mean? I ask.
It means there is a little extra play in there that isn’t normal.
That doesn’t matter, does it? My arm doesn’t hurt. I’ve never missed a start. I throw the ball in the nineties. I don’t see how that could matter if I have no symptoms.
I don’t know, Conway says. It’s hard to say.
We shake hands and Mark and I head off to see Doug Melvin.
I don’t like what he said about the laxity, Mark says. I hope it’s not a problem.
It won’t be a problem, I say. I’m as healthy as I can be.
This isn’t bravado. This is gospel to me; I know my body better than anybody, and my arm feels great.
We get to the Ballpark and take the elevator up to Melvin’s office. It overlooks the field in left center and has a balcony adjacent to it. Doug pokes his head out and asks Mark if the two of them can speak for a moment. I walk out on the balcony to check out my future field. It looks spectacular: the richest, most verdant grass I’ve ever seen.
I want to be on it now. I want to be on that mound, facing a big-league hitter, now.
Right below me, in the bullpen, Roger Pavlik, a Rangers pitcher, is having a side session. He is wearing bright red cleats. They are as cool as anything I’ve ever seen on a ballplayer. Behind him is Dick Bosman, the Rangers’ pitching coach.
It would be awesome to wear red cleats, I think. I look up at the empty seats and take in the size of the place and imagine what it will be like to pitch in a park this big. I am in a place of immense gratitude and I say it out loud, on the balcony:
Thank you, Lord, for all your blessings and for helping me get this far.
My prayer is still in the air when I see Mark walking toward me. His face is whiter than home plate.
You need to come in to Doug’s office, he says.
I have no idea what’s happening other than that it’s not good.
We sit down. Doug is a Canadian with a thick mustache and a solid middle-aged body, like a guy who might be a Mountie if he weren’t running a baseball team. He has a stern, distant look on his face.
We are going to retract our offer, he tells me. We think there’s something wrong with your elbow and we want to have further testing done.
Melvin’s face is stoical. No emotion whatsoever.
This is business. All business.
I sit there and try to take in those words for a second or two: We are going to retract our offer.
I take them in again:
We are going to retract our offer.
I don’t feel devastation, or even anger. I feel rage. Complete rage. It feels as if it starts in my toes and blasts upward through my body, like a tsunami, into my guts and right up through the top of my head.
I have an urge as primal as anything I have ever felt.
I want to reach across this desk and strangle this man who, very quietly, very dispassionately, has just taken everything I’ve worked for, taken my whole life’s dream, and crushed it as if it were a bug on the pavement. I want to cuss and tell this man exactly who he is stomping on. Part of me wants to tell him about all the ways my life is screwed up and how this is the one thing, the one thing above all else, that I can do right and that makes me somebody.
I can pitch. I can compete as hard as anybody you’ve ever seen. That’s why you made me the eighteenth pick in the whole stinkin’ draft. Don’t you remember that? Don’t you know how much more important what I have inside me is than a little laxity in the elbow?
I want to make sure he knows how it feels to be me right now, after he’s matter-of-factly dropped this atomic bomb on my baseball career. On my life.
But first I want to get on his side of the desk and let him know how it feels to be pummeled worse than he’s ever been pummeled in his life.
But I do not lift a finger. I do not leave my chair. It’s as if there’s a strong hand on my shoulder holding me back, giving me pause. In that instant I have a self-control that wasn’t there a moment earlier.
I hear a voice:
Relax, I’ve got
It means there is a little extra play in there that isn’t normal.
That doesn’t matter, does it? My arm doesn’t hurt. I’ve never missed a start. I throw the ball in the nineties. I don’t see how that could matter if I have no symptoms.
I don’t know, Conway says. It’s hard to say.
We shake hands and Mark and I head off to see Doug Melvin.
I don’t like what he said about the laxity, Mark says. I hope it’s not a problem.
It won’t be a problem, I say. I’m as healthy as I can be.
This isn’t bravado. This is gospel to me; I know my body better than anybody, and my arm feels great.
We get to the Ballpark and take the elevator up to Melvin’s office. It overlooks the field in left center and has a balcony adjacent to it. Doug pokes his head out and asks Mark if the two of them can speak for a moment. I walk out on the balcony to check out my future field. It looks spectacular: the richest, most verdant grass I’ve ever seen.
I want to be on it now. I want to be on that mound, facing a big-league hitter, now.
Right below me, in the bullpen, Roger Pavlik, a Rangers pitcher, is having a side session. He is wearing bright red cleats. They are as cool as anything I’ve ever seen on a ballplayer. Behind him is Dick Bosman, the Rangers’ pitching coach.
It would be awesome to wear red cleats, I think. I look up at the empty seats and take in the size of the place and imagine what it will be like to pitch in a park this big. I am in a place of immense gratitude and I say it out loud, on the balcony:
Thank you, Lord, for all your blessings and for helping me get this far.
My prayer is still in the air when I see Mark walking toward me. His face is whiter than home plate.
You need to come in to Doug’s office, he says.
I have no idea what’s happening other than that it’s not good.
We sit down. Doug is a Canadian with a thick mustache and a solid middle-aged body, like a guy who might be a Mountie if he weren’t running a baseball team. He has a stern, distant look on his face.
We are going to retract our offer, he tells me. We think there’s something wrong with your elbow and we want to have further testing done.
Melvin’s face is stoical. No emotion whatsoever.
This is business. All business.
I sit there and try to take in those words for a second or two: We are going to retract our offer.
I take them in again:
We are going to retract our offer.
I don’t feel devastation, or even anger. I feel rage. Complete rage. It feels as if it starts in my toes and blasts upward through my body, like a tsunami, into my guts and right up through the top of my head.
I have an urge as primal as anything I have ever felt.
I want to reach across this desk and strangle this man who, very quietly, very dispassionately, has just taken everything I’ve worked for, taken my whole life’s dream, and crushed it as if it were a bug on the pavement. I want to cuss and tell this man exactly who he is stomping on. Part of me wants to tell him about all the ways my life is screwed up and how this is the one thing, the one thing above all else, that I can do right and that makes me somebody.
I can pitch. I can compete as hard as anybody you’ve ever seen. That’s why you made me the eighteenth pick in the whole stinkin’ draft. Don’t you remember that? Don’t you know how much more important what I have inside me is than a little laxity in the elbow?
I want to make sure he knows how it feels to be me right now, after he’s matter-of-factly dropped this atomic bomb on my baseball career. On my life.
But first I want to get on his side of the desk and let him know how it feels to be pummeled worse than he’s ever been pummeled in his life.
But I do not lift a finger. I do not leave my chair. It’s as if there’s a strong hand on my shoulder holding me back, giving me pause. In that instant I have a self-control that wasn’t there a moment earlier.
I hear a voice:
Relax, I’ve got
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