[Tib]

CHAPTER 17:

Atcheson, Topeka, and the Double Play

Just when I thought I was going to be a Hound forever, I became a Star, a Topeka Star. When I called Palmer, he told me he was sending me to double A because my performance vector was spiking, my challenge factor was .6, and I needed competitive stimulation to encourage further professional growth. Hell, I could have told him that.

Everyone was proud of me, and I admit I was pretty proud of myself, but right away I started worrying about the new situation. What was Topeka like? Who was playing short there? Was I going to ride the bench? Could I hit double A pitching? It seems like every time something good happened to me, I always started worrying about failing. I’ve never been able to shake that. I drove Gwen crazy over the years with it, and a few of my teammates as well. But for the rest of that winter I was on cloud nine.

There was a weird feeling attached to this promotion. Gwen and I had only been seeing each other for about six months. Now I was going away to a whole new situation. I was very concerned about our relationship. This wasn’t like Marisa, where we kind of drifted apart over time. Gwen and I were together, really together, on a lot of things. I wanted to try to continue, but I wasn’t sure it was the right idea. My father decided not to go into the draft out of college because he had met my mother. Not that he would have been drafted very high anyway, but he probably would have had a shot with someone. Instead, he gave up his dream to be with her, get a job, and start a family. I thought a lot about that.

I knew I didn’t want her to wait for me. That’s the worst. Besides, I didn’t know what the future held and I wasn’t sure I wanted to wait for her. There was definitely something of an advantage in being unattached when you could be called around the country on a moment’s notice. Before I could figure out what to say, Gwen cut to the heart of it, like she always did.
“I want to break up,” she said.
“You do?” I said.
“Well, not really.”
“Me neither.”
“But it would be best for both of us if we separate while we pursue our goals. Don’t you think?”
“I guess so. I --, I don’t want you to feel like you have to hang on to something. I mean, --.”
“Yeah. We’ve got goals of our own.” she said. “I want you to follow your dream, wherever that leads. I need to follow mine. We should do it without the complication of trying to, you know, keep something going that --.” I could see she was really fighting to get through this.
“I know,” I said. “And if you meet someone…”
“I’m not going to meet someone.”
“You could meet someone. You met me.”
“No, I stonewalled you but you just kept coming. Look, I’ve thought a lot about this. I’ve had long distance relationships before and they never last. It’s hard to--. We both have big goals ahead. I know you want to stay true to yours. I want to stay true to mine.”
“Okay. That makes sense.” I said the words knowing she was right, but I felt something fall inside me. Thump. It was like a cold iron ball of depression landed in the pit of my stomach. I realized I was really, really going to miss her. I knew then how my father could have made the decision he did.

Women. What they do to us, huh?

I subleased the house to Gwen and hit the road in early March. Topeka was a Sunday drive compared to the trek I made from Hinesville to Little Rock, three hundred miles as the crow files. Topeka is on the Kansas River, 40 miles west of Kansas City on Hwy 40. Except for College Hill, it’s flat. It wasn’t really much of a hill. In L.A. it would be called College Gradual Rise. The whole town was only seven miles by seven miles, but it contained 124,000 people, about 80 percent of the population of Shawnee County.

I found a house on SW 21st St and Mulvane, a nice house owned by nice people who lived in a really nice house in North Topeka. I don’t know what my connection is with water, but the back yard was almost an acre and had Shunganunga Creek trickling through it. Not kidding. Shungnunga. It was close to the Expocentre and to Champion BBQ and Sports Bar where I hung out a lot while I was there. I also hung out a lot at Brewsky’s Bar and Grill. If anybody reading this has ever been to Brewsky’s, yes, they still have the moose on the wall.

Star Field was in the northwest part of the city at 6th and SW Gage Blvd., across the street from Gage Park, near Hayden High School. It was a nice stadium, with a small upper tier behind home plate. It faced northeast, though, so I always had trouble picking up the ball in the late innings of day games.

I wish I’d met the scout that was responsible for signing Dominicans, because I’d have liked to borrow two or three thousand dollars. Whoever he was, he must’ve made a killing on the pitchers in Topeka. The Stars had no less than four Dominicans on the staff, including Christian Montoya, who was promoted with me from Little Rock. What’s more, these guys were tight. Two of them, Pedro Ajenjo and Javy Fuensanta, were cousins.

The veteran of the staff was 25-year old Gene Coston. He was coming back from major surgery, but even so no one dared make mention that this was probably a do-or-die year for him. One of my other teammates that year was “Scarecrow” Ed Cottrill: 6’9” and 215 pounds. You may remember Ed as the only pitcher to ever strike out six times in a CBA game.

As luck would have it, the other shortstop on the team was Lorenzo Medina. Great, not another Medina, I thought. But it wasn’t. Lorenzo was a light-hitting, average-fielding player. It was clear I was brought there to start. Among the other Hounds to make the jump were catcher Javier Telles and our Aussie power hitter, third baseman Claude Dittmer.

Ken Nohorski was our batting coach, a likeable guy who was one of those rare coaches who would hang out with you after the game. Our pitching coach was Salido Meticas, who was so good it was scary. I figured KC brought him in to handle the Spanish speakers, but Salido was terrific with everybody. Our manager was Doug Atcheson. Knights fans will remember him from his days as the premiere defensive catcher in the United League.

The Great Plains League was one of the older and more successful of the minor leagues. It had once been an independent league of its own back before the CBA swallowed everything in 1966. The GPL Hall of Fame was in Topeka, in fact. I went there once and saw some of the old equipment. I even saw the plaque of Rutherford Monroe, the first black man to play in a white league. In 1945 he passed himself off as Cuban to get in, but he was black all the same.

Atcheson was a big guy with a light complexion and a head of graying blond hair. He wore a bristly graying mustache and his chest hair always poked out above his uniform. The guy was not just hairy, he was bear hairy. He was a bear on physical fitness, too, as you might imagine because he was a catcher. We did a lot of sprints. Pitchers too. Everybody ran or you didn’t play. I changed my workout routine to accommodate him and damned if I didn’t pick up some quickness.

I thought I’d really like him when I first met him.
“Driscoll, do you have the biorhythm printout Coach Palmer gave you?” he said to me.
“It’s at home, skip.”
“Damn,” he said.
“I can go get it if you want.”
“No, that’s all right.”
“What did you need it for?”
“I was going to make a paper airplane out of it.”

Atcheson was also big on challenging you. He wasn’t like Theo Garner, mind you, who would just haul off and yell at you about anything. Atcheson had it in his head that we minor leaguers were not quite men yet and by questioning our courage he could get us to perform. It worked some of the time. Some guys just tuned him out and other took offense. Also, Atcheson could not be swayed by any argument once his mind was made up. It can be an advantage, but most of the time, at least in my experience, guys felt like he didn’t care about their opinions.

I was one of those guys. After experiencing Theo Garner, the heavy-handed approach didn’t intimidate me anymore. Somewhere along the line I decided I was going to say what I thought needed to be said. I was never very vocal anyway, but there are times when you have to say something. In the locker room getting ready for our first game of the season against Omaha was one of those times.

We were sitting there listening to Atcheson give us a pep talk about the season and about how this is the first step of many on a journey. To be honest I was only half-listening. Then I heard him say, “You boys have been blessed with a wealth of God-given talent and I think it is your obligation to take that talent as far as it will go. You didn’t come this far to sissy out, did you? This is double A. This is a man’s game now. Omaha is not as good as we are. Not even close. You lose today, in front of all these people who have come to see you, and you will have sissied out. You lose today, you should feel ashamed. I know I would.”
“I’m already ashamed,” I muttered under my breath.
“What?” said Atcheson. “What did you say, Driscoll?”
“Nothing, skip.”
Atcheson was unconvinced. “Well, it was something, because I heard something. See, guys, this is what I mean. Dave, here, had something important to say, but he won’t repeat himself. Are you going to say something, Driscoll, or are you going to sissy out?”
Well I couldn’t be a sissy, after all.
“I don’t think-. I mean, don’t you think it’s a little harsh to talk about being ashamed after only one loss?”
“One loss,” repeated Atcheson. “One loss? Have we already lost the game? Apparently, in your mind we have.” He turned to the team. “Dave has already given up. He’s already thinking about losing. It’s in his head and we haven’t even played the game yet. This is a perfect example of the loser’s attitude I’ve been talking about these three weeks. You as ballplayers have a responsibility to win. That’s what you are paid for. Anything less is a failure. Dave thinks we’ll lose. Anybody else think we’ll lose?”
“I don’t think we’ll lose,” I said, resenting that I was being made an example. “But one loss wouldn’t be the end of the world. I mean, we’ll come back tomorrow, right? You can’t lose the championship in one game.”
Atcheson stared me down. Now I was uncomfortable.
“Can’t you? The last game of every championship is a loss for someone. Dave is now seeking to shift the responsibility for losing onto someone else,” continued Atcheson. “Who wants it? You, Adkins? You, Escalera? You, Wallace? Well I won’t have that on this team. Nobody lessens their own load at the expense of the team.”
“That’s not what I’m saying-.”
“Well then I’ll say it. You know, I’ve been impressed with you since you got here, Driscoll. But I’m having a serious problem with your lack of desire. Should I start Medina?”
“No.”
“You want to play tonight?”
“Yes.”
“Fine. Then I’m making you responsible for our victory tonight. I don’t care how you do it, but you get us the win tonight. Winning is now your responsibility.”
Now I was mad.
“You know what? Fine. I will win this game tonight,” I said, making what I knew was a dangerous prediction. “I can’t do it every night. But for you, skip, tonight’s the night.”
“That’s what I wanted to hear,” said Atcheson, smiling like it was checkmate. “That is what I want to hear from all of you.”
Then he walked out. As he passed me he patted my shoulder like I’d just done him a favor. That’s when I realized it was checkmate.

We were tied 4-4 in the ninth inning of that game. Omaha had runners on second and third with one out and our infield was playing in. I was on the baseline between second and third. At the plate was Omaha’s number three hitter. Guillermo Trejo had come in that inning for Posada and struggled. He motioned for a mound meeting.
“This would be a good time for you to do something, Dave,” he said to me.
“He’s got to hit it to me first,” I said.
“Okay,” he said. “If I get him to pull the ball, will you do something?”
“Sure, Mo,” I said.
Trejo’s 2-1 fastball is a hammered line drive up the middle. I take two steps to my left and dive, snagging the ball belt high as it screams past. The runner on second jumped forward on contact and as I caught the ball he was right in front of me. Still in midair, I tagged him before he knew what had happened. Double play. End of inning. The crowd was stunned for a moment, then went nuts. The runner on second stood there staring at me like a first grader at a magic show.

In the bottom of the tenth I led off against a lefthander. Their corners were wide, guarding against the double. I bunted down the third base line and beat it out. I stole second. Dittmer sent a drive to right. I had no business trying for third, but I made it. I went in face first so hard I banged my chin on the ground. Espino sent a grounder between first and second and I trotted home with a bloody chin and the winning run.

Local television had covered the game and my diving double play made the news. So did my bloody chin. A student reporter named Del Harrison was one of the few members of the press who bothered to come into the locker room to interview me after the game. Del’s headline in the Washburn University Review the next day read “Short Hop Wins It for Stars”.

Ask him now and Del will take all the credit for my nickname, but the truth is his editor couldn’t read Del’s handwriting. The headline was supposed to say: “Shortstop Wins It for Stars”, but Del had nothing so cutting edge as a laptop. He wrote everything down by hand in a spiral notepad. “Old style”, he called it. So it was a simple misunderstanding. Nonetheless, I immediately became Short Hop to all the college fans. From there it just grew.

I wish it was a better story, but there you go. Short Hop was an accident. It had nothing to do with my bloody chin. I never said “my face short-hopped into third”, as everyone seems to believe. The three diving stops I made later in the playoffs had nothing to do with it. It happened on the very first day of the 2005 season after I had been masterfully manipulated into a guarantee I had no business making by a manager who must have been shocked I actually pulled it off.

Well, he did make me responsible for a victory. And I’ll tell you something else for free: even though I didn’t really believe that I won the game out of sheer willpower, it felt great. It felt like Success.

Next week: Chapter 18: Indecision and General Confusion