The Bullpen Gospels - Dirk Hayhurst [100]
Chapter Thirty-three
Before the bus took us to the field, it shuttled us to the local mall. The hotel was so far away from food sources that if we wanted to eat breakfast, we had to get up and take the bus to the mall food court. I had Chinese for breakfast and Cinnabon for dessert.
At the park, Pops came out to rag on the pitchers while we stretched. Most hitting coaches pick on pitchers and vice versa. It’s part of an age-old rivalry that one job is harder than the other. Hitters will say swinging the bat is harder than throwing a ball, whereas pitchers contest the superior challenge is locating a ball while someone tries to strike it. Both sides are biased, of course, which means the fire will burn as long as the game is played.
Pops stood by us swinging his slender fungo bat like a golf club, trading insults with Handsome Rob about how pitchers got it easy.
“Yeah, you face the Yankees lineup and tell me it’s easy,” Handsome Rob countered.
“You ain’t never faced the Yankees lineup. For all you know, you may go right through ’em.”
“Right, I’m sure I’d still be here in the Texas League if I could go right through the Yankees. Great point, Pops.”
“I’m just saying you could get lucky and get them out. There’s so much room for error with pitching. You can make bad pitches and get guys out.”
“And hitters can’t take bad cuts and bloop balls in?”
“Sure, but that don’t happen as much as bad pitches gettin’ guys out.”
“But if it happens three out of ten times and the bases are loaded those three out of ten, it hurts just as bad,” Rob countered, in his high-society voice.
“You can argue all you want, but handling the stick is way harder.”
Rob paused the tit-for-tat volley. He was pulling his arm across his chest, stretching it for warm-up catch, when an idea hit him. He stopped his stretch and walked over to Pops, a smile painted across his face.
“I suppose you would know Pops. Speaking of handling the stick, I heard you got a visit by the cops back in San Antonio?”
Guys slowed their stretching and began to watch Pops.
“You don’t need to worry about that,” Pops said, shifting from the confident arguer to an anxious worrier on the spot. We traded curious glances among each other. Pops’ body language showed something was up.
“Oh, I heard the story,” Rob pressed, “and I think you should tell it before you force me to.”
Stretching came to a stop. Everyone eyed Pops with anticipation. A coach having a run-in with the cops was just too juicy not to hear. Pops looked around at all of us staring back at him. “Fffuck, alright,” he consented. We crowded in. “First, it’s not that big of a deal. It’s gonna sound bad, but it ain’t.”
“What happened?” Blade asked, practically drooling.
“I’m sitting in my living room back in San Antonio, in those shithole apartments they put us in, talking on the phone. There comes a knock on my door. It’s the fucking cops, right? I hang up, go to the door, and answer. I’m like, ‘Hello officers, how can I help you?’”
“So they say,”—he shakes his head at the thought of it, while we’re hanging on his words—“‘We had a report that you were masturbating with your windows open.’ I’m like, what the ffffffffuck” His face looked genuinely shocked. The team started roaring, all of us, falling on each other.
“Yeah, you go right ahead and laugh. It was probably one of you that called ’em, you sons of bitches,” Pops said, leaning on his fungo.
“Well, were you?” Rob pressed.
“Fffffuck no! Are you kidding me? I’m a grown man!”
“Grown men get urges,” Blade countered.
“I don’t give a shit what grown men get. I wasn’t. I was totally shocked by it all. Oh, oh, get this, then the cop says, ‘Sir, it’s okay if you were, but next time, please be more discreet about it.’ What’s that supposed to mean? It’s okay if you were, just be more discreet? They didn’t fucking believe me, which pissed me off even worse. They didn’t believe me, I’m some kinda perv.”
“Did you tell them you weren’t jerking it?” This was Rob again.
“Yeah, like a dozen times I says.” Pops was