[AZTarHeel]

Andrew Zarzour boarded the chartered flight from Houston back to Los Angeles with his teammates. He went toward the back of the plane, found a window seat on an empty row, slipped on his headphones and prepared to go into lala land for a bit before taking yet another look at his study material on the Dodgers' upcoming opponent, the Chicago Cubs.

But before he got too comfortable, catcher Mike Piazza bounced back to his row and plopped down next to him with a goofy grin on his face.

"How you doin' there Big Z? Having fun yet?" Piazza asked.

"Absolutely," Andrew said. "Every day, I'm learning tons."

Piazza's grin continued and Zarzour wondered if some form of rookie hazing was getting ready to occur. He braced himself.

"So what can you tell me about the Cubs?" Piazza asked.

Zarzour started rattling things off from memory, as he had looked at the material and video on the team thoroughly the past few days. "Let's see, if you're a left-handed pitcher like me you're probable going to see four righties to start with: Alex Gonzales, Wilton Veras, Sammy Sosa and Preston Wilson. Mark Grace follows, then Manwaring, Henry Rodriguez and Mickey Morandini. Righties would see Preston Wilson first, then Morandini, Grace and, if you're lucky, Sosa wouldn't come up until the second inning.

"Sammy of course is hitting the cover off the ball. He's got an OPS of something like 1.020. Not sure what he did tonight, but the last I saw he was at 59 home runs, needing two to catch Marris and four to catch the new home run champ, Juan Gonzales, who bashed 63 last season."

Zarzour continued on with stats about batters' splits and what he had remembered reading about the pitches that each of them liked to hit versus what gave them the most trouble, etc.

"Pretty good, rook," Piazza said. "Tell you what, if you don't mind I'm going to sit here the rest of the flight. We need to talk about how we're going to pitch to these guys tomorrow night."

Zarzour took the headphones off his ears. "We?"

Piazza was laughing out loud at this point. "Yes sir, Big Z, skip is giving you the ball tomorrow night. Our welcome home party in LA will begin with you on the mound. Congratulations."

It took several minutes for Andrew to truly accept that this wasn't a joke. Finally manager Davey Johnson had to come back to his seat and affirm that yes this was his plan. "Check the Internet when you get home for tomorrow's probable starters," Johnson said. "You're on there -- Zarour (0-0) vs. Steve Trachsel (12-12). Listen to your catcher now. He's really going to help you. And you're going to do a super job..."

So Zarzour was going to be more than just a spectator this season after all. Unless he broke his ankle or something getting off the plane tonight, his first Major League start was coming in less than 24 hours!