Rooting for Rafael Rosales

by Kurtis Scaletta

  “I remember you,” said Damian. “The boy with the fast bat.”

  “Sure,” said Rafael. Had Juan described him like that? Had Hugo?

  The brothers came out a moment later. Juan and Rafael sprinted ahead, excited to get to the baseball field.

  “What’s Damian doing here?” Rafael asked.

  “He’s turning sixteen next year and wants to try out for the big leagues. He’s living with us so he can practice and be seen by scouts.”

  “Damian is a prospect?” The cousin had the same lanky build and big hands as Hugo, but his slouching posture and heavy-lidded eyes made him seem less than athletic.

  “Sure,” said Juan. “He plays all the time in Yamasá. He’s good!”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  Hugo usually pitched on Saturdays, but he gave up his spot so Damian could show his stuff. It was also because of his sore arm, Rafael guessed, but he knew better than to ask. Hugo watched for a while but left early, a cloud of gloom almost visible over his head.

  Damian didn’t have Hugo’s skill, but he could throw hard fastballs over the plate. There was something deceptive about his slow windup and delivery that caught batters by surprise. Rafael waited in the lineup for his chance to try to hit Damian’s stuff, vowing not to let Damian trick him. When his turn came, he let two strikes go by, to time them, and fouled off two more before he sent one flying to the outfield. It missed being his second home run by inches, rattling off the fence and rolling back toward the infield. Rafael reached second base. He didn’t come around to score, but his teammates all traded high fives and fist bumps at the end of the inning.

  Rafael was playing third base that day for the first time. Boys called it “the hot corner,” and he could see why. It seemed like two batters out of three hit the ball hard and in his direction, and if he wasn’t careful, a line drive could take his head off. The danger made him hyperaware and alert. He felt like he was seeing with sharper eyes than he had since his first game at the campo. Late in the game, he leaped into the air and snared a ball. A boy on third was already breaking for home, and in two steps, Rafael touched the base. Two outs turned, all by himself. He was delirious with joy but played it cool, lobbing the ball back to the pitcher with a cursory nod.

  I’m a third baseman.

  Now he knew. He would have to play other positions, sure, but this was where he belonged.

  “This boy owned me,” Damian said as they left the campo, slapping Rafael’s back. “Are you the next David Ortiz?”

  Rafael laughed at the idea, comparing his slight build to that of the huge Red Sox hitter.

  “Rafael!”

  The boys stopped and turned around.

  Carlos the buscone had been watching the game and now caught up with them.

  “I saw how you studied the pitcher the way good hitters do. Excellent fielding too. I continue to be impressed by your maturity. And only twelve. Hard to believe.”

  “Thank you,” said Rafael. “This is Juan. He’s good too!”

  “I’ve seen you play,” said Carlos, his voice conveying no opinion about Juan’s ability. “I know your brother is an up-and-comer. Is this him?” He looked at Damian. “You do look like the Hugo I’ve heard of. And you pitched…well.”

  Not well enough to be Hugo, Rafael knew. But he also knew better than to blurt out that this wasn’t Hugo, because that might give away that Hugo was hurting.

  “I’m a bit rusty,” said Damian, not confirming that he was Hugo but not denying it.

  “Well, Señor Rosales, I’d like to talk to you further,” said Carlos, turning back to Rafael. “With your parents present, if this is something you would like to pursue. I can give them references. People who will vouch for me, players I’ve worked with…”

  As he went on, Juan and Damian started again for home, probably not wanting to intrude. Rafael tried to listen, to remember everything Carlos told him. There would be a formal tryout, the chance to see Carlos’s home, which had a small gym and practice field. Rafael and his parents could talk to three different boys in academies now, all who would tell him Carlos had helped them get there. Rafael’s head was spinning. Somebody really believed he had a chance. Somebody who seemed to know about baseball.

  “All right,” the buscone said at last, handing him a business card. “Talk to you soon, Rafi.” Nobody called him that except family, but Rafael didn’t mind.

  “Muy bien,” he said. “My papa will call.” He fought the urge to put in another plug for Juan, but it would have to wait. He hurried to catch up with his friends.

  “Matatán!” said Juan. If he was jealous, he didn’t show it.

  ***

  Rafael waited until that quiet spell in the evening when nobody was busy. He dropped the card on his father’s lap.

  “This man wants to talk to you.”

  “Is he your private coach?”

  “Sí.”

  “I don’t know anything about him,” said Papa. “How am I supposed to trust him with my son’s future?”

  “He said he can provide references. Names of boys he’s helped get into academies.”

  “Academies?” Papa echoed. “What do these academies do? Take you out of school?”

  “I still have to go to school,” said Rafael. Through eighth grade, anyway, he didn’t add. That seemed like forever: the rest of this year and two more—he wasn’t sure how he would ever make it.

  “It doesn’t hurt to talk to him,” Mama said, at last speaking up.

  “It doesn’t hurt,” Papa grumbled. “We don’t always know the hurt of things.” He left the card on the table next to his chair. “It’s too late to call now, but maybe tomorrow.”

  But Papa had still not called a few days later, and Rafael began to worry. He even avoided the campo the next day because he did not want to see Carlos Domingo. He did not want to explain why his father hadn’t called. Maybe Carlos would think he wasn’t serious. But a week later, he got home from school and found Carlos Domingo sitting at the table across from his father, a stack of papers in front of him.

  Rafael’s father signed the papers a week later. They promised Carlos thirty percent of Rafael’s future signing bonus. In return, Carlos would train him and help him find a spot on a team. Carlos could quit on Rafael at any time, for any reason. But if Rafael quit, his father would owe Carlos salary and expenses for the training he’d done. His father emphasized the last bit: if Rafael quit, his father would have to pay Carlos for his time and equipment. That would be quite a lot of money, more than they could afford.

  “I won’t quit,” Rafael promised. He did not sign the contract himself, but he swore the next four years of his life against the fate of his family.

  “Now, I need to see his birth certificate,” said Carlos.

  Rafael nearly stopped breathing when his father pushed a folder across to Carlos. The buscone raised one eyebrow as he saw the date on his birth certificate.

  “You’re eleven?” His voice was stern. “You told me twelve.”

  “I rounded up,” said Rafael. From the look on Carlos’s face, he felt a sudden panic that the whole arrangement was about to fall apart.

  “You can never lie to me again about anything. Even if it feels small to you.”

  “No,” said Rafael. He felt it wasn’t enough. “No, Señor Domingo.”

  “Call me Carlos,” he said. “But always tell me the truth.”

  ***

  Carlos lived in a nice part of town, in a house with a wall around it and an iron gate. The house had a gym and a practice yard, a batting cage and tees.

  “Did you buy this with your signing bonus?” Rafael asked, wide-eyed, the first time he saw it.

  “No, the bonuses weren’t as big back then,” Carlos explained.

  “Did you play in the big leagues?”

  “Almost,” said Carlos. “Made it as far as double A and was set for triple A the next year, but I played winter ball for the Licey Tigers and got hurt.”

  �
��I’m sorry,” said Rafael.

  “It wasn’t even an on-field accident,” said Carlos. “A scooter hit me when I was crossing the street.” He shook his head at his own bad luck.

  None of that answered Rafael’s question. How did Carlos pay for this house and all the equipment?

  “I had a backer,” Carlos told him, guessing at Rafael’s thoughts. “One of my best friends from the Wichita Wranglers is with the Royals now, making millions a year. I talked him into investing some of his big-league money down here in the DR. I’ll pay him back when I get a few players signed.”

  “Is he Dominican?”

  “No. He hasn’t even seen this place,” said Carlos.

  Rafael’s debt went deeper than he thought. He owed Carlos, and in turn Carlos owed this player in Kansas City. Rafael was burning with curiosity to know who it was, but if Carlos wanted him to know, he would have told him.

  The first week of training, he swung a bat without even using a ball. One day, he didn’t even use a bat. Carlos had him put his hands on his waist and pivot, trying to keep his balance as his weight shifted. Hitting practice was mixed up with fielding drills and mini-lectures about game situations and how to play each batter. It was a lot harder and a lot less fun than Rafael had thought it would be, but he saw the difference when he played at the campo on Saturdays. He hit the balls straighter and farther than he ever had before. He made better decisions in the field.

  Carlos drove him home in the evenings and sometimes came in and talked to Papa. They would drink Clamato and talk about Rafael: how he was doing, what he needed to work on. But the conversation would slide as easily into politics, history, machinery, and other subjects. They seemed to share all the same interests and have all the same opinions.

  They agreed that the Dominican Republic needed more financial independence from the United States and Mexico, and were horrified by how the government was treating displaced Haitians. They agreed that history cast a long shadow over the country. Strangely, given Carlos’s career, they rarely talked about sports. But one day they wandered onto that topic.

  “I’ve always wondered how things work,” Carlos told Rafael’s father, staring at the repair projects lined along the wall.

  “It comes natural to me,” Papa said. “I might have been an electrical engineer if I’d gone to college.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “I wasted those years trying to be a fighter.” Papa raised a fist like he was fending off a punch. “I was good, but I quit when I found out he was on the way.” He gestured at Rafael.

  “Good thing,” said Carlos. “You still have your brains.”

  “And my hands,” his father said. “Have you ever seen the hands of an old boxer?”

  “I’ve seen the hands of old catchers,” said Carlos. “It’s not pretty.”

  Rafael had heard his father talk about fighting from time to time, but didn’t know he’d been a boxer. He’d always imagined Papa was talking about street scuffles—and exaggerating at that.

  “Did you dream about being a famous boxer?” he asked after Carlos had left. Papa was still at the table, nursing the dregs of his Clamato, which he drank without mixing in beer or rum as other men did.

  “Every night for most of my boyhood,” he admitted.

  “Do you ever wish you hadn’t quit?”

  “No,” he said. “I wish I’d quit it sooner, so I could be more than a repairman now.”

  Rafael searched his father’s face for signs of regret for the boxing career that never happened and couldn’t find them. He was telling the truth. He could live without his sport, but Rafael thought he could never live without baseball.

  “Any news?” Rafael asked Juan one Friday morning, the moment Juan slipped out the front door.

  “Not yet,” said Juan.

  They were on a weeklong break from school, and Hugo and Damian had been visiting major league academies in Boca Chica, Guerra, and El Toro. Hugo had his heart set on one of the sprawling, modern major league academies in one of the smaller towns between San Pedro and Santo Domingo. Damian was hoping to get signed straight onto a team.

  “They probably don’t offer right away,” said Rafael. “On Monday, they’ll all start calling. Your dad will have to change his number, it’ll be ringing so much.”

  “Sí. Hugo is the real deal.”

  Damian came out of the house, good humored and relaxed as always. For ten minutes he told stories about the tryouts: the former pro pitcher who was now too fat to reach past his own gut, and the big Jamaican player who could knock the stitches out of a baseball but didn’t know the rules of the game. He did impressions that made Juan howl with laughter. Rafael couldn’t set his own nervousness aside to laugh. What would happen to Hugo? Why wouldn’t the academies invite Hugo on the spot? If you didn’t get into any academy, your baseball career was over before it began.

  Rafael would have hung out with Juan longer, but it was getting late.

  “I have to go see Carlos,” he said. The buscone was running double drills during the break so Rafael could spend more time on school when it resumed. He would have given anything to stay, waiting with Damian and Juan to learn Hugo’s fate.

  “Go, Matatán,” said Juan. “You’re my backup plan now.”

  ***

  Carlos still wanted Rafael to play at the campo on Saturday mornings. The practice was important, he said. Rafael would always stop at Juan’s house so they could walk over together. He knocked on the door the next morning and Hugo answered, bleary-eyed and wearing only shorts.

  “Juan says he’s tired,” he said. “We all stayed up late, waiting for a call that never came. Maybe he’ll play after lunch.”

  “I can’t play this afternoon,” said Rafael. “I’ll see him at school.”

  The following week, Juan himself answered. He told Rafael he didn’t feel like playing.

  “Are you going to play ball ever again?” Rafael asked. “All the boys ask about you.”

  “Maybe next week,” said Juan.

  But he didn’t come out that Saturday either, and Rafael didn’t knock. He waited, tossing a stone high into the air and catching it on the way down. He thought of the game they’d played as boys, seeing who could hit a sock ball the highest. Back then, he felt like his whole future depended on Juan. Maybe Juan’s now depended on him? He tossed the stone in the air ten times, then ten more times, and ten more.

  He quit waiting and walked to the campo, arriving before the teams were decided and the game underway. He knew how Juan must feel. Hugo had given all of his boyhood and his right arm to this game, but the game owed him nothing back. Rafael had no way to help Hugo, to give him the health and fat contract he deserved, but he had to help Juan.

  ***

  He brought it up with Carlos that evening, after a grueling drill in the batting cage.

  “You said once you were looking for a couple of boys with promise,” he said. “Maybe the other boy can be my friend Juan.”

  “I’ve watched him play,” said Carlos. “He might have more muscles than you, but he doesn’t have your determination. He’s a poor risk. Probably a waste of my time.”

  “He’s not a waste of time,” said Rafael.

  “I can put muscles on a boy and teach him the game,” said Carlos. “I look for seriousness, maturity, and discipline. Those are things I can’t teach.”

  “But Juan…” Rafael started to protest, but what could he say? Juan hadn’t even played in weeks. When he talked about his own future, it seemed like he had already given up. “But Juan makes me play better.”

  “You’re a good friend,” said Carlos. “He can come and work out with you, but he’s not my project or my problem. If he makes any trouble or distracts you, he has to go.”

  “Thank you!” said Rafael. It was a thread of hope. If Juan could come and show Carlos how serious he could be, maybe Carlos would coach him. Of course, he’d have to convince Juan to be serious, but he could do that.

  He wa
s so excited that he had Carlos drop him off at Juan’s house and banged on the door as Carlos dove away.

  “Carlos said you can—” Rafael started to tell him, but he stopped when he saw who was in the house. Hugo, Juan, and their father were there, of course, and so was the sandy-haired US agent. But Rogério Romero was there too. The famous Rogério Romero! He was now retired from the Dodgers but still had the glow of royalty.

  “Sorry, I didn’t know you had company,” Rafael said in an awed whisper.

  Juan stepped outside and softly shut the door.

  “Rogério is opening an academy for pitchers,” he explained. “He’s going to help Hugo.”

  “Wow.” Rafael felt staggered. A few minutes ago, he’d felt self-important to be inviting Juan to train with an ex-double-A player. Now Carlos’s credentials seemed like nothing. But that was Hugo. He had always been special.

  “I have good news too,” he said. “Carlos said you can come practice with me, and if you show some intensity, maybe he’ll take you on too.” Carlos hadn’t said so, but Rafael was sure it was true.

  “I can’t,” Juan said. “I’m also going to Rogério’s academy. He’s going to teach me how to pitch.”

  Romero’s academy opened that summer, housed in a concrete building that used to be a shoe factory. It had an expansive courtyard almost the size of an infield. There were four boys at first: Hugo and Juan, Bernardo, and a boy from Santiago named Felipe. Felipe could throw a ball eighty miles an hour, Juan said, but his aim was so poor that he couldn’t hit the ocean from the beach. Carlos had nice facilities, but Romero’s were better. Besides the field, there was an expansive weight room, four bull pens, a swimming pool, and a sauna. The campus also had a dining room and a dormitory with eight beds, though so far only Felipe needed a place to sleep.

  Romero owned the place, but he didn’t run it. For that, he hired an old Cuban pitcher named Señor Cádiz, who dressed like a caballero and squinted at the world through a cloud of cigar smoke. There were other coaches and trainers who worked part time, but Cádiz was always there.