This Post was written sometime in 2011 or 2012.
Authors NOTe
Arizona truly is a baseball paradise. It’s little bit like I had always envisioned the United States to be like – baseball around the corner no matter where you go. It’s certainly true for Phoenix and Yuma, the two cities I have been fortunate enough to be around long enough to experience it. It also helps knowing the right people.
It starts with my long time friend and mentor, Larry Smith. For a few years in a row now, I have made sure to visit him around this time of the year to sit back and let him show me around the fairytale world he has made a career in. Of course, baseball here is a business, but it’s a lot of fun to be around. I could probably fill a whole book with amazing things he has enabled me to experience. It starts by having a chance to work out on a baseball field every day and goes all the way hanging out at the spring training complex of the Oakland A’s
Of course, with Larry you don’t walk through the gate – you park in the players parking lot and walk straight into the big league clubhouse, where the day starts off with small talk with the coaches. A walk on the field while the players warm up is no big deal. A few introductions to a some players, such as Rich Harden, (that was a few years ago) later, one of the pitchers, Marcus McBeth, comes over to me to show me how he throws his change up. Larry had asked him to do so earlier. During that time he politely sends away autograph hunters.
One day he even took me and my brother in the bullpen at the spring training stadium before a game, where we hung out for a little bit until Rickey Henderson came over to shake our hands. He apologized that he hadn’t come over earlier. Rickey Henderson!!
Those are just a few of the things that happen day in and day out, when you get a chance to spend time with Larry Smith in Phoenix. I think you can understand, why I love to come back every year.
Last year, I played at Arizona Western College in Yuma. Yuma is not Phoenix, but there is still more than enough baseball. Benji Molina is a AWC alum and so is Sergio Romo – I got to meet them both last year. I also got the chance to pitch against Jose Canseco and his brother last May, but that could be a whole blog post in itself.
I know, this is a long introduction, I hope you haven’t gotten bored reading it by now, but I want to give you a feel for what’s going on here. Anyway, because there is so much baseball here, and because Yuma is the home of the Arizona Winter League in wich I will participate this Feb., I decided to come back. One of the assistant coaches from AWC last year, James “Kuz” Kuzniak, a baseball fanatic like myself, is another good guy to know if you want to get a chance to play as much as possible. He was the one who suggested we go and see if Canseco was at the stadium, and he was also the one who invited me to come play with his team in Mexico.
Mexico? What? Wait, is that even safe? How can I just come and play? After all, it’s supposedly professional baseball… “Don’t worry, just don’t talk to anyone and keep your passport with you at all times in case we have to run..” Ok… sounds safe enough, let’s go!
So off we went, on a beautiful (what else in Arizona) Sunday morning, to pick up a few players. We stopped at a pretty nice house, where we had to get out of the car. I got to meet a nice man who gave me a T-shirt (our jersey) and Kuz some money to buy us all breakfast. I later learned that he was the owner of the team. We all switched into a van in which we crossed the border, where we met up with more players. With five players in the van now, we pulled over to the side of the road, right next to a spot where a lot of Mexicans hung out in their trucks and grilled some meat. Not for a second did I think that this was a place where you can buy food and eat. I was wrong and that’s where we had breakfast.
A little later we arrived at the baseball field. I could see dugouts, a backstop and an outfield fence, but nothing else that resembled a baseball field. No grass, no bases, no homeplate, no opponent, just a lot of sand. Now I understood what the throw down bases in the back of van were for. Some players chatted, some made business selling cleats and pants, and a few started warming up. Not long into our “pre game preperations”, the umpire came over to tell us that we were starting in five minutes. The manager called us together to read the lineup and give us a few instructions – in Spanish, of course. Now I know how Japanese players must feel like in a foreign country – very relaxed, because if you don’t understand a word you have nothing to worry about!
During the course of the game, with the help of a translator, they asked me if I was a pitcher, which I confirmed. Kuz, our starter, was cruising for the most part of the day. After the sixth, with the score 4:3, they told me that I was going in if anyone got on base. Kuz got the first batter to fly out. After that, a man got on, but he stayed in the game. He got the second out before another guy got on. Now it was my turn. With a one run lead in the last inning (7 inning game) and two men on, I only had two choices. Get the next guy, save the game and be a hero, or be chased out of Mexico with nothing but my passport in my back pocket.
During my warmup pitches, I had to spend the first few to find a good spot on the rubber. The mound wasn’t exactly in good shape. My fastball felt good, I threw strikes and I had a little zip on it. The slider wasn’t so good and I opted to not even throw a changeup. After all, my game plan was simple. Throw three fastballs as hard as I could and strike the kid out. Don’t even worry about facing another hitter, no way I wanted to do that in this situation. The first pitch was strike one, right down broadway. Strike two was a nasty moving two seamer on the outside corner for a swinging strike two. 0-2, almost there – let’s throw it even harder! Ball high, not what I wanted, but not a bad pitch in this situation. Ok, let’s throw it hard again, but for a strike. Ball high, 2-2. Oh-oh, don’t lose him now, I don’t want to be chased off the field! I basically closed my eyes and threw thte next pitch as hard as I could again. When I opened my eyes, the ball was already in the glove and the kid had just finished his swing – strike three. The game was over and I had my first save in Mexico in my pocket, right next to my passport.
After we had won game 2 with the same score, a nice, older looking man came over and handed every one money. I got 40$ out of the gig and as you can imagine, I was pretty happy. The whole car ride home, however, the rest of the players complained about how underpaid they were. Life as a professional ballplayer…
Well, my dear readers, I have bills to pay make ends meet. That means I have to get off this couch and start preparing for my next game in Mexcio this Sunday! Thanks for stopping by, and if you don’t hear from me after Sunday, you know what happened…