The Bullpen Gospels - Dirk Hayhurst [130]
Chapter Forty-eight
One Year Later
I could tell them anything. The people who didn’t know me, which was most of the people in attendance, had probably heard the fantastic tales perpetuated by baseball books and movies and would take me as an authority on the subject, eagerly swallowing whatever concoction I fed them. My friends and family would believe me because of the inexhaustible supply of fantastic tales I’d already told. Stories about baseball just have that effect, I guess—it goes down smooth. But this wasn’t the time to goof around, even though my uncle thought it would be cute to toast my last night as a virgin with, “Don’t swing for the fences on your first at bat, buddy—just manufacture runs, steal a base or two, bunt.” My family has a way of spicing up any occasion, including my wedding.
“First,” I began, “I’d like to thank all of you for coming today. I’m so very pleased Bonnie and I could share this special day with you. I know you wouldn’t have missed it for the world, but we appreciate it all the same.” Especially since their showing meant a guaranteed gift.
“Second, I realize many of you here today don’t know me, which is a regrettable side effect of my career. In fact, I’d say most of you know more about my job than you do about me. I’ve been told by several of you that you’ve been following my stats on the Internet and rooting for me. Thanks.
“I’d like you to get to know me though, beyond my stats, and, with my wife’s permission of course, I’d like to tell you a story about me and baseball, a real one that I think we can all relate to.” Unlike my uncle’s hitting advice.
Most of my wife’s relatives—the bulk of the guests—flew in the day of the wedding and would be leaving the next. They didn’t know me, though most thought I was a nice young boy because reports they received about me told them so. What they did know, for certain, however, was I was a big-league baseball player, something that always seemed to dominate my conversation regardless of the occasion. Though I did spend most of the nonceremony portion of the evening being cordially threatened by the males in my wife’s extended family over what would happen if I didn’t treat her right, I also spent an inordinate amount of time getting big league ticket requests and contract speculation fired at me by fingers folded into the shape of guns.
Making it to the big leagues was no small feat, especially considering how distant and impossible the goal once seemed. Me meeting a beautiful, caring, and capable woman was no small feat either. As it would turn out, both of these occurrences had their roots in the 2007 championship season.
At the time, meeting my wife wasn’t quite as celebrated as winning a championship and discovering some of the mysteries of baseball. We were introduced through the wonders of technology, over the Internet. We spent the last two months of the season, even the night of the championship party, talking on the phone and exchanging e-mails. Our first live meeting came days after I returned home. When we finally met, the heavens opened up, doves flew in her wake, and I knew right then and there she would be the reason I moved out of my grandma’s. It was love, and the following season, I proposed.
Speaking of the following season, I pitched my way back onto the Triple-A roster out of camp. I put up good numbers in the spring, even good enough radar reads to warrant Earp talking to me about something other than my nuts. Though I was sent off to Portland, Oregon, with a message from Grady that I might have to come back down to Double-A and pick up some spilt innings, it never happened. I pitched well enough to avoid that scenario, well enough in fact to earn an invite to the Triple-A All-Star team. (I turned it down to go home