The Conman

by Mike Murphey

  If they kept Conor at this point, Jocketty explained, a mid-season release was probably inevitable.

  “So . . .”

  So, Conor picked up the thread mentally, you’re releasing me now with a few days left in Spring Training when everyone else’s rosters are set and there’s no way I’ll find a job?

  “. . . we sold you to Detroit.”

  “Um . . . say what?”

  “We sold you to Detroit. A guy over there is a friend of mine, and we talked yesterday.”

  The Detroit guy told Jocketty they had a slew of young pitchers at Double-A Birmingham and needed a mature left-hander to solidify that group.

  “I told him I knew just the guy. So, we sold you to Detroit.”

  “Sold me? How much did you get for me?”

  “A hundred dollars.” Then he added quickly, “That’s no reflection on you. It’s the standard price for a transaction like this.”

  Conor wasn’t sure what to say. After all, they could’ve released him and been done with it. He couldn’t, however, keep his disappointment from showing.

  “Hey,” Jocketty said. “You’ve still got a uniform.”

  Conor stood and extended his hand. “You’re right. And I appreciate it. Everyone here has been fair. I’ve learned a lot.”

  *Jocketty reached to take the offered hand.

  Conor turned to go.

  “There’s one other thing,” Jocketty said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Remember Charlie’s orange baseballs?”

  Conor did remember. The season before Conor signed with Oakland, Finley had tried to convince other Major League owners that baseballs should be orange. He’d argued that fans could see them better and would find the game easier to follow. So, he’d had all these orange baseballs made, and the A’s were stuck with thousands of them.

  “We thought we’d never get rid of ’em. Turns out, though, now everybody wants some of Finley’s orange baseballs as collector’s items.”

  “Okay . . .” Conor said.

  “So, my friend wants a dozen. It’s part of the deal.”

  “A hundred dollars and a dozen orange baseballs?”

  “Yeah, and I’ve got ’em right here. Would you mind delivering them when you get to Florida?”

  “They sold you?” Kate’s eyes glistened a little. Pregnant again and caring for an infant, Conor sensed that things were beginning to pile up for his wife.

  “Yeah.”

  “Didn’t the Civil War resolve all that?”

  “Not for baseball.”

  “Do we get any of the money?”

  “No.”

  “Was it a lot?”

  “No.”

  “You don’t want to tell me, do you?”

  “A hundred dollars and a dozen baseballs.”

  Her eyes glistened a little more.

  Not once had Kate hinted he should quit. She genuinely loved baseball. True, they were always broke. They lived winters with their parents. They pieced together off-season jobs to achieve any semblance of financial solvency. She seldom complained, though, rarely gave any indication she didn’t love this life they shared. But Conor sensed she was on the edge this time.

  “I’ve still got a uniform,” he said.

  Kate took a deep breath, blinked and found a smile. “Yes. Yes, you do. So where are we going?”

  “I’m going to Florida and finish Spring Training. You’ll be meeting me in Birmingham.”

  “Alabama?”

  “That’s the one.”

  twenty-four

  Birmingham Barons

  Double A Baseball

  1983

  Conor scanned his Savannah, Georgia hotel room, looking for something to break. A mirror offered the most satisfaction, but mirrors were probably expensive.

  He needed to break something, though. He needed to scream. He needed to curse the baseball angel. He needed to curse himself. And he did yell a couple of times. Without anyone to bear witness, though, a tantrum seemed kind of pointless.

  If he had a bat, he could smash a lamp. He could probably afford a lamp. Pitchers didn’t have bats, though. He hefted the lamp. Its weighted base made the thing feel awkward in his hand.

  With my luck, if I throw it I’ll probably tear my rotator cuff.

  He slammed it onto the nightstand hard enough to shatter the bulb, casting the room into darkness.

  The guy I delivered the orange baseballs to in Florida repeated what Walt told me.

  They had a bunch of nineteen and twenty-year-old pitchers. They needed someone with experience, a good clubhouse guy. Walt told him I’d done everything the A’s asked. That I understood my role.

  Roy Majytka managed Birmingham. He apparently believed my role was to sit. He put me in the bullpen where, once again, I found myself going days at a time without getting the ball. And when I did pitch, I wasn’t particularly effective.

  I’d invested myself completely in the screwball. As a lefty out of the pen, though, I didn’t find many opportunities to use it. The screwball is a weapon wielded primarily by a left hander against right-handed hitters. Bullpen lefties mostly face left-handed batters. My fastball still sizzled, but this wasn’t A ball or college. At Double-A, most guys can hit the snot out of a fastball unless you have a second pitch to keep them off balance.

  I hadn’t pitched for ten days when the Barons arrived in Savannah. Earlier that evening, Roy had called on me to protect a ninth-inning one-run lead.

  Everything collapsed around me. I walked the bases loaded. This time, no one rescued me with a funny story. The fourth batter hit a fly ball to our right fielder, scoring the tying run. I walked the fifth batter on a full count to give up the win.

  Roy, a tolerant guy who treated his players with respect, didn’t chew me out. I saw that he wasn’t happy, though. So, I sat in this hotel room, looking for something to break, wondering why my fucking baseball angel had deserted me. Things got worse when the phone rang.

  “Gordon Schuller pitched in the majors tonight!” Kate said breathlessly. “I saw it on TV!”

  I wanted to feel good for my buddy. I should have gone somewhere and celebrated a good man’s realization of the dream we all played for. Gordon’s success, though, only underscored my own failure.

  “Conor?”

  “Yeah, I’m here.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I stunk tonight. I don’t know how much longer they’ll keep me.”

  “Well,” Kate said after a brief silence, “you’ve stunk before. And trust me, I know how good you really are. You’ll live to stink again.”

  “Conor, this is Walt Jocketty. How’s it going?”

  Momentarily surprised, Conor recovered quickly. “Well, this season’s been a tough one,” he said from the Birmingham apartment.

  “Yeah, I saw the minor league reports. You don’t seem to be getting a lot of innings. Team’s doing well, though.”

  Indeed. The Barons cruised toward Southern League’s first- half title, Conor’s ninth-inning disaster only a minor setback.

  “The reason I’m calling,” Jocketty said, “is to ask if you might be interested in a coaching job.”

  “So, you wouldn’t be playing anymore?” Kate asked. “You couldn’t do this and then try out for some other team later . . .”

  “No, I’d be finished as a player.”

  Kate frowned.

  “But . . .” he said, the Savannah disaster fresh in his mind, “I may be done as a player anyway.”

  Jocketty told Conor the A’s would try something new. Instead of a single roving pitching instructor touring minor league franchises, the A’s planned to assign each minor league team its own pitching coach. And they wanted young coaches, closer to the players’ ages.

  “We’re impressed by the things you did to improve yourself,” Jocketty told him. “We love your work ethic, your approach to team and the game. Those things are what young pitchers need to understand.”

  Conor’s contract p
rovided him the princely sum of $1,100 a month for the six months of the year he played. Jocketty offered $1,500 a month for a full-year’s employment. The deal included benefits and greater job security than an itinerant minor league pitcher would ever see. With a second child due by season’s end, money and stability weighed ever more heavily on Conor’s mind.

  “We wouldn’t’ be packing halfway through a season heading somewhere else,” Conor told Kate. “And this might be how I finally make the majors. If this idea works, if other teams adopt it, this first group of young pitching coaches will have an inside track for Major League coaching jobs.”

  Kate crossed her arms and stared out the window above their kitchen sink. “You said we.”

  “What?

  “You said we wouldn’t be packing up. I’m the one who packs up and moves. You just kind of show up.”

  Conor didn’t know how to reply. He thought Kate would embrace this new possibility with welcome relief.

  “What did you tell them?” Kate asked.

  “Well, of course, I said I needed to talk to you.”

  “When would you go?”

  “The short A season started a couple of weeks ago. They want me now.”

  She took both his hands. “Your goal has always been to pitch in the major leagues, not coach there.”

  Conor felt his stomach churn. She gave voice to the nagging thing that didn’t feel right. Still . . . “Kate, this is my fifth year of double-A and my third organization. We can hardly even see the major leagues from here.”

  Kate knew her fiscal fanaticism sometimes frustrated Conor. She hoarded their meager income like Scrooge McDuck. She insisted on off-season jobs for both of them, so they at least had some money in a savings account.

  Deeply religious, Kate did her best to reconcile the sometimes diametrically opposed secular and spiritual worlds in which she lived. She knew when she married that baseball at whatever level it’s played is a profane and bawdy carnival. She could only rationalize so much, though. For the first two years of their poverty-stricken marriage, she faithfully recorded each dime they earned, and finally, when they arrived in West Haven, told Conor something must be done.

  “We owe God five hundred dollars,” she said.

  “Well, before we pay God,” Conor said, “I think we need to pay the light bill.”

  “And that’s what we do, but it’s wrong.”

  Conor suggested she talk to their priest. Kate showed the priest her record of earnings and was near tears when she said they hadn’t found a way to tithe. The cleric hugged her and smiled. “Kate, given the purity of your conscience, I think God will be all right.”

  And even though they were off the hook with God for the moment, Kate insisted the obligations of wordly debt they were forced to incur, like car payments, must be met promptly and according to the agreement they’d made with the bank.

  “When would you get paid?” she asked him. “If you take the coaching job, I mean.”

  “Well, probably not until the middle of next month.”

  “You can’t do it.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because if you leave now, we won’t get next week’s check from the Tigers until who knows when. And we’ve got a car payment due.”

  “But we could—”

  “No, we can’t. Let’s hang in here a little longer, at least long enough to make the car payment.”

  She smiled as she saw the relief printed on Conor’s face.

  The game that evening lasted eighteen innings. Majytka used every pitcher except Conor. As the game ended, a gentle rain began to fall. The shower became a downpour, canceling the following night’s game. The Barons would play a double-header the final day of the season’s first half.

  “Conman,” the trainer called from across the clubhouse two hours before the first game was to start. “Skip wants you.”

  Fuck! Conor hoped it wasn’t too late to call Jocketty and ask if the coaching job was still available.

  Majytka waved Conor into his office, leaned back in an ancient chair that squeaked a protest, then rubbed both eyes with his fists. He pointed at a metal folding chair.

  “Conman,” he said, leaning forward on both elbows, “I’ve got a problem.”

  Okay. Wait . . . he didn’t tell me to close the door.

  “That sounds kind of like,” Conor said tentatively, “your problem is about to become my problem?”

  “Yep.” He waved toward the clubhouse. “I’m fresh out of arms. With the eighteen innings and now the double-header, I’ve got no one to start the second game. Ward’s gonna start the first one, and I already told him I’ve got one guy available to relieve him—Moya. Roger Mason was scheduled for the second game. He’s sick. That leaves you. And absolutely nobody behind you. If you give it up, I’ll see if one of the outfielders can throw strikes. I’m sorry . . .”

  “What do you mean, sorry? This is what I’ve wanted all along.”

  Majytka smiled the kind of smile that said I appreciate the sentiment, but we both know the water’s over your head here. “Okay. You got the ball.”

  “Thanks, Skip. And, for the record, I won’t give it up.”

  As Kate beamed her confidence from her seat behind home plate, Conor threw a complete game shutout, striking out ten.

  Majytka summoned him back to the office.

  “Wow! You’re a totally different pitcher as a starter. I’ve made a big mistake.”

  “No problem. You’re not the first manager to tell me that.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ve gotta make some calls. See if we can get you into the rotation.”

  Conor grinned and stood to leave.

  “Oh, yeah,” Majytka said, “I almost forgot. You threw a complete game shutout. You won a suit.”

  “A suit?”

  “Yeah. The men’s shop advertised on the right field fence? Any Barons pitcher throws a complete game shutout, they give ’em a suit. I got the certificate right here.”

  Conor walked out of Majytka’s office carrying his certificate.

  “You gonna use that?” Outfielder Mark Manchester pointed to his certificate.

  “Because if you’re not,” Manchester continued, “I’m going to a wedding over the break, and I need a suit. I’ll give you three hundred dollars for it.”

  Conor slid into the car and handed Kate three hundred dollars.

  “I sold a suit,” he said.

  “You don’t have a suit.”

  “I know. And I still don’t. It’s enough money for the car payment.”

  Kate grinned. “So, do you want to call the A’s and go be a coach?”

  He returned her smile. “Let’s hang around here a little longer and see what happens.”

  As a brand-new member of the Birmingham Barons starting rotation, Conor made the third start of the second half. He threw another complete-game shutout. He struck out ten more. He won another suit.

  “You want to sell the suit?” an infielder asked.

  He handed Kate another three hundred dollars in the parking lot.

  “Are you doing something illegal?” she asked. “Is this some scheme of A.J.’s?”

  “Nope.”

  “Then where’s the money coming from.”

  “I sold another suit.”

  I won ten straight over the season’s last half. We ran away with the Southern League Title. I made my second straight All-Star team and was named left-handed pitcher for Birmingham’s All-Decade team.

  “I played basically two months, and I’m All-Decade,” I told Brad.

  As the season wound down, I overheard a group of sportswriters seeking comment from Roy, concerning the likelihood he would be named Southern League Manager of the Year.

  “Boy, what a joke,” Roy told them. “I had my best pitcher sitting the whole first half of the season. How smart does that make me?”

  twenty-five

  Conor leaned his head back and poured a small stream of champagne from the bottle to his mouth, gradu
ally increasing the distance like a fancy restaurant waiter. He quickly discovered this skill requires practice. He tried to blink the sting of champagne from his eyes as he considered the happenstance of right place and right time.

  During the strike of 1981, the major league season stopped for two months while owners and players hammered out a new collective bargaining agreement. One of the throw-ins was minor league free agency. Major League players won the right to become free agents in 1976. Minor leaguers, though, remained bound to the team that signed them forever, if the team chose. Over the winter of 1983-84, though, the rules changed. Any player under minor league contract for six years could declare his free agency.

  And guess what? I’d been playing for seven seasons.

  “Obviously, Conman, we want to sign you for next year.”

  Detroit’s minor league pitching coordinator, Billy Muffitt, called soon after Conor and Kate returned to San Carlos. Again, they lived with Conor’s mom, arranging their winter jobs, securing a spot on the roster of a Golden Gate Park League squad.

  During the final weeks of the 1983 season, a parade of Detroit executives and coordinators saw Conor pitch. Through the final games and into the playoffs, they saw him win duels against Jose Rios, Mark Langston and Bret Saberhagen. They saw a mature, one hundred-seventy-pound lefthander who threw harder in the ninth inning than he did in the first and augmented his stuff with a screwball that turned right-handed batters inside out.

  Both A.J. and Brad greeted Conor when he and Kate arrived home, eager to know what he planned.

  “Well, I can’t imagine Detroit won’t offer me a contract—”

  “Yes,” A.J. said, “but what kind of contract? You’ve done everything you can at Double-A. You want a Triple-A contract and an invitation to Major League camp.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I want. It doesn’t mean they have to give it to me.”

  “Yes, they do,” Brad said.

  “They do?”

  “I’ve been looking at the minor league free agency agreement taking effect January first. You can declare free agency and sign with anyone you want. You’ve got the leverage, now.”