Well like an idiot, I get close and closed the window.. d'oh! Anyways...
Chapter 24: Get Over It
I started off May in style - by getting ejected in the 5th inning on the 2nd day. Renick has argued a strikeout call, and I nearly had to tackle him to get him off the umpire. However, when I started to vouch for him I too lost my cool and was tossed - literally. It all started after Renick had been removed.
“Sorry about that, sir. He’s just passionate.”
“Fine enough, but he nearly took a swing at me. You better keep your boys in check, or else I’ll call this game.” The plate ump was obviously upset, so I tried to be as light as I could with my words.
“For his actions? With all due respect, we’re grown men. There’s no need to forfeit the game because of things he said.”
“Well you should keep him under control, Skipper.”
“What??” I lost my cool right there. “I was already on my way out! I can’t stop him from what he does before I can get there. Besides, if the call went in his favour he wouldn’t have reacted like that!”
The umpire eyed me. “Are you questioning my game-calling abilities, son?”
‘Son’. Whether or not this guy wanted to admit it, I was an adult and had been managing for three years. Calling me ‘son’ was borderline derogatory - as if I didn’t belong in the game. “Excuse me?”
“Just go back to your dugout.”
“No!” I yelled. “I don’t care what you think of me, but I demand as much respect as any other manager in this league! And you, Blue, will treat me with the same respect you treat 50 year olds! Now if you had -”
“Well,” he cut in, “BOY, if you had earned the respect, I’d give it to you. But your past record has -”
It was my turn to interrupt him. “That’s exactly what I’m talking about! You wouldn’t cut off a veteran manager, and you won’t do it to me!”
“You’re outta here, SON. Get off my field.” He made the toss motion, and the crowd roared in approval.
“How dare you, you senile bastard!” I screamed, and balled my hand into a fist. I pulled back my hand, aiming for his face, and swung.
I didn’t even get halfway there before Hensley did a flying tackle into me, knocking me to the ground. Before I could struggle free, him and Schlater grabbed my arms and dragged me off the field, me still kicking my feet and screaming profanities at the umpire.
We won the game, but I received a two-day suspension and a five-thousand dollar fine for misconduct. I accepted the suspension, and sat in the hotel for two days. It was the first time in seven years a manager had received a suspension.
I came back on the fifth, and learned about The Red Baron’s broken wrist. To replace him for two months was youngster Rosendo Vazquez. He had put up solid AAA numbers, but was injured (ironically enough) with a broken wrist last year. He and Ronnie Smith were to platoon in centrefield. . . for two months? This was going to be disastrous. I had also missed Bill Mathews’ first career start, and he’d pitched well enough to stay. 6.2 innings, 3 earned runs. Good for a guy short on confidence.
Giichi continued his dominance, stacking up another win (4) the next day. But it was on the 8th that Mathews impressed us all. He was in the clubhouse before game time, sitting around.
“Shouldn’t you be warming up?” I asked cautiously.
“I can’t do it, Skip.” He responded bluntly.
“Can’t do what?”
“Pitch. I don’t have it in me to succeed up here.”
I sat beside him. “Damn, Mathews. Your last start was good - I don’t know why you don’t think you’ve got it.”
“We still lost.”
“Maybe so, but it wasn’t any doing of yours. We lost that in the 10th.”
He looked at me, his eyes empty. “But I shouldn’t be here - everyone knows it.”
“Maybe not.” I responded, pausing for a moment to think. “But you are here. Why not prove to everyone why you should stay?” I got up and walked away before he could answer. I was there to give him encouragement, but there comes a point where you have to learn to succeed on your own. Mathews had to prove to himself that he could do it. After all, in my first year I had to prove to people why I was good enough, and I had nobody on my side then. Bill Mathews would have to learn to rely on himself, because in the end, it’s the only person you can.
He must have got the message. Coupled with some hot hitting by D-Rod, who extended his hitting streak to a career high 13 games (.359), the Canadian-born hurler threw 8 innings of 5 hit ball, coupled with 9 strikeouts. His first major league win.
This started a hot streak, where we won 4 in a row. We had climbed out of the gutter, but after Giichi’s CGSO on the 11th and Mathews’ second win on the 13th, things started to crumble again.
A trade also happened on the 14th. Eastwood, feeling that Vazquez and his .078 average wasn’t ready, swung a trade with Baltimore for 25 year old John McConnell. He brought speed and contact to the plate. He was like a young Red Baron. I had no idea what Eastwood would do when Red Baron came off the DL, but McConnell was a future option. And he came cheap, too. An AA outfielder and an A reliever.
But the bottom line was the string of bad luck we were about to receive. Like a tease, we played well and started to build our way back up the NL West standings. We got as close as 3.5 games out (14th), but once interleague started on the 20th, our luck hit rock bottom. We started against Detroit, who was struggling in last place. Brier had been struggling recently, so I bumped him for red-hot Mathews (1.71 ERA). He got rocked in 2 innings, but I wasn’t there to see it. I was tossed with Casablanca, who was a quiet guy but was irked about a bad call. When I went out to argue, we got heaved. In a three game series, Detroit won. . . three games. We’d been swept by the Tigers. With those losses on our back, Hensley attempted to stop the bleeding vs. San Diego. Something was up with my friend, however. He lost again, dropping to 1-5 on the year with a horrifying 7.66 ERA.
Thomas Westra signed an extension on the same day, inked up for another three years. I couldn’t complain since he was hitting .324 as the catcher.
We went on to lose two more games before I hit rock bottom. Eastwood’s patience with me was starting to run thin - he wanted another winning season and I wasn’t delivering. I didn’t have an excuse, either - this was essentially the exact same team as last year. Mired in a deep funk, as each loss came by, I watched my future in Arizona slip further and further out of grasp. Finally, after the game on the 26th, we stood at 21-28, 7 games out from Colorado, and many reporters were calling last year a fluke, both as a team and for me. To tell you the truth, I believed them when I read them.
It was on that night, two days before my twenty-first birthday, when Hensley had gone out but I had refused. I sat in darkness in the ‘living’ room, which was really just a couch with a nice TV. I didn’t have the television on, I had the blinds closed, and I just sat and stared into nothingness. I knew I wasn’t going to be here at the end of the year. Eastwood, despite being a nice guy, had to win. And he had hired me to do that, and I wasn’t. What incentive was there to keep me as a manager?
Just as I was deep in my dark reality of depression, a knock came on the door. I tried to ignore it, but it came again. Reluctantly, I wandered to the door and opened it.
“Yeah?” I asked before registering who it was. Once I focussed enough, I saw that it was Carolyn, with a slightly concerned expression on her face. I opened the door all the way to let her in, but she reached to my emotionless face with her hand. She pulled me in to a soft kiss, which I did nothing to stop, but nothing to encourage either. I felt dead inside.
“I heard you were down.” She calmly said, her voice filling my head with a gentle warmth. She gave me a small smile and pushed her blonde and black hair out from her face. On any other day, I would probably be really into her, especially since she knew my birthday was coming up and would give me anything. But not that night. I walked away after gesturing for her to come in, and returned to my dark corner of the couch. I watched her close the door behind her and walked towards me. The light was still on her from the hallway, and it was then that I noticed her jean shorts and white tank top. I tried my best to ignore it and stay in my funk, but she was incredibly hot - and no man, no matter how depressed, can resist starting at a good-looking girl from time to time. But although I was staring, I didn’t feel any better.
She easily noticed my gaze and smiled. “I guess you like what I’m wearing.” She did a fake model-spin and sat beside me, looking compassionately into my eyes. “What’s wrong?” As much as I tried to hide it, my eyes always gave away how I felt.
I looked down. “Nothing.”
“Hensley told me something was wrong, so I came to see if I could help.” She responded, placing her hand on mine. Since I had asked her out, she was doing that an awful lot more. I didn’t know at the time, but she really, really had a thing for me. For most girls, they would mistake it for love. But Carolyn was very in touch with her feelings - she knew it wasn’t love, but it was something more than lust or just ‘like’. At least not at that time.
Knowing I wasn’t going to fool her, I sighed. “I just don’t know - I feel like I won’t have a job again after this year. I’ve told myself I’ve got what it takes to make it so many times, but I watch game after game, loss after loss, and I doubt myself. Do I really have what it takes to lead 25 grown men to success?”
She smiled a smile that would burn its image into my brain forever - such an innocent, caring smile, her eyes sparkling even in the darkness, her smooth face perfect even in the darkness. “You’re still here, aren’t you?”
My facial expression changed to a confused look. “What do you mean?”
“You haven’t been let go, have you?”
“No.” I responded. “But I’ve got no chance of staying here at the end of the year. Not with all these losses. I don’t think this streak will ever end.”
She put her hand on my shoulder and looked into my eyes. “What can I do to make you feel better?”
I looked at her blankly, trying to think of something she wouldn’t be able to do - or hadn’t done yet. I wanted to prove to her that she couldn’t help - I wanted to prove to myself there was nothing I could do to save myself now. “Sing for me.”
She leaned away from me slightly. I guess she thought I was going to ask for something sexual. We both sat in silence for a while before she spoke up. “Anything in particular?”
I shrugged. “Whatever.” I knew she wouldn’t be able to do it regardless.
In the darkness of the apartment, she opened her mouth. And in a creamy, soothing tone, she sang.
“Take me, Throw in the street
Break me, Never let me be
You’ll go on, I’ll go on
Bitter as can be
Soon you’ll see, you’ll be sorry. . .
Cruel thing, Stop this happening
Neat trick, Make me want to quit
You’ll go on, I’ll go on
Bitter as can be
Soon you’ll see, you’ll be sorry. . .
You broke everything
Still do, to this day”
Maybe the lyrics aren’t exactly inspirational, but Abandoned Pools have always struck a cord with me - especially that song. I don’t know if it was just coincidence or if she somehow knew. I just stared at her, overwhelmed with both surprise and emotion. I was surprised she had such a good voice, and overwhelmed by the song. Whenever I was angry, that song would always play on my music list and make me think - still does to this day. And just like before, it made me think once again. The title of the song is ‘Get Over It’ - and that’s exactly what I had to do. I came to the realization that this year was as much about my players as it was about my future. And sitting in a dark corner feeling sorry for myself wasn’t going to solve either.
I responded in kind the next day, feeling upbeat and ready to play - ready to get over it. And the team responded with a win - courtesy of Vasser (2-4). But even his cocky attitude couldn’t bring me or the team down on that day. Look picked up his 11th save, giving him the NL-lead in saves. Meanwhile Renick proceeded to tear the cover off the ball, parking his team-leading 11th home run and 33rd RBI in the win. He was also batting a solid .297. It wasn’t the team lead, which was lead by the usual monster D-Rod (.347).
The next day was my birthday. My 21st birthday. I’d never won on my birthday. So I told the guys to win the game for me and I’d buy them a round at the bar I frequented. To top it off, I sent out Bill Mathews, telling him he was the guy I knew could pull it off. It’s funny how things like that work out - you acquire someone that isn’t ready for the majors, and he turns out to be the most impressive player you’ve got. Well Mathews didn’t disappoint, throwing 6.2 strong innings of shutout ball, lowering his ERA to 3.38. Renick, Gongora, and Westra all chipped in with solo shots, and gave us an 8-2 win. Most of the players then proceeded to go out that night and get smashed, while pranks were played on me in the bars. When I eventually staggered home at 2AM to meet Carolyn waiting in the apartment. How she got in was beyond me, but that was a night I wish I had remembered. When I woke up in the morning with her beside me and me once again not knowing how, I smiled.
On the 29th, Casablanca sparked a 6 run 8th inning, that gave us a magnificent comeback win, 9-8. Hensley got hurt, but convinced me that he could pitch through the pain.
And on the 31st, after a day off, we erased the four straight losses with our fourth straight win, closing out the month 15-13 and putting us in third , 5 games out with a 25-28 record. I could try and describe this game, but it’s just easier to post the box score. Then you can see why it’s beyond words.
Code:
Inning 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 R H E
Arizona 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 2 1 2 2 10 17 0
New York (N) 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 2 1 2 0 8 17 9
We were back.