Chapter 14

The Mexican Pacific League season was about to begin, and whatever they did down there for pre-season preparation, I was going to miss. But I got Bill to agree to a day and a half wait before we left the Twin Cities. I needed to break this news to Josie as gently as possible.

Maybe I would be better off, I thought, if we just jumped on the next plane and I called her during our layover in Phoenix.

The timing couldn't have been much worse. That night -- a single day to go before we had to leave the country -- was a Wednesday -- a week and a day before Josie's upcoming dinner at home with Lawyer-Boy. Nothing like leaving her disgruntled and disappointed just before Zero Hour.

I was doing what Bill Bowman said I should do. I even agreed with him that going to Mexico was the right thing to do. So why did I feel as if I were making a mess that I'd never be able to clean up?

I picked Josie up at her parents' house early that evening -- earlier than had become usual for us, because I'd already said goodbye to my part-time job selling carpets. Both my part-time jobs were already history. I was once again employed, however humbly, solely as a professional baseball player.

We went out to one of the city's best restaurants. This was so unlike me that Josie already could tell that something was up. Maybe she thought I was going to propose marriage. The idea had occurred to me, sure enough, but I knew it wouldn't work. We hadn't known each other long enough for that. I wasn't really gainfully employed. We didn't know where I would be, this time next year, or even four months from now.

Besides, I figured, if I popped the question now, Josie would think I was in a panic over the upcoming reunion with Preston Succotash, or whatever that pervert's name was. Well, I was in a bit of a panic about Preston's arrival on the scene, but instinct told me that a sudden marriage proposal wasn't the answer. Anyway, what would I use for money to buy a ring? I remembered my own parents, talking about paying for my mother's $400 engagement ring in twenty-dollar-a-month installments.

But $400 went a lot farther in those days. Anyway, I didn't have $400, much less the present-day inflation-adjusted equivalent. Bill Bowman was paying our way to Hermosillo. The cost of my ticket -- and his -- was being added to my running tab, which by now was beginning to rival the national defense budget.

So I just let Josie sit there over her second glass of wine, wondering what had prompted me to take her to a restaurant not named IHOP or Applebee's.

She was very patient. She knew something was up. She could only hope it was something good.

It wasn't.

"I got good news and bad news," I told her. Not very original, maybe, but an excellent way to brace someone. Josie had always been attentive, a real good listener.

She was certainly all ears now!

I waited for her to say something, and when she didn't, I soldiered on: "Bill thinks I'm ready to make my debut as a pitcher -- in game situations -- in a little higher league."

"That's wonderful!" she said. "I never doubted you could do it ... What's the next step? Is he going to arrange some try-outs for you?"

"He thinks I've got a decent array of pitches. But he says I need to use them much more in game situations. Learn to pitch under pressure. Hold runners. Learn to field my position. All that good stuff."

"Well, sure you'll need that. But isn't that what the low minors are for? Can't you do that in places like Bluefield or Aberdeen?"

"I wouldn't be surprised, at all, if next spring I was in one of those towns, or someplace like them," I said. "But Bill wants me to get game experience right away -- so that, possibly, I can be signed by the time spring training camps open."

Josie knew something about winter baseball. Her face fell. "He wants you to go to Puerto Rico." she said.

"Mexico. Bill has connections with the guy who manages Hermosillo in the Mexican Pacific League."

"Where the hell is Hermosillo?"

"It's in Sonora -- Northern Mexico, near Tucson. Well, maybe three hundred miles from Tucson."

"Wow."

"Yeah."

"So, you're saying that my coming back to The Cities for the winter was a waste of time, basically. You're going to Mexico! ... For how long?"

"Season runs from now until the end of the year. Then there are playoffs and post-season tournaments all through January."

"Season runs from now? When are you leaving?"

"Bill and I are flying down tomorrow morning."

"Tomorrow?... Tomorrow?" she said again.

She wasn't taking this well. "Yeah," I said, trying to sound downcast. Hell, I was downcast! Part of me wanted to get down there tonight, and get started. But another part wanted to stay right here in Minneapolis, under a warm blanket in the western suburbs with Josie Fitzgerald, naked in my arms.

"Tomorrow," she repeated, with less emphasis this time.

I said nothing.

"You know I can't just pick up and follow you down there," she said.

"I know. I know you've got the new job. Commitments. Anyway, it would be pretty bleak for you, down there. The cities in the league are far apart, and the road trips are going to be brutal. Even if you were to come down, what would you do, all that time? At least here, you've got your family. Holidays coming up. Thanksgiving. Christmas..."

"You're going to be gone for Christmas, even?"

"Yeah. Looks like it. Bill's only going down for a week or so, to help me get started. But I won't have the kind of money it would take to fly back here, even if the schedule permitted it, and I doubt if it does. Their short season will be winding up, right around Christmas time."

"Christmas in ... what was the name of it?"

"Hermosillo. In Sonora."

"Don't they have a winter league in Venezuela you could have signed up for? Or Australia, maybe? Jesus, Freddie!"

"Josie, c'mon. You know I'm not doing this for fun! This is a career move, Babe. An important one. Bill thinks if I succeed down there, I can get a club to sign me to a minor league contract for next season! Don't you see? I wouldn't have even missed a single season that way! I'd be more or less back on schedule, climbing the ladder to the majors, much sooner than if I don't do this."

She relaxed a little. Or maybe she just slumped in her chair. "Yeah," she said. "I can see it ... Are there any clubs in the league that are closer to here? Maybe I could fly down for a long weekend or something, around New Years, maybe."

"Not closer," I said, "but maybe more convenient. Mexicali is right on the border -- near San Diego. But I don't have a schedule. I don't know when my club might be playing there. I don't even know if the season is still in progress, at New Years, although I know there are playoffs later in January."

"It's going to be a cold winter," she said. " ... For me, anyway. I guess it must be warm where you're going."

"All the clubs in the league are in Western Mexico, along the Gulf of California. I guess the weather will be pretty mild."

"They got a team in Acapulco?" she asked.

"Nope. Not even close. I gather most of the clubs are in an agricultural area. My team is called the "Orange Growers," and there are other ones called "Tomato Growers, Cotton Growers, Sugarcane Growers."

"You sure this is a baseball league? It sounds more like a farmers' cooperative."

"Well, the names sound better in Spanish. I'm going to be a 'Naranjero.' ... More romantic-sounding than 'Orange Grower, ' isn't it?"

"This isn't exactly going to be the winter I had anticipated," Josie said.

"I hope you can come down, at least once, in December," I said. "But we've been apart a lot already, Babe. It's been necessary before. But if this works out, maybe I'll have a contract again by February or March, and we'll know where I'll be playing next season."

"If you re-signed with the Orioles, you could be playing in my back yard," she said. "All their farm clubs are close to Baltimore. Even Norfolk, in Triple-A, is pretty close by.

"They're not likely to send me to Triple-A," I said. "Not next season. But if the Orioles got interested, they'd sure as hell have an inside track, trying to re-sign me."

"Thirty major league clubs," Josie grumbled, "and you a free agent able to sign with any one of them, and here I am, hoping you'll end up close to Baltimore! Fat chance. There are Class A minor league teams all over this country. You'll probably end up in Honolulu, and we'll be remembering fondly the good old days when you were close-by, in Hermosillo!"

"You know it's not going to get that bad, Babe. The only part of this that's really a source of some hope for me is that I'm an absolute free agent now! The Orioles thought they were throwing me away. If I come back -- even as a pitcher -- I come back not subject to the draft. My chances of attracting interest are going to go way up! Hell, I might have a choice, even, among teams that will want to sign me!"

"Right," Josie said with some irony. "Maybe there will be a bidding war, like for A-Rod when he pretended to leave the Yankees."

I had to smile at that image. "Well, maybe not exactly like that," I admitted, "but it's not too much of a stretch to think that Bill can drum up enough interest to get two or three clubs competing to sign me. I've asked Bill to act as my agent -- officially -- once this thing gets to the point where I'm looking around for future employment."

"It's an attractive prospect," Josie conceded. "I only hope you and Bill can make it all happen. I have faith in your ability, Freddie, but, God, I've seen up close and personal how tough this business can be. So have you. It's hard to believe it's going to all work out as well as you hope it will."

"It was only a few months ago it seemed like the whole thing was over for me," I told her. "I know I'm not Alex Rodriguez and never will be ... Hell, if I was, I'd still be an infielder, wouldn't I? But, Baby, whatever it takes to make this happen, I'm going to do it. And if that includes becoming a fucking Orange Grower for Christmas and New Years, that's what I'm gonna have to do!"

"OK, Freddie," she said, sighing. "I'm officially enlisted in The Cause ... I'm just going to close my eyes and roll with this punch. I'm not going to scream. You were smart, taking me to this fancy eatery. If we had been at IHOP, I'd have screamed!"

"It's only a matter of a few weeks, Josie. We can do this."

"Good thing I'll have Preston here, to console me," she said, grinning.

It was supposed to be a joke -- a gentle tease.

I wasn't laughing.

Josie was a grownup. She demonstrated that in the brief hours we had left together before Bill and I flew off to Hermosillo by way of Phoenix. After the initial shock of my abrupt departure plans, she evidently thought it over and decided that it was, indeed, a sensible career move.