Epilogue part III: one August night

I’m standing in the home dugout in Seattle looking out across the field. I’m making my major-league debut tonight—I’m in the lineup at first base, batting seventh. One of my oldest dreams is coming true. And right now, I don’t want to be here.

I just got a text from Heather—she and her folks aren’t going to make the game, because she just went into labor a couple weeks early. It’s no reason for worry, I know, but it means my in-laws are taking her to the hospital instead of here. She told me to stay with the team and have a good game, there’s no hurry; she might still be in labor when tomorrow’s game starts. My parents are still coming tonight, and they’ll drive with me to the hospital once the game is over. Seattle’s not really all that unfamiliar to me anymore, since we made our permanent home in western Washington not too long after I was drafted, but they still don’t want me driving it alone after dark.

I can’t help reflecting on how different this is from my debut with the War Eagles. I’m batting seventh instead of leading off, but that’s just the skipper’s way of keeping the pressure off me. As a freshman, I was an unknown, a curiosity, and a question mark. This time, I have the fans expecting great things from me; I’m a heralded prospect in a system that has seen hitters like Jarred Kelenic and Julio Rodriguez, both of whom are far more talented than I am. I’m also playing first instead of DH, which is less about the quality of my glove than it is about the available options. I was called up as an injury replacement, after all. That’s not to say I haven’t played well this season, but I know the front office would have preferred not to call me up quite this soon.

Ordinarily I might be stressed about playing the field in my debut, since it requires a lot of concentration for me. Tonight, I have to admit, I’m grateful: focusing on my fielding will keep my mind off my wife being at the hospital in labor without me.

*******

We put a man on in the first inning, but that’s all. The second starts off better—two consecutive singles, and the trailing runner takes second on the throw. I step to the plate with runners on second and third, no outs. It’s a very different situation from my first time at the plate at BSU—but I suddenly realize the scouting report is almost exactly the same (as it pertains to me, at least). Right-hander, four-seam fastball with good rise, 12-6 curveball, and in this case a sinker that he uses almost exclusively against righties. Like with Cal Paxton, I’m looking for him to work vertically, moving up and down to change my eye level; once again, I’m planning to take the first pitch, partly to control my jitters but also to get a look at his stuff and the first sign of how he plans to attack me before I start swinging.

First pitch is a fastball high and outside; the ump decides it caught the corner, though it could have gone either way. 0-1. Déjà vu all over again, to quote Yogi Berra.

Second pitch is a curve outside; part of me is expecting it. In the back of my mind I hear Bert singing in Mary Poppins: “Can’t put me finger on what lies in store, but I feel what’s to ’appen all ’appened before.” I watch the pitch go; the bottom drops out quite impressively, and it finishes below the zone (and probably outside). The pitcher looks annoyed; he clearly expected me to chase, and is put out that he didn’t fool me at all. 1-1.

At this point, I’m in a zone I’ve never been in before—it’s almost surreal. Almost in slow motion, I see the fastball come in high and tight, trying to bust me in on the hands and pop me up. It’s better executed than that fastball from Paxton back my freshman year—but I’ve gotten a lot better at executing fastballs, too. It’s not exactly where I like it, but it’s still meat. Dead red.

I pull the trigger and take a viciously quick swing. History is still repeating itself as I hit the ball square on the nose and absolutely unload on it. I send a rocket of a high line drive screaming into right field, just a few feet inside the line. The right fielder starts running back, then stops and throws his hands up in disgust. I doubt the ball is really still rising when it hits the stands twenty rows back, but it feels like it.

I’m out of the box running as soon as I make contact, then I slow up as I realize I just did it again—this time in the majors, and this time with two men on. My brain comes back into phase with the universe, time resynchronizes, and all of a sudden I hear the crowd roaring. The fans are on their feet going absolutely bonkers, yelling and screaming and waving everything they can get their hands on.

I feel intoxicated as I round the bases at a steady trot. I look around a little, but mostly I concentrate on staying in the basepath, because it doesn’t quite feel like my feet are touching the ground. It’s almost hallucinatory. Did this really all just happen again? Hard as it is to believe—yes, it did.

When I get back to the dugout, my teammates are still going nuts. I get high-fives, hugs, and hammer-blows on my back. The skipper comes up to shake my hand with a big grin and says, “Well done, Rocket. That was a nice piece of hitting.”

I didn’t know how to tell him it was just a re-enactment of my first at-bat in college.

*******

The rest of the game goes very differently, of course, but a few things are the same. I do hit a double later on, though it’s my only other hit, and I do draw a walk; the team does send someone to collect my home-run ball for me. Most importantly, this game is also a win. After my fourth time up I get a text from my mother-in-law saying that Heather’s labor is progressing faster than they expected. The skipper asks about it, then tells me he’s willing to pull me and let me head out for the hospital now. I tell him no, I don’t want to leave the team before the game is over—we have a comfortable lead, but as Joaquin Andujar said, in baseball there’s one word that says it all, and that word is “youneverknow” . . . As long as the team is still finishing the job, I want to be here to be a part of it. He nods at that, looking pleased, and walks on.

I do get permission to skip out on the media after the game, though. I make my goodbyes to everyone during the last inning or so, get out of the locker room as quickly as I possibly can and look up my parents. We get to the hospital without attracting the attention of any cops.

Half an hour after they let me through to be with Heather, Benjamin David Lane is born. Eight pounds exactly, 21.4 inches, downy red hair, an impressive set of lungs, and a surprisingly strong grip. He looks like Winston Churchill. All Caucasian babies look like Winston Churchill. He’s beautiful. He’s mine. He’s ours.

I still end up doing a post-game interview, just in a room at the hospital rather than in the clubhouse. After all, I’m the latest prospect called up and I drove in the first runs in a shutout victory—I made my major-league debut, hit my first major-league homer and became a father on the same day, within a span of several hours. I’m clearly the feel-good story of the night for sports fans and non-sports fans alike. I have no problem with that; they have their jobs to do, too.

What matters most, though, is that after the interview, I get to sit down next to my wife’s bed and feel my son fall asleep on my shoulder.

Life is good.