Chapter 64

Although the summer held some travails for Brock and Meredith, it was nothing compared to what the Dodgers' general manager, Steve Morris, faced.

The media had never let him forget that the team dropped its first-round playoff series the year before. They had pointed out that he knew all season that the Dodgers had no viable option at shortstop besides its rookie infielder. Jim LaCross had mentioned it any number of times when asked why Brock Miller never seemed to be out of the lineup.

The aborted trade to the Yankees had brought a second group who scrutinized the GM's every move: the Dodgers ownership group and their appointed ax man, Victor Turturro.

Someone had leaked word of the deal and the fans were irate. They took to calling radio talk shows to vent their spleens. They wrote snide comments on the internet. The older fans sent letters to the editor of the local newspapers. Long-time season ticketholders threatened to put their money somewhere else if Morris wasn't held in check.

The owners and fans didn't understand that Miller was the most marketable player on the team. His contract status meant low-budget teams wouldn't shy away. His high-profile meant the big-markets were in play. Trading Miller would bring in the type of players that not only would solidify the team for the near future; it would bring in enough prospects that the financial follies of the previous owners could be undone in the coming years.

Nothing Steve Morris said could sway Madelyn Swanson and Victor Turturro. All his explanation brought was their wrath. It got to the point that they insisted he seek their approval before trading any player above Double-A.

The fact that the media soon learned of his constraints wasn't a surprise. The ever-present vultures seemed to know what was going on in the Dodgers front office as soon as any decision was made.

The others in the front office seemed to agree with the owners and nothing Steve said would change their minds. By early-August, Morris had begun to completely avoid everyone else in the organization. He delegated almost all of his work to his subordinates and pushed their reports to the back section of his desk.

He would spend all of his time culling the waiver wires for anyone who could help the team. He swung a couple of trades for cash that added depth to the pitching staff. He knew if the team faltered this year, it would be because he couldn't bring in a top-line pitcher. He couldn't bring in a top-line pitcher because the owners had refused to let him trade the one player who could facilitate the deal – a player who hadn't even suited up since early June.

Morris' frustration soon spilled over to the other sections of his life.

His wife began to chide him about his drinking habits. She finally got fed up and showed him the door until he got his act straight. By the middle of August, he was living in a hotel room – and drinking more than ever.

Of course the reporters got wind of his marital situation – and immediately speculated that he'd had an affair. The tabloids were ruthless. Steve couldn't leave his suite and talk to a maid without a snippet showing up in the papers or on the web.

He put on a brave face in public. He dutifully answered the questions from the sports writers, regardless of how much he wanted to tell them to go fuck themselves. There was never this much scrutiny when the team was mired in third place. He never had to worry about someone with a camera waiting in the hotel lobby when the team was outside of playoff contention.

That's how the world learned the real reason behind the split. A man with a camera took a picture of him staggering from the hotel bar to the elevator one evening. It was splashed across the internet and the newspapers the next morning.

To Morris, it seemed the world took savage pleasure in reveling in his personal and professional failings. They didn't understand what he was trying to accomplish and no one was interested in allowing him to explain. To the owners and the fans and media, Brock Miller was more than just a second-year player who Morris had rescued from obscurity in Cleveland. Brock Miller was sacrosanct to those people and it didn't make a bit of sense to Morris. They forgot who made Brock Miller. If it weren't for Steve Morris, Miller would be playing in front of 25,000 fans in Cleveland, not in front of 55,000 in Los Angeles.

No, Morris thought, that wasn't even right. The Indians ownership would never have put up with his antics. They would have shipped him back to Buffalo. Only in Los Angeles or New York would the fans come to love a guy like Brock Miller. He would be despised in any other Major League city.

Morris decided his entire life was ruined when he decided he wanted Miller from Cleveland instead of Chavez.

Morris' personal assistant urged him to take some time away from the team to relieve some of the stress he was under. Morris declined. He knew that any sign of weakness would mean the end of his tenure with the team – and probably with any team. He had worked his whole life for this opportunity and he wasn't going to let one player ruin everything.

By the last week in August, Brock was ready to go on a minor league rehab assignment. The problem was that there was no place for him to go. The Rookie and Class A league teams had finished their seasons. Their players were already at home preparing for their Winter League assignments – or preparing for the rest of their lives if baseball was a thing of the past.

The Class AA affiliate in Jacksonville had only three games left and the Class AAA team in Las Vegas had four. Neither team would make their respective playoffs so their season was done. Steve Morris didn't see the value in sending Brock to Des Moines, Iowa, where the Las Vegas team would finish its season, for only four days.

The only other option Steve saw was the send Brock to the team's spring facility in Glendale, Ariz., and to have him play simulated games against whatever minor leaguers he could convince to extend their seasons for a couple of weeks. The team needed to make sure Brock's ankle would hold up under the strain of running the bases and pivoting in the infield or the outfield. They also needed him to work out the soreness that naturally followed any activity after 10 weeks of relative inactivity.

If the team were further ahead in the standings, Steve would have let Brock work his way back into shape at the Major League level. But the Dodgers held only a four-game lead in the division and they played their closest pursuers – the Giants and Rockies – a dozen times in next month. The training staff had tentatively set Brock's return date for Sept. 4th, during an interleague series against Tampa Bay.

But Morris had other problems to overcome before activating him from the 60-day disabled list. The league had three categories an injured player could fall into. There was a seven-day disabled list that was used exclusively for players who sustained any sort of head trauma that might have led to a concussion. MLB had reacted in the same fashion as the NFL and NHL to the latest plague in professional sports – as if concussions and their symptoms hadn't been part of the games since the games began.

There was also a 15-day disabled list. This was for injuries not related to head trauma. The seven- and 15-day DLs let a team remove a player from its 25-man roster (the roster that showed up to the park every day) but not from its 40-man roster (the additional players the team could call upon in reserve but who were playing in the minor leagues). The team could not call up a player from outside of its 40-man roster without first making space for him by sending a player from there through waivers – where any team could put a claim on him and the team would have to let him go for nothing or work out a one-sided deal with the team that claimed him (one-sided because the claiming team held all the cards). The team had the option of rescinding the waiver, but they would be unable to send the player through waivers later in the season.

Removal from the 40-man roster was known as "designating for assignment." Veteran players had the option of immediate free agency if they were designated. All players removed from a 40-man roster had the option of selecting free agency if they went unclaimed on waivers – known as "refusing assignment." Once a player was designated for assignment, the team had 10 days to trade him or release him.

Players on the seven- and 15-day DL could be activated at any time after the time period in question had elapsed from the date they were added to the list.

The 60-day disabled list was for longer-term injuries. The player could not be activated for at least two months after he was placed on the list. The upside was that the team got an exemption on its 40-man roster. The player could be removed without going through waivers.

Morris' problem was the fact that the Dodgers had seen so many injuries that they had used more than 40 players during the season. Betancourt had been put on the 60-day DL to free up a spot for a pitcher. Al had also been put there to open a spot for an outfielder the team had signed in the vain hope he would be able to help the team in the short-term. Brock was put on the 60-day DL when Al was activated so the Dodgers didn't have to release anyone.

The outfielder they had signed hadn't helped in the slightest and was released when Milton returned a few days after Al.

Still, all the slots were filled and there was really no one Morris wanted to remove. The two most obvious candidates were a pair of pitchers in the last weeks of their one-year contracts. But both were with the Major League team and both had solidified a role. The first was a starter who had assumed the last spot in the rotation and had performed well. If the postseason started at the end of August, Morris figured LaCross would select the guy as his third starter.

The second was a relief pitcher who had become the primary set-up man for Zack. The guy pitched the eighth inning of close games the Dodgers led and he had been as lights out as Duffy had been in the ninth.

The guys in the minors were all young players with decent prospects to perform well in the Majors at some point. There was no chance they would make it through waivers but they weren't to the point where they could help the Dodgers immediately. There was also no one injured who could be shifted to the 60-day DL as Morris had done when Al returned. He had spent hours poring over the list and trying to figure out which player to move but he was no closer than he'd been a month earlier.

It was past the trading deadline so the team couldn't even flip one of its minor leaguers to another team for someone similar but who wasn't on the expanded roster.

There was also the problem Jim LaCross faced.

As Brock had predicted at the All-Star Break, there was really no place for him to play. Fred Hartman was not only almost flawless in the field at second base but he had taken to the No. 2 spot in the batting lineup like it was made for him. He had raised his average from .260 in early July to .277 at the end of August.

The same was true of Matt Driesbach at shortstop. He had lost almost 25 pounds during the course of the season and his range at shortstop had increased considerably. He was making plays in the field that he hadn't been able to make since he was 27 years old. He was also hitting better than .300 and had shown a surprising amount of power.

Wade and Josh had each hit more than 30 homers on the year and were neck-and-neck for the team lead in runs batted in. Both were adequate in the field, too. Eddie Cruz had proven to be a capable backup in the middle infield and Broderick Williams had shown signs of progression during his stints backing up on the corners.

The outfield was out of the question. Al Perez and John Milton had both returned to their pre-injury forms at the plate and in the field. In fact, Al's knees were holding up much better than in previous years because he had sat out more than 60 games earlier in the year. Cesar Davis was his usual solid self in right field and Tony DeLeon had proven he was starting material during Al's absence so Jim was working him into the lineup at every opportunity. Like Cruz and Williams, DeLeon could probably start on most of the other teams in the league.

The only place the team needed help was at catcher, where Danys Sanchez had not been able to get his batting average out of the .220s all season, and his backup, Will Courson, was even worse.

Pitcher, where the loss of Joaquin Betancourt and Erik Teeter had forced a rotational shakeup that had every guy pitching two spots ahead of where he should be, was also a problem. But Brock would be of no help at either of the team's trouble spots.

The team had good chemistry on the field and in the clubhouse. Morris knew LaCross would get Brock back in the lineup as soon as he was activated. It was LaCross' philosophy that a player didn't lose his starting spot because of injury. The problem was that Miller had no real spot before he was hurt. Steve worried that altering the lineup would cause the team to lose the momentum it had gained in the 70 games since Brock was injured. The team had gone from five games back to four games ahead in that span. Steve hoped LaCross would bear in mind that Miller had contributed nothing on the field during the team's re-emergence. He was certain the manager would show up in his office insisting that Brock be activated as soon as he was in shape.

Morris found himself hoping for a slight setback in the kid's recovery – nothing serious, just enough to keep him out for the rest of the year so the GM wouldn't have to lose anyone that currently resided on his team's expanded roster. At least six players would file for free agency after the World Series and that would create all the space Steve needed.

Brock was disappointed to learn that the house he owned along with Meredith and Randi in Arizona was being rented to a player from the Arizona Cardinals' football team. That meant at least 10 days in a hotel room – and the possibility of running into one of the few fans of the Arizona Diamondbacks.

The feud between the Dodgers and Diamondbacks hadn't lessened, despite the fact that Arizona had settled back into its customary also-ran status in the division. A week before Brock went on his rehab assignment, Carter Repling had tried the same stunt on Fred Hartman as he tried earlier in the season. That is, he didn't slide or move out of the base path during a double play even though he was out at second by 20 feet. The first time, Fred had moved to his right and thrown around him, making the play at first base much closer than it should have been.

This time Fred had drilled the Arizona second baseman right between the Z and O on the jersey the base runner wore. To add insult to the injury, the first base umpire ruled that Repling had intentionally obstructed the fielder and ruled the runner out at first base anyway. Repling had missed the following two games in the series with a bruised chest. It also meant Fred Hartman was plunked by the Diamondbacks pitcher during his first at bat the next day.

Fred knew it was coming and prepared himself for a fastball in the ribs. Instead, the pitcher, perhaps unhappy about his orders, threw an 80 mile per hour curve that hit Fred in the butt. Fred trotted to first base and the Dodgers players stood down from the dugout steps. They saw no reason to charge the mound to confront a pitcher who had followed his instructions from upon high in the least offensive manner possible.

In fact, the pitcher turned to the Dodgers' dugout as Fred headed to first and spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness, as if to say, "I didn't like that any more than you did".

The umpire didn't even toss him from the game but instead issued a warning to both benches. The Dodgers didn't retaliate and the game went on without a hitch. The only one who suffered was the pitcher, who was demoted to Class AAA following the game.

Still, tensions were high and Cynthia Lu had insisted that Brock have a member of the team's security force with him during his time in Arizona. Meredith reluctantly agreed to stay behind in Los Angeles. She didn't like to be away from Brock for 10 or 14 days but she understood the need for security as well as anyone.

The team's Spring Training facility had been the home of the team's Rookie League team and would host its Arizona Fall League team, so the fields were in good shape. Some of the lower-level minor leaguers agreed to come to Arizona to help out – including Ryan Radabaugh, who would have been there even if the team wasn't paying his way.

Ryan's performance in High-A hadn't been astounding but he had played well. His batting average was a little lower than the Dodgers would have liked but it had risen as the season progressed and he got used to the transition from the aluminum bats used in college to the wooden bats used in the pros.

Fred Hartman had his bat supplier ship a bunch of the same type he found comfortable to Bakersfield for Ryan to try. They were of similar builds and had similar batting styles. Ryan had initially thought the lighter-weight bats would lessen his already minimal power but instead found it increased his bat speed enough to use the power alleys in left-center and right-center fields. He still would never be a home run hitter but he was a threat to do more than hit a looper between the infield and the outfield now.

He had performed well enough at High-A – a year ahead of schedule – that Steve Morris had been able to use the guy Ryan replaced as bait when the trade deadline rolled around. The player Steve got for him was now an integral part of the Dodgers bullpen and was 2-0 as a spot starter.

Brock had thrown from a sitting position during most of the time he was on crutches, so his arm was fine. He had also spent a great deal of time in the exercise room with Meredith or the personal trainer she had found for him. Outside of a little stiffness the morning after his first simulated game, Brock felt fine.