Bull Session

Bull Session

The final Wednesday was getaway day for both the Memphis Blues and the Sacramento Saints with a Businessman’s Special at 12:30. For the baseball purist, every game should be a day game. The schedule makers back east in their air-conditioned offices had not considered late July weather in Sacramento. It wasn’t just hot. It was a steamer. The humidity, coupled with the late-July heat, made the atmosphere in the Saints’ bullpen almost unbearable. The pitchers did what they could to keep cool. Water-soaked towels worn across the back of the neck. Running pieces of ice across the inside of the wrists. Buckets of ice placed in front of fans to generate a cool breeze.

“Who in the hell designed this ball yard?” southpaw Jordan Klepp squinted to block the burning sun. “He put our bullpen directly in the path of the afternoon sun, while, look over there, look; the visitors are relaxing in the cool shade.”

“Yeah, it’s ninety-six degrees over there and ninety-eight here. Big flippin’ difference,” veteran Frankie Rodriguez said. “What are you complaining about? Ninety-eight point six is normal body temperature, so at ninety-eight you ought to feel a chill.”

Rodriguez went over to grab a piece of ice. He moved back across the bullpen mounds to sit next to pitching coach Ray Farmer.

“Goo, you keepin’ cool?” Rodriguez used the coach’s nickname. Farmer had been in baseball for more than thirty years, thirteen as a versatile hurler for a handful of Continental Baseball League teams. He transitioned to coaching, working his way back to the majors. He earned the moniker Guru or Goo for all the knowledge he shared with staffs of every talent level.

“Cool as a naked Eskimo in December, Frankie.”

“Goo, you always had a way with words,” Rodriguez said.

“It’s a gift that’s lost on the youngsters,” Farmer sighed. “Kids today, especially the college kids, I tell them how to do something and all I get back is ‘why’. I say the same thing to guys who’ve been around a while, who’re trying to find any edge to lengthen their career, and they nod their heads yes.”

The Sacramento Saints staff was a patchwork of serviceable veterans plus untested rookies who challenged Farmer every day. He liked to tell himself that these situations kept him on his toes, kept him young. He also lied to himself a lot.

“That’s because the kids are too busy thinking about investments, representation, endorsement deals, everything but baseball. They zoomed through the minors on raw talent and a ninety-seven mile an hour fastball. They never learned how to pitch,” Frankie said.

Farmer nodded in agreement. “I tell them that hitters will adjust to their fastball. They’ll look at the first one, foul off the second one, and put the third one in the seats. Throw ninety-seven three straight times and the batter will have it dialed in. But do they listen? No-o-o.”

Farmer was preaching to the choir. “You’ve got to give them different looks, I tell ‘em. Up, down, in, out. Something that curves down, breaks sideways. Their answer after looking at me like I go three heads is, ‘I’ll just throw harder.’”

“But I bet if you ask them for investment tips, you’d get a dozen differing options,” Rodriguez said. “Buy low, sell high, watch the market. If it curves down, jump sideways. Maybe you should try that approach, Goo.”

“Why don’t you try that for me and let me know how it goes,” Farmer replied. He turned to look down the row of folding chairs where three relievers, all youngsters, were engaged in a spirited discussion. He jerked his thumb in their direction. “What’s that all about?”

They turned to look at the three hurlers grouped together. Each had a baseball in his throwing hand, experimenting with different grips. One had two fingers on the seam. Another had his fingers across four seams. The young rookie lefthander had the ball shoved between his index and middle finger, classic split-finger fastball grip. Their chatter was non-stop.

Farmer grinned. Could it be that he was getting through to his pupils? Were they experimenting with techniques he had shown them? The conjectures made him feel good. All those days of blank stares, endless ‘why’ questions had melted away, he thought. Well, it was ninety-eight degrees. He knew if he went over to them, the young hurlers would clam up like guilty schoolboys. However, he had to know.

“Frankie, do me a favor. Go down there and see what they’re up to.”

Rodriguez leaned back in his folding chair. He tugged on the ends of the cooling towel around his neck. “Goo, I don’t think so. If I have to move from this spot, much less walk over there, I’d probably die of heatstroke.”

“C’mon, man, now that I pointed them out to you, you’re just as curious as I am to know that they’re up to.” Farmer stared at the veteran reliever, trying to break down his resistance. “Tell ya what. I’ll give you fifty dollars to go over there and eavesdrop on them. That’d be enough to buy a couple of twenty-four packs of beer to treat your heatstroke.”

That did it.

Frankie thought of the cool amber liquid sliding down his throat. Ah, smooth. He felt cooler already. “Okay, Goo, okay,” he answered the pitching coach. He unstuck himself from the metal folding chair and walked over to the young pitchers. The veteran focused on the baseballs the pitchers were fiddling with.

“So, gentlemen, what can I help you with? Grip technique? Spin rate? Arm angle?”

“Naw, we’re good on all that, Frankie,” piped up lefthander Greg King. “Coach has been beating that into us day after day.”

“We-e-l-l, if not that, do you need contract advice, financial help?”

“Frankie, our reps over at Baseball Advisers take care of all that,” Tom Grand replied.

“What the hell you three goin’ on about, then? From where I was sittin’ with Goo, you all were looking pretty inn-tense,” Rodriguez said.

“Well, if you must know,” Carson Melvino smiled sheepishly, “we’ve been trying to think up ways to keep cool.”

“What’s with all the baseball spinning, then?”

“Just checking our grips, Frankie. Seeing how it feels, if our hands slip, what with all the extra sweat rolling down our forearms.” Grand said, tossing the baseball up and down in his hand. “Any tips?”

Rodriguez hemmed and hawed for a minute before reaching into the nearby cooler to fish out an ice chip. He sucked on the ice, stalling for time. “I could tell you to use the resin bag liberally. Pat it up and down your forearm, back of your hand. Wipe your hand across your uniform. But I ain’t telling you nothing you don’t already know.”

Three relievers nodded in unison.

“The real secret is not to give into the heat.”

           “Frankie, it’s got to be damn near a hundred and forty degrees out on the mound, and you’re telling us to give it no notice?” Greg King answered. “Hell, you can see heat waves shimmering!”

           “Don’t matter what the thermometer says.” Rodriguez tapped the side of his head. “It’s all up here. Don’t give in. Never lose your cool.”

           “C’mon, Frankie, you’re saying it’s all mind over matter? I think the heat’s gotten to you,” Melvino said. That brought a half-hearted chuckle from his companions.

           “I’m serious as all get out! Try this experiment. Each of you think back on something that just flat out made you shiver… I’m not talking brain freeze from sucking on a slurpy drink, but something that actually gave you goosebumps or even froze you in your tracks,” Rodriguez challenged. The trio of pitchers looked at one another, now tossing the baseball up and down, now looking around the bullpen area.

           “Okay, what have you got?” Frankie said.

           Three blank stares. “Christ, I thought you fellas were real thinkers. Here, let me get you started… Back when I was a kid in Mexico, my dad had this great get-rich-quick idea that he would go scoop up all the leftover gold lying around the Yukon from the gold rush. Musta been after we watched that darn John Wayne movie North to Alaska… anyways, he piled us all in the pickup and headed north to Canada. Bouncing around in the back rolling through the heat, all I could think of was all that snow ahead that would cool me off. Nightmares of me shoveling a path through the snowdrifts from our cabin to the outhouse replaced those daydreams. The wind howling, the snow blowing… Gawd, it was awful.” Frankie shook his head to dispel his torment. “Dad never found his gold. As a matter of fact, the truck broke down and he ran out of money before we ever got out of California. Instead of picking up stray nuggets, we were picking strawberries near Castroville. Talk about hot, man, that was hell on earth. I kept cool by thinking of all that shoveling which I knew I would never have to do!”

           “I thought you were supposed to tell us tricks on keeping cool,” Tom Gran said. “Seems like just the opposite.”

           “It might be the beginning of heatstroke addling your brain,” added Greg King.

           “Laugh all you want, but I tell you sittin’ here with a piece of ice to suck on beats the hell out of bending over picking strawberries. You got anything better?” Frankie Rodriguez folded his arms across his chest, waiting.

           “Frankie,” Grand said, “I got one.”

           “Do tell.”

           “Back in high school, in American lit class, we studied short stories. Jack London’s adventures fired my imagination. There was one story, and Frankie, you’ll appreciate this… To Build a Fire. This trapper is out in the wilderness and it’s cold…

           “Colder than my outhouse?”

           “Much. He spat and his spittle crackled in the air before it hit the snow. He knew about spittle crackling on the ground at fifty below, so the temp had to be at least seventy below. Cold? That is shrink your private parts cold!” Grand leaned back, confident he had topped his coach.

           “I’ll give you one point for creativity… and paying attention in American Lit,” Rodriguez said

“Okay, Frankie, how’s this?” Melvino said. “You watch Game of Thrones?”

           “Sure, got the DVD and everything.”

           “Well then, when I think of the ominous first episode, Winter Is Coming, I get chills. Just about the time they go away, some other character will repeat that warning and u-u-mph, there I go again.”

           Howie McMaster, the bullpen catcher, broke into the discussion. “While you all were yapping, Skip called and wants King to loosen up.” He picked up his mask and walked toward the bullpen plate. “Oh, if you want to know the coldest thing that will lower any temperature, anytime, anywhere…”

           “Yeah?” they chorused.

           “It’s the cold, stony heart of a jilted lover,” he said. “C’mon King.”

           Frankie Rodriguez, Tom Grand, and Carson Melvino shivered in unison. “Look, the hairs on our arms are standing straight up!”

Mike McSorley

mmcsorley@maineline.net