The Bullpen Gospels - Dirk Hayhurst [31]
Possessing undeniable nobility, Coop would say he felt as if he were playing on behalf of the other wounded and injured, but the companies weren’t concerned about them. They were only concerned about one wounded veteran ballplayer who made for fantastic advertising. It made me wonder if all wounded veterans received free shoes and sports equipment or just those who had camera time. I know if it was up to Coop, they would.
On the off chance Coop climbed all the way to the top, it would be a Hollywood event. I’ll bet Ken Burns wet his pants at the mere thought of it. I know Coop wanted to earn it, but even if he didn’t, the industry would profit from him. A minor league roster spot was a pittance to pay for the kind of attention Coop could generate. It would be stupid not to keep him around even if that meant someone else who loved the game, who grew up wanting to be a baseball player his whole life, who broke the mold to get the chance, would lose his job. The numbers demanded sacrifice, and for every dream come true, there was a price.
For years, I believed that baseball was survival of the fittest, and I didn’t care about anyone else’s survival except my own. My story was the one that mattered, and as long as it ended with me in the big leagues, I could care less about anyone else’s chances. I never stopped thinking this until I started watching Lars and Coop go about their day.
Say what you want about Lars, he’s one of the freest guys I’ve ever seen on a baseball field, completely marching to the beat of his own drum; something I’ve always admired about him. He saw baseball as an instrument, a means to an end, an expression, and he was never afraid to approach it from a different angle. It almost seemed sacrilegious the way he could speak so nonchalantly about baseball, or maybe his stark, bare beliefs simply showed the myth in my own—maybe.
Then there was Coop. When Coop was enjoying his day at the park, it was impossible not to enjoy it with him. It was easy to pick up a ball, throw it around, chase grounders, and laugh at jokes about octopi, while I doubt many of us could easily pick up a rifle and face what he did. Cooper was getting a second chance at something he almost forfeited his life protecting, an ideal that afforded the very chances we had at our own dreams, on and off the field. Coop was a great man who didn’t need baseball to tell him so. Though it was contrary to the rules I knew pro baseball by, I couldn’t deny my hope that Coop would get his chance. I felt he earned it for what he’d already done. If my career was scratched from the lineup so he could have a shot at his dream, so be it. Hopefully, that wouldn’t be necessary.
Chapter Ten
On field six, it was business as usual. Another day of Pitcher’s Fielding Practice, or PFPs. We do roughly four-billion hours of PFPs in spring training to prepare us for the five or six real plays we’ll get during the year. Many pitchers are of the opinion this is just busy work. That’s because most pitchers are athletic. I’m not. I pitch, and that’s about the extent of my athletic prowess. Essentially, PFPs are just four-billion great opportunities for me to embarrass myself.
We all lined behind the field four mound, while a coach, one of the few I did not know, hit grounders back up the middle to us after we went through a fake delivery. Some guys wound up in overexaggerated Japanese-style deliveries, whereas others didn’t bother to bend over before heaving their ball of make-believe. When my turn came up, I wound in my own mechanics and delivered a nasty sinking, invisiball, which induced a chopper back my way. The ball took a late hop off the dirt. I missed it,