The Bullpen Gospels - Dirk Hayhurst [104]
“Our body language really sucks right now,” Randy continued, again with the piercing stare. “We’ve only played thirty-seven games. It’s May tenth, yet I see bodies telegraphing that the season’s over.
“Here’s how it works. A couple of guys start showcasing negative body language when things are down, soon other guys start gravitating to them when they take their lumps. It spreads. Guys start feeling sorry for themselves, and there’s no room for that. This is Double-A baseball, men—it’s a separator. You got scouts coming in and out of here all the time, looking for guys who can rise to the occasion. Every day’s a clean slate with me, and it’s gotta be that way with you…”
Another glance to the notes. “I’ve already heard guys whining about this today, so I’m going to address it. The I’m tired, the travel’s hard in this league stuff…fucking get over it. Grind it out for the five months. You know the forecast, you have to have the mind-set for it. Didn’t get enough sleep? Didn’t get a chance to get up and eat? Bad accommodations? Sorry. That’s the way this game goes sometimes. Still gotta compete. Still gotta play the game hard. I’ll tell you this, men: if you’re a pussy, this game will call you out on it real fast. It will cut you down.”
He folded up the paper and put it back into his pocket. “My suggestion: back to the basics. Be ready to pitch, be ready to hit, be ready to make the play. Be ready to compete. If you got things getting in the way of your commitment to the game, get ’em out of the way. Baseball has got to be the priority right now. We have got to play with a purpose to have success, individually and collectively. All the little things we were doing early on to be successful, I don’t see us doing them right now. To me, that’s lack of focus. We have got to get our focus back.
“It’s a grind, it’s a motherfucker, but come six thirty, you gotta be locked in, men. We won’t always bring our best to the park every day, but we gotta compete with one hundred percent of what we got.”
He looked around the room, serious faces staring back at him. “Hey, prepare, compete first pitch to last pitch, lay it all out there, and at the end you can say you did the best you could—that’s the only way to go about it. Play to win, that’s the only way I know.”
“Questions or concerns anybody?” Randy asked.
No hands went up. Message received.
“Alright. Stretch in fifteen.” He walked back into his office. The room sat silent for a second and then Tourney stepped in.
“Hitters, I’ll have the film of your at bats ready to watch by tonight. If you wanna see it, stop by my hotel room and we’ll review it.”
“Hey Tourney, make sure you put the Do Not Disturb sign on your door if you’re gonna be doing something you don’t want us to walk in on.”
“Yeah, and shut the blinds for God’s sake!”
“Very funny, very fucking funny.” Pops tromped back into the coach’s office.
Everyone would take Randy’s words differently. I’m sure I was no exception. While the other guys suited up to hit the field and made resolutions to cut back on their nightlife, I remained at my locker, thinking about his message and the experiences that got me to his team.
He was right. This level is a separator, not only of physical talent, but of priorities too. People play the game for different reasons. Looking back, I knew I played for a chance at something better, for the glory, for a fix, for an ego stroke, and for validation. But the first and main reason, the one that hooks us all: I wanted to make it to the big leagues.
The nice thing about pitching, I decided, was while I was doing it, I always knew what the goal was. Get an out; get a couple of outs. Life, on the other hand, wasn’t so clear. The trouble was baseball was my life. The two were connected somehow, that much I knew. Yet I didn’t know the proper formula and was tired of the explosive result they yielded when mixed. I wanted to separate them, keep them safe from each other. I decided to take the lessons I had learned—forget the loose