Cream and Sugar - Part One

“… the Portland Geoducks will be without their star catcher, Jake Reynolds, for a couple of weeks. Both he and his understudy, Alejandro Escobar, were placed on the 15-day DL after sustaining injuries in a brawl during yesterday’s game with their team’s longtime bitter rivals, the Vancouver Eagles. The team expects both to return healthy after their short stint on the disabled list…”

“Could you turn that off, please?” Greg asked.

His cabby sighed but complied with the request, switching off the radio and allowing Greg to enjoy the ride in peace. The news he had just heard didn’t come as a surprise; he had observed the brawl on TV with his own eyes, watching with a combination of concern and guilty longing as Reynolds and Escobar, both clearly in considerable pain, were lead off of the field.

He wasn’t sure how to feel when he later found out that both catchers were injured and would miss time. Everything he had learned about sportsmanship had told him that he should be remorseful for his colleagues and pray for a speedy recovery. That’s exactly what he tried to convey when he received calls from his teammates who had seen the game also. Each of them seemed reading from the same script when they spoke, going on about what a shame it was and how screwed the team would be without Reynolds.

But you know, they would swing the conversation, with Escobar out too, they might give you a shot at the big time. Greg would chuckle and hem and haw, always giving them some variation of we’ll have to see what happens. He could only hope that his feigned indifference covered up the fact that he hadn’t been this excited about baseball since Little League, and that he was inwardly profusely thanking whatever force was at work for him that both catchers were hurt on the same day. With any luck, he didn’t sound too eager when, later that evening, he finally received the call from his coach, who proudly told Greg that the Geoducks had decided to temporarily promote him to the majors and that he needed to be on the first flight out to Portland the next morning.

For five years Greg had played catcher for the Riverton Barons, the Geoducks’ Triple-A affiliate. Whenever he wasn’t playing, he was at home watching intently as Jake Reynolds had one All-Star season after another. On the bench, there’d always be an able backup to spell Reynolds whenever he needed a day off, a Latino import with a capable arm and a decent bat that’d play for slightly above the league minimum. And in the meantime, Greg toiled away in organizational hell, a seemingly permanent fixture on a forgotten little minor league team stranded in the nondescript nothingness of the Midwest.

Greg had been drafted by the organization right out of high school, beginning his furious tear through the team’s ranks before the ink on his diploma had dried. Over the course of two years, his life consisted of nothing but baseball, playing everywhere from the rickety run-down parks of the Appalachians to the sun-bleached fields of Hawaii, feasting on the raw untamed pitching and the twitchy, inept baserunners of the lower leagues. His confidence grew with every sloppy, fat curveball he laced over a crudely-painted wooden wall, every wide-eyed youngster he gunned down for having the nerve to try and steal a base on his watch.

He arrived in Riverton sure that he wouldn’t be spending more than half the season there. After all, the Geoducks had been doing nothing but hole plugging at the catcher position for years, signing whatever free agent they could get on the cheap. Greg would dominate at this level the same way he had in every league he had ever played in and be in Portland just in time for the All-Star break. Good thing, too, since Riverton was the most depressing place he had played since short-season.

The stadium had been built in an earlier era, a time in the city’s history when industry was the booming lifeblood of the community. It rose up out of an abandoned concrete tomb, surrounded by shells of deserted factories and workhouses, great ugly boxes of rotting metal and broken glass. A shambling wreck of a ballpark, crafted of warped wood and crumbling brick, ancient and unloved.

The outer structure barely contained the expanse of metal chairs within, the washed-out paint crusty and chipping from each and every seat. Its field was nothing more than a triangle of swampy mahogany mud surrounded by an unkempt tract of dying grass and weeds. Just beyond the center field wall, balanced on raw, exposed steel pipes, stood the scoreboard, a half-functioning electric rectangle littered with broken bulbs, so dim that the sun overpowered its meager light during day games. Greg was able to put up with the disheartening surroundings at the time, confident that it wouldn’t be too long before he’d be playing in a real stadium cheered on by tens of thousands of good honest baseball fans.

Days turned to weeks turned to months grinding away in that desolate environment, his effortless grace and talent replaced by an awkward, bumbling mediocrity that took hold on opening day and steadfastly refused to let him go. Greg initially tried to rationalize it as a slump, a temporary adjustment period to the sharper pitchers and quicker, stealthier runners of Triple-A. It wasn’t until halfway through July that he realized he wasn’t just in the midst of some passing funk. He was playing as well as he was able and it just wasn’t good enough.

It took countless whiffs at brutally sharp sliders and devilishly deceptive change-ups before he finally understood just how devastating even a watered-down version of major league pitching could be. And when he was behind the plate, it seemed as though every prospective basestealer was halfway to second before he could even get out of his crouch, their speed and finesse leagues beyond what he had experienced in the lower classes. Greg was sure that with enough time he could adapt, learn to see a 12-to-6 curveball as it came out of a pitcher’s hand, strengthen his arm to the point that he could gun down Wally West himself if he was taking off for second. But the Geoducks were in the midst of the tightest pennant race in years. They needed production at the catcher position and they needed it now.

Greg was stretched out on his couch when he found out about the trade, his legs elevated, bulging bags of ice strapped tightly to his knees. He was drifting off into a much-needed nap when the excited yammerings of the sports news program playing on the television snapped him to attention. His brow furrowed, Greg slowly pulled himself into an upright position as the breaking news splayed across the screen, detailing in bold bright text how the Geoducks had just traded for star catcher Jake Reynolds. Two empty suits on the screen began to bicker about the merits of the deal as Jake’s brain struggled to process what he had just heard, his entire body growing as cold as the ice that chilled his knees.

It was on that day that baseball became a job for Greg and stopped being the fulfillment of a dream. He went to the ballpark, put in his time, and came home. Road games were nothing more than a business trip, an extended annoyance in an anonymous city miles and miles away from his warm, familiar bed. With Reynolds locked up for years to come, Greg resigned himself to making Riverton his permanent home.

And after a while, he had actually grown to accept that. He was twenty-five now, too old to be considered a prospect any longer. With each day, it looked more and more likely that he had fallen short of his ultimate goal. But he strived to never become one of those bitter never-weres, constantly pining for what could have been, obsessed with thoughts of redemption and entitlement. At the end of the day, he got to play baseball for a living. Not a bad deal.

But as much as he tried to hide it, ever since he received the call from his coach a childish giddiness boiled within him, his calm demeanor a front for the jubilant little boy on his way to achieve his dream. His mind was filled with thoughts of playing on that shining, immaculate field alongside the champions of the sport, idols that he had watched with abject admiration for years. Greg grinned as he imagined himself meeting some of the Geoducks’ veterans with the irritating excitability of a rookie, tripping over words as he fumbled through uncomfortable introductions and sweaty-palmed handshakes.

So there he was, in the backseat of a cab speeding towards GenCorp Park, the recently constructed taxpayer-funded monument to baseball proudly set smack in the middle of downtown Portland. From the freeway Greg could see the stadium rising out of the horizon, his eyes widening as they took in the grand coliseum of flawless glinting steel, adorned on all sides with gigantic, dramatic images of the Geoducks in action. He couldn’t help but smile as the cab approached the park, realizing that by the evening it would be teeming with life, packed with fans hanging on his every action.

The cab pulled up to a concealed entrance in the back of the stadium, manned by a single security guard standing in front of an imposing metal gate. Greg hopped out of the car, paid the cabbie and strode towards the gate with his eyes cast skyward, taking in the skyscraping tips of the upper deck like an awestruck tourist. He introduced himself to the guard, who, upon confirming Greg’s identity, opened the gate for him. With a whine and a prolonged cringe-inducing squeak, the fence slowly retreated and allowed Greg passage into the stadium. He cautiously stepped beyond the barrier and into the park’s outer sanctum, pulling open and entering the nondescript metal door that promised entry into the inner workings of the park.

The interior was surprisingly plain, the walls almost completely white save for pinstripes in team green and black that split the surface exactly in half. Greg quietly made his way down the hall, glancing at the framed images of the Geoducks’ most celebrated moments that flanked him on both sides. Nearly tiptoeing, he moved through the stadium’s seemingly uninhabited inner workings and eventually reached the appropriate door, giving it a gentle rap so as to not offend whoever might be on the other side.

“Come in.” replied a distracted voice from within.

Greg took a deep breath and pushed the door open. Sitting in the back of the room was a portly, whiskery middle-aged man, dressed in a worn polo shirt, his glasses precariously balanced on the bridge of his nose. One hand furiously scribbled away at some sort of paperwork while the other held his head aloft, weighing so heavy on his palm that it looked as though it might fall clean off of his neck without support.

Having never seen him out of uniform, it took Greg a second to realize that the man before him was Coach McKenzie. He cocked his head slightly, finding it hard to believe that the man who projected such an air of authority and confidence on television could give the appearance of a disheveled, overworked accountant in person. Suddenly, Coach McKenzie looked up, put down his pen, and motioned towards a chair in front of his desk.

“Greg, right? Have a seat.” He instructed in a businesslike tone. He took the glasses off his face and folded them on his desk as Greg quickly sat down, an accommodating smile on his face. With a heavy sigh, the coach sat back in his chair, laid his interlocked hands on his protruding stomach, and locked eyes with Greg.

“You must be pretty excited.” He finally said, his expression impassive and unblinking. Greg cleared his throat and widened his smile before answering.

“Absolutely.” Greg said. “I’ve been - ”

“Glad to hear it.” the coach interrupted. Greg raised an eyebrow as McKenzie sat up and began shuffling through the sea of papers strewn haphazardly about his desk. “I’m sure you’re familiar with Mike Mancini, our third string catcher. He’ll be starting while Reynolds and Escobar are on the DL.”

Greg’s smile soured. Mancini was an unremarkable journeyman, a warm body meant to fill a spot on the batting order and to put behind the plate just to let baserunners know that they weren’t entirely conceding second base. A perennial non-roster invitee that some team would inevitably pick up for the sole purpose of having a third catcher on the roster in case of emergencies. The fact that the only reason Greg was even sitting there was due to just such an emergency escaped him for the moment as he tried his best to put on a gracious face before McKenzie could look up and see his disappointment.

“Here we go.” the coach found the one piece of paper he needed and handed it to Greg. “You’ve got a reservation at the hotel across the street. Get back here for practice by four. Any questions?”

“…no, coach.” Greg mumbled. “Thanks.”

“Mmm hmm.”

And with that, McKenzie put his glasses back on and returned to whatever it was he had been working on. After taking a second to accept that the conversation was truly over, Greg stood and left the office, closing the door softly behind him. As he headed towards the exit, Greg could feel the excitement that coursed through his body mere minutes ago rapidly disappear, replaced with a defeated, crushing resentment. I shoulda known, he thought to himself. I’m here as nothing more than an insurance policy in case the real major leaguer goes down. The absolute last resort.

It’s gonna be a long two weeks.

*

Later that day, Greg found himself in the Geoducks’ locker room, surrounded by ballplayers in various states of undress. His locker was distinguished as his own only by a piece of scotch tape inattentively glued to the top of the frame, his first initial and last name scribbled on it in magic marker almost as an afterthought. The cubby was empty save for the uniform pants and jersey that hung from the rack, perfectly clean, the immaculate white fabric almost glowing under the locker room’s harsh fluorescent light. Greg was heartened somewhat at seeing REYNOLDS splayed across the shoulders of the jersey in a delicate curve, but the feeling quickly vanished when he saw the number they had given him. 96. The kind of symbol they assigned to kids in spring training who had no shot of making the team. With a sigh, he tossed his bag into the locker and started to change, figuring he could at least put on the façade of being an actual member of the squad.

“Yo, kid!”

Greg looked up to see a squat, barrel-chested man enter the room, dressed in jeans and a plain white t-shirt and walking with the unmistakable gait of a lifetime catcher. Christ, Greg thought, I didn’t think Mancini was that short. For a moment, Greg entertained the thought of diving at Mike’s knees and making like he had tripped, figuring that they couldn’t be more than one good knock from blowing out completely. He considered just how convincing his acting ability was when Mike came up to him and extended his hand with a cheek-splitting grin on his face.

“You must be Greg.” Mike said as he took Greg’s hand in a palm-crushing handshake. “I’m Mike. Welcome aboard.”

“Good to meet you.” Greg smiled and tried his best not to wince under the increasingly painful grip. He was just about to crack when Mike finally released his hand, whistling and crossing his arms as he looked Greg up and down.

“Lookin’ sharp, champ. You could pass for a real major leaguer.” Mike said, speaking to Greg as though he were a child playing dress-up. “Just keep your eyes on me and you’ll be alright, kid. I’m too old to play two weeks straight, so I’m sure you’ll be starting sometime. God help us all.”

Mike roared with laughter at his own joke and gave his new teammate a rough slap on the shoulder, struggling to regain his composure while Greg considered the best angle at which to dive at his legs.

“Ahhh, you’ll be okay.” Mike sighed. “See you out on the field, slugger.”

With that, Mike headed towards his own locker, stopping to raucously greet a few of his colleagues on the way. Greg scowled and quickly changed into uniform, cursing under his breath as he grabbed his gear and headed for the field. Angled light poured through the hallway, growing in intensity as he approached the doorway to the outside. He climbed the tiny flight of stairs and just like that, Greg was in the dugout. In an instant, his scowl melted into a fool’s grin, his spirit lifted as his eyes roamed over that virginal field. Its colors seemed to burst from the ground, solid and shining as though the elements had been painted onto the earth, the life’s work of some great Renaissance master.

“Hey, kid.”

Annoyed, Greg reluctantly left his daydream to pay attention to some other smarmy ballplayer referring to him with an annoying term of endearment. He turned to see someone sitting on the end of the bench, looking at Greg, his sky blue irises glowing through the weathered face into which they were set. Greg’s eyes widened as he recognized the man before him as Roy Colton, anchor of the Geoducks’ rotation and the craftiest of the crafty old lefties. Greg had never thought he’d see the man in person – he was on the other side of forty now and had been rumored to be considering retirement for years. But every season he would stubbornly show up on opening day, retiring batters at just as efficient a clip as he did ten years ago, relying on nothing more than maddening guile and boundless experience to do so.

With just a hint of a smile on his face, Roy pushed himself off of the bench and climbed onto the field, glove in hand.

“C’mon, help me warm up.” he called back as he ambled out towards left field at a leisurely pace. Greg took a minute to convince himself that he had actually just heard Roy say that before practically leaping up out of the dugout and rushing to his side. They walked in silence for a few moments as Greg searched furiously for the first thing he would ever say to the future Hall of Famer.

“Shouldn’t you be throwing with Mike? He’s the one starting today.” He finally blurted out, immediately wishing afterwards that he could slap his own forehead without appearing insane. Roy simply chuckled and shook his head slightly.

“Nah, that windbag won’t be ready for another half an hour at least.” he said. “He’s gotta go around and annoy everybody on the team before he even changes into uniform.”

Greg snickered as the feelings of anxiety and tension faded away, relieved and unendingly grateful that he had finally found someone who hadn’t treated him as a joke. He and Roy chatted amiably as they headed for the bullpen out beyond the left field wall, the back of which bumped up against the stadium’s exterior plaza. Fans already milled about outside and dozens lined and hung over the wall that separated the pen from the civilian world. They applauded and shouted generic words of encouragement in Roy’s direction as he and Greg entered, to which Roy responded by acting as though they didn’t even exist.

“Don’t make eye contact.” Roy suddenly said in a muted tone, as though advising Greg on how to deal with a rabid dog. “If you do, they won’t you leave you alone and we won’t be able to get any work done.”

He looked at Roy, incredulous, but the solemn expression on his face assured Greg that he wasn’t joking. Greg grimaced, nodded, and strapped on his gear while Roy loosened up his arm and stepped to the other side of the pen. A minute later, Greg was ready to go, settling into his crouch as Roy stood perched on the mound, his striking form somehow looming taller than the ten inches the mound elevated his body. Greg slowly extended his mitt towards the mound, his body quivering as Roy entered the wind-up.

THWAP!

The ball was in his glove. He had just caught a pitch from Roy Colton. Greg resisted the urge to stuff the ball in his back pocket as a keepsake and instead reluctantly tossed it back, unable to exhale until it was safely nestled in Roy’s mitt. As the two men relentlessly repeated the cycle, Greg was able to catch brief bits of conversation floating in from the fans roosting above them. He didn’t pay them much mind until he heard a young boy ask his dad who that was catching for Roy.

“That’s Greg Sullivan.” his dad answered. “He used to be a really promising prospect.”

“Used to be?” the boy asked.

“Well, he got to Triple-A a few years back and seemed to hit a wall there. It’s really too bad. If he had turned out like people had predicted he would, we wouldn’t have needed to throw all that money at Reynolds.”

“I’m glad we did.” the child matter-of-factly countered. “Jake’s the best player on the team. They’re gonna lose without him.”

The man laughed and wrapped his arm around his son’s shoulders. “That’s no attitude to have. C’mon, let’s get something to eat and check out the fanwalk.”

Greg couldn’t help but look up at the pair as they left, wanting nothing more than to shout after them that he could be just as good as Reynolds if given the chance. But he wasn’t even able to make himself believe that. He silently looked after them for a moment until his concentration was abruptly broken by the air-splitting whistle of a perfectly straight fastball as it whizzed over his head. Before Greg could react, he heard the solid thud of the ball suddenly being stopped by the oversized rubber rectangle that hung from the fence behind him. Giggles and guffaws rang out from above as he spun to face Roy, his eyes hurt and accusatory.

“Keep your eye on the ball, kid.” Roy grinned. “’Cause this one’s gonna be a real fireball.”

His face flush with humiliation, Greg hurriedly settled back into his crouch, ignoring the fans’ lingering snickers and snorts. Who is he trying to kid?, Greg thought to himself. Guy can’t even hit ninety on the gun anymore. As Roy brought his arms over his head, his grin was replaced by an expression of cool intensity, intimidating and impassive at the same time. A split-second and an imperceptible flash of movement later, his arm jutted away from his body at a stiff angle, the hand curved and empty like the basket of a catapult.

THWAP!

Before he knew it, Greg was in possession of the baseball, which smoldered in his glove with such intensity that he feared it might burn through the leather. The pain came a second later, a jarring electric shock that seeped through the palm and sizzled all the way up to his elbow. Greg could only hope that his mask was sufficiently hiding his dumbfounded expression as he reeled from receiving the most blistering fastball he had seen Roy throw in years. A satisfied smile crept across the vet’s face as he stepped off of the mound and headed for the door, glove in hand.

“Okay, I’m good.” he said. “Let’s go join the others.”

Greg leapt to his feet and followed Roy onto the outfield, beaming as he strode in step with the wily old fox. Greg remained by his side for as long as he could, coaxing stories out of the reluctant warhorse and listening with silent, wide-eyed intent when Roy gave in and span yarns about opening days and World Series. Twilight began to descend on the stadium as game time approached, both teams withdrawing into their dugouts to allow the ground crew to set right every blade of grass and speck of dirt before the first pitch. Eventually, Roy left to man the mound, heading towards his position at a slow, even pace while the rest of the team raced out to their spots.

The first pitch Roy threw was a thing of beauty, an exhibition of fluid and effortless grace, lit by the explosion of countless scattered flashbulbs and backed by the cheers of a raucous, booming orchestra tens of thousands strong. At first, Greg was overjoyed to simply be witness to the spectacle playing out before him. But as the game wore on, his excitement gradually faded, draining away with each passing second he spent watching others live his dream. He tried to cheer himself up, to think about the thousands of ballplayers struggling in the minors who would give up baseball forever just to be where he was right then. Such thoughts didn’t comfort him much – he just kept staring out at home plate, simultaneously tempted and tortured by its proximity and its distance.

Time crept by at an agonizing pace until the game mercifully drew to a close, ending with the anticlimactic strikeout of the Geoducks’ shortstop. As soon as he saw the batter’s useless, confused whiff at the third strike, Greg rose off the bench and made a beeline for the locker room. Not bothering to shower, Greg changed into street clothes, gathered his belongings and took off for the exit, leaving the locker room just as the team was beginning to trickle in.

He stepped out into the crisp, cool night, leaving the stadium via a tucked away exit, far from the fast-moving rivers of people flooding into the empty streets and sidewalks. The sky above was clear and blank, the stars completely overpowered by the harsh blaring light of the ballpark and the surrounding skyscrapers. Greg stared up at that soot-colored canvas for a long second before he lowered his eyes and silently headed for his hotel.