The Way of Baseball

by Shawn Green

  Beautiful.

  My move from Los Angeles to Arizona had been a big step out of the spotlight, furthering my efforts to regulate my ego. Being a D-Back had afforded me the chance to once again perceive the game with lightness, rather than as a weighty burden. By the time the Mets called, I felt sufficiently recharged to jump back into the fire. Besides, the prospect of playing for a World Series–caliber team doesn’t come along very often. And I was emotionally and spiritually ready to play in New York, the baseball capital of the world. The five years I’d spent in Los Angeles battling my ego and my identity as a ballplayer had made me aware of the pitfalls of losing myself in expectations. I was ready now not only to handle the big city chaos and intensity but to enjoy it. And best of all, I was getting to do it alongside familiar faces.

  Carlos wasn’t my only former teammate on this team. Utility man Chris Woodward had also been a teammate of ours with the Blue Jays. Former Dodger teammates included Paul Lo Duca, Guillermo Mota, and Duaner Sanchez. Orlando Hernandez, aka El Duque, had been my teammate during the first half of the season in Arizona. In all, a quarter of the team consisted of guys I’d played with before. Familiar faces make change easier. Also, I was looking forward to playing with the game’s oldest player, and one of its wisest hitters, Julio Franco. Perhaps he’d pass along some of the knowledge he’d shared over the years with Tony Fernandez.

  Carlos and I drove from the FDR Drive to the Triboro Bridge. Meantime, Carlos described both the layout of the route to Queens and the layout of the Mets organization. He liked playing here (both he and the team were having great seasons). He’d never before been to the postseason, having spent most of his career looking up at the Yankees and Red Sox in the AL East. I’d only been to the playoffs the one time with the Dodgers. We both knew how rare an opportunity it was to be on a team capable of winning a World Series, and we were both grateful to be there.

  “Don’t worry about a thing, Greenie,” Carlos said in his big-brotherly way. “I’ll take you under my wing just like I did when you first signed.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know .… I was pretty green back then.” Even though I hadn’t seen Carlos much in the past six years, I could still finish his sentences, from feeble puns to deeper thoughts. We were brothers.

  “That seems like yesterday,” Carlos said.

  I couldn’t believe how fast everything was moving. Presley would be four in a few months and little Chandler’s first birthday was just days away. Now, as Carlos and I headed to the stadium, Lindsay was prowling Manhattan looking for an apartment before heading back to California to gather up the kids. What a whirlwind!

  “And do you remember when I helped you figure out your laundry and cooked you arroz con pollo?” Carlos continued. “Back then, you were a skinny kid who could barely hit the ball out of the infield. Now, you’re a skinny kid who’s hit over forty homers in a few different seasons. I, on the other hand, was born with ‘pop’ in my bat! By the way, home run derby starts today in batting practice. I could use some good dinners. Are you ready, little man?”

  Always with the trash talk …

  I’d shortened my swing while in Arizona, going back to the line-drive-over-the-shortstop approach, when I got the sense that I needed to hit for average rather than for power to stay in the lineup. “Give me a week to start thinking like a home run hitter again,” I answered.

  “No problem. I’ll even help you get your home run swing back before we start, but then it’s game on. And I don’t want to hear any excuses.”

  That’s how it is with good friends, years may pass and yet connections remain strong. Friendships transcend time and space. Being at home refers to a lot more than just being in an old, familiar place. When Carlos and I arrived at the far side of the bridge, it seemed to me just like I was home again.

  A few weeks later in Florida, before a game against the Marlins, I was heading back to the clubhouse with tee in hand when I saw a familiar figure walking toward me. He was wearing slacks and a golf shirt, but I recognized him immediately; years before, we’d worn the same uniform in Toronto. It was Tony Fernandez, Yoda, my old friend and mentor.

  “Tony!” I called out.

  He turned and his mouth unfolded into a humble smile. “Greenie, it’s good to see you. How do you like playing in New York?”

  “I love it. It’s fun being on a good team in front of such intense fans. You know how it is.” Tony had played on both New York teams. “What brings you out to the stadium?”

  “I came by to see my old friends: you, Carlos, Julio. Hey, I’ve watched some games on television and I think I can help you out a bit, Greenie. You’ve been too jumpy at the plate.”

  “That sounds great, Tony! I’ll let Downer know I’m going to be with you in the cage during BP.” Rick Down was our hitting coach. He and I got along great because, unlike a lot of coaches, he had no jealous need to be the only one to help his hitters. If Tony had advice that helped me, no one would be happier than Downer. He understood that every hitter was different, so he’d grown adept at listening to what players need. (Many authority figures are great at talking, opining, and giving directions, but are incompetent when it comes to truly hearing others. Often, their minds are so preoccupied formulating responses that they don’t actually listen to what’s being said. Whereas talking to a good listener—one who absorbs every word and refrains from cutting you off with his or her own words—is a great experience.)

  “Go to it!” Downer said enthusiastically when I told him about Tony.

  As the team shuffled out of the clubhouse for stretching and BP, I headed to the cage with Tony and my tee. We’d had a few sessions like this during our time together with the Blue Jays. He’d shared his balance drills with me in the weight room during spring training and had worked with me in the cage to teach me to place my awareness on the inside part of my back foot. Now, he placed each ball on the tee for me and discussed his observations. Sometimes he used words to convey his points; other times, he grabbed my bat and demonstrated his suggestions, since some things are better shown than explained. Even in his street clothes, five years after playing his last game in the big leagues, his movements were graceful and effortless. I still couldn’t tell if he was swinging the bat or if the bat was swinging itself.

  We continued working in the cage until it was time for me to change into my game jersey. Tony reminded me to feel the inside part of my back foot as I started my swing, then to move the attention into my legs as my entire body sunk slightly downward with my turn. He told me I had to be more aware of my legs if I wanted to engage with the ground below me, which is where the power comes from. I thanked him and headed into the clubhouse to prepare for the game. I was dripping sweat, but it felt great. He said to call anytime I want to talk about hitting.

  I’d been a professional player for fifteen years and yet I was still learning and growing as a hitter. I knew that were I to play the game for another fifteen years, like my forty-eight-year-old teammate, Julio Franco, I’d still have plenty to learn. That’s one of the things that I love about baseball, one of the things that I love about life: there is no end to the learning. Or teaching. I hoped that someday I’d show up at a stadium or a Little League field and have the same positive impact on a younger person that Tony always had on me. As significant as his hitting advice was, it was his desire to help, his display of friendship, which meant the most.

  The highlight of the 2006 season occurred at Dodger Stadium, where I drifted into foul territory in right field to get under a pop fly hit by Dodger infielder Ramon Martinez for the final out of my new team’s three-game sweep of my old team in the first round of the playoffs! How fitting that the final out of our series was about to land in my glove, the glove of a former Dodger. Of course, the final out could also fittingly have landed in our catcher’s glove, Paul Lo Duca, who’d spent more years in the Dodgers’ organization than I had. Along with Guillermo Mota, another former Dodger, we three had been resoundingly booed that night wheneve
r our names were announced. Why do fans boo former players, especially ones that were traded? When the new leather of the ball met the old, crusty leather of my glove, I squeezed it tightly and raised it triumphantly toward the sky.

  Third out, game over!

  In the infield, Lo Duca was jumping up and down with what I recognized as an exultant feeling of redemption. In the meantime, Carlos embraced the Mets’ two rising stars, David Wright and Jose Reyes, enjoying the first postseason experience of his illustrious career. To me, it didn’t seem so long ago that Carlos and I were the up-and-coming stars with the Blue Jays. Now, I was nearing retirement and Carlos was an established, veteran superstar. As with all things, baseball changes fast. It’s futile to try to hold onto the past. One moment, I was celebrating my first division championship as a Dodger and now, two years later, I was celebrating a championship against the Dodgers. I watched my current teammate, Tom Glavine, running out to the mound (where all of us exultant Mets were headed) and I couldn’t help but reflect that his teammate for a decade in Atlanta, today’s starting pitcher for Los Angeles, Greg Maddux, was at that moment solemnly packing up his locker after the loss. Together, they’d celebrated countless victories, including the ’95 World Series championship, but now they were on opposite sides. This was a lesson on the futility of trying to hang on to past circumstances, to hang on to time. In truth, there is only ever the beauty of each moment.

  Oh, my ego loved beating the team that traded me—that’s human.

  No sense denying it.

  But I knew that the truest reaction to this scene was just to be fully present to its intensity. In celebratory moments such as this it’s not difficult. Surely, all of us Mets were fully present. The individual dramas and concerns that normally occupied each person’s head were absent. Nobody was dwelling on a bad call by the umpire, nobody was fretting over an argument with his girlfriend, and nobody was replaying the home run he hit last inning. Individuals were forgotten and we were all lost in the moment of victory, lost in presence, which is where all the joy comes from. For this brief time that our goal had been achieved, there was no more future or past. But when the dust settled, the next goal would appear: to win the NL championship and by doing so get to the World Series. And so it goes, on and on. The joy of this moment would dissipate and longing would return.

  But I wasn’t going to worry about that trap, I was content with where I was rather than where I was heading. After a few minutes of hugging and jumping around the infield, I got pulled aside to do postgame interviews. With two doubles and a single against my former team, the announcers dubbed me player of the game. I went through a brief media song and dance, then headed into the clubhouse to shoot champagne on my teammates.

  Hey, winning can be lots of fun.

  But it’s not always the same.

  The first time I’d participated in a victory celebration was ’93. I was a twenty-year-old September call-up of the Blue Jays team that would go on to win its second consecutive World Series. When the team clinched the Eastern Division in old County Stadium in Milwaukee, I felt out of place, having only been on the team for a week. During that celebration, I hung in the background with Carlos and a couple of other Double-A teammates who’d been called up with me. As I hadn’t even set foot on the field of a Major League game and knew I wasn’t going to be on the playoff roster, I couldn’t have felt more like an outsider.

  The second celebration was in ’04 as a Dodger. We had a two-game lead over the Giants with two games left to play against them at Dodger Stadium. Losing 3–0 in the bottom of the ninth, we miraculously tied the game, then won it on a Steve Finley grand slam. It could hardly have been more dramatic. When Finley launched the ball deep into right field, the entire stadium erupted; we were all jumping around like Little Leaguers, completely absorbed in the moment.

  My third big league taste of champagne had occurred at Shea Stadium just a few weeks earlier, when we clinched the NL East. The race had been over by the time I got traded here in late August, but it took a couple of weeks for us to clinch. Since I was the new guy on the team, I felt a little distant from the celebrating. Don’t get me wrong; I had a great time. The truth is I found the greatest pleasure in watching Carlos’ joy as he reached the playoffs for the first time and in seeing Lindsay and our two girls, Presley and Chandler, come onto the field to celebrate among the screaming fans. Lindsay loved watching the Mets fans go crazy (she can watch people all day). Presley was a shy three-year-old, so she kept her head buried in my armpit. She couldn’t wait to get home to some peace and quiet, being a lot like her dad in that regard. It felt great to comfort her within my embrace. And Chandler loved being the center of attention. She’d only begun walking that week and was excited to show off her new skill. She waddled alongside the stands, relishing the fans’ encouragement. She could only make it about ten yards before falling, but she loved every second of it. Too bad my kids won’t remember that experience. I’ll never forget it.

  Now, as I sprayed champagne on the guys in the visitors’ clubhouse at Dodger Stadium, I felt much more a part of the team and thus more a part of the celebration. I’d played a key role in our victory tonight, so I felt like a contributor. Another perk was that our manager Willie Randolph had agreed to let me stay home with my family an extra day before flying back to New York. Having swept the series, we had a few days off before the next challenge. And time spent with my family was more precious to me than ever.

  About a week after the celebration in Los Angeles, I found myself sitting alone in the third-base dugout of the new Busch Stadium enjoying the sound of raindrops on the cement roof above my head, the sight of thousands of tiny splashes on the field, and the smell and feel of moisture in the air. I thought about a Zen-like quote from the film Bull Durham, “Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, and sometimes it rains.” Game five against the St. Louis Cardinals had been cancelled due to the downpour. The series was tied at two games, so plenty of people were disappointed to have to wait another day. But I wasn’t. At that moment, I couldn’t have been happier. Sure, I was as excited about the series as anyone else, but just then I was occupied enjoying the rain.

  Being a ballplayer had taught me a special appreciation for rain. Early in my career, I enjoyed rainouts and rain delays because the wet weather meant either a night off or an extra hour or two of playing cards. The competitive intensity and focus that goes into preparing for a game shuts off when the tarps roll onto the field and a wave of lightness transforms the atmosphere of the clubhouse to one of playfulness and relaxation. With game five’s cancellation, most of my teammates were showering to head back to the hotel, carefree. In a few minutes I would too, but for a moment I enjoyed being the only player out on the bench. Sitting here, I watched lots of people doing their jobs.

  The grounds crew continued its busy evening. Every so often, they’d run out and pull the tarp off to clear some of the water. Meantime, the TV camera operators cleaned their gear and double-checked that their cameras were well-protected from the rain. Still photographers snapped shots of the covered field and of players and fans. Being a professional myself, I couldn’t help but admire the expertise of others. We players get most of the credit, but there are many talented professionals who contribute to the entertainment value of sports. Many of them love what they do, and the love shines through in their work. I was proud to count myself as one of them. I grabbed my bat and headed back into the clubhouse, looking forward to eating some good food, talking baseball with my teammates, then heading back to my room for a good night’s sleep—an evening off courtesy of Mother Nature.

  Sadly for us, the Cardinals knocked us out a few days later in game seven at Shea Stadium, denying us a place in the World Series. What a disappointment, but as a professional I understood that losing is part of the game.

  • • •

  Late on an August evening, ten months after we’d been eliminated from the previous season’s playoffs by the Cardinals, we Mets loaded on
to an airport-bound bus outside PNC Park in Pittsburgh. After a well-played game, the peacefulness of sitting on the bus as my teammates climbed aboard was always one of my favorite things about baseball. I rarely felt more in tune with my body. At that time of the ’07 season, we were holding to first place again in the NL East. I’d had a couple of hits in that night’s win, had run the bases hard, and had had plenty of action in the field, so I felt my body humming as I settled on the bus. I felt with particular acuity the scrape on my knee throbbing under the bandage (I’d slid into second base and reopened a scab). The strawberry had burned sharply in the shower; still, I was happy for the scrape because I incurred its ilk only by getting on base in the first place. Besides, the mild pain kept me present and connected to my body.

  My veteran status in the game allowed me two seats to myself, three rows from the front of the bus. It’s an unwritten rule in the majors that younger players sit toward the back and get only one seat. Though I had thirteen years of big-league service time, quite a few guys on this veteran Mets team had even more: Tom Glavine, Aaron Sele, Billy Wagner, Moises Alou, Pedro Martinez, Damion Easley, and Jose Valentin. Still, I sat in the third row, passenger’s side, almost every time. We’re creatures of habit. The front row usually belongs to the team leader and guy with the highest status in the game. In our case, that was Tom Glavine. (How could anyone argue with that?) I enjoyed being close to the front primarily because it meant I could plop into my seat sooner than later. And having two seats helped me stretch my legs, which often cramped up after a game. On this night, I smiled ironically to myself from my privileged position on the bus, recalling a not-so-privileged meeting I’d had just a few days before with our manager, Willie Randolph.