The Bullpen Gospels - Dirk Hayhurst [131]
Abby and Randy moved up along with several players from the 2007 championship team. Reunited, we had another season of adventure, but then again, they are all seasons of adventure. Come the end of the year, the Portland Beavers selected me as the Community Player of the Year, an honor given to a real person who moonlights as a baseball player. And then one unassuming night in August, I was called into Randy’s office, the door was shut, and I was told I would be exchanging my minor league uniform for a major league one.
My relatives, much fewer in number, sat together at their tables. They were already bored with me and preferred to lavish my wife with attention, resulting in the males of my own family threatening me over what would happen if I didn’t treat her right.
My mother, brother, and father, along with my agent and some mutual friends, were grouped together. My closest, nonbaseball friends sat at the wedding party table. My grandma sat at home watching Judge Judy because she refused to come. She said that my wife had the voice of a whining dog and that she hoped she was dead before the day of the wedding. That’s okay, she was just upset I was leaving her for another woman, and I’ll take that as a compliment. She’s still single now, and if you’re interested, she loves bird watching, is handy with a gun, and is a fantastic cook. Bless her heart. Naturally, my wife and I sat together, happy as could be.
Officially sworn in as new family additions with everyone comfortably seated in front of food and beverage, I thought I’d introduce myself and my intentions with an experience that helped me put the game into perspective, even at the big, brightest level. This is what I told them:
I was sitting at my locker when a big hand fell on my shoulder. It was the hand of Trevor Hoffman. I turned around, nervously, and offered a pathetic squeak as baseball’s save leader pawed me.
“What you doing kid? Writing a book?” he asked, staring down at me as I typed away at my laptop computer. I started keeping a diary at the start of the 2007 season.
“Uh, as a matter of fact, I am,” I replied, shutting the lid to keep my thoughts private.
Hoffman sat down next to me, which was as flattering as it was terrifying. I hadn’t been in the big leagues long, but it didn’t take me long to realize that this level had more unspoken rules about time and behaviors than any other. Young guys were weighed and sifted by older guys, and depending on the disposition of the older guys, the scales weren’t always balanced.
Young guys in the bigs aren’t only auditioning for the front-office Brass, they are auditioning for their teammates at the only level that really matters. New guys know from climbing up the many rungs of A-ball, they are to be quiet, seen, and not heard, and when they are seen, be doing something productive or entertaining. In my short amount of time at the big-league level, I wasn’t doing either. I had my butt handed to me on several occasions. In fact, my biggest highlight, the one my mom called to inform me I made SportsCenter for, was giving up a home run to Manny Ramirez.
“You like writing?” Hoffman asked.
“Yeah, it’s a good release,” I said, trying my hand at humor, “speaking of which, if I keep pitching the way I am, it may be my next career.”
Hoffman smiled, but he was not looking at me when he did it. To me, this conversation was a once-in-a-lifetime event. To him, it was small talk, something to pass the time while he waited for whomever he had business with to finish taking a crap.
“Did you major in English in college?” he asked.
“No, no, I didn’t.”
“So you just kinda picked this up then?”
“Yeah. I started doing it because I thought the experiences we have in baseball are too valuable not to be recorded.”
“What’s the book about?”
“It’s about one season in the minors. It’s about baseball. Maybe it would be better to say it’s about what baseball isn’t.”
“What it isn’t?” Hoffman asked, now giving me his full attention.
“Yeah.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Well, baseball