The Professional

The Professional by MR


It was a dark and stormy night. Actually it was a clear and colder night. Night baseball in September was never meant for Montana, an unforgiving scheduler’s faux pas. He had played through August snow flurries in Butte with a grimace and a chuckle. The night air was more than crisp, it was cold. “This is definitely not Dodger Stadium” he thought to himself as he stood in the on deck circle. Would this be his last at bat? Would this be his last night in uniform playing the game that had consumed his identity since early childhood?

If so, he never dreamed it would end like this. His dreams were of the old tabernacles of the game in the Northeast, the bright lights of metropolitan America, the big show he never made. His aching throwing elbow and surgically repaired knees taunted him, reminding him of the freak collision that transformed from a bonus baby on a fast track to the big leagues into ancient minor leaguer who never made it past Pawtucket or Nantucket, one of those places you hear about in a naughty limerick that just happen to actually exist. His cronies advanced, some excelled, most lived on the fringe of the league, child all stars now utility players and bullpen catchers. But they were in the Show! He made the slow descent back to the Montana rookie league where he would help the Helena club by showing the young studs the ropes of being a professional. Be on time, do your work in the cage, stretch, take care of the body, offer proper respect to your teammates, your coaches and to the game, all these had been his life, his truth.
He was despite his broken down body, the consummate professional. His dream was to retire in a Dodger uniform not as a Helena Handbasket, playing out the string in a rookie league hoping to get another invite to spring training. He was dumbfounded as to what he would do without the game, without the uniform, the clubhouse, ritual that evolved from Little League through his known adulthood. Baseball had been his ticket through school, where with the exception of one veteran English teacher who insisted that he WOULD read Beowulf and write a research paper, his eligibility had been more important than his academics. The game had defined him, and it still did….

Lost in his own rare self awareness was the screaming old man behind him. He began to snap back into the surreal reality of the night. “You don’t need this at bat, I need to see what the kid will do in this situation.” He looked scathingly at the belligerent face stained with tobacco juice who dared to rob him of this moment. “Sorry Skip, I’m going to the plate, it’s who I am, this is my moment.”

That thought quickly passed and he nodded in agreement and headed back into the dugout, offering an unsolicited and unaccepted “be patient up there kid, you dictate the moment, don’t let it control you, get a hit” because that’s what a professional does.