by Wayne Coffey
You will regret it… . I’d hate to see you do something that you’ll regret.
Anne and I talk some more, and pray some more. Voice One and Voice Two are back once more:
VOICE ONE: What’s to decide? You’ve got to be pragmatic. Think of the family. You have one guarantee and it’s in Korea. It’s the only assurance you have that you’ll make at least a year or two years’ worth of decent money.
VOICE TWO: You have to believe in yourself. You have to aim high. You can take guaranteed money now, but how much money is that guarantee going to cost you down the line?
VOICE ONE: You are thirty-three years old and you haven’t pitched in the big leagues in almost two full years. What Kool-Aid are you drinking, thinking teams are going to line up to hand you a big-league uniform?
VOICE TWO: You are thirty-three years old but you are getting better and better at your craft. You are a knuckleballer, and knuckleballers pitch forever.
VOICE ONE: Be prudent.
VOICE TWO: Be brave.
The voices have at it, until finally some clarity arrives. I believe it is God speaking to me, the way He did through the Holy Spirit the day I wanted to hurt Doug Melvin. This is what I hear in my mind: You have lived your whole life as a survivor, doing what you need to get by, to flee from pain, to seek safety. Now I want more. I want much more. I don’t want my life to be about settling. I don’t want it to be about avoiding pain. I want it to be about pursuing joy. Sure, Korea is safe, locked-up money. But to me, choosing Korea is choosing to settle. I would never find out how good I could be as a knuckleballer—never find out if I could, indeed, make it back from the six-home-run game.
I call John Esposito and tell him no, thanks.
I call Bo and tell him I’m staying and to get me a deal. I can feel him smiling on the other end of the line.
Bo talks to the Mets, the Mariners, and the Twins and works it hard, trying to find the best spot. The Twins are the most stable organization of the three, and seemingly the best shot to make it back to the big leagues. We decide the Twins are the way to go. Right after Thanksgiving 2007, I sign a minor-league deal that includes an invitation to big-league camp and a chance to make the big club.
It’s the first time in a long time that I feel wanted.
Days later, the baseball winter meetings begin at the Opryland hotel in Nashville. It’s an irresistibly short commute, so I venture over to meet Bill Smith, the general manager, and Rob Antony, his assistant, along with manager Ron Gardenhire. Granddaddy always told me it’s a good idea to look your bosses in the eye to show them that you respect them but that you aren’t scared of them.
I get on the elevator, and as I am ascending to their floor, I catch myself scripting something in my head to try to make a good first impression.
Stop it, I tell myself. Be yourself. One time. Be yourself.
I have spent the last fourteen months learning to live differently and to be authentic. This is a perfect opportunity to just be me.
I knock on the door and Rob answers. He takes me back to the conference area, where I find Gardenhire and Bill Smith and Terry Ryan, the former general manager, who is now a consultant.
Glad to have you aboard, Bill Smith says.
I shake hands all around and it becomes clear to me that I’ve stumbled into a delicate discussion. It turns out the Twins are deciding whether to trade their longtime ace, Johan Santana, to the Mets in exchange for a package of young players. It’s almost trigger-pulling time and there seems to be a legitimate debate about what’s best.
Go ahead and trade him, I say. I can pick up his slack.
Everybody laughs, taking my idle boast in the right spirit. I don’t know where that came from but I am glad I am myself. I get out of there before I am any more of myself.
The next day Anne and I are driving to our couples counseling session, where we are learning to reconnect and enrich our relationship. This is also evidence of not wanting to settle: I don’t want Anne and me to just get by as husband and wife. I want to have a passionate, joyful marriage. I notice that my phone is ringing and the caller is Maurice Patton, a reporter for the Nashville Tennessean.
Hey, R.A. So, how does it feel to be the newest member of the Seattle Mariners?
You mean the Twins? Yeah, it feels great. I feel like they will give me—
He stops me.
No, it’s the Mariners. You didn’t hear? They just took you in the Rule 5 draft. You are the oldest Rule 5 player since its inception, and I was curious to know your thoughts.
I don’t say anything for a few seconds, but I am thinking: I am what? I am a Mariner? I thought the Twins wanted me.
That was fast. Did my Santana comment come back to bite me?
I tell Maurice I will call him back, and minutes later I hear from the Mariners, and it’s true. The Rule 5 draft is a Major League Baseball provision that aims to prevent teams from stockpiling players in the minors when other clubs would be willing to give them a chance to play in the majors. Since I am not yet on the Twins’ forty-man roster, I am eligible to be plucked—and that’s what the Mariners do, paying $50,000 for me.
It’s a positive sign that they like me enough to steal me from the Twins, but it’s still a completely bewildering development. I was all geared up to be a Twin. I was already imaging myself in a Twins uniform, moving Anne and the kids to a new part of the country.
Now this. Could there possibly be any more plot twists in my baseball life?
I report to Mariners spring training in Peoria, Arizona, and have one of the best springs of my life. I pitch as both a starter and a reliever. They put me out there in every situation they can. My knuckleball holds up well, and I know it’s dancing because Kenji Johjima, the Mariners catcher, catches about three of every ten knuckleballs I throw. The other seven hit him in the shin guards or the mask, or he chases them back to the screen. I encourage him to switch to the oversized glove that virtually all catchers use to catch the knuckleball. He’s attached to his regular Mizuno, though, so knuckleballs keep going everywhere but in his glove.
I am among the top pitchers in the Cactus League in innings pitched and ERA that spring. I have one more appearance before opening day, against the Giants. I have my strongest outing yet, giving up a single hit in six innings and getting the victory. I leave the game as elated as I’ve been in a long time. It’s been almost two years since the six-homer game, and now I can finally start my big-league career anew, in the great Northwest, pitching not to survive but to flourish, to be a craftsman with my knuckleball. I feel a wave of gratitude toward Bo McKinnis for talking me out of Korea, and toward Anne for always being there.
I tell her to book a flight for opening day.
I can’t wait to share the moment with her in a whole new way, for I am becoming a whole new man.
Our last exhibition game is in Las Vegas against the Cubs. I find myself thinking about what the Mariners’ clubhouse looks like and how nice it will be to have a locker there. There are still a few cuts to be made, and then we are off to Seattle. When the game ends, I pack my bag and give it to the clubhouse attendant. I put on a suit and am walking toward the team charter when I see Lee Pelekoudas, the assistant general manager, just ahead, waving as if he wants to flag me down.
He must be coming to congratulate me, I think.
R.A., I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but you didn’t make the team.
My mouth literally drops open. I honestly think this must be a joke: Let’s pull a prank on the guy and see how amusing his reaction is.
I am not amused. Lee can see I am not amused.
He says, I know you’re disappointed, but I want you to know we like you a lot, so we made a trade to keep you. [Under Rule 5 regulations, clubs that lose a player can get that player back for $25,000 if the club that selected him doesn’t put him on the big-league roster. The Twins bought me back, and then the Mariners traded a minor-league catcher, Jair Hernandez, in order to keep me.] We are keeping you on
the forty-man roster. You just didn’t make the opening-day roster.
Mouth still open. Getting dry now. Lee walks away.
Moments pass in silence, and I am angry. Why do I keep getting passed over? I pitched my butt off all last year and the Brewers never called me up. Now I pitch my butt off all spring, end it with a six-inning one-hitter, and am told I am not good enough. Is this more of the baseball-people-don’t-trust-the-knuckleball crap?
What on earth do I have to do, God? I say to myself. I want to let God have it, when general manager Bill Bavasi comes over and attempts to console me. I let him have it instead.
You’re mad, aren’t you? he says.
You bet your butt I am mad.
You have a right to be mad. You pitched great. I’d be mad too. Just don’t stay mad, because we are going to need you.
Slowly I start to calm down. I appreciate Bill’s words, and though I am still confounded by the club’s decision, I don’t think he’s feeding me a line of bull. I’m glad I am honest with my emotions. It’s part of getting better.
I call Anne and tell her the news, and tell her not to come yet, because I am not on the big-league team.
I want to be with you no matter what team you’re on, she says. So she flies up and we drive around Tacoma, home of the Mariners’ Triple-A affiliate, the Rainiers. We find a little rental house up the hill from Puget Sound. It’s a sweet place in an idyllic setting. Anne returns home, and when she comes back out with the kids, my mom flies with her to lend her a hand. My mom stays with us for the better part of a week. It is such a blessing to have her. She is doing anything and everything that’s needed, and her patience and nurturing of the children has no bounds. Literally every day of my life, I feel more love and more gratitude for having my mother in my life.
Apart from not being in the big leagues, Tacoma is a great place to pitch. The air is cool, the grass long, the fences tall. I lose my first couple of decisions, but I pitch deep into the games and we just don’t score any runs. I hate losing, but my knuckleball is good and dependable.
The hitters’ swings will tell you if your knuckleball is any good. That’s the only feedback you need, Charlie always used to tell me. I am getting a lot of bad swings, and swings and misses. True to Bavasi’s word, the Mariners call me up in mid-April. I get to Seattle as soon as I can, driving as if the invitation had an expiration time. I am deliriously happy but privately paranoid.
What if this is another one of those deals like the time the Brewers asked me to join them in St. Louis, then sent me right back down?
It’s a surreal feeling as I walk up to Safeco Field. I always wanted to believe I’d get back to the big leagues, but there’s a small demon inside me that toils ceaselessly against hope, wanting to convince me that I am done, used up, that there is no recovering from the six-homer game, or my deeper past.
I have paid too much attention to the demon for too many years. I am done paying attention.
Piss off, I tell the demon.
After I get my uniform (number 41) and say hello to my new teammates, including Ichiro, Raul Ibañez, and Adrian Beltre, I shake hands with the manager, John McLaren, and the pitching coach, Mel Stottlemyre.
I knew you’d be here sooner rather than later, McLaren says.
You’ll be in the bullpen tonight, R.A., Mel says.
I spend my first big-league practice in two years shagging flies in right field, in my new favorite American League park, which is friendly to pitchers and stunning to look at, with a giant retractable roof, and steel and iron latticework, and grass that is so verdant that it should have its own name: Safeco green. I savor every minute.
We’re playing the Kansas City Royals, our starter Jarrod Washburn going against the Royals’ Zack Greinke. At Safeco, a dark blue cinder-block wall separates the home bullpen from the visiting bullpen. Each inning I throw ten balls against the wall, monitoring the spin and feeling my release point. I am back in Uncle Ricky’s gym, working on my pitch.
The game moves quickly. Greinke is cruising and Jarrod gives up three runs through six, and the Royals extend the lead to 5–1 in the top of the eighth. When the phone rings, I know what bullpen coach Norm Charlton is going to say before he even speaks:
You got the ninth.
Greinke throws another scoreless inning, and now it’s time, and I am ready, more excited than nervous, fearless in Seattle. Hope is a powerful life force. As I warm up, I have no quivering leg or racing heart. I say a prayer to thank God not just for this opportunity but for the blessing to live in the moment fully.
David DeJesus is the first batter, a speedy guy with some pop in his bat. I fall behind 2–0, and then get him to pop out on a 3–2 fastball. I throw a good knuckleball to get ahead on Mark Grudzielanek, the Royals’ number two hitter, before getting him on a weak grounder with a fastball away.
The third hitter is one of their power guys, Mark Teahen. I like facing guys who have power, because they like to swing hard. A hard swing and a good knuckleball are the stuff of knuckleball pitcher dreams. I go up 0–2 on a couple of good knuckleballs and, on 1–2, throw a wicked knuckleball that seems to have its own gravitational pull, as if it stops in midair and starts back up again. It does this twice before Teahen swings. It’s one of the best knuckleballs of my life.
Teahen misses it by almost a foot.
I walk off the field feeling as light and happy as you can feel when you are down four in the ninth. My one-inning reentry to the major leagues couldn’t have gone any better. In the clubhouse afterward, a few writers ask me about how it feels to be back. I don’t fake it: I tell the truth about how emotional it is and the hope I have in it. I fight back tears, and it’s okay.
Forty-five minutes later, after a nice dinner in the clubhouse, I walk down the tunnel to the dugout and sit on the bench and take in the quiet afterglow of an empty stadium. A couple of grounds crew workers are tamping the mound and raking around the bases. In the twenty-four months since my previous big-league appearance, I almost lost my marriage, considered ending my life, nearly died in a river, and finally let go of my terrible secret. I began to be authentic and tell the truth; now, like the Safeco grounds crew, I am willing to rake through everything. In the soft, warming light of Safeco Field, I thank God for the gift of being here and then stop to take in the splendor of the scene before me, scanning from left-field foul pole to right-, a ballpark that looks like Oz, a peace growing inside me, along with a belief from somewhere that the best is yet to come.
THE WORLD-CHAMPION Red Sox come to town at the end of May, and for me that doesn’t mean Manny and Ortiz or Dustin Pedroia. It means Tim Wakefield. He’s the best knuckleballer in the game—and the only full-time one besides me. I get to the park early on Memorial Day afternoon and write a note to Tim, asking if we might get together and talk for a bit while he’s in town. I give it to the clubhouse guy and he hand delivers it to Tim in the Red Sox clubhouse.
Meet me behind the plate in ten minutes, Tim says.
We talk for forty-five minutes. Tim is a warm and generous man, one of the nicest people in the game, and I take full advantage, firing questions at him the way I did with Charlie and with Coach Forehand in my “Lapdog” days. I want to know about his grip, his nails, his tricks for killing spin. I want to know it all. I want to know about his psyche with the pitch, and his confidence.
Do you ever worry that one day you’ll get out there and you just won’t have it? About the pitch just deserting you? I ask.
No, he says. That never happens.
His certainty is scary. I envy him his self-conviction. I am still insecure with my knuckleball, fretting often about where I am with it, anxious that one day it’s going to completely abandon me, flit away like a hummingbird, never to return.
Tim is throwing a bullpen today, and I ask if it’s okay if I watch. He checks with John Farrell, the Sox pitching coach, and he says sure. Here’s the knucklehead brotherhood in play again: there’s no chance that an opposing pitcher, no
matter how nice a guy, is going to invite me to watch how he grips and throws his split-fingered fastball or his slider. Those are state secrets.
Knuckleballers don’t keep secrets. It’s as if we have a greater mission beyond our own fortunes. And that mission is to pass it on, to keep the pitch alive. Maybe that’s because we are so different, and the pitch is so different, but I think it has more to do with the fact that this is a pitch that almost all of us turn to in desperation. It is what enables us to keep pitching, stay in the big leagues, when everything else has failed. So we feel gratitude toward the pitch. It becomes way more than just a means to get an out.
It becomes a way of life.
Tim throws forty pitches in his bullpen. I study everything that he is doing. He is tremendously consistent with his pitch, and for me that is the biggest difference between us at this point. My best knuckleball is on par with his best knuckleball, but his so-so knuckleball is much better than my so-so knuckleball. He throws seven or eight out of ten knuckleballs that are really good. I am more in the six-to-seven range.
More than that, I learn from Tim that not every one has to be perfect. I drive myself batty trying to make every one perfect.
They just have to be good enough to get an out, Tim says. He makes a point of emphasizing the importance of arm path: bringing your arm through in the same way, down the center of your body, as if you were going to knock your pitching hand into your cup.
I thank Tim profusely when he’s all done, and soon I am in my own bullpen, throwing my own knuckleball, trying to get better. Tim inspires me again two days later when he shuts us down over eight innings, giving up five hits and a single run, striking out eight and walking nobody. It is a masterful performance, but Erik Bedard, Brandon Morrow, and J. J. Putz are a little better, combining for a two-hit shutout. It is the perfect ending, as far as I am concerned. I can never root against my own team, even with Tim pitching, but I get the next best thing: a knuckleballer pitching brilliantly and dominating big-league hitters, and my team winning the game.
