October 1, 2000

Is there any other job in America where an employer could ask his employee to work for 15 straight days at less than minimum wage and have the employee praise him for getting an off day on the 16th? Minor league baseball, Incorporated.

On our first off day in over two weeks, I have decided to sit down and write another account of what goes on here in Tucson. I have gotten a lot of letters over the past week—an entire English class from eastern Kentucky decided to write me—so please be patient. I will get back to everyone. The support has been great.

Whenever talking about my job with non-baseball fans, they will ask me without fail if I am the pitcher, implying there is only one. It is unusual to even hear such a question, but the next one they always ask is even harder to answer. When I tell them I am one of pitchers, they respond, "What do you do the rest of the time?" For most people, the idea that a pitcher only pitches one game out of five seems a little ridiculous. Once I explain that the human arm wasn't designed to throw overhand, pitchers need rest, blah, blah, blah, they seem to understand, or to have lost interest in the subject altogether.

Eventually they understand that in the course of any given season, a starting pitcher has more time than he usually knows what to do with. This inborn result of the pitching schedule can lead to a lot of fun and a lot of problems. Time can be your best friend or your worst enemy. Dealing with this time off can be a problem for some players. They have succeeded to this point through hard work. For many at this level, hard work is not needed as much as smart work. For some, the demons of time can eat at them all week long as they wait to pitch. Nothing is wrong with their physical or mental approach to the game, but they want to work hard at what they are doing, so they feel like they are getting better.

Just imagine how hard it must be for someone to have a bad outing, and then having to wait five days to redeem himself. He must face all his teammates and all his family and friends for that five days with the taste of that last defeat fresh in his mouth. For a lot of pitchers, the demons eat away at their confidence and they start to doubt their abilities. If the guy is a really hard worker he will constantly toss ideas and solutions back and forth about his mechanics, his pitches, his location, his luck, his conditioning, etc.—anything that might have gone wrong. Some of the craziest ideas can pop into a guy's head on an eight-hour bus ride home. Most times there is nothing to do but think. There are a lot of demons on the bus. As a result, some fall into a trap of changing a lot of things just because they have the time to do it.

Certainly there are times a minor change is needed here and there, but like our pitching coordinator Gil Patterson says "Our deliveries will be about 90 percent the same today as they will be in the big leagues." Most players got to pro ball through a lot of hard work and it is difficult for them to stay put for the four days in between.

So how do pitchers keep their sanity, their confidence and their abilities sharp over the course of many long and boring days when the best thing to do is to be bored?

There is a saying in most clubhouses that goes something like "What you see here, what you hear here, let it stay here." And while I most emphatically agree that the clubhouse bond with your teammates is very important over the course of the long season, I can guarantee that the conversations relayed here will not cause any problems with that rule. I am very cautious about what I write and always get permission to use a story about someone. I would hate to think someone would be different around me because they aren't sure if their behavior would be made public.

Anyway, there are two parts to the day for a baseball player, one part at the park and the other not at the park. The stories that occur away from the baseball field are perhaps the most interesting and entertaining I have ever heard. Tim Olson has more women to deal with than I have seen. Too bad you don't get to read about them. On any given day, the only thing that a pitcher has to do is run and play catch for about 30 minutes. This leaves about seven hours unaccounted for. A lot guys keep busy playing cards, playing pepper, playing double catch (standing in a circle of guys and having one person throw up two balls to someone and that person having to catch both balls).

These activities can only occur for a small amount of time because during the game most managers would get mad if a card game broke out. Therefore to fill the time, B.S.—a technical baseball term—is employed religiously.

The bullpen provides the most perfect forum for any idea to be adequately discussed and thoroughly examined. Most of the talk centers on the game. HAHAHAHA! You can't even see the game a lot of times from the bullpen. Usually the talk quietly revolves around what happened the night before, what was on TV, women and what will happen tonight. Bill White will occasionally look over at someone, doesn't matter who, and ask them "Hey, I am bored do you want to argue about something?" And without fail we will get a three-day argument about something, the last being with Tanner Ericksen about the Pac-10 vs. SEC. But for about 10 percent of any conversation, the normally "businesslike" bullpen borders on the absurd. Although to be fair, it does snap into a very serious place if anyone is warming up.

The three best conversations I have ever heard in a relaxed bullpen deal with three very different and far-reaching goals.

At the University of Dallas, I posed the question "Which cartoon character would make the best president?" This sparked a furious debate between pro-Bugs Bunny advocates and the Foghorn Leghorn campaign. Many entertaining ideas were thrown out including an obscure reference to Optimus Prime of the Transformers. After about three innings of debate, Jack Price vehemently threw his support to Daffy Duck for president, to which I enthusiastically objected because of his obvious shortcomings in the mental arena. Jack played the race card on me and said why can't daffy duck be president? Is it because he is black? At which point the conversation was officially over, it had gotten too absurd and guys were laughing too hard.

The second discussion involved opinions on reincarnation. Most guys have very famous people they would like to have been in previous lives:Clint Eastwood, Tupac, Alexander the Great. The best response was an archer in Robin Hood's time. Not one of the best archers, someone pointed out, but one of the guys who was in the top 25 in the archery tournaments, never making the final round of shooting an apple off a guy's head. He will make enough money to live well without all the pressure of the apples on heads. And plus he still got to hang out with all the best archers at the parties.

Lastly, and perhaps the most famous of all bullpen discussion begins with a simple challenge. In a fight to the death which weapon would you choose? A golf club or a baseball bat. Originally thought up by Frank McEachern the polls have the golf club and baseball bat perfectly even. The argument usually breaks down as follows:

Idiot No. 1 "A baseball bat could easily knock the golf club out of your hands or break the club."

Idiot No. 2 "Yeah, but the golf club reaches a lot farther and therefore could easily reach a person's head."

Idiot No. 3 "But the club would break when I block it."

Idiot No. 4 "Yeah, but the club would break off and hit you in the stupid head."

Then a lot cussing and arguing would ensue and then the ballgame would be over.

As is this journal, which has been a very effective time killer for me and I hope for anyone reading this.

You can contact Will Rosellini at Rumi54@aol.com.