[Tib]

Chapter Sixteen: "Dabeed Drisco" y La Liga Nueva, Part Two

Pridgen, who was smarter than he looked, decided to grab the lightest guy to share a bunk, so I took the top and he took the bottom. There wasn’t a preference involved. It was more to minimize injury once the ****ing thing collapsed. A couple of our new teammates were in the dorm when we got there. Ricky Gutierrez was an outfielder from the Norcal League. He was from El Monte (in L.A.) and was Mexican in name only.
“Everyone’s speaking Spanish to me like I know it,” he said.
“Your name is Gutierrez,” said Boucher.
“Yeah,” replied Ricky. “But I ain’t Mexican.”
“What do you mean you ain’t Mexican? Of course you’re Mexican!”
“Yeah, but I don’t speak Spanish. I’m American. Just ‘cause I have a Mexican name…”
“And you happen to be in Mexico.”
“Hey, Boucher,” I said. “Your name’s French. You know any French?”
“It’s French-Canadian.”
“****,” I said. “That’s like being punished twice for the same thing.”
“**** you, Driscoll.”

Guillermo Trejo also made the trip with us. He was Cuban and knew Spanish, but the dialect was so different even he didn’t know what they were telling him sometimes. There’s nothing funnier, or sadder maybe, than two people who both speak the same language and still can’t understand one another.

The headquarters of La Liga Nueva was in Toluca, a town outside Mexico City. There were seven teams. It was strange, but the teams were known only by their city name. There were no official nicknames for them, except for the ones given them by their fans. Puebla were called the Scorpions. I thought it was a cool name at first. Then I found out it was because Puebla is full of brown scorpions. They were everywhere; in our showers, in our lockers, everywhere. The team gave us all a small bottle of anti-venom when we signed in.
“What the hell are we supposed to do with this?” asked Bill Borgman.
Massomino answered. “If you get stung, open the cap, jab that little needle into the skin near the sting and squeeze the bottle gently.”
“You gotta be ****ing kidding me.”
“Nope. And it might be a good idea to keep it in your back pocket during games.”
“They’re on the field? Now you are ****ing kidding me.”
“Yes, they are on the field and no, I am not ****ing kidding you,” replied Rollie. “Hey, it could be worse.”
“How could it be worse?” asked Bill.
“You could be playing for the Pachuca Rattlesnakes.”

La Ciudad de Mexico is a huge city, one of the biggest in the world, set high in the mountains. People don’t remember that it’s as high as Denver. It’s immense. I was there for two months and didn’t see even one tenth of it. The city of Puebla was a fairly sizable town about thirty minutes outside Mexico City. The field was actually a walled off block of the town. You couldn’t see anything but the lights from the street. You just walked in through one of four huge gates and there you were. We five Hounds, plus Ricky Gutierrez, walked to the field (it was a short walk) and met the rest of the team. Remember I mentioned one of the buses was from Florida? Well on that bus was none other than Thad Martinez, the Gents third baseman I had played with for a season and a half. What a tremendous relief it was to have a Gent there with me. I introduced him to everybody. I hoped we’d get to play together; I knew we’d do well because we were so used to one another.

As we stood there under the wooden bleachers, two men came out of the locker room door to address us. One I recognized as Leo Godwin, the pitching coach for the Denver Bandits, and the other was our manager, Rollie Massomino. Godwin, a great pitcher in his day, was there to help the Bandits’ first round pick the year I was drafted, Rob Santina. Massomino had managed in the CBA for the Chicago Chiefs (where he won a championship) and New Orleans Musketeers. He told us he winters in Mexico now that he’s retired and managing in La Liga helps keep him young. “Either that, or you kids with all your **** will give me another heart attack,” he joked.

The fields in Liga Nueva were atrocious. The infields looked like dirt parking lots, full of ruts and stones. I once tagged a guy stealing second who slid face first. It took three buttons off his shirt. The outfields looked like a carpet of yellow bristles. Some, like ours, had these little yellow thorny seeds all over the place. When you ran into the outfield for sprints, you’d come back with six or eight of those little f***ers piggy-backing it on your socks. Once, for fun, while a bunch of us were doing our clothes at a nearby laundry, I took a handful of those things and put them in the dryer when Boucher wasn’t looking. His clothes were covered with them. It took him an hour to get them all out. You know, for all our differences, Canadians and Americans do use the same profanity. Did I mention we didn’t have T.V. in our dorm?

And if you think the infields were bad, our equipment was worse. The balls were so old they had a picture of Cortez on them. The leather was hard as a rock and twice as dry. They were scuffed all to hell. They had black stitches in them, which puzzled me until I realized they were laced with animal hair.

The pitching machine was what we called whoever was throwing batting practice. Our only fungo broke when Rollie exceeded its design specs and tried to hit a long fly ball with it. It had to be nailed together and wrapped with duct tape. Why not just use someone else’s bat, you say? Are you crazy? Risk breaking a perfectly good bat hitting those cannonballs?

The fans, though, were the best. Even in the heat of the Mexican winter they came by the dozen to watch us play. They showed an enthusiasm and excitement that was fun to be a part of. Sure, most were drunk by the third inning, but baseball in Mexico isn’t like in America. In America, for example, most fans aren’t drunk until the sixth or seventh inning.

Fans would bring signs and banners and noisemakers to cheer on their beloved Scorpios or Diablos or Toros or Angeles. Some “adopted” a player and would wear their jersey and call their name when they batted. They made up songs. They brought food. I remember Derek Sousa had quite a following in spite of his 3-7 record. He had that dangerous look that women seem to love. Too bad he wasn’t dangerous to opposing hitters.

I had a group of my own, in fact; Los Mariscos de Drisco, otherwise known as “Driscoll’s Fish”. I have no idea why fish was the theme, except that it kind of rhymes. Remember, they were all drunk. They would yell “Da-beed Dri-sco! Da-beed Dri-sco!” whenever I came to bat. There was one woman in particular who was infatuated with me. She would buy a ticket near our dugout and proposition me every time I came to the on-deck circle.
“What you think, Dabeed?” she would say, striking a sexy pose. “You like a little this?”
“No, gracias,” I would say over and over and over and over.
There were those among us who did take advantage of the local, shall we say, hospitality. Most of us just played pool, drank beer, gambled and watched T.V. in the bar downstairs.

We played right through Thanksgiving and on to Christmas. During one game in early December I came up to start the game and took a called strike on the outside corner. It was questionable, but I didn’t say anything. The next pitch was high, but called a strike again. This time I glanced at the umpire as I backed out of the box and he was staring at me, smiling. That was odd. The next pitch was about two balls outside and low and he rang me up. I stared at him in disbelief.
“That was outside,” I said.
“No. No ou’side,” he said with a heavy accent.
“Strike, huh?” I muttered to myself as I walked away.

In the third inning I came up with two out and runners on first and second. I took a curveball that almost hit my hand and the umpire called it a strike. Now I knew something was up. The pitcher, a local kid named Carlos Cabexa, chuckled as he received the throw. The catcher, another local kid named Ruiz, was also smiling. I see, I thought. I called time and walked over to talk to Godwin in the third base coaches’ box.
“These guys have got something going against me,” I told him.
“I know,” he agreed.
“You know?”
“Yep.”
“And you’re not going to do anything about it?”
“Hey, Driscoll, it’s La Liga. That’s the way it is here. Gringos don’t get nothing, and sometimes less than that. Especially talented gringos.”
“This ain’t right, Coach.”
“That’s true.”
“Shouldn’t we protest or something?”
“If you think getting a black man to argue for you is the solution, you’ve got a lot to learn. What do you want me to do, get thrown out because you can’t hit a ball a foot outside the strike zone?”
“I can’t hit a ball a foot outside the strike zone,” I said. “No one can.”
“You better figure out a way or you’re wearing the golden sombrero today,” replied Godwin.
I swung at the next pitch – a miserable low outside slider - and nearly fell down. I was furious. Is this because I’m White or because I’m good? I glared at the umpire as I walked away.

In the seventh I struck out the same way and managed to look even worse doing it. In the ninth, with one out and the score tied 6-6, I came up again with a runner on third. The three of them were not going to get the best of me again. I took another called strike; I had come to expect it now. Unless I swung I wasn’t going to get anything. On the next pitch I squared to bunt and spun violently into the dirt when the ball came whistling at my head. I bounced up and stared at the pitcher. I left the dust on my uniform; I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction. I could see out of the corner of my eye my teammates moving to the dugout steps, yelling at Cabexa. They were ready for a fight. I admit it made me feel good. The 1-1 pitch was another bean ball and I hit the dirt again. I was so mad I don’t really remember how I did what I did.

I knew the next pitch was going to be either a foot outside or right at my head. I squared again. If it was outside I had a chance to put it in play and beat it out. If it was at my head, well….

It was at my head. I swept the bat in front of me in a vicious swipe and snapped the pitch into the stands. I stood there staring Cabexa down. He didn’t smile this time. In fact, I distinctly remember the look of shock on his face. Cabexa stared me down from the mound. He wound up and dropped his arm to throw. I jumped across the plate to the other batter's box. The ball was a slider – a foot outside - only this time a foot outside meant perfect. I dropped the bat on it and took off. I sprinted past the ball as it bounced slowly down the first base line. I don’t know what happened next because my head was down and I was running for all I was worth, but I hit first without a throw. When I looked up, our runner had scored and Ruiz was retrieving the ball from over by the visitor’s dugout. Cabexa was sitting in the dirt near the first base line. It was ruled an error, no RBI, but I think I was more satisfied with that than if it had been ruled a hit.

That play was the talk of the league for weeks. You might think I was happy about that. Not really. Opposing Latin pitchers threw at my head for a month. The brawls were fun though. Senor Texatla didn’t think so; the fines cost him money.

During our Christmas break I went home to visit my folks. It was a nice homecoming. It was great to sleep closer to the ground for a change. It was especially nice to see my folks, even for only two days. It really recharged my batteries. Jan was off skiing, but I left her a note congratulating her on getting a softball scholarship to UCLA.

Our Puebla team started hot, stayed hot and ended hot. We won everything, including beating Toluca in the playoffs. To this day I’m not sure how we did it. Some of our guys didn’t seem particularly disciplined or motivated, except that they didn’t want to embarrass themselves. For most of us it was a chance to catch the eye of our GMs; let them know we were out there working hard, you know? I played very well, hitting .336 in 48 regular and 5 playoff games. I stole 11 bases. How bad were the fields? I made 11 errors in 53 games. That’s how bad the fields were. I still led the league in fielding. No bonus money in the Mexican League, though. Instead, they gave me a plaque with a scorpion on it. When I say scorpion, I don’t mean a fake plastic scorpion, I’m talking a bona fide goddamn taxidermied scorpion was mounted on the thing. Some poor ******* had to go out and catch a scorpion, kill it, prep it, and glue the son of a bitch on a plaque for me. Personally, I think that guy deserves a plaque of his own.

I got back to Little Rock on January 16th. It had been quite a winter. It was cold and rainy when I got off the bus outside Hanger Hill stadium. After two months in Mexico, I loved it. Gwen was there to meet me.
“Nice tan. How was everything?” she asked, giving me a hug and a kiss.
I held up my plaque. “I won Scorpion of the Year.”
“Very nice. Most people don’t get insects as trophies.”
“It’s not an insect. It’s an arachnid.”
“Like I care.”
“How are you?” I asked.
“I have some news for you,” she said.
“Oh, ****. You’re pregnant.”
“No, you idiot. Remember when you asked me to get your messages while you were away? You got a call from Coach Palmer yesterday.”
“Does he want me to play in Ecuador now?”
“No. Topeka.”
“Topeka?”
“Topeka.”
“Topeka, as in double-A Topeka?”
“Yup.”
I stared dumbly at her for a second. We both broke into simultaneous smiles, then I gave her a big kiss. “Let’s go back to your place,” she said. “I made dinner for you.”
“Really? Thanks. What did you make?”
“Enchiladas.”
“You are sooo funny.”


Saturday: Chapter 17: Atcheson, Topeka, and the Double Play