Chapter 13

I wanted to get to the ballpark early as I had a couple of questions for the equipment guys; questions like if I'm supposed to carry my gloves in my luggage, or if they keep them together for us, and if I need to take stuff like my cup or shoes?

I saw that my gloves were gone when I looked into my locker, as were both my cups and my regular tennis shoes, along with two pairs of my spikes. I noticed that socks and workout clothes were also missing, so they must come through and take part of your locker with them.

One of the equipment men saw me staring, and said, "We begin packing as soon as you guys are out of here after the game before a trip. We put each player's equipment into a separate container with his name on it. We tape your name over a locker when we unpack in the visiting club's locker room, and have your equipment container there for you. Your gloves are on top so they stay in shape. Some guys wrap theirs around a ball. We take them the way you leave them.

All of my questions were answered before I asked them, so I walked back out to where the buses were parked and gave my suitcase to the driver. I had a small computer bag containing my notepad and ultra-light laptop. That gave me music or video for entertainment, and my laptop to send and receive e-mails from friends and family. I read books off my pad, and would enjoy having time to read for a change. I was either busy at the park or loving with the girls at home. I wondered when they would begin looking for a teaching position, but I really didn't care if they did as I had them full time when I wasn't at the park. That would be an adjustment when the time came. I also wondered about how quickly they would act to remodel the two units for our expanded condo.

My excitement grew as the bus began filling with players who seemed a little lethargic. I suppose most of them were used to sleeping late every day and were usually not up yet. I liked to get up early and take a nap in the afternoon to be fresh for an evening game. I also preferred to go to bed as early as possible, and didn't care to go barhopping to chase strange women. It bothered me to see guys who have loving wives out chasing women while on the road. We had nice private rooms as major league players, so we could get into mischief without advertising it, but I would know and would rather wait for the fun at home.

The airplane was nice, and each player was given a first class seat or only two men shared three seats. This airplane had one side with only double seats, so a single player sat on that side, and two men sat on the side with three seats. The equipment people, trainers, and some front office types packed in two and three across, but the Manager and coaches were seated in the first class section with some of the other team VIPs. You would sit up there with the big shots if you were to be interviewed by a coach, but you sat in the back otherwise.

I was directed to sit on the two seat side, so I got comfortable and opened my bag to read a book that I had started. I'm sure there would be some conversations and card games just like the minor league buses, considering that we would be in the air for five hours.

A hostess offered everyone coffee or soft drinks an hour into the flight. I asked about protein drinks, but they didn't have any. I had a bottle of water and sat back to read some more. The plane had been very quiet but the players began to move around within the plane getting into conversations with various others as time got close to noon. Coaches were coming back and talking to players, and trainers were talking to players who were having injury issues.

I talked to Scott, the bullpen catcher and the pitching coach, enroute. Lunch was served, and it was an inflight meal of a small piece of meat, potatoes, and some broccoli. I asked if I could have another meal, but the hostess said they only had enough for everyone to eat a single meal. That wasn't enough food and I figured I'd have to stoke up at the hotel. I would have to consider this or I would be losing weight again. I'd ask the trainers to find out how to keep weight on while continuing to keep the muscle mass up. There have to be other players with the same problem.

I read some more after lunch, then dozed off to be awakened by the hostess asking me to buckle up for landing. It took us a little over five hours to get here, but we picked up three hours. It was only about one in the afternoon when we reached the hotel. Joe told everyone to be ready to go to the ballpark for a light workout in an hour.

I showed up fifteen minutes ahead of time still dressed the same. A lot of players were wearing workout clothes, and Joe had sweats on. I guess I'll have to begin packing workout clothes.

It was easy to change in the locker room where the equipment men already had our stuff in slots or lockers. The pitching coach asked me to loosen up and throw some when we went out so that I could possibly be used in the bullpen tomorrow.

We also did some infield work, and finally used the cages for some batting practice. Hickey let me throw batting practice, but only for about a hundred balls. My hand eye coordination was decent when I batted, and I lobbed balls over first and third, and then was able to connect with a couple. My bunts left something to be desired, but I would work on that. I even told the batting coach, "I need some work and pointers for better bunting. I know we don't do a lot of it, but I want to ready if asked."

The man is always excited to have a player ask for help. He really loves his job and takes pride in players' ability to hit. I figure that if the team is going to pay a guy to teach us to hit better, I was going to use him. Besides that, I needed to follow Coach Earl's teaching to keep learning when I wanted to pound my chest and brag.

A lot of men were going to go to the hotel after practice, change and go out on the town. I wanted to eat with them, but I also wanted to be back at the hotel to get a good night's sleep. I hadn't worked out today, so I felt like I was shirking.

I went with the masses to a very popular restaurant that featured steaks. The place was too fancy, and served really small pieces of meat. The waiter became almost belligerent when I asked for another steak. I finally told him to forget it. That would be the last time I ate there. The other players were drinking, so they ate what was in front of them and had another drink and dessert which weren't on my diet list.

I told those I was with that I was going back to the hotel as I was tired when they were deciding where to go next. They understood and continued to decide how to spend their time.

I asked the driver if he knew of a good steak restaurant as soon as I was in a taxi. He mumbled something and looked at me when I asked him again, and said, "Habla Espanol? No Englash.

I explained to him in Spanish what I wanted. He was all smiles now and drove me to a Latin restaurant that featured steaks. The man even came inside with me and told the waitresses to treat me right. I had a big porterhouse that had to weigh nearly two pounds. They served broccoli and a potato with it, but I didn't eat the potato.

I was very content and happy, so I left a nice tip. The next taxi also had a Latin driving, so I told the man that I wanted to find a grocery store to buy some drinks. He really didn't understand why a grocery store, but took me to one on the way to the hotel. I bought two dozen bottles of protein shakes, and was back out in less than five minutes while the meter ticked.

I took the grocery bag up to my room and stored some of the shakes in the fridge they had. The little fridge was filled with various beers and sodas, but nothing for me.

It was still early, so I decided to explore the hotel. They had a beautiful half-indoor, half-outdoor pool, separated by some kind of acrylic window that went below the water line. You could begin swimming inside, go under the partition, and swim outside too; cute.

The place had shops that sold just about everything a traveler could want. They had some high end clothes shops that I'm sure charged twice the going rate for their clothes. You willingly paid the high price if you needed them, of course.

I saw four separate bars, and a restaurant with another bar. I guess drinking was the favored method of spending your idle time. I went to the gym they had after asking where it was. The huge room was nice, with a couple of tanning booths, a steam room, a sauna, and a nice lap pool. I had never seen one of these and thought I might try it. I didn't have a swimsuit but that was easy to remedy. That it had men's and women's locker rooms made the gym a first class place to work out.

The thought of needing to work out had me going back to my room, changing into workout clothes, and going back to the gym to do my routine. Andrew Friedman came in while I was working out. He smiled and said, "You're exactly who I expected to find in here. I'm going to run in the morning. Do you want to run with me? How about we start at six local time and run for an hour to check out what's around?"

"Thanks, I was planning on running. It's always more fun to run with someone. I'll meet you at six o'clock. Check out the lap pool. This is a fancy gym for a hotel."

"This is one of the better gyms you'll see, but we stay in good hotels so you'll see some nice accommodations."

I told Andy I would see him in the lobby in the morning after finishing my weights.

It was about ten at home, so I called to see how the girls were doing. They told me that my mom had gone home, and had taken the other moms' boy toy with her to give him a ride. The other two moms, Sandy and Sheryl, had moved from the pink hotel to our place to enjoy the beach for a few days. The girls told me the two cougar 'wannabes' were out trolling right then, but they were sure they would come home alone.

Sherry told me, "We visited with the architect before your mom left to finalize what we wanted to do with the other unit. The condo management came by with your owner's package for the new unit. They said your attorney had taken care of the business stuff, and all we needed to do was our construction work."

Your mom got into the mood and had us do a few changes, like having each of the three new bedrooms with their own private bath. We did arrange for one bath to be accessible from the living room and kitchen area like the second bath in our place. The architect said the floor plan was like a giant great room, with the kitchen built between the two entrance doors. We're going to have a huge kitchen, but then food is important and you like to cook. The condo people are sending a contractor to look at the plans and they are also recommended by the architect. Should we tell him to go ahead if we like him?"

"Get it done. The faster he starts, the sooner the mess will be over with. You'll probably want the same interior decorators to help with the furnishings, so find the one we used before and get their opinions. I've set money aside for the construction and decorating, so get it done. What's nice is that I think the whole thing will be under what my bonus investments brought in. I hardly used any of my salary last year, and I'll have a lot more to spend and to eat on this year. I get almost a hundred a day for food while we're on the road. Even I can't eat that much steak."

The two girls laughed at that. I told them to enjoy the remodeling and to take pictures for a scrapbook.

I finished the call by asking if they were looking into any schools to teach. Sherry said, "We're going to talk to the school district HR people tomorrow morning. Jeannie and I have to decide what we want to do, because we might want to travel and play during the off season. We're meeting with the players' wives and girlfriends for a luncheon on Wednesday, and find out about promoting you, meaning how to promote your image in the area. They said we would be instrumental in getting endorsements and will give us some places to try for some. We might be more valuable doing that than teaching right now if we do it right. We can always teach. We would have something to fall back on if you were to get out of baseball."

That told me the girls had been thinking about what they were going to do. I'll bet they already have some kind of plan. It will be fun to watch.

I read for a while, and then fell asleep, with the TV on, before ten o'clock local time.

Andrew entered the elevator one floor beneath mine as I was going down to the lobby. He was all smiles and anxious to run this morning. We stretched out behind the hotel and discussed what direction to go in. He said there was a park he rode by in a taxi that was about a mile or so away. That would be our objective this morning as we began walking, then jogging before breaking into a run.

We chatted the whole way once our breathing was under control. He asked about the building I lived in and I told him that there was still one more first floor place available, and probably ten or fifteen upper floor condos. We discussed why I like the first floor, and he said that he thought 'why not have direct access' as long as you're living on the beach. He said he might come out to look since Silverman already lived in the building.

I told Andrew, "The man has one of the big condos on the upper floors. His place is probably twice the size of my original unit." Andrew asked what I meant by my original unit and told him about the girls wanting to buy the unit next door to have one big unit. I told him that I'll have him over when the dust clears. I also said that we could shoot some pool because one of the things that I wanted was a pool table.

"Nice, Matt. I'd like one of those too. Are the single units big enough for a table?"

"You bet, if you don't want a huge living room. My original unit was already built out when I bought it. They were using it as a model, but the other unit isn't built out at all yet, and the available one probably isn't built out either. I like big kitchens, and you may not want that. You can design the place how you want it."

"I'm definitely coming out to look at the condo. I'm worried about flooding, but like you said, the building would still be there and furniture can be replaced."

We both showered and changed after our run before meeting for breakfast in the restaurant. Joe and the coaches were at a table, and I asked them, "Can we get into the stadium early to use the batting cages and run the field?"

Jim Hickey said, "Spoken like a rookie. Yeah, you can get in early. The equipment guys will be there, and they can show you where the cages are. Find Scott and go through your pitches so that you can be ready if we need you to relieve tonight. Joe said I can steal you if I really think I need you. I think I do, because Gomes and Peralta are both feeling a bit off the last day or two. I know you call the bullpen the 'social club' but you may need to be there tonight."