Chapter 10

"Your slider don't slide all that much," Bowman told me after observing a half-dozen attempts from behind his granddaughter-catcher at home plate.

"Barely started trying to learn it," I said. Bowman's appraisal wasn't any surprise, although I'd naturally hoped to hear something slightly more encouraging.

"That'll do it for today, Bets," he told the young woman. "Nice job... And what did you think of our young pitcher, here?"

"He throws hard," she said, readily enough. "Harder than anybody I ever had to catch." Well, that was a nice change from her earlier dig about the women's softball pitcher.

"Get outta all that gear," he told her, "and come on back inside. We'll have a piece of your mother's peach pie, and talk some more to Freddie, here."

When the two of us were alone and heading back into the house, Bill Bowman lowered his voice conspiratorially, even though there was no one there to overhear us. "You got a long ways to go, Freddie Bartholomew," he said.

"Brumbelow," I corrected. What was it with people wanting to call me Bartholomew? I figured I'd better pretty soon look that guy up on Google, find out exactly what the story was with him.

"Brumbelow, right," Bowman said. "Sorry. What I was saying, you got a long ways to go, but, jeez, kid, I think maybe you can do it, if you want it bad enough."

"You really think so?"

"Hell, yes! Hell, yes, I really think so! I mean, it's gonna be hard, and it's going to take awhile, too. You got a whole lot of stuff you've gotta learn. But Freddie, I think it's there. The talent's there. Hell, I can't wait to get started. You're going on the road again -- what? -- day after tomorrow? Darn! That's too bad, because I'm ready and rarin' to get started! You threw a lot today. You tell Carlos, you threw, maybe, seventy pitches -- real ones -- after warm-ups. He'll want to know that."

"What about tomorrow?"

"What about it?"

"We got the one more game here. Tomorrow night," I told him. "... You want me back here, tomorrow, during the day?"

"No. We can't work you like this, two days running. You stay away from here tomorrow, and don't throw at the park, either. On the road, you just do whatever Carlos says. That's what they're paying you for -- those big American Association bucks. We'll pick this up when you get back. You keep accounts, on the road, for me, just like when you report to Carlos, about what you and I are doing here. I'm gonna be needing to know when you throw -- even in the bullpen -- and how much."

"You want me to work on the slider?"

"I'm gonna make a couple suggestions about that, before you leave here today. Nothing dramatic. Nothing drastic, but little stuff for you to do different. OK?"

"Yes, sir. I mean, OK, Bill."

I didn't feel worried anymore, about what kind of pitcher Bill Bowman had been, and whether he could help me. I'd met the man, and I was suddenly infused with confidence that he could indeed help me. I liked the way he went about the business of seeing what I could and couldn't do. I liked the way he seemed ready to say positive things, and negative things, and to always expect me to take whatever he said like a man.

For the first time, really, I felt as if I could maybe make this thing happen. Josie's confidence in me had been gratifying. Carlos Ortega's willingness to give me a shot had been surprising but at the same time a little frightening.

But Bill Bowman? His expressed belief that maybe I could do this was the biggest confidence-builder I'd encountered yet. My high school coach had said all kinds of encouraging things to me about my future career in baseball. But that was high school, and that's what he was -- a run-of-the-mine high school baseball coach.

Bill Bowman had been there and done that. He'd spent more than six years in The Show, and he'd been successful. And now, he wanted to help me get up off the basement floor and start back up the stairs.

If Bill Bowman thought I could do it, well then by God, I thought I could do it, too!

It was still barely past noon so we made a fresh pot of coffee in Bill's kitchen and had peach pie in lieu of lunch.

He showed me, repeatedly, how to grip a baseball properly to throw a slider. He contrasted how a slider was employed by a left-handed pitcher, like him, against opposing hitters. For him, he explained, it had largely been a weapon of choice against overeager lefty hitters. For me, it should develop into the kind of low-and-outside offering that made right-handed sluggers look bad at the plate.

But its uses were many, and for the moment, the important part was learning to throw it somewhere in the vicinity of home plate, and to ensure that it didn't just float in there like a drunken butterfly.

"Most important thing is deception," he told me. "Right now, it's real easy to tell when you're throwing the fast one, and when you're not. Your motion has to be the same for everything, or smart hitters will read you most every time."

I was skeptical. "It doesn't seem possible, to throw the slider, or the change-up, whatever we're gonna call it, with that same hard motion I use to throw the zingers. I know the grip on the ball makes some difference, but it doesn't seem like it would be enough to matter all that much."

"The grip matters, all right," Bowman said. "But try this for me, next time you're throwing in the bullpen... Instead of trying not to throw the slow stuff as hard, turn it all around: Ease up on the fastball until you're throwing it just like you'd throw the change."

"Won't I lose speed on the fastball?"

"Probably. A little. But you're overthrowing it now, anyway. That's why you can't control it. Try deliberately easing up a little on the fast one, and only throwing it as hard as you're able to throw the slider with the grip I've shown you."

"It feels like I'd lose a lot of speed that way. It feels like I'd get bombed."

"Maybe you will," he said. "... But I don't think so. Try it, anyway. Don't say anything about it to Clint -- he's the one, catches you in the bullpen, right? He signals for a fastball, you throw it with the eased-up motion, just like the slider. He might say something about it, about how you've lost some velocity. But my guess is that he'll say something instead about how you hit what you aimed at, for a change!"

"OK. I'll give it a shot."

"Now, I don't deny you're right," Bowman said. "It could be that it won't work. If it doesn't, we'll try something else... But try this first."

As instructed, I gave Carlos detailed information about the time I had spent demonstrating my lack of skills to Bill Bowman. There wasn't much in it for Carlos, I knew, or for the St. Paul Saints organization, if I was separately pursuing personal goals on the team's time. Carlos Ortega, however, seemed more interested in my development as a pitcher than in the effects it might have on the ball club. That seemed a little peculiar, but gratifying.

We lost our getaway game that night and stayed in town overnight before catching a bus the next morning for Lincoln, Nebraska. It was a long ride across the Midwestern prairie and the July weather wasn't nearly as pleasant as the earlier circuit we had made around the Association's Northern Division.

The air conditioner on the bus wasn't functioning properly and the entire ride to Lincoln was a throat-choking trial by heat and dust. It wasn't my first bad experience with Road Baseball in the minors, but this one was turning into a true classic. I vowed to remember every minute of it, and to use it as a source of motivation.

Next year, maybe, things would be different. Exactly how different might still be up for grabs, but I already knew they had better buses in Double-A ball. For the moment, dreams of a better charter bus seemed to me a reasonable interim goal.

I got into our final game in Lincoln with one out in the fourth inning, and Carlos left me out there to finish the sixth. In the course of getting eight opposing hitters out, I walked two, hit one, gave up a scary-long homer to some kid who looked to be as skinny as I was, and got out of the sixth inning with the bases loaded and Lincoln's cleanup hitter at the plate. He popped up and we were out of it.

OK -- not a distinguished performance. But I'd only given up the dinger to the Scarecrow, there. And I'd bravely followed Bill Bowman's instructions: My "fastball" had been thrown at what still was feeling, to me, like only three-quarter speed.

The slider (thrown with exactly the same motion and with the magic Bowman grip) actually slid a little, though. A couple of Saltdog hitters actually swung at it and missed! And nobody -- not even Dolly Parton -- had seen fit to comment that my fastball wasn't moving decently.

Maybe I'd lost a little pop on it, but maybe not as much as I'd expected. And it really was going where I wanted it to go a lot more often! My faith and trust in Bill Bowman's mentoring was increasing with our distance from the Twin Cities.

I didn't get into another game during our swing down to Wichita, but I did have a lengthy session with Clint, throwing in the bullpen late in our middle game of that series. He was actually pretty positive about it, too. "You've got a slider!" he said, trying, I think, not to sound incredulous.