Chapter 16

Josie arrived in San Diego early Saturday evening and called me on the cell from there around 10:30. Our game against the Mexicali Aguilas (Eagles) had just ended. We'd won, 6-3, and I hadn't been called on to pitch. I knew that meant there was an excellent chance I would pitch in relief on Sunday, with Josie in the stands.

"If you want, I could come over there tonight," she said. "I've already rented a room for us here, but, hey, it's not very far. I could be there not too long after midnight."

"Tempting," I said. "But I can't throw Hernando out that late, with no place to go. He's not even back here yet. What if he shows up after you've already arrived? It's Saturday night and this is a border town. He'd just go back out and get into new trouble."

"You think our finding another room would be ... difficult?"

"Yes. Yes, I do. Better for both of us if you hang in San Diego until morning, and then just drive over for the game."

I couldn't believe what I was saying. She was offering to get it on tonight and I was telling her not to come!

"I've got directions to the stadium from the Internet," she said.

"Maybe I'll get to pitch," I told her. "I haven't been in a game since Wednesday."

"That would be great!"

"I'll bring all my luggage with me to the ballpark. I've already cleared it with Manuel. He says after tomorrow's game, he doesn't want to see me until 5 p.m. on Tuesday, in Hermosillo."

"I want to meet this Hernando character," Josie said. "And Manuel Obregon."

"Come early," I said. "Get a first-base-side box seat -- I couldn't arrange to leave you a ticket. I'll introduce you to everyone within reach."

I tried to turn in early and save myself for the Sunday game and for the Sunday and Monday with Josie that would come thereafter. I was tired, but not sleepy. I was a long time awake, waiting for sleep and for my tireless roomie Hernando, forty-six years old, going on nineteen.

Sleep was a long time coming, but it came before my catcher did. He was there in the morning when I awoke, but I hadn't heard him come in. He was in his bed, asleep, and alone. He wasn't always alone when I found him in the morning during road trips. That was one of the reasons I'd discouraged Josie from coming over until Sunday.

Hernando lived a rich, full life. But he always showed up on time for work, energetic and (apparently) sober. He was a latter-day hard-drinking, hard-driving Babe Ruth, in his small, minor-league way.

I went out for breakfast without him, knowing he'd prefer additional sleep to huevos rancheros. His practice for afternoon games was to wake at 11 a.m., combine breakfast with lunch, and head for the ballpark seemingly renewed and refreshed.

I arrived at the Eagles' facility even earlier than required, on the off-chance that Josie might also arrive early and be waiting in the stands. She wasn't, but she showed up before noon for the 1:30 p.m. game, and I saw her almost as soon as she had been seated.

"Manuel," I said, "please come with me to meet mi novia, Josie."

Manuel smiled broadly. "Ahh -- the one who will take you to San Diego today?"

"The very one, yes." I led Manuel Obregon over to the first-row box where Josie was standing, waiting. I hadn't even greeted her myself until that moment. "Josie, this is my manager, Manuel Obregon."

She extended her hand and said, "Freddie talks about you almost as much as he does about Hernando Escobar!"

"Your young man is going to be a superb pitcher," Manuel told her, taking her offered hand. "And I can see now where he gets his inspiration!"

Josie blushed prettily, and thanked my manager for permitting my mid-season two-day vacation.

"Just be certain you send him back to us in good condition," Manuel told her. "Freddie's resilience has proved excellent, but I suspect these next two days are going to be a true test of his stamina!"

Josie's blush now was vivid, but she stood up to the teasing nicely. "I promise you that he will return with his arm, at least, still strong!" she said.

When we were alone, Josie took my hand, leaned over the railing close to my ear and said, "Ricardo Colon is in the stands today, I'm almost sure."

"Who's he?" I asked.

"Scout. He's the Orioles' principal scout for Mexico and the Caribbean."

"Is this something you set up?"

"No. No, it's not. But I heard about it from one of my cohorts at BirdSports. I saw him -- his name is Alex Hardesty -- at the Winter Meetings last week in Tampa. Don't ask me how he knows about us -- about you and me -- but he did. And he said he'd heard that the Orioles wanted Colon to take a look at you."

"Wow!"

"Yeah ... I passed the word to Bill Bowman before I left town."

"What did Bill say?"

"He didn't seem surprised. I think maybe Bill's been talking you up, every chance he gets."

"He told me there might be scouts down here occasionally. This is the first time I've heard anything specific."

"I wouldn't call it specific, exactly. I mean, I wouldn't know this Colon guy, even if I saw him, and the information Hardesty gave me was sketchy. Evidently the scouts prefer checking people out in Mexicali, because it's the most convenient stop on the Mexican Pacific League schedule."

"Makes sense."

"Where's Hernando?"

I looked around. Hernando was just coming onto the field from the clubhouse under the stands. He looked as if he'd already gone fourteen innings behind the plate. "There he is," I said, pointing him out to Josie.

"Looks like kind of a father figure," she said.

"Not so's you'd notice," I replied. "Better you think of him more as a dirty old man."

Hernando saw me, and, more importantly, saw Josie in the stands and put two and two together. Her presence was no surprise. I had talked about little else for the past two weeks. He strode over. "Theese ezz Joe-zee, he said, extending his massive calloused catcher's paw in her direction.

To her credit, Josie never flinched from the contact. Her small hand disappeared into his and Hernando kept right on advancing until his entire body was planted against the retaining wall and his left arm had reached upward to embrace Josie's waist.

She was probably taller than Hernando to begin with, and she was almost a foot higher, from her place in the stands, than our ground level. So Hernando's embrace was well below her waist and encompassed, instead, Josie's upper thighs and buttocks.

Well, there were worse places. He graciously turned his head to one side so that it was his ear, and not his face, that was nestled in Josie's crotch. "Frederico, he going blah-blah-blah all the time, 'Joe-zee theese an Joe-zee that, ' eets all I get to hear from heem, todos los dias!"

Josie looked at me helplessly. Finally she awkwardly, ineffectually, patted Hernando on the top of his capless, balding head with her free hand -- the one not caught, along with both her legs, in his bear hug.

"Y, Jesu Christo! He don' lie, neether, about chu! ... Goddamn, Roomie! Theeze gorl eez focking hot!" Finally, he released Josie from his grasp and allowed her to regain her equilibrium.

"This is Hernando," I said, unnecessarily.

"Theese boyfren' you got, he's focking good peetcher!" Hernando told her. Then he looked around -- perhaps for children in the stands who shouldn't be exposed to his strong language. I don't think the possibility that his words might offend Josie ever occurred to him.

I told Josie I would try to get back to her spot before the game got underway, but that for the moment, I was supposed to be running in the outfield. Hernando and I walked away together, and I asked him, in Spanish, whether he knew a scout named Ricardo Colon.

"Colon? Yes, I know him," Hernando said in what seemed to me to be perfect Spanish "He is frequently in attendance here. He works out of Los Angeles and San Diego."

"He's here today, Josie thinks. To see me pitch."

"Mother of God!"

"No," I replied in my best wise guy Spanish, "he's only a scout from the Orioles."

"Does Manuel know?"

"I don't know. Perhaps not."

"We should tell him."

"You think?"

"We should make certain that you get a chance to pitch today."

"I think we should let Manuel handle all that," I said.

"He must be told, all the same," Hernando said. I listened in wonderment at this man's perfect Spanish. In Spanish, he was precise; he sounded almost erudite, cultured. In English, he was a loose cannon.

As in all things, I followed the lead of my catcher. We went together to tell Manuel Obregon that it was believed that the scout, Ricardo Colon, was in the stands for today's game.

Manuel shook his head affirmatively but said nothing.

I certainly didn't wish our number four starter, a lefthander named Paco Montoya, any ill fortune that day, but somebody must have put the hex on him, because he had nothing, right from the start.

By the bottom of the fourth inning Montoya and the Naranjeros were down, 6-1, and when the Eagles' leadoff hitter for that inning doubled to right, Manuel went out to the mound and sent Paco packing. I had been warming up on the sideline bullpen and I was called into the game to face the five-six-seven hitters in Mexicali's lineup, with nobody out.

Hernando was waiting when Manuel gave me the ball and departed. "Burn 'em," he said. "You trow the queeke one, each times 'till I say to stop."

He got behind the plate and, despite his blanket instruction, Hernando dutifully signaled "fastball" for the first pitch. I poured it in, heard it smack Hernando's mitt with unusual authority, and watched the umpire raise his right arm decisively.

The mitt moved around between pitches, left and right and sometimes a little bit upward, but the signal was always the same: fastball.

I struck out the side. Eleven pitches to three hitters. All the third strikes were swinging misses. My inherited baserunner was still camped on second.

We did it again in the fifth inning. Nothing but heat to the first two hitters. I was beginning to wonder, if this Orioles scout really was in the stands, whether he would assume I had nothing in my arsenal except heat. Whatever. Hernando kept signaling "fastball," and that's what I threw him. Struck out two more Eagles.

This was fun.

They sent up this spray-hitting leadoff guy with two out in the fifth, and Hernando signaled for the change on the first pitch. A little unusual, but I complied. Being careful not to telegraph it with my motion, I sailed one up there and the Eagle hitter tied himself into a knot swinging at it. Oh, man! He wasn't the first hitter I'd ever fooled with a pitch, but never before had one been fooled quite that much! I should have gotten credit for two strikes on that one!

I got the signal for another change-up and (despite some doubts) I did what Hernando told me to do. This time the hitter tried to show some restraint, but his uncertainty at the plate resulted in a weak dribbler to third. Out.

The next inning, their number two guy got my first slider of the day. He was a righty hitter and Hernando wanted me to throw the off-brand slider he'd taught me my first week in Hermosillo -- the one that looked to the hitter like it was surely going to hit him in the thigh, if not in the nuts, before it swung out over the plate for a strike.

It's hard to make a hitter bail with a slider, but Hernando had taught me how to do it, and damned if it didn't work! The Eagle hitter got two more sliders after that -- the conventional ones that never get near crossing the plate, but look tasty even though they can't be reached by a righty hitter. Another strike out.

Their cleanup hitter was leading the league in home runs and runs batted in, and Hernando showed him some respect. He came out to the mound to talk about it. "Theeze focker can heet like a sunuvabeetch!" Hernando told me. "You trow heem jes' wan fastball -- too low. In the dirt, mebbie. Too low. He mebbie no swing. Don' matter. Den you trow the heat, but now, you go up high. High strike, first. Then too high, but mebbie he reach for eet, you know? An' after, high again. Hokay? One low. Then -- everybody -- way up high!"

The cleanup guy let the first one go by for a ball, but, sure enough, he swung at the next three pitches -- all fastballs, all out of the strike zone -- and he didn't get so much as a loud foul.

I pitched four full innings -- through the seventh -- before giving way to another reliever with the score 6-4 in favor of the locals. I had struck out eight of the twelve batters I'd faced, walked none, given up no hits. It was the most dynamic pitching performance I had ever had, in this league or with the Saints.

Hernando had called every single pitch, and I had never shaken him off, not even once. The man was a genius.

We lost the game, 7-5. Afterward, I asked Manuel whether he'd ever noticed whether the Orioles' scout was actually in the stands. "Do they ever touch base with you? Let you know they're here?" I asked.

"Often they do," Manuel said. "But not always. It's possible that he is here, but that he consulted only with the Eagles' manager. It's possible that he is attempting to disguise his reason for being here. Perhaps he's showing an interest in one of Mexicali's players."

"If you hear anything, will you let me know?" I asked him.

"First thing Tuesday evening," Manuel said, smiling. "And Freddie ... you pitched good!"

All the way back to San Diego, Josie was beside herself with excitement. "My God, Freddie! You were just dominant out there! I had no idea! My God!"

"Well, that was my best outing -- ever," I told her. "It's not like I do that every night."

"Freddie, you struck out eight hitters! Eight in four innings! And you didn't allow a baserunner. You didn't walk anybody!"

"Hernando really knows the hitters," I said.

"Don't be modest! You were amazing."

"I'm not modest. I mean, I'm not being modest. I'm really excited myself. But, really, Josie, this was new. I've never had an outing longer than an inning before, without allowing a baserunner. I've walked some guys, hit some guys. I don't normally strike out two guys per inning, either. It really was -- a lot of it -- Hernando's guile at work."

"Well I hope you're paying attention to what he's telling you to do!" she said. "I doubt whether the Orioles or anybody else is going to bring along a forty-six-year-old career minor leaguer to be your personal caddie."

"Bill told me to try to think with Hernando, try to figure out what it is he's doing when he makes his calls. It's not that easy."

"You used all your pitches, though."

"He started me out with nothing but heat. I got to worrying that if the scout was really up there, he'd think that was all I had."

"It seemed to be working," she said.

"I never shook Hernando off. Not even once."

"You should," she said.

"No. He knows the hitters better than I do -- much better."

"Doesn't matter. Talk to him about it. Tell him you're going to shake him off once in awhile, but it doesn't mean anything. He can call the same pitch again, if he wants, and you'll throw it. You need to do it, because pretty soon, the established players, they'll notice that you never shake him off. They'll figure that if they can outthink Hernando, they can guess with you on what's coming. You shake him off, it complicates their life a little."

"Damn. I think you're right. I'll talk to Hernando about it."

It's hell, when your girlfriend knows the game as well or better than you do.

Josie's excitement about my pitching performance gradually faded into excitement about our upcoming reunion as we crossed the international border and closed in on the outskirts of San Diego.

"It sure has been cold in the Twin Cities, with you gone," she said.

"I've felt really guilty about being down here all this time, after you went out of your way to join me in Minneapolis for the winter."

"We both know you're doing the right thing. God, Freddie, I hope that scout was in the stands today! I hope he saw what you did out there! If he did, he's gonna be as excited about you as I am! And you know, I didn't really know what to expect. I'd never seen you pitch before!"

"That's not what you told the Saints' front office when you were talking me up," I said, smiling at her.

"Hey, don't give me a hard time. I'd seen your arm out there at shortstop. I knew you had real possibilities."

"Stuck your neck out a little, though, didn't you? What would Johannson or Bell have thought of your next recommendation, if I hadn't panned out in St. Paul?"

"Listen, Freddie, scouting new baseball talent is on a par with astrology when it comes to being an exact science. They wouldn't have held me accountable if you hadn't looked good to them. They know this is a hit-or-miss business."