by Mike Murphey
Which was fine with them because they were on a major league schedule, making major league meal money. They threw bullpens early, completed their workouts, and could play golf the rest of the day. Charlie Finley had sold the A’s during the off season, and the new owners didn’t pinch pennies. Each player in major league camp received a hundred and fifty dollars meal money per day—a veritable fortune for minor leaguers who earned a thousand dollars a month for the six-month season.
Conor and Gordon both sent the meal money home to their wives and ate at the Ramada Inn. The motel provided players a buffet spread in a room adjacent to the main restaurant where civilians dined.
Darryl folded his arms across his chest, gave Conor an I-dare-you glare, and said with exaggerated deliberation, “John Wayne Is A Horse-Shit Actor.”
Conor measured the distance across the table. He looked at his plate, scooped a handful of mashed potatoes, and flung the glob into Darryl’s face. “Say it again, and I’ll stick asparagus up your nose.”
Darryl, temporarily blinded, groped for his meatloaf, missed Conor and hit the guy next to him. The battle was on. A room full of minor league baseball players emptied their plates, then scrambled for the buffet table to reload and began pelting anyone who crossed their path. Including the motel manager as he ran screaming into the room, threatening dire consequences. This meat and vegetable mayhem extended for ten minutes, until the buffet table ran out of ammunition.
The main restaurant patrons held front row seats. Some of the children cheered before their horrified parents squelched them.
As he walked to his room, plastered with supper, his head tilted to one side while he thumped gravy from his ear, Conor felt pretty sure he was in trouble.
“I want every mother-fucking minor league guy on the third baseline right now!” Billy Martin’s angry voice rang through the empty stadium.
Conor, Darryl and others tentatively withdrew from the group stretching ritual that began workouts each day. Exchanging sheepish glances, they made their way towards the infield.
“Now!” Martin screamed.
The collective mosey became a sprint.
They formed a neat row, shoulder to shoulder, toes touching the chalked foul line, Conor and Darryl separated by three guys.
“Who started it?”
They met Martin’s demand silently. No one wanted to rat out a teammate. On the other hand, Conor didn’t want everybody punished for something he’d instigated. He leaned to look at Darryl. Darryl returned a grim stare. Okay, if you go, I’ll go, but I’m not . . .
And Darryl deked him. Darryl gave a little twitch, the slightest twist of his shoulder. Conor took a big step forward.
Martin was immediately in his face. “You started this?”
“Well, yeah.”
Darryl did the right thing. He stepped forward. “Me, too.”
Martin skewered them with a glare, said, “In . . . my . . . office . . .” and stomped away.
“Shit,” Darryl said as they walked together. “We’ll get released for sure.”
They followed a dozen paces behind Martin into a building housing the executive offices. They entered a foyer with chairs along one wall. Martin pointed to the chairs. Conor and Darryl sat. Conor’s chair stood directly facing the door marked Manager. Darryl chose a chair off to one side. Martin opened the door, entered, then closed it again, giving Conor a clear view of Martin’s desk.
Conor smiled, turned to Darryl, and said, “You are fucked.”
“What do you mean?”
“You are soooo fucked.”
“You’re just as fucked as I am.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are.”
“No, I’m not. Trust me.”
Martin opened the door and waggled a finger, summoning them inside. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”
As they entered, Darryl gasped. His shoulders sagged. His face drained of color. On the wall directly behind Martin’s desk was an almost life-sized oil painting of John Wayne. Hanging next to the painting, a framed eleven by fourteen photo of Billy Martin and John Wayne. Conor made a slow, three-hundred-and-sixty-degree turn. Atop a cadenza along the wall sat a pair of boots, autographed by John Wayne. A rifle mounted in a wood and glass display hung on the opposite wall, the rifle’s stock inscribed with a flowing script: To my great friend, Billy. The Duke.
Darryl turned to Conor, his eyes begging.
And Conor decided he couldn’t volunteer the information. That would sound too much like whining, or tattling. If Martin asked, though . . . well, he couldn’t lie, could he?
Martin ripped into them with a vengeance. How could they be so stupid? This wasn’t some locker room prank. Civilians had been present. Didn’t they realize they represented a Major League Baseball organization and not the slipshod, cut-rate carnival show operated by Charlie Finley.
“This is bullshit! I don’t care what started it! Nothing excuses . . .”
Conor’s heart pounded. He saw relief flow through Darryl’s face. Conor said a silent prayer. Ask me. Please, please just ask me.
“. . . I don’t even want to know . . . Fuck. Yes, I do. What stupid, fucked-up reason would you—”
Conor pointed at Darryl. “He called John Wayne a horseshit actor.”
Martin’s tirade screeched to a halt, eyes wide and unblinking. His mouth formed a neat O, as if he’d been told gravity was only an illusion, or God didn’t make little green apples. Silence draped the office like a shroud until Martin finally pulled himself together.
“Excuse me?”
“He said John Wayne was a horseshit actor. He’d been saying it all day, and it really pissed me off. He must have said it twenty times. Finally, when he said it while we were eating, I was gonna punch him, but I couldn’t reach all the way across the table. So, I hit him with my potatoes.”
Once again, silence descended. Conor wasn’t sure anyone was even breathing.
Martin again struggled to find his voice. “I . . . I can’t even . . . In the first place, what would ever possess you to think John Wayne was a horseshit actor?” He looked at Conor through imploring eyes, as if he might find the answer there.
“Yeah, Darryl,” Conor said. “Why would you think that?”
Darryl opened his mouth and wheezed a couple of times. He found no words.
“Nash,” Martin said, “get out of my office.”
Conor did not hesitate. He hurried away, leaving Darryl to his fate.
During the next afternoon’s game, Conor watched Darrel run along the outfield warning track from foul pole to foul pole. Twenty times.
Both Darryl and I continued our employment with the A’s. And Gordon and I continued throwing batting practice. Miraculously, though, following my defense of John Wayne, Martin granted me an inning during a morning B game—a game not on the official spring training schedule.
At every step of Martin’s managing career, Art Fowler served as Billy’s pitching coach and sidekick. Art was a Louisiana good-ol’-boy who matched Billy drink-for-drink in bars all across America. He’d noticed my bullpens, had complimented my fastball and the weird little change-up I’d developed, and decided I deserved a look-see during actual competition.
Spring Training, consisting of two or three weeks of workouts followed by a months’ worth of baseball games, exists primarily for pitchers. Hitters and position players need a couple of weeks to get ready. Pitchers, however, must be brought along slowly. Occasional B games are arranged, because scheduled games don’t provide enough innings for us to get the work we need.
The remainder of the B squad is typically a mixture of minor league prospects and major league vets who feel they need some extra at-bats. Occupying the opposite dugout this day was a group from the Giants—the team I’d dreamed of playing for as a kid.
Fowler attended—a surprise because he didn’t rise early, having spent most evenings drinking until one or two in the morning with Billy.
Given these ci
rcumstances—Fowler, the pressure of a single inning to impress everyone and playing against the Giants—I surprised myself by remaining relatively calm. Until, as I finished my warmups, I looked into the outfield. I spotted Martin himself, trudging along the warning track towards the farthest reach of center field. Very likely hung over, Billy walked deliberately, eyes hidden behind sunglasses, head down, hands tucked into his back pockets until he reached the 408-foot sign high on the green padding of the outfield wall. Once arrived, he put his back against the fence and, ever so slowly, slid to a sitting position. He leaned his head into the padding, sunshine bathing his face.
Okay, the manager’s watching. Maybe. Who knows what’s happening behind those sunglasses. Maybe he’s asleep?
Conor did his best not even to see hitters. He narrowed his vision to the catcher’s glove, so the batter became only an indistinct presence. That accomplished, he took a deep breath, tried to dismiss Fowler and Martin from his mind, and see only the single index finger catcher Mike Heath extended.
Ball one. Okay, focus. Ball two. Relax, dammit! Ball three. Shit. Don’t walk the first . . . Ball four! Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck! Ok. Start over. Check the runner. Throw over? No, I walked him on four straight pitches. He’ll wait to see if I can throw a strike before he tries to steal. Deep breath. Ball one. Ball two. Ball three. Ball four. And here comes Fowler. Well, no one’s warming up yet, so I should get at least a couple more hitters.
Art Fowler walked with a fat-man’s side-to-side roll. He displayed a bulbous drinker’s nose and spoke from somewhere way down south. As he reached the mound, Heath and the infielders arrived as well.
“Ah don’ need you otha’ fellas heah,” Fowler grumbled. The infielders dispersed, leaving only Conor and his catcher. Conor waited for a demand to throw strikes. Instead, Fowler unlimbered his thick neck with a little crick from side to side.
“Ah got home ’bout two-clock this mawnin,” he said. “My wife’s waitin’ and she says, Yew been out drinkin’ with Billy, ain’t ya? I told ’er I was, and she said, how much money yew spend? I thought ’bout it, and I told ’er, Oh, ’bout two hundred dolla. So, she says, Yew know how long it’d take me to spend two hundred dolla? I thought ’bout it fo’ a minute and I said, Well, ya don’t drink . . . and ya don’t smoke . . . and ya got ya’ own pussy . . . so, I guess two hundred dolla’ last yew just ’bout ferever.”
Conor and Heath nearly fell over laughing as Fowler waddled away.
Conor struck out the next two hitters, then induced an infield pop-up for the final out.
“Guess what?” Conor walked into the West Haven apartment and wrapped his arms around his very pregnant wife.
“Okay. What?”
“No, no. Guess.”
“You saw some woman naked—who wasn’t fat and pregnant.”
“No, of course not.”
“A.J. and Basil and Brad are visiting and you’re gonna get beat up in a bar fight.”
“Nope. Better.”
“Hmmmmmmm. No. No. Not Tacoma?”
Conor grinned.
“Gotta be there day after tomorrow.”
Kate jumped, as best she could, fisted her hands above her head, and cheered. It didn’t matter that she must pack the apartment and drive a Chevy Cavalier cross-country by herself—a week-long process. They were going to Triple-A!
Tacoma, Washington
Triple A Baseball
1982
Fred Tuttle welcomed Conor enthusiastically, inserted him immediately into the Tacoma Tigers starting rotation, and Conor sucked. His fastball got hit. He didn’t throw the screwball with any conviction and his curveball stunk because Conor devoted his bullpen time to the screwball.
“I wanted Triple-A too much,” he told Fat Brad by phone following his second start. Once again, he’d been knocked all over the park.
“I thought the screwball was working,” Brad said.
“Well, at Double-A it was. I don’t know, these are Triple-A hitters, and I’d get behind and, well, I just didn’t want to throw it.”
“Wait a minute,” Brad said, “most of these guys were Double-A hitters last season or the year before, You got them out then.”
“Yeah—”
“They didn’t turn into Superman because they moved to Tacoma. Trust your stuff.”
Kate arrived two days after his second start. They unpacked into the apartment Conor had leased. Kate loved the cool Northwest weather. She loved that they were on the West Coast and closer to home.
She didn’t make the Vancouver trip for Conor’s third start.
“I pitched much better,” he told her during his post-game phone call. “The screwball was working. I didn’t win, but my numbers were good. Oh, wait, I’ve gotta go. Fred wants to see me.”
“Conman, we’re sending you back to West Haven. You’re not ready. I know you pitched good tonight. To stay here, though, you had to pitch good three nights. So, I don’t want you to feel like you didn’t get a fair chance.”
Conor stood in the visiting manager’s cubicle. Everything about the place was dreary and grey.
“No, Ed. You gave me an opportunity and I blew it.”
“Go to West Haven and take care of business. You’ve got the ability to pitch here. You’re just not ready.”
Conor plodded into the locker room, out to a hallway running under the grandstands, and the pay phone.
“Back to West Haven?” Kate asked, her voice quavering. “Conor, I . . . I can’t do all that again . . . pack up and drive three thousand miles. I’m sorry. I just can’t”
“I know. It’s August. The season’s almost over, and then we’ve got playoffs. I’ll be done in a month. Go home and have a baby. I’ll do my best to get there.”
twenty-three
Conor had been on the mountain for hours. He didn’t know for sure what the time was, but he’d started his climb about three that afternoon. Now a grey dusk spread shadows across the valley below. He enjoyed a pleasant buzz and with a half bottle of champagne left, wasn’t concerned about the passage of time.
I really sweated it when West Haven made the 1982 playoffs. The last thing I wanted was Kate giving birth without me. On her due date I started the opening game of the Eastern League Championship series against the Lynn Sailors.
Turns out I shouldn’t have worried. She remained pregnant until I got home two weeks later, and then two more weeks after that.
As each day passed, Kate became more prone to snarling. Entirely too many people were patting her stomach and saying how much pregnancy became her.
“The apple will fall when it’s red,” an elderly aunt told her day after bloated day.
“This frickin’ apple is so red, it’s purple,” she said. “And I’m gonna strangle the next person who touches my tummy!”
Jessica’s birth occurred a full month late. Kate swore the baby must have weighed north of twenty pounds.
Conor enjoyed the complications of fatherhood but he could not escape a growing anxiety as Spring Training neared without an invitation to major league camp. Even though he screwed the pooch at Triple-A, his West Haven performance had been outstanding. He’d walked only sixty-four batters while striking out a hundred and fifty-four. The yips had died a lingering death while the screwball matured. He’d established himself as a starter.
This, however, was a different A’s organization.
Young talent drafted when Martin and Jocketty took over began to mature. The A’s didn’t need an endless parade of lefties for Martin’s perusal. At twenty-seven, no longer a young man in baseball years, Conor didn’t know where, or if, he fit into Oakland’s plans.
As, so often the case throughout his career, though, he performed best when his survival was at stake.
Having put polishing touches on the screwball during his winter appearances at Golden Gate Park, he tore up Spring Training. He cherished the day Billy Martin strolled through the minor league workouts and watched Conor throw batting practice.
&n
bsp; “I need work on off-speed stuff,” the hitter told Conor. “Give me a few of those changeup things you’ve been throwing.”
Conor obliged. The hitter whiffed at four straight deliveries and said with a sheepish smile and a shake of his head, “That’s a pretty good pitch.”
“Ya’ think?” Martin said, leaning against the turtle behind the batter. “You knew it was coming, and you still couldn’t hit it.”
As Conor left the mound, Martin waved him over.
“That pitch looks a lot like a screwball,” he said.
“Yeah, I’ve been working on it.”
“Well, Conman, keep working. That thing’s gonna make you some money.”
Conor’s high slumped to a corresponding low the morning rosters were released, and he found himself West Haven-bound for a fifth straight season.
“Here’s the thing,” he told Gordon Schuller, who’d been elevated to Tacoma, “I’m twenty-seven years old. I’m like an actor who gets typecast. They only see me as the Double-A guy.”
He discovered the truth of that statement a week before the A’s broke camp when Walt Jocketty summoned him.
Scottsdale, Arizona
Spring Training
1983
“First thing I want to make clear,” Jocketty told Conor, “is how much we respect the effort you’ve given us. Everybody in the organization, Bob Didier, Fred Tuttle, hell, even Billy, says you’re a good man with talent.”
Conor’s knees felt a little wobbly. Jocketty’s statement sounded like a preamble to release if Conor had ever heard one.
“It’s not that we don’t want you, because we do. It’s a matter of space. Since Charlie sold the club, we’ve been doing a better job of stocking the minors. We have a lot of hot young lefties at A ball who’ll be knocking on the double-A door pretty quick this season. And at the same time, you’re bumping up against some real good lefthanders above you.”
