RMJ 200 September 3

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3 ● Houston, vs Milwaukee

Only once in my life have I been as one-dimensional as I am now: when I was in the service.

The Army doesn’t offer a lot of electives, especially at basic training. We were confined to the company street. And though I did manage to sneak off to the PX a time or two and rathole a couple of magazines, it was just about as basic a life as its name implies.

Luckily, I was only in the reserves, and I only had to go full-time for five months. This stint as manager is full-time for eight months. It is quite a bit more challenging.

The Army offers no parallels to the high points of managing: winning games and sharing in a player’s success and growth. It does offer low points that rival anything I have yet experienced in my return to the field.

For one thing, it offers no female companionship.

What prompts me to reflect on these things is the paucity of elective hours this summer.

I left a note for Judy to awaken me so that I could say goodbye to Ryan. When I arose again at 9:30, I had breakfast, read the paper, wrote, cleaned off my desk, showered, packed, and headed for the Dome. I was able to fit a short workout between lineup preparation and batting practice. I also learned that Tony Eusebio injured his other knee during last night’s loss.

Just what I wanted to hear.

 

The game was tough and tight, as usual. When you’re not hitting, tough-and-tight beats the alternative.

I don’t think I have ever seen Bagwell and Biggio look as inept at the plate as they did against Scott Karl, a soft-tossing lefthander.

The game was punctuated by another call to duty with the umpires. This could get tedious.

Larry Poncino called Brad Ausmus out on a pickoff throw at second. I could see the play from the dugout, and I knew it was an egregious error. Brad argued, and I couldn’t blame him; I knew I had to get out and support him. Cubby was quick enough to get Brad out of there and take up the harangue until I arrived.

It wasn’t a pivotal play like the one on Monday, but it was even more obvious. I didn’t even curse this time; I just kept saying, “that was really bad, Larry, really bad.”

He told me to stop waving my arms. I have been told this by other umpires, and have always obeyed. But this time, because I hadn’t even cursed, I waved my arms even wider and said. “They’re my arms! I can wave them if I want to.”

“Do you want to get tossed?” he asked.

“No, I don’t,” I said. “I just want you guys to get the calls right.”

“He tagged him on the foot,” he said.

I turned and walked back to the dugout. I am amazed that these two calls came in one series. But it figures they would come when tempers are already short, because of the losing streak.

Who knows? We may have had two calls go our way when we won nine in a row, in which case we would hardly notice it. I noticed these calls, that’s for sure. And so did the guys who happened to be in the clubhouse. They came running down to the dugout to confirm what the replay showed — which we already knew anyway.

When I was broadcasting, I felt the quality of umpiring was deplorable. Now that I am back down on the field, I realize it isn’t that easy. A lot of times the umpires have blocked views; sometimes they have to rotate, and they don’t arrive on the scene in time.  

I suspect that we would all have more respect for the umpires if we had to ump a few games ourselves.

 

Luckily, Ramón Garcia pitched the game of his life, and Tim Bogar hit a two-run double in the seventh inning to gives us a cushion.  We won 4-0 with The Chief going all the way on a five-hitter and driving in a run himself.

I can’t describe the smile on his face as he accepted congratulations. It was trancelike; otherworldly. He has had a worrisome, luckless season. He has pitched far better than his record.  

We selected him in the Rule 5 draft from the Brewers. They didn’t protect him by keeping him on the roster, and he made them pay.

His pitching misfortunes have been the least of his concerns this summer. What makes him look distant and preoccupied most of the time is his concern for his mother. She was in poor health when he flew her to Houston to be seen by heart specialists at the renowned Houston Medical Center. Turned out she had a serious condition that required not one but two surgeries, For a few days, he was afraid that she might die.

Chief is a study in contrast. He looks like a desperado on the mound, but he is as tender-hearted as they come. He makes barely more than the minimum salary, and the hospital bills piled up to $50,000 or so. This may be walking-around money for Bagwell and Biggio, but it was a body blow to the Chief. The team loaned him some money, and he pledged to repay it when he receives his licensing check next spring.

The money issue often leads me to the brink of ambivalence. My instinct tells me to pull for the player to do well, and to make a lot of money while he can. But my best interests may be served by having guys do well enough for us to win, but not well enough to get a large raise.

This is the dilemma we will face with D.K. He has done so well that we won’t be able to afford his services next year, unless we trade some other high-priced players.

 

After the game we learned that our trip to San Francisco would be delayed 90 minutes by a storm. I am writing as we fly, and I am expecting to get to sleep at around 3:30 or 4:00 West Coast time — when the sun is coming up in Houston.

I have been reading Goat Brothers again, and I had to stop and start writing before I started crying. If I had been at home, in bed by myself, I would have just let the tears pour out. But it didn’t seem the proper thing to do on the plane.

What stirred me was Larry Colton’s description of his Dad.

At this point in the narrative, Larry has already presented himself as a college student; a klutz with the girls; and a natural ballplayer. Now he flashes back, talking about his father’s dedication to his work at Douglas Aircraft and his love of his family and the game of baseball.  

He writes about how he would meet his Dad with gloves and ball in the driveway when his Dad came home from work. His Dad would take off his coat, throw it on the hood of the car, roll up his sleeves, and start playing catch, then and there.

Sometimes he would take Larry down to Loyola University and hit him grounders at shortstop:

 

… sending me deep into the hole for the backhand, or having me charge the slow chopper over the pitcher’s mound … He decided when it was time to quit. On the way home, I noticed the blisters on his hands.

 

Later in the same passage, he writes about his mother:

 

When they went out on New Year’s Eve in his new ’36 Ford, it was the first date of his life. He was 24. He would never date another woman. Casanova, he wasn’t.

 

These images brought my father back to me: Waiting for him to come home from work. The games of catch in the backyard. Hurting him with pitches in the dirt. The way he met my mother. His faithfulness. My own awkward dating experiences. The whole thing. I could cry as I write this.

I could walk off the field with a broken leg with no more than a grimace. But these sentimental things get me.

Perhaps I’ll play like I’m sleeping for a while.