The Bullpen Gospels - Dirk Hayhurst [86]
Thanks to his rich character, Abby had so many nicknames from his loving core of pitchers, it was hard to keep track of them all. Some called him Big Chicken because he looked like Foghorn Leghorn and spoke with the same inflection. Some called him Top Heavy because he had a boiler and a big head teetering on spindly legs. Some called him choice curse words. Well, Ox called him choice curse words, but he called everyone choice curse words. Most of us just called him Abby.
Rounding out the trio was Rick Poppollina, or Pops, as we called him. He was the Missions’ hitting coach. A fiery Italian from Chicago, Pops had a firecracker personality that could go from zero to go fuck yourself! in four seconds flat. Pops was a player favorite. He spoke with a rough Chicago accent, and while Abby’s methods were more subtle, Pops fixed people with a few good whacks of the bat. The more fired up he got about guys not hitting, the more he would replace the adjectives in his hitting critiques with cuss words. The players loved it. His intensity was great, infectious even, not to mention there was just something so amusing about swearwords said in a tough Chitalian.
“Hay, you need to get that mess cleaned up, fuh-uck.” Though his tone was unmistakably condemning, he was smiling when he said it. He always let it be known when he was kidding. But if you didn’t know it, you could tell he was angry by how long he held his F sounds at the beginning of his F bombs. Ff-uck is happy. Ffffuck—not happy.
“Good to see you too, Pops.” He leaned forward in his chair and shook my hand.
Everyone had been met, which prompted Randy to move things along. “Alright, Hay, get yourself some threads. Get cleaned up. The boys will be here anytime now. Probably won’t throw you in there tonight,” he said, in reference to the game, “but, you never know.” With that, he turned away from me and back to business. That was my cue to exit the office.
The next stop on my trip was Eddie’s office. Eddie Tomagatchi was the team’s trainer. His “office” wasn’t really an office, though it did have a desk in it. It also had two training tables, a refrigerator, various boxes of cereal, one box of oatmeal cream pies, a giant drum of puffed cheese balls, trainer’s tape, a jar of butt paste, hot tubs, a hot dog rotisserie, and a greasy George Foreman grill. His office tripled as the visitors’ training room, cafeteria, and lounge. It was common for Eddie to work on a player’s tender elbow while hot dogs tumbled end over end on the rotisserie behind him.
Minor league trainers don’t simply tend to players physical needs, they handle all manner of things from broken bones to babysitting, like a cross between combat medics and third-grade teachers. They handle paperwork, travel arrangements, language barriers, and meal money, and they do it all in conditions similar to a Cambodian war zone. If there is one member of a minor league team who earns his paycheck, it’s the team’s trainer.
Eddie was one of the best. Coolheaded, quick-witted, and good with an ultrasound wand, he could get you loose, patch you up, and trade insults with you in his sleep. Not every trainer fits in well with the team, but the best ones were those who the players could trust for help on both sides of the lines. Eddie cared about his boys and wasn’t above acting like one every now and then. Players knew who good trainers were, and it was generally circulated that Eddie, if players’ opinion had anything to do with it, should be in the big leagues.
I walked into Eddie’s office and coughed to make myself known.
“Hey, Hay, how are you?” he asked, looking up from a stack of papers. If Pops spoke in rough tones, Eddie spoke in short, chopped ones denoting his Japanese