Base Ball: Coming to the Show

By Teri Riendeau Crane

Ten years in the minor leagues and finally called to the Majors. In nine chapters he connects his trip around the bases and what happens in the present, to stories from his past. Baseball is the dance of life where patience often becomes the possible. A book for those who love baseball and admire the tenacity of people who stay true to their dreams.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Teri Riendeau Crane
• Release date: Mar 7, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301943432

Teri Riendeau Crane

Native Southern Californian, writer, educator, marriage and family therapist. And more : )

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Base Ball: Coming to the Show

By Teri Riendeau Crane

Copyright 2013 Teri Riendeau Crane

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1 On the bench

The Show. Finally, I’m here. Riding splintered benches for the last ten years on minor league circuits, my ass immediately feels the difference. Though still wooden, the splinters and chips of paint on the minor league benches replaced by swirling eyes and waves of stained natural design on major league benches. Here I feel no pinches and pokes of splintered wood when I squirm while awaiting my turn to bat. No tobacco juice painted in splotches onto the cement floor here. No stalactite loogies. All around, visual perfection, like The Show.

Ten years. I worked hard. Coaches wanted me to run, try to steal that base when I knew the catcher had a rifle arm and my knee had reminded me to take it easy that day? I looked at the sign, focused on the pitcher and ran, sliding head first or feet first, whacking my body hard. I listened for, yer, ouuuut! Or, Safe! The ‘out’ always long and drawn out, drawled even. The ‘safe’ a crisp exclamation point. I stood, dusted myself off, shook the dirt out of my pants (avoiding the chaffing and grating) adjusted my cup and, if the benevolent gods prevailed, I kicked the base and took a lead off. If not, I trotted back to the dugout, arms perpendicular to the ground, fists clinched indicated my disdain. Never questioned what I was asked to do.

A team player. Always. Sacrifice bunt? Hell, no, I thought. The possibility of the long ball over the fence, clearing the field as the outfielders followed it helplessly, gone. But, I inhaled deeply and squared the bat around. No second guessing the coaches. Except in my mind, what were those idiots thinking? When you have someone with a .337 average at the plate, why ask him to bunt? Oh, yah, man on first, no outs. We’re down. Move the runner. No double plays, no short flies, no pop ups. They knew me. That’s the .663 part of the average. Had to go with the odds in baseball. Like the odds of me coming to The Show.

When I graduated from high school I was drafted in the third round. I had mad talent. I ran like a wind aided track star. I threw a ball with speed, had a wicked change up and a nice slow curve that floated like a hang glider landing in a field under perfect conditions. Plus, and now here’s a big plus, I could hit. Fast balls, curves, change ups. Not too many sliders in high school, but the few I saw I slammed. I carried the inflated average that most star high school athletes haul around, before college hits and down it’s knocked several notches--evened out more if those players are lucky enough to end up in the minors. Double A, Triple A, A, no matter. Like a winnowing machine, the averages settled out by the majors, with an incredibly selective group of guys.

My parents, who attended nearly every game I ever played from Little League through American Legion Ball to traveling teams, kept my head straight when I was offered what I thought was an incredible signing bonus. Hell, I just wanted to get a car so I could impress my dates. That was my goal. A car. My parents advised me differently. College, they said, was a necessity. I’d want to start a family, need a real job. A real job? To me that meant baseball.

But, they won out and I negotiated college into my draft bonus. The team agreed to watch me develop, if I religiously attended their baseball camp every summer where the guys who were rehabbing from major league trauma and bumps and bruises of aging scooted me along. My development at those camps helped my college game as well and the scouts kept coming by, even though I was pledged to that one team. I can’t really say who because I signed a secrecy oath to discourage other players for clamoring for this kind of coddling. I also promised if I ever wrote about my baseball life to never name the team out of respect for how much they went above and beyond to help me. We had a sweet deal, bolstered by the fact that my father generously gave large donations to the charities the club endorsed. Anonymously of course, between him, his tax man, and the US Government. My father’s slaughterhouse and meat packing company had four great years when I was in college. There was a lot at stake on both sides. So, I’ll stay mum, although you may have your suspicions.

My initial post high school choice was practical-- an agricultural college to learn theory to complete my real world knowledge of raising animals for food. I grew up around feed lots and ranges as well as the slaughterhouse. I observed the animals out in the pasture munching and fattening up. Seemed idyllic, they didn’t know what was to come next. I drove with my dad, bouncing along in the shotgun seat, as he counseled ranchers to deal with range cattle mostly, although sometimes he consulted with hog farmers as well. He helped with a few straight feed lots. Those were the saddest to me. He did not deal in chickens. Chickens, he said, were complicated. They could be layers or raised to have their heads chopped off and be sold for meat. Slaughtering sounded ruthless. I thought that chickens were not slaughtered, but merely killed, a more gentle approach to snuffing out life. I watched chickens killed on neighbors’ farms, the headless bird running, wings flapping, helter skelter purposeless movement until it dropped. Kind of put me off eating chicken for a while. I entertained no thoughts of being around mass murders of them. In some ways slaughtering was more distant than killing, dropping bombs instead of hand to hand combat. I understood my father’s reluctance to deal with chickens.

The bigger animals, the ones that my father’s business helped to bridge the life/death experience, I wanted to learn more about theoretically. Seeing them lining up, heads craning back, popping up, wild eyes peering around the buttox in front of them, when I knew what awaited, was not as jarring to me as I thought. My father never let me actually watch their demise. I wanted to learn about the living side of them, not the hint of dying side. But, my father said that if I wanted to attend agricultural college, I may as well just follow in his footsteps, be involved in the dying. I told him I didn’t want to deal in the dark side beyond the doors I never passed. So, he suggested I find a college that offered a scholarship for baseball, one that fielded a contending baseball team. He suggested I major in something far away from slaughtering. That’s how I ended up in the desert studying psychology.

My other choice was English lit. But, English Lit, although contributing, didn’t lead directly to where I am now. I knew that then. Psychology, was my ticket. Psychology and the fact I could run fast, hit, and field a ball. Although all of those didn’t come together until this one year, ten years after I languished on the A circuit, where the money trickled, the cities grew out in the middle of nowhere, and the fickle fans loved you one minute, heckled you the next. I tried to stay on the love side of the fans no matter where I went.

As I sat here now observing, I noticed the manager talking to the coach and looking over my way. I shifted my ass on the bench without the splinters. Nice. I stared through the rail of the dugout out onto the field. The wind whisped a bit of Kleenex and swirled it in front of the dugout. I glanced at the scoreboard. We were down. Seventh inning. At least we kept it close. Their pitcher had his count way up. Over 100. Almost time for them to access the bullpen. Such an iffy bullpen. Sometimes the situational left hander did his job, sometimes not. Kind of early for the set up man. I know they were milking their starter. He still looked strong, but he was behind in the count on all the batters last inning so I knew he was tiring. I brought my focus back to the game although still wondering if this would be the one where I’d finally step up to the plate. Riding the pine in The Show was exhilarating, but I sat now for four games since I got the call up. Here, after my ego was stroked with the call up, I was still not accustomed to sitting at the end of the dugout, down where the reserves sat, waiting to move up the bench, waiting to sit with the regular players. In the minors, I always sat near the steps with the regulars because I was a regular.

I never appreciated the social status of the bench really. When I was in college, even when I came as a freshman, I sat near the regular players. I played often, not every day, but enough that I sat next to the guys. I was one of them. Pretty much. I never looked down to the end of the bench away from the plate. I never noticed the players down there with their hungry eyes and down turned smiles. I never wished I was anywhere but where I was. Hell, I was a freshman. To be playing at all was a bonus. I thought I’d be sitting a lot. I didn’t. After freshman year, when the Seniors graduated and left for the Bigs, even though they were sent to the minors, I was one of the top ten on the bench. I started most every game.

In high school I was a pitcher and a short stop. That’s the way I played all the way through ball, from t-ball up to traveling teams. The best guys were always pitchers and shortstops. But when I got to college, I had to make a choice. They had to make a choice for me. My fast ball was just not speedy enough on the gun. My curve didn’t have too much pop when it came to pitching to athletes who were all mostly my caliber. So, I assumed I’d stay as the short stop. I had depth, I had range, I could scoop and dive and launch the ball to first ahead of all but the speediest runners from deep in the hole. But, that desert team had a great shortstop, and he didn’t leave when all of the other seniors did, he was only a sophomore. That’s when my second conversion began. Really my third, but I’m not talking about religion, yet. Maybe later on if I get into the game, if I get on base, if I get a chance to talk about my relationship with the One Who Is. Maybe then I’ll talk about my conversion, but for now, it’s all about that other change that occurred in college. Transition from high school pitcher to back up college short stop. And then someone had a great idea that I had speed and range and an arm, and just that year that desert team needed a center fielder. They wanted to play me every game mostly because I had a hot bat, and I couldn’t play every game at shortstop because of that short stop whose offense was the key to the infield. They wanted me to play every game. I wanted to play every game. I became an outfielder. Always a team player. Put me in coach.

I never thought much of outfielders before I converted. They were the guys who stood out there scratching their crotches while the rest of us played the game. They always looked bored in Little League. Right fielders were the you gets of the team. If you got assigned right field it was because you just weren’t very good. Few hits to right field because there were few left handed hitters. Of course that changed and the teams got better and better on the way up the ladder. And by high school ball, the right fielders were no longer the you gets of the team but a bonafide outfielder, a needed player for all of those switch hitters and natural lefties that peppered the sport.

I came quickly to admire outfielders. Especially center fielders. There was a lot of territory to cover out there, playing not only the middle field position but backing up second after the shortstop and covering the asses of the left and right fielders when they went chasing down balls, especially in the corner. I came to value being in the outfield. It was often quiet and I could pay attention to the feel of the grass and the breezes. I could think between pitching changes and batting changes. But I learned to be business plus when a batter came to the plate. I was ready to move at the crack of the bat. Where was the ball? In the air, on the ground? Any place I can reach it, touch it, get an out, help out? I felt like I was standing guard, like a lifeguard when everyone was swimming.

I could be more theatrical in center field. I could do a rolling dive. I could climb the wall. I could leap, I could bound, I could dive, slide. Outfield is where I could spread my wings. There was a lot to learn about that position. And over the years through college and minor league ball, I did.

Turns out there were plenty of center fielders waiting in line to be called up in the minors and I had to wait and wait. Just when I thought I had myself positioned, my stats would tweak downward. Or, there were a few times when a trade would come through, a hungry trade