CHAPTER 2:
Getting Started
On March 15, 2003 I was to report to the Hinesville Gents, Atlanta’s A-ball club. That gave me only a six short months to get ready to go. It took a week just for the shock of being a first round pick to wear off! Here I was, 18 years old, leaving home, traveling the length of the country to someplace I’d never heard of to play baseball for a living. It sounds romantic, but it was nerve wracking.
After the draft, I met with Hal Fitzwalter, the scout who found me. He was the same scout who signed Hall of Famer Charlie King back in the 60’s, Dameron Walker in the 70’s, and the current starting shortstop for Atlanta, Dave Fountain. Hal was a slim, angular sort who always wore dress shoes wherever he went. Hal wore the same dress shoes to the field, to dinner, in the shower for all I know. Those shoes looked like they had as many miles on them as the beat-to-hell Chevy Cavalier he drove. I asked him once why he always wore dress shoes when he was walking in dirt and mud and grass all the time. “Son,” he said in that raspy Southern accent of his, “scouting is my profession, and there’s no excuse for not appearing professional.”
Hal and my dad and I sat at our kitchen table and signed all the necessary papers. Then Hal gave me a check for $315,000. It was more money than I had ever seen. I didn’t know where to spend it first. I had visions of Corvettes in my head as we walked Hal to the door. He must have seen it in my eyes, because he paused on the porch and said, “Feel that check, son. Lift it up. It don’t weigh any more than any other check, does it? That check could be for a dollar and it would weigh the same.”
“I suppose so,” I said.
“See, money don’t weigh very much. A lot of money can weigh as little as a piece of paper. Expectation. Now that can weigh more on a man than all the money in the world.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’re a first round pick. People are going to want to talk to you. Your teammates are going to challenge you. Your coaches will expect more from you. Never forget it’s a game, Davey. Play the game and you’ll be all right.”
“I will.”
The press in LA came knocking. So did Sports Illustrated, Street & Smith’s, and a dozen other magazines. I was excited for the attention, but I was unprepared for the criticism everyone had for my declaring out of high school. Why did I go for the draft when I had a dozen scholarships on the table? Didn’t an education mean anything to me? What was I going to do if I got injured and it ended my career? I felt bombarded. I felt like saying, “Hey, I did hit .420 my senior year, you know. I never made an error in three years of high school ball. It’s not like I can’t play.” I mean, what was I supposed to do? Tell them the truth about my knee? It would have blown everything. Goodbye $315,000. Goodbye baseball career. To this day people still give me crap about not choosing college. Well now they know why.
As the days turned to weeks the magazines went away. My mother kept my clippings and articles faithfully (except for the Playboy Baseball Draft Special; she did not approve of Playboy).
For the next month I took it easy. I went to see all my friends and say my goodbyes. I lightened my workouts, especially on my knee. It was feeling better, but I didn’t want to chance hurting it before I ever played an inning of pro ball.
I bought transportation. The local dealerships all wanted to give me a car, for promotional purposes, of course. Mustangs, Corvettes, Navigators, anything I wanted. I would’ve taken them, too. Hell, I was eighteen! But my dad talked me out of it.
“Don’t show up your teammates,” he said. “On the field or off. There are going to be guys there who came from nothing, and guys who are on the way down. I think maybe you should buy something nice, but not too nice. Remember, David, you haven’t done anything yet.” So I bought a nice used truck and that was the end of it.
Money. My dad and I had agreed that whatever signing bonus I was to receive would be put into investments in case my career didn’t pan out or I re-injured my knee. I was to be given a monthly amount for expenses during my minor league years, but the bulk of my money was to be out of my touch. But when I saw that big check, bigger than I had ever hoped (I thought I was going in the fourth or fifth round, remember), I wanted all of it. My dad and I started arguing almost immediately over how much I was to receive.
“It’s my money,” I would say.
“It’s your money,” he would respond. “But it’s also your future. Protect it.”
“I will. I’ll put it into the bank in Hinesville.”
“Don’t do that. You don’t know how to make sure it’s there for you if you get hurt. You don’t know any of those people. Let me give it to Ken Kline. He’ll invest it. You’ll still have plenty of money to spend and have fun with.”
“I should be able to decide what to do with that money. I earned it.”
“You haven’t earned it, David. You haven’t done anything but play extremely well in high school. If you spend this money and you don’t make it you’ll have nothing.”
“I’ll make it.”
“I know you feel that way. You should feel that way. But nothing is for sure, David. Believe me. Let’s do it this way for one year. If you don’t like it, I‘ll have Ken send you all the money and you can do what you want with it.”
Of course, I agreed. I could wait a year. I had all the time in the world.
Another two months went by. Now I became uncomfortably aware that my departure was rapidly approaching. I called a realtor in Hinesville and got a list of places to rent for the season. She was very nice. She had heard of me. “The folks in Hinesville love the Gents,” she said. She said I should get there by March 10th if I wanted to make sure I found a place. “You’ll like it,” she added. “Hinesville is real people.”
On March 6th, with $1,000 in my pocket, I loaded up my Silver Slugger A1 and my Web Gems IF1 limited edition Horatio Munoz autographed mitt. I packed my Brock Airs and the “player development journal” Hal had suggested I use to chart my progress. I jammed just about everything else I owned into that truck. With hugs for my whole family, and for Ron Hoeffler who showed up to say goodbye, I started her up, ready to begin my career. Considering I got a speeding ticket before I even got out of L.A., the trip was pleasant enough.
With the exception of a trip to Las Vegas once for an all-star tournament, I had never been out of California. Let me tell you, there is some beautiful country out there. New Mexico was spectacular, at least what I saw of it from I-10. I especially liked Las Cruces and San Antonio. I liked that both had a sense of history. I always wanted to live in a place with history. I missed Mardi Gras by a week, but Baton Rouge was still fantastic. Talk about history. I didn’t have time to get south to New Orleans, but I knew that one day, if I made the Bigs with Atlanta, I’d travel there to play the Musketeers. On the 9th I stayed in Tallahassee, home of the AAA River Rats. I arrived in Hinesville, Georgia on March 10th at precisely 4:34 in the afternoon. I know because it was the first entry in the journal.