The Bullpen Gospels - Dirk Hayhurst [16]
The next day, after a lard-soaked marathon breakfast, I made my way to a homeless shelter on the eastern edge of Canton called the Total Living Center, or TLC. It sits in a run-down area on the tip of the city’s sprawl, surrounded by project homes and government housing. Cops patrol the streets at all hours, and I swear I always hear emergency sirens echoing in the distance when I drive through the area.
I should tell you, this wasn’t my first time volunteering at TLC. I started doing it a few months before because, to be perfectly honest, I thought it would make me look good. I can’t blame all my actions on the institutionalizing of pro baseball, but one thing a public opinion–based job had taught me was that appearances meant something. Just like people assume things when they hear the words “pro baseball player,” they assume things when they hear “volunteers at a homeless shelter.” The words conjure visions of caring and self-sacrifice: humility, mercy, and charity.
All I did was take names. I sat at a desk by the door, signing people in, making sure too much warm air didn’t escape, doing a job a pencil on a string could have managed. I was a regular Mother Theresa. Originally, I wanted to fly over to Calcutta and help heal people who got bitten by tigers or by whatever they had over there. I didn’t research the topic that well; I just thought I should go. When I found out how much it would cost to buy a plane ticket, I had to settle for working at the shelter a couple miles from my house. It wasn’t exactly playing baseball with the kids from the “just seven cents a day” style commercials, but it was better than sitting on my hands, I guess.
The experience was a letdown, actually. Taking names at the local shelter wasn’t as dramatic or as awe inspiring as picking fleas off people who speak in clicks and pops. No witch doctors grabbed my head and prophesied my fastball’s future. No women with rings in their noses fell in love with me. No one thanked me for saving his life with my semicelebrity presence, and I didn’t walk away from the place transformed, ready to market Kabbalah water.
Today I sat at the shelter’s door, lethargically making clicks and pops with my pen. Most of the folks who came for the shelter’s meal and grocery handouts had already shuffled in. I signed them in, as usual, directed them to the meal, and then closed the door so the winter air didn’t leak in. There wasn’t much else for me to do except twiddle my pen, wrestle with my thoughts, and wait for the remainder of my time playing benevolent saint to pass.
In hopes of jump-starting an enlightening experience, I brought a collection of my minor league baseball cards. I had this ingenious idea to bring cards so I could sign them for the people who frequented the place. I got the notion because a lot of people asked me for cards once they found out what I did. Some thought it would be worth money someday, if I made it big. Some wanted a card to commemorate their brush with a quasi-famous person. Most wanted it so they could pass it on to their kids. Whatever the reason, there was an undeniable ego stroke from doing it. Someone was asking me to sign a picture of myself like a person would ask a movie star or Pamela Anderson. I thought every smiling face that asked for one of my cards would inspire me to keep soldiering on in my career.
In the same pocket I kept my cards, I kept the meal tickets—nothing more than worthless shards of scrap paper you could forge at home. In my boredom, I plucked one of my cards free and looked it over. It wasn’t a great picture of me, my face was puffed out like a blowfish and my hair desperately needed a cut. I wished I had a more impressive picture, let alone stats. I didn’t even bother reading the back side where words like “Hayhurst ranked among