The Conman

by Mike Murphey

  Wearing his workout gear, still brooding, he shagged batting practice fly balls in left field. Returning to the clubhouse he passed an empty office. Hesitating, he checked the hallway in both directions, then stepped inside.

  He knew Rubenski’s phone number by heart.

  “I want my release,” Conor said without preamble.

  “I’m not listening to this,” Rubenski said. “We’ve been over and over—”

  “Yes, we have. I’m not going out there. I’m done. You’ve taken advantage of me. I accepted this verbal agreement in good faith, and you screwed me. You’re holding my career hostage.”

  “We have a contract—”

  “My agent and my lawyer say we can get free of this contract. I’m not playing for the Padres or any of your affiliates again.”

  Nnnnnnnnnnuuuhh. “Yes, you are.”

  “No, this is ridiculous . . .”

  Uhhhhhnnn. “We control you the” Uhhhhhnnn “rest of the year.”

  The grunting confused Conor until the reality occurred to him. “Hey, are you taking a crap?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “This is my future we’re talking about and you’re on the toilet, taking a fucking dump? I don’t know why I’m even surprised.”

  “Okay, fucker, okay. I’ve had it. You’ve got your release. As of this moment. And you know what? You might find getting signed by anyone ever again very difficult! Clear your stuff out today!”

  Exiting the office, Conor bumped into catcher Jeff Egret.

  “Hey, Conman, what’s the word?”

  “Well, believe it or not, I just got released by a guy while he was taking a crap.”

  “No, you did not.”

  “Yes, I did. I’m a free man. I’m gonna have a beer and pack my bags.”

  As they ran off the field for the bottom half of the first inning, word spread among the Stars’ players.

  Conor packed his locker as guys ducked inside offering their goodbyes. By the time pitcher Todd Simpson stopped by Conor had enjoyed three celebratory brews. So, he was vulnerable to Simpsons’ suggestion.

  “You know what you should do, Conman? You should put on the Starman! costume.”

  thirty-four

  The Starman! deserved not only a toast,

  Conor decided, but a moment of silence as well. He stood, stepped onto the sandstone bench, and raised the bottle high.

  Boy, Rita, I hope you weren’t off somewhere else when we resurrected the Starman!

  The Las Vegas Stars’ 1989 pre-season promotions centered on a new mascot: Starman! Always printed and spoken with an exclamation mark. In keeping with minor league mascot tradition, they billed Starman! as a wild and crazy guy who would commit shenanigans and hijinks, bringing raucous humor to Cashman Field that summer.

  Starman! plastered billboards all over town. He was interviewed—although mascots are forbidden from talking—on local television channels. He appeared at pre-season grocery store openings. He visited a children’s hospital where he scared the snot out of most of the kids.

  The Starman! costume consisted of a giant five-pointed star. A cutout in the top point displayed his face. His arms extended from two more points, his legs from the others. The team hired a gymnast from UNLV, envisioning Starman! as a creature who would flip and cartwheel and somersault his way into fans’ hearts.

  So, on opening day, a packed house waited to welcome the Starman! He was supposed to make his entrance sprinting from the home dugout, cartwheeling his way to the foul line, ending everything with a full back flip leaving him standing at home plate.

  The kid, who usually performed his acrobatics before a half dozen gymnastics fan and his parents, became so caught up by the roar of ten thousand fans, he forgot he had a good eighteen inches of star protruding over his head.

  He spiked himself into the ground on his second cartwheel and became a rolling avalanche, star points flailing, until, mercifully, he came to rest—face down—in the right-hand batter’s box.

  We thought he might be dead. Trainers from both dugouts waved their arms at an ambulance parked just past the outfield fence. As the left field gate opened and two ambulance attendants rushed forward carrying a portable gurney, someone chanted Starman! Starman! Starman! Someone else joined in. Pretty soon ten thousand people added their voices.

  The Starman! remained out cold as the ambulance guys arranged all his points to fit on a gurney and rolled him away. The crowd sent him off with wild applause, stomping their feet and screaming.

  Starman! Starman! Starman! Starman!

  “Hey,” Simpson told Dave Lieper, “Conman got released. He’s gonna wear the Starman! suit.”

  “Oh, man, that would be epic.”

  “I’m not putting on the Starman! suit. I’m packing.”

  “You’ve got to, Conman. They’d be talking about it forever. Here, let me get you another beer.”

  “We don’t even know where the Starman! suit is,” Conor said.

  “I’ll bet we can find out.”

  They located Don Logan, the Star’s general manager.

  Okay, Rita, businesspeople who own and run minor league baseball teams have nothing to do with the baseball aspect of their enterprise. They sign an agreement with their major league partners and provide a ballpark. The major league team provides and is in complete control of the players. To make money, owners and their representatives must convince people to attend. All manner of bizarre and tasteless promotions lure fans like carnival barkers. I’ve seen Toss A Midget Night, Mike Tyson Plastic Ear Night, Moses Bobblehead Night. Even Vasectomy Night at some ballpark in Arkansas where a lucky fan won a surgical procedure.

  So, Don Logan, thrilled at the idea of Starman! making another appearance, said, “Yeah, I know where the suit is. I’ll go get it.”

  Several minutes—and one more beer—later, the empty Starman! costume rested at my locker, along with a half-dozen members of our pitching staff.

  “I told you, I’m not putting it on. I’d probably get in trouble.”

  “What are they gonna do, release you?” Everybody laughed, and somewhere, bubbling through the snorts and giggles, I heard those three little words: I dare you.

  Everything seemed to fit. A band of elastic clamped the tight circle of fabric around his face. While his legs were flexible enough to run and jump, Conor found his arms more restricted. The star points were stiff and bringing his hands together took considerable effort, like doing bench curls with heavy weights.

  “Okay, between innings, run onto the field,” Simpson instructed.

  “No, no. that’s boring. He’s gotta make an entrance!”

  “What kind of entrance?”

  “The Go-Kart!”

  Conor’s eyes, now floating on the surface of his sixth beer, lit up.

  Yeah! The Go-Kart!

  Conor and the other bullpen guys loved the go-kart.

  Grounds crew guys used a go-kart, festooned with Stars logos, to drag the infield before and during each game. The go-kart sat locked in a cage under the bleachers at the left-field foul pole. A concrete ramp ran from this cage down to field level. A gate a little way from the Stars’ bullpen seating area admitted the cart onto the warning track.

  Conor and the other bullpen pitchers had plotted all season to get their hands on the go-kart. The cage, though, was kept locked. Before his release, Conor had been constructing an elaborate scheme to make a wax impression of the head groundskeeper’s gate key so he could make duplicates.

  Late during the sixth inning, the pitchers snuck Starman! along a narrow concourse running under the stands.

  “Starman! needs the go-kart,” they told the cage guardian.

  This slack-jawed kid looked Starman! up and down. Conor did his best to offer a reassuring smile, although a smile coming from the disembodied face of someone wearing a giant star is pretty creepy.

  The kid took a couple of wary steps away from Starman! and protested, “Nobody told me anything about—”
/>   “It’s one of those things that just came up. Don Logan okayed it.”

  “Mr. Logan did?”

  “Yeah. Call him if you want. He’s in the owner’s box with some really important guys . . .”

  “And he said it was okay?”

  “Who do you think gave us the Starman! suit?”

  The kid produced a key.

  Yessssss!

  “This won’t work. The arms are too stiff. I can’t bend them enough to keep my hands on the steering wheel.”

  Conor sat wedged into the go-kart. His Starman! feet were too big for the gas and brake pedals and his legs were bowed. His main problem, though, would be steering.

  “No, no, we can fix it,” Simpson said. “Hey, Pat, run into the clubhouse and get some tape.”

  As Simpson pushed the left arm, and Pete Labine pushed the right, they bent the suit enough to secure Starman!’s hands to the wheel with a roll of athletic tape.

  “Okay, can you drive?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I think so.”

  Conor, strapped into the golf cart and unable to rotate his head left or right without popping his face out of the cutout, asked for instructions.

  “I’ll get it started for you,” the kid said, “from there it’s easy. Push the gas pedal to go and let off to stop.”

  Conor found the gas pedal with his right foot.

  “What about the brake?” he asked.

  “You won’t need it. Just back off the gas.”

  “One last thing,” Simpson said. “Sunglasses.”

  Starman!, being a native of Las Vegas where the sun always shone and celebrities always hid behind shades, never appeared without sunglasses. Simpson carefully placed the darkened lenses over Conor’s eyes, tucking the stems into the elastic band surrounding his face, and sliding them over his ears.

  Simpson stepped back and examined his handiwork. “You are the Starman! Okay, we’ve gotta get to the bullpen. The kid will open the gate at the bottom of the ramp. What are you gonna do when you get out there?”

  “I’ll circle the field on the warning track. Then I’ll stop at our dugout, say goodbye to everyone, and drive back here.”

  The kid started the go-kart with two outs in the bottom of the eighth. Conor sat idling at the top of the ramp. Given his limited range of vision, he could only follow the game on the center field scoreboard which stood directly in his line of sight.

  He saw the light indicating third out wink on. The other lights and numbers reset themselves to zeroes. Stars’ left-fielder Shane Mack entered Conor’s vision, trotting to take his warm-up tosses between innings.

  Okay. Here we go . . .

  The kid waved and swung the gate open. Conor jammed his right foot onto the gas pedal.

  “Aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!”

  He slammed back against the seat with a force he estimated at about two G’s. The go-kart screamed down the ramp. As he blasted past the kid and he heard something that sounded like Noooooo . . . Toooofaassst . . . Toooofaasst!

  As his head snapped back, his chin became untucked from the elastic band framing his face. He stared at black sky as the go-kart’s rear wheels bit into the warning track. He tried to slack off the accelerator, but his right foot was wedged solidly into place.

  He forced his chin down to find Shane Mack, raw fear etched across his face, as a demonic, screaming machine driven by some multi-tentacled creature wearing sunglasses leapt from the stands and homed in on him like a heat-seeking missile.

  The brake! Hit the brake!

  Conor shoved with his left foot. The rear wheels kept grinding but the left front wheel locked. Conor saw a blurred and repetitive collage: ShaneMackWallFans, ShaneMackWallFans, ShaneMackWallFans . . .

  Now, both feet were wedged. Conor fought, and finally the left one popped free.

  As the kart tore from its spin, Starman! screamed toward the Las Vegas bullpen.

  Cashman Field’s bullpens consisted of a double mound and two home plates situated along each foul line. Pitchers occupied a row of metal folding chairs lined against the wall separating fan seating from the field.

  The seven Las Vegas bullpen members roared with laughter as Shane Mack fled the spinning go-kart. Now, though, this bullet headed straight for them.

  Conor couldn’t free himself from the gas pedal, as, one-by-one, pitchers bailed over the wall and fans helped pull them to safety. Conor cranked the steering wheel enough to avoid a fiery collision into the crowd.

  Now his path took him directly toward the bullpen pitching mound.

  He braced for a jarring collision. Instead, the mound’s rear slope propelled Starman! and his go-kart gracefully into the sky. Time slowed to a crawl.

  In his peripheral vision, Conor saw a blur of faces as he soared past fans. He saw the distant press box and grandstand, brightly lit against a horizon of glittering Las Vegas neon. He saw the opposing team’s third base coach leap, performing a graceful, twisting slow-motion pirouette, worthy of any matador.

  Conor’s world began to tilt sideways as the go-kart’s aerodynamics failed. His taped hands wrenched at the steering wheel to correct this slow roll. The go-kart, lacking ailerons, failed to respond.

  The go-kart twisted a full ninety degrees as it began its descent. Conor smashed into the warning track on the cart’s left side, plowing a furrow through the red clay, coming to halt fifty feet from his dugout.

  Mercifully, the engine only whined for a moment before dying. One wheel spun silently. Someone yelled, “Get out! Get out! That thing might catch fire!”

  Someone else yelled, “He can’t get out!”

  “Why not?”

  “His hands are taped to the steering wheel!”

  Lying sideways in the dirt, his sunglasses askew, Conor watched as a Stars trainer sprinted heroically, carrying a pair of scissors to cut him loose.

  “Conman, Conman, are you okay?” the trainer demanded.

  A single thought occurred to Conor. “Didn’t your mother ever tell you how dangerous it is to run with scissors?”

  They cut Conor free and helped him to his feet.

  “Can you walk?”

  “Yeah, I think so. I’m—”

  The ovation sounded as if it came from a stadium of a hundred thousand.

  Conor turned in a stiff, slow circle. From every part of the park, fans stomped and whistled and cheered. The chant began, spreading to both teams and even the umpires.

  Starman! Starman! Starman! Starman! Starman!

  Conor managed a small but triumphant leap. He raised his arms as best he could, ran to home plate, then executed a stiff-legged tour around the bases.

  Finally, he bowed stiffly, squeezed his way down the dugout steps and into the clubhouse.

  Conor decided to surprise Kate and the kids. He began the long drive north early the next morning, arriving home that afternoon. He encountered a state of chaos.

  Kate yelled. David cried. Dogs barked.

  “Why are you home?” Kate asked.

  “I got released. What’s going on?”

  “David fell into the pool.”

  “He knows how to swim.”

  “He had his clothes on and I guess it kind of scared him, which scared me. I swear, I tell him time after time to pay attention to what he’s doing. Sometimes, I think he’s got no common sense. Where do you think he gets that?”

  “Yeah, where do you think?”

  “So, getting released is good, right?”

  “Very good.”

  “Okay. I hope you took time to say goodbye to everyone.”

  “Yeah.” Conor smiled. “Yeah, I did.”

  thirty-five

  I embrace the concept of Karma. That’s about as Zen as I get, though. I hold a basic faith that what goes around, comes around. When you struggled through as many manipulations and mistreatments at the whim of baseball executives, as a lot of us did, to survive without surrendering completely to cynicism you must nurture a thread of belief that somewhere, somehow accounts
will be settled.

  When the Padres released me, the Angels were embroiled in a pennant race. Neck and neck with Oakland and Kansas City as the second half began, the Angels blew a comfortable lead, ultimately finishing seven games behind American League champion Oakland.

  I heard later the Angels manager made a specific plea to GM Mitchell Preston. Get Conor Nash. Give him whatever he wants. He fits our needs perfectly. He might make the difference.

  Conor thought of his first release and the disputed dental bill.

  He raised a toast to karma.

  “So, will you finally get out of the way and let me do this? I must say, I’m not sure I could do a lot worse.”

  “Okay, A.J., you are officially my agent. The Mariners already told me—”

  “Connie, stop right there. This is the problem. You’re still ready to accept what someone tells you. We’ll do it right this time.”

  A.J. rented a suite at the airport Marriott in Los Angeles.

  “Why do we need a suite?” Conor asked. “You’re just calling people. You can do that in a phone booth.”

  “Hey, I know money. I know deals. You must achieve a certain frame of mind—which requires a specific ambiance. George Steinbrenner will know if I’m calling from a phone booth.”

  A.J. explained his strategy. He’d call every GM or owner who’d listen. He would discuss three signing options: A package, Conor is immediately placed on the forty-man roster and assigned to the major league club; B package, Conor is on the forty-man, assigned to Triple-A, with a guaranteed call-up at some point during the season; C package, not on the forty-man roster, assigned to Triple-A, a guaranteed September call-up.

  “A key to negotiation,” A.J. said, “is giving people options. Of course, we want you in the majors. What we’re really negotiating for, though, is the forty-man roster.”

  “We are?”

  “Must I remind you, Kate is pregnant again? Ultimately, who will I have to answer to? Not you. You’ve been pissed at me before. I don’t want Kate mad at me. We get on the forty-man, you’ve got medical benefits.”