feet over the fence in dead centerfield for a three-run homer that knocked me out of the game. Damn, I thought while trudging to the showers, that bush-leaguer decoyed you into choosing that pitch. That will teach you to throw him anything soft. Should have just zitzed the son of a bitch with your ninety-four-mile-an-hour fastball.
Which is when I remembered I didn’t have one.
I walked back to our apartment after the loss. Dusk had fallen and the temperature had dropped all the way down to 101. Not far from the ballpark, I passed a high, gray concrete wall perhaps two hundred feet wide. A row of rectangular apertures had been carved into the stone and what I saw in those openings drew me closer: outstretched arms, clutching fingers, and hands waving frantically to catch anyone’s attention.
I peeked inside over the flailing limbs and discovered that the wall fronted the courtyard of an asylum. Slack-jawed patients in hospital gowns plodded through an open garden. Some of them mumbled incoherently to themselves. Others bellowed at phantoms. And I noticed the silent ones with Thorazine eyes who just sat and stared without moving a muscle.
I shook every hand along the wall, thinking that even the slightest contact with the outside world might offer the poor souls some comfort. Your heart would have to be stuffed with dead mercy not to feel for these people. But after pitching so badly that afternoon, their plight also struck me as a cautionary tale. Far as I knew, this could be the place Venezuelan teams sent aging pitchers soon as they starting hanging too many curveballs.
4
DON’T CRY FOR ME, VENEZUELA
Pam and I lived in an apartment building right off the beach near a neat, middle-class neighborhood on the outskirts of La Guaira. Most Americans visiting this area stayed at the Hilton in downtown Caracas, where the staff pampered them twenty-four hours a day. The Tiburones offered us rooms there as well, but I had come to Venezuela with a purpose and preferred staying away from the distractions of the city even though it meant a longer bus ride to the ballpark.
Though our digs featured few amenities other than the basics, our bedroom window afforded a magnificent view of the ocean, and the area was free of the foul-smelling smog that continually hid the sun in much of Caracas. We lived like natives. I bathed in the ocean first thing every morning and picked oranges for lunch.