[AZTarHeel]

May 4, 2007

Andrew Zarzour was going through his usual game-day rituals in the clubhouse when a young clubhouse worker approached him with a single piece of yellow paper, with a type-written note on it. It looked like it had been printed off on an old dot-matrix printer.

"A telegram?" Andrew asked the young man.

"Looks that way, sir," the young man responded.

As soon as Andrew started reading it, he knew exactly who it was from.

HEY BROTHER.
LOOKS LIKE WE'RE GOING TO EXTRA INNINGS HERE.
WON'T BE MAKING FALL CLASSIC.
WE'RE LOW ON RELIEVERS AND THEIR POWER HITTERS ARE UP.
MAYBE THERE BY CHRISTMAS? SPRING TRAINING?
TAKE CARE OF MOM.
LOVE, TIM

Andrew and his younger brother Timmy had talked before he left for Afghanistan about using baseball terminology to communicate in "code" if they couldn't be upfront with each other because of who might be looking at their correspondence. Andrew surmised this was one of those times, and it troubled him.

He had hoped his brother would return home from his tour by summer. Now it looks like he won't even be home by fall. Maybe not even until next spring. And it sounded like things were going badly for his unit.

Andrew caught himself cursing under his breath. One of his teammates in the club house heard it and was surprised because Zarzour usually has the cleanest mouth around. Zarzour didn't respond, balled up the telegram and threw it in his locker.

Later that night, Zarzour pitched one of his best games of the season, an eight-inning, three-hitter, helping the Phillies pound the visiting San Francisco Giants 11-0. He struck out 12 with no walks. For good measure, Zarzour pounded out a run-scoring single in the top of the third inning to make the score 7-0 Phils.

Zarzour didn't say much to the press afterwards, just that he was "inspired" to play his absolute best that night...