[Tib]

CHAPTER 8:

Pounding Sand

I finally broke through in Game 81, three games into my post-injury career, going 3 for 4 against Tuscaloosa, the doormat of the Eastern Developmental League. It felt like I found a hundred dollars under my pillow. The next day we were in Terre Haute to play the Turtles and I hit what was to be my only home run that year, my first as a professional. In the sixth, with the bases empty, this skinny sidearmer threw me something that wiffle-balled down onto my bat and I golfed it over the wall in left, just inside the foul pole. Not exactly a Joe Keith tape measure special, but a homer is a homer.

Then I went 0 for a four game series against Bullhead City. Late that night on the bus, somewhere between Albuquerque and New Orleans, I was watching the lights of little Texas towns glide by my window. I was trying to get the images of my miserable hesitant swing out of my head when Mark Kearse drops into the seat next to mine. Wordlessly, he holds up a flask of something copper colored. I took a big gulp. When my eyes stopped watering, I glanced at him.
“Thanks,” I wheezed.
“Don’t mention it. You looked like you needed it.”
“I need a swing, not a swig.”
“****, Driscoll. You don’t need a swing. You need an attitude.”
“An attitude?”
“Yep. You need contempt.”
“Contempt?”
“Yep. I’ve been watching you for a while. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I want to be your friend or anything, but if I get to the Bigs chances are you’ll be getting there about the same time. If I’m going to make a living driving in runs, chances are you’re going to be scoring some of those runs.”
“So?”
“So, it’s in my best interest for you to become a good hitter. Hell, you’re already a good hitter. You just don’t believe you’re a good hitter.”
I think I understand. “And you’re going to tell me what’s wrong with my swing?”
He conked me on the head with the flask. “No! What am I, stupid? That’s Gable’s job. I’m going to tell you something nobody’s told you yet.”
“I’m listening.”
“When I was in Raleigh, back before I got hurt, I played with Amaro Garza. He was there for about two weeks on a rehab assignment. Man, I was beside myself. We all were.”
“I can imagine.”
“So, one night on a bus trip, a lot like this one in fact, I asked him what he thinks about when he’s at the plate. You know what he said? He said, ‘I think I am the king of the game’”.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“That’s what I said. He said he believes whatever the pitcher throws, he’s going to kill it. He really believes there is no pitcher good enough to face him.”
“Contempt.”
“Right,” said Kearse. “When you’re at the plate, you’ve got to stare at that pitcher and know you’re better than he is. He’s got to see that in you. Then you’ve got him.”
“What if he’s not intimidated?”
Kearse winced like he was in genuine pain. “Aren’t you listening? It doesn’t matter what he thinks. He’s a busher, a scrub. He’s a rag arm. Look, Dave, every at bat is a battle. At the end of every season somebody goes home. And believe me, you may be the flavor of the month now, but months change. It’s either you or them.”

For once, Kearse was making sense. I really didn’t have a killer instinct. I had always just done the ‘try hard and oh, well’ approach. I began to realize there’s no one who’s going to fight for me but me. And I hadn’t been fighting very hard.
“Thanks,” I said.
“One for the road?” said Kearse, holding up the flask.
“Uh, no thanks.”

Over the next two weeks against Burlington, Ventura and Colorado Springs I went 5-34. Not exactly contemptuous. Why Theo kept me in the lineup I’ll never know. Lopez continued to hit well, when he was used. He was not too happy at seeing me playing, that’s for sure. Scarcely a word passed between us. I began to feel very uncomfortable, even guilty. Dex and J.R. were right on track, and McCammon was on fire. At the end of July he was hitting .349 with 26 homers. Parks shrunk when he was at the plate. Watching him hit was like getting a lesson in how to relax. He just didn’t seem to care whether he homered or struck out. At the end of July I wrote my dad.

From: Dave Driscoll (ddriscoll@CBPA.org)
Sent: July 30, 2003 10:21PM
To: Don Driscoll (dondriscoll@familynet.com)

Subject:

Dear Dad,
It’s been a month since I’ve been back and nothing’s clicking. 14 hits in 24 games? I haven’t had two hits in a game since my home run. Am I doing something wrong? Has my swing changed and I don’t know it? During the day I can’t get my mind off this slump. Guys aren’t talking to me like they used to. I continue to hit well in batting practice, but I can’t seem to feel comfortable at the plate. I’d do anything for a couple of base hits.

Defensively, I’ve been doing well. Only 8 errors in 502 innings. I can’t wait to take the field and I dread coming in when I know I’m going to hit. There’s only one month left of the season and I’ve got to make some kind of dent or I think I’m going home. Lopez is pissed at me for taking my spot back. I don’t blame him.

We started a two-week stretch of games at home. Maybe that will help. It is nice to sleep in my own bed and shower in my own room. Give my best to mom.

Dave


The next day we beat Thunder Bay for our fourth win in a row. I was working on a modest 5-game hitting streak, but the hits weren’t exactly line drives. Two were bunt singles. Pound sand, I told myself. Just pound sand.

So I did. I took extra batting practice. I figured everybody who hadn’t been injured had seen at least 100-140 more at bats than me. I decided to make up for lost time. I asked Theo if it was all right that I hit some by myself after practices.
“****, Driscoll,” he said, “where you are, it can’t hurt.”
I had Tuck set up the pitching machine after practice and I hit for about an hour a day. I started using one of Cliff’s bats. He was right; it was better than the fencepost I’d been using. Slowly, my strength came back. I started to snap my wrists like I used to. I started to drive my hips. I started to see the ball, to pick up the spin. I started to hit.

In early August, McCammon and I were playing MLB2003 on my Playstation (remember those?). About the seventh inning I was ahead something like 11-2. I became aware of his eyes on me, so I had my guy step out of the batter’s box.

“What?” I said, irritated.
McCammon just smiled at me.
“What the hell, Moose? You gotta crush on me, or something?”
“You should see you play this game,” he said.
“It’s a video game. So what?”
“So, you’re concentrating like it’s the seventh game of the CBA Championship. You haven’t blinked since the second inning.”
“So? I want to win.”
He just smiled that stupid grin of his. “I believe you’re going to start hitting.”

One thing about McCammon, and all catchers for that matter: he knew hitters. Some catchers know hitters better than hitters know themselves. I broke through in August by hitting in 19 out of 27 games (.326). But it’s a funny thing about baseball, and life, that when one thing is going well something else is just waiting around the corner to screw it up.

On August 14th we were playing Beaumont. I was riding the pine when Theo gets a phone call. He disappears into the locker room for about ten minutes, comes out again and says to me, “Driscoll, you’re in for Lopez next inning.” When I hit the steps in the bottom of the 5th, Lopez is nowhere to be found. After the game, Gable comes up to me.
“You’re going to be playing a lot of short from now on.”
“What do you mean?” I say. “Where’s Lino?”
“Theo got a call. Mike Wynn got hurt. Theo had to send someone to Durham. He sent Lopez.”
****. Lino got called to AA.

It’s weird how things work out. If I didn’t get hurt, Lino probably wouldn’t have played much. But I did get hurt and he did play. He played so well he earned a call-up. If he hadn’t played so well he wouldn’t have earned the call-up and I might not have played at all the rest of that first season. As it was I became a full-time starter again and I didn’t waste the opportunity this time. I went 12 for 33 (.363) to close out August, raising my average to .230. I had only made ten errors at short (.966), first in the league by far. By the end of the season I was up to .236 and had won Defensive Player of the Year in the Eastern Developmental League.

McCammon led the league in everything; home runs, runs, on base percentage. He was runner-up for MVP. J.R. hit .272 with 17 HR and 22 stolen bases. Guevara stole 35 of 36 bases. Keith Hart came back from wherever he had been sent with an entirely new attitude. Guys were hinting that he had been released outright and had returned to his family in Philadelphia. After a month or so of the real world, the team had offered him another contract – this time without a big signing bonus. All it took was thirty days of working in his family’s liquor store to give him a new appreciation for what he had been offered. He took it. Still no apology for me, though. He was still a prick, just a humble prick. He finished at .284, though. Contempt is one thing, arrogance is another.

Theo Garner’s contract was extended for another year, so it looked like I was going to be under his wing for another year. He rented a house up in the Spring Hill section outside Savannah, but as far as I know never invited anybody there. Theo and I were to see each other again before the start of our second season in Hinesville, but it would not be under the best of circumstances.

The Gents finished 63-67 for fourth place behind Beaumont, Ft. Myers and the Delta Pilots. Attendance was up from last season, so our owner bought himself a new Lincoln. The team threw a big fan appreciation barbeque after our last home game and gave away a bunch of prizes. I was given my Defensive Player of the Year trophy between a watermelon eating contest and a drawing for a new color television. The fans applauded, but I think they were more interested in winning the color television.

Cliff and I stayed friendly. He taught me how to cook chili and I taught him how to play video games. He was as good at video games as I was at making chili, which is to say, bad. I continued to work with Cliff on my bats, and even made a few of my own. I used them for kindling when the weather turned. I started going to church with Miss Draper, who made a point of introducing me to all the available young ladies. I was polite, of course, but didn’t think I needed an old lady helping me “score with the chicks”. There was one girl that caught my eye, though. More about her later.

I had decided to stay in Hinesville. My folks planned a trip out to spend Thanksgiving with me. I could have moved into a bigger place, but with McCammon and J.R. gone home for the off-season, the house was quite big enough. I took a job bussing tables at Fiddler’s Bar to stay busy. It was, at last, the off-season.

Next week: The Off-Season, Part One