Chapter 8

Finally, we got our laugher. El Paso's final game in St. Paul was just what the doctor ordered. We were ahead, 11-2 in the eighth inning. Boots McDaniel had come in to pitch one inning earlier in relief of the starter, and I was sent out to open the eighth.

Nobody on, nobody out. All up to me. All I had to do was avoid giving up nine or more runs. If all -- or even most things -- went well, I'd pitch two innings of harmless mop-up. What a concept!

Dolly Parton knew my signals: one finger for the hard stuff, two for the (alleged) slider. Catching me was a pretty simple proposition. Not much variety in my pitch selection, but a lot in where the ball actually went, which I knew would sometimes make it exasperating for Parton.

I had very limited experience at throwing the ball with an enemy batter standing in against me. It wasn't so much that I was afraid of his hitting the ball. It was more like I was afraid of hitting him. Obviously, the best thing for me to do was to pretend he wasn't standing there, and throw the ball as hard as I could to Parton. Pretend the hitter wasn't there. Throw strikes. Try not to groove 'em too much, but don't get cute, either: You're just a beginner, here, Freddie. Don't make like you're Cy Young. Just throw the goddamned ball!

My first official pitch in anger was way too high. Parton shot his arm way up, trying to snag it, but it was too high by a foot. Fortunately, it was outside, too, so the hitter wasn't concerned that I was trying to go for his head.

He was probably concerned, though, about my wildness. Nobody on El Paso's roster had ever heard of me. They didn't know my story. But they knew about wild young pitchers -- many of whom were playing in this low-level league for that very reason -- their stuff was too out of control to get them a real job in Organized Ball.

So I figured he'd be wary. I could put that wariness to good use, if only I could settle down and throw something resembling a strike. Parton gave me the finger again -- literally. It was one finger, indicating fast ball, but it wasn't his index finger, this time. He was signaling me to settle down, I guess. Or maybe he was just saying, "Fuck you!"

I threw the fastball -- with a little restraint this time, in honor of my wish to get somewhere in the vicinity of the plate -- and it was outside, but the hitter swung at it anyway, so the count was 1-1.

One finger again. I threw harder, and it was a little low and inside, but Parton caught it and the ball made a satisfying 'thunk' when it hit his mitt. Batter took the pitch and it was two balls, one strike.

Parton called for the change-up, now. It would be my first pitch, ever, not involving just leaning back and whaling. I knew it had to look like a fastball to the hitter. I worked hard at avoiding any detectable change in the wind-up, or the motion; the idea was to throw it up there slow, fool the guy and pick up a strike or, better yet, get him to hit a dribbler to the infield.

Only my change-up bounced six or seven feet in front of the plate and fooled nobody. Parton was getting pissed, and I was concluding that I wasn't a two-pitch pitcher. I was a one-pitch thrower. I was going to waive off any change-up signals from Parton for the duration -- or at least until I got to feeling more comfortable out there on the mound.

Well, I needn't have worried. Parton gave me the one (wrong) finger on every pitch after that. Evidently we both knew I had no change.

The slider? You're kidding, right?

On the three-one pitch the hitter waited for me to walk him, and I did throw him another one outside the zone. The umpire, though, called it a strike. Even I knew he'd been wrong, but the count was three and two.

My next fastball was, however, also too far outside, and I'd walked the guy anyway. I'd thrown him six pitches. Two had been "strikes" but one strike had been on his wild swing and the other had been a missed call by the ump. In reality, I hadn't yet thrown a single ball over the plate.

Parton came out and, looking disgusted, said, "Watch the runner. Don't overthrow. Throw fucking strikes!"

Good advice.

El Paso's number two hitter was over-eager and too dumb, apparently, to wait to see if I could find the plate. He swung at the first pitch (another miss on my part) and sent a dribbler to shortstop. We should have gotten two, but the guy on first was fast, and the ball was hit too slowly for the double play. Fielder's choice. OK. Man on second now.

Finally I opened up against their third hitter with an actual, honest-to-God strike. Fat pitch, actually, and not thrown all that fast, either. But he missed it cleanly. It was a landmark, of sorts. First bona fide strike I'd ever thrown in anger.

Maybe I should stop the game and ask for the ball.

No, I guess not. They weren't all that big on giving away baseballs in the American Association.

Well, I struck that guy out on six pitches! He fouled off a couple, and I missed badly on a couple, but damned if I didn't get him, just the same. Their clean-up guy hit one hard to left field, but I lucked out and watched my outfielder haul it in.

Hey, this pitching stuff was easy! Inning over.

I struggled through the ninth inning in similar fashion: All fastballs. Walked two, struck out one. No runs, though. Final score, 12-2 Saints. I'd survived it. Walked three guys in two innings, struck out one. But no hits! No hits at all, and no runs!

More than a week later, Carlos gave me a start, on the road, against the Wichita Wingnuts. He had rotation problems, and this was pretty much a pitcher's version of what my stint with the Orioles had been like: I was Mr. Last Resort. That's OK. I didn't care why he was letting me pitch, I was just glad to get the shot.

It was messy, I'll admit. After four innings, I'd walked five guys, balked a runner in from third, and we were trailing, one-zip. The no-hitter was long gone, too. A double and a single against me in the second inning. Three guys had stolen bases on me, too.

And Parton hadn't called for a change-up. Not once, the whole time. I was just leaning back and trying to hit his mitt with a fast ball, every pitch.

While we're hitting in the fifth, Carlos comes to me in the dugout and says, "You've already thrown, like, 75 pitches."

"Gettin' them out, though," I said, with confidence I didn't really feel.

"One more inning for you," he said. "Long as there's nobody on base, I'm gonna let Dolly call for the change-up, once in awhile. If he calls for it, you don't waive it off, you understand? You just try to throw it. Don't try so hard to disguise it -- just concentrate on throwing it over, and getting some contrast to your fast one. These fuckers don't know what your motion looks like, anyway. They're just concentrating on not getting hit by a pitch."

"OK."

Bottom fifth, sure enough, I got one strike on the bottom-of-the-order Wingnut hitter, and Parton calls for the change. And I do just like Carlos said -- no particular effort to make it look good, just soft-toss it up there and see what happens. Well, this number eight Wichita hitter launches that sucker to center field -- deep! I hadn't fooled him at all. Scary. But it was just a long out.

Gonna have to work on that change, though.

So I got through another inning. Walked another guy, gave up a scratch single but no more runs. Left the game after having thrown 93 pitches in just five innings -- not good. We were down two-nothing, and if the Saints didn't come back late in the game, I would have lost my first start. But it hadn't been all that awful, I thought. Two earned runs in five innings? Not so terrible.

After the game, Carlos and Clint Curtis talked to me at my locker. "You got to learn to throw that change for strikes," Curtis said. "Nobody can get by with just a fast ball -- not even in this league."

"You need a third pitch, too, soon as possible," Carlos said. "Slider... Even a dinky little slider would give you something you could mix in, keep them from digging in on you."

"Boots' been showing me how to throw it," I said, thinking positive. "I'll work on it."

"You won't be pitching again anytime soon," Carlos told me. "You're not going to be sent out again right away. That was just an experiment tonight, just to see what you could do."

"It wasn't enough," Curtis said bluntly.

"It was all right," Carlos said. "Really. For a first time out, a guy, never started before anywhere? It was all right, Freddie... But you 'n Clint, you gotta work. You need more control, you need to throw that change-up so that it fools people. You need to develop that slider."

"How about a curve ball?" I asked.

"Forget it," Curtis said. "Just forget it. All the things you gotta learn to do? Curve ball? No way, Kid. Maybe in the winter, you get everything else straightened out, you can play around with a curve. For now -- No way, Jose!"

Sure enough, I didn't get another chance to pitch for an entire week. We were on a swing through the Southern Division of the Association, and I sat through Shreveport and our trip to Grand Prairie, Texas. It was a long ways from home, down here in the Southern Division, and most of the road trips were long, because the clubs in the Association didn't want to pay for too many of them.

We'd be in Ft. Worth for the final three games before returning to St. Paul. This was going to be the high point of the season for me! Not because I was likely to pitch. But because the Orioles were playing the Texas Rangers in Arlington -- just a few miles down the road.

I was going to get to see Josie!

The Orioles' weren't arriving for their three-game series with the Rangers until after my club had left nearby Grand Prairie and had headed for Ft. Worth for three more with the Cats. Baltimore's stay in Arlington, Texas would overlap our time in Ft. Worth by only about thirty-six hours. And unfortunately, both the Orioles and the Saints were playing at night.

But Josie and I would each have some daylight hours free, at least for the one day. We kept the cell phones busy, making preparations for getting together. It would be the only time we could, all season. No more games in the Twin Cities for the Orioles for the rest of the season; no other stops, on the Saints' schedule, where I'd be anywhere near a Baltimore game, either home or away.

Our plan was to meet at a motel of my choosing. It wouldn't be as classy as the one in Arlington that BirdSports provided for its traveling staff members. But it was conceivable that I would be recognized if I showed up there, so the plan was that I'd stay away.

Fraternization, you know.

And we wouldn't stay in the fleabag provided for me in Ft. Worth by the St. Paul Saints. We would split the difference.

I found a very respectable-looking Marriott Courtyard near the Trinity River, just a few blocks south of I-30. It was more convenient for me than it was for Josie, but we both knew she had more cash lying around than I did for things like cab fare; she could afford to find her way to the motel and back to Arlington again, and pay a little more dearly for the privilege.

My cab fare would be somewhere in the ten-buck range. I did pay for the room. Hey, I'm not a total jerk, I'm just poor.

Josie called me when the Orioles' plane landed at Dallas-Ft. Worth International. She'd be too tied up that afternoon to see me at all, and both of us had ball games that evening. We were going to be reduced to one (very late) night and the following morning (and maybe the early afternoon) together at the Marriott.