Writer's Bloc-The Bill Dean Diaries

[chicoruiz]

I'm posting this diary from the Writer's Bloc league for a couple of reasons: first, to drum up a bit of publicity for Writer's Bloc (a terrific league with one current opening as I write this) and second, because I worked hard on this stuff and the more people read it the better. Feedback encouraged.

[chicoruiz]

Secrets. Maybe everyone in baseball has them. You have yours, and I have mine.

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that everyone I’ve played with in my career was carting around some sort of baggage they wanted to keep a lid on. Alcoholics. Drug abusers, divided into two categories: performance enhancers and recreational users (some overachievers qualify on both counts). A platoon of undiagnosed sex addicts. More gays than you might think. I even played a season in AA with a relief pitcher who was forced to wear an adult diaper on the mound, due to his habit of losing bladder control with men on base.

My secret, you ask? One of the worst. I’m smart.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not Stephen Hawking. There are legions of brighter bulbs than I out there in the world. There are even a number of them in baseball. But, for a baseball player, smart is not good. Management fears you, because you know that 98% of the platitudes they spout are total B.S. And your fellow players resent you, because you remind them of their own limitations in that area. Among their fellow Cro-Magnons, they feel relatively normal; your presence punctures that illusion.

So I generally just try to keep my mouth shut as much as possible, and observe the world around me. And it bodes well to be a very interesting world to observe this season. The first season of a new league, and a whole new cast of characters with which to acquaint myself. And Washington D.C., the most power-centric city on earth (although from what I see early on, this power does not extend to our batting order).

I look forward to the experience, and I invite you, dear reader, to share it with me. I may start with my assigned roommate, the young pitcher Ernest Shrum. We’ve been rooming together all spring, and I don’t think I’ve heard him utter three words. I wonder if perhaps he has a secret too…

[chicoruiz]

A few words about the men who will guide the Washington Nominees, beginning with the manager, “Forlorn Phil” Fogle…

How best to describe Fogle’s natural expression? Consider it this way: at some point in most “Road Runner” cartoons, there is a point at which Wile E. Coyote has chased the elusive bird off the edge of a cliff. In defiance of the laws of physics, he does not fall immediately, but poses in mid-air as he realizes he is no longer on terra firma. In the instant before he plunges to the canyon bottom, he turns and stares directly at the viewer. This, dear reader, is the expression Phil Fogle goes through life with, 24 hours a day as best we can determine.

I suspect that the facial expression has its roots in self-knowledge; it may be as apparent to him as it is to us that he is not up to the task of managing at this level. He was a minor league coordinator in the Yankee organization, a franchise whose reputation for excellence does not extend to their minor leagues. I suspect that he got the job through the time-honored method of being the GM’s poker buddy, because his other qualifications are nil. He seems unacquainted with basic baseball strategy, and leans heavily on the advice of his bench coach, “Gramps” Proctor, a walruslike old curmudgeon who slept peacefully through most of the spring games, snoring softly.

The remainder of the staff is equally uninspiring. Coco Garcia, our third base coach was brought in to bond with our many Hispanic players; other than speaking Spanish his singular qualification appears to be the ability to ingest massive amounts of grain alcohol. And Don Turgeon, the pitching coach, is already a legend among the pitching staff for excitedly spraying them with a saliva/tobacco juice mixture as he chews them out during trips to the mound. He also punctuates his high-octane lectures with short farts.

By the way, my roomie, Ernest Shrum remains silent. I know he’s physiologically capable of making sounds, because he howls like a timber wolf in his sleep, pursued by his inner demons. I’m sure his story will be made manifest to me soon…

[chicoruiz]

It's April in Washington D.C. The cherry trees are in blossom, the mayor is on trial for perjury and cocaine use, and the President has taken a decisive stand against broccoli. And over at Eisenhower Field, the thoughts of ball players have turned to sex, just as they do in every other month of the year.

Former Tiger manager Mayo Smith once said, “Open up a ballplayer’s head, and you know what you find? A lot of little broads and a jazz band.” That was twenty years ago; the jazz band has since packed up and moved out. There’s no room.

These musings were brought to mind by the predicament of backup catcher Martin Irwin, who found out recently that his last relationship had perhaps not been as exclusive as he imagined, and that his former paramour had left him with a little something to remember her by. As he sat in front of his locker examining his penicillin vial and bemoaning his fate, he said, “But I thought what Cheryll Ann and I shared was magic”.

“Face it, Marty”, replied pitcher Larry Goll. “Cheryll Ann has shared her magic with more people than David Copperfield”.

Irwin is hardly the only victim of Cupid’s perfidy. Ossie Barranco’s multiple girlfriends coming and going in our Boston hotel produced a situation reminiscent of a French bedroom farce. And Ty Monaco, our ace pitcher, believed he was too big a star to let anyone know he was infected with crabs, so he resorted to self-treatment with Sergeant’s Skip-Flea Dog Soap.

Baseball players seem to attract several strata of women, ranging from goddesses that the lucky ones get to settle down with, down to attractive-in-a-stripperish-way types good for a season at most, and eventually descending all the way to the mullions, the girls who just want a baseball player; any baseball player. And believe me, the WBL mullions are even a step further down from Major League mullions. The common rule of thumb is that a WBL mullion requires the ingestion of at least one more beer than a MLB mullion before she becomes acceptable.

I speak hypothetically of course. I’ve had a couple of dates with a girl who works for the Library of Congress, but I wouldn’t ask her to come out to the ballpark to ooh and ahh over my athletic prowess. For one thing, it’s highly unlikely that I’d get into the game.

Ernest Shrum, as best I can determine, is celibate…

[chicoruiz]

If his inmost heart could have been laid open, there would have been discovered that dream of undying fame, which, dream as it is, is more powerful than a thousand realities…Nathaniel Hawthorne, Fanshawe

Two of my teammates were arguing in the clubhouse recently about whether the WBL should be considered equal to the establlished major leagues.

“Well let me ask you this”, said one, jerking a thumb in my direction, “How can we be a major league if Dean can hit .300 here”? Depressingly, that seemed to win the argument for him.

When I was a kid, I spent countless hours throwing a tennis ball against the side of my grandfather’s house and fantasizing about becoming a big baseball star. Then I grew older and as playing baseball for a living became a real possibility I flattered myself that I was becoming too mature to have “superstar” dreams any more; that I was reconciled to a goal of just making a nice living at the game. Now, I’m on a hot streak, and the world is full of new possibilities.

I even spoke with our manager, Forlorn Phil, about what it would take for me to win a starting job. “I can’t promise you much”, he mumbled, turning his habitually hangdog countenance toward me, “None of our infielders are playing great, but none of them are playing bad enough to get benched. Now if you could only catch; that damn Marty Irwin is killing me. I’ve seen Wal-Mart greeters that could outhit him. I’m going to ask him to autograph the x-ray of my stomach ulcer, since I’m naming it after him.”

But that’s not deterring my newly-aroused fantasy life. As I shag fly balls I mentally write gushing newspaper articles about myself. When I take batting practice I imagine myself in the game lashing line drives off the walls while scouts from the real major league drool in the stands. What’s happening to me; how can a college-educated grown-up suddenly turn into Beaver Cleaver? Maybe our dreams never die; they just wait to bloom again in a magic spring.

[chicoruiz]

Well, it all started with my new roommate. And it ended with me having a police record.

When my old roomie, the monosyllabic Everett Shrum, was sent down, I figured his replacement would be different, but I didn’t realize how different he would be. Mauro Soto is a gnarled old catcher from the Dominican who admits to being 39 (I suspect he’s closer to 44), and who hasn’t stopped talking since he walked into the hotel. All the Latin players on the team seem to know him and gravitate to him as a father figure. He seems like an interesting fellow to get to know, so when he suggested that I accompany several of the Dominican players to a place they knew, I agreed readily in the name of international brotherhood and team togetherness.

So Soto, Ozzie Barranco, Oscar Marcano, Ramon Quinterio, and me, the “token Gringo”, took a cab to an establishment called Humberto’s somewhere in downtown D.C. (the neighborhood was unfamiliar to me). I was a bit leery of some of the denizens of Humberto’s, who looked as if they’d carve open my thorax for a shiny red apple, but a few of the house special rum drinks relaxed me. In fact, they relaxed me to the point where I lost control of my motor skills entirely.

I remember less and less of the evening as it progressed. At one point, I distinctly remember singing close four-part harmony with my teammates, although I was singing “Blue Shadows On The Trail” and they were singing what seemed to be a Spanish version of “Love Will Keep Us Together”. And an hour or so later I remember trying to teach a slender, dark-eyed senorita the Electric Slide, a dance at which I became moderately proficient during my minor league wanderings.

All of this might have been a pleasant, albeit hazy, memory except for what happened next; four new customers entered Humberto’s. Leo Gomez, Roberto Hernandez, David Segui and Jose Mesa. Our crosstown rivals, the Baltimore Orioles. Suddenly I was in West Side Story.

The insults flew back and forth. Then bottles and chairs began flying back and forth. I searched around me for a weapon, but was only able to find a small bowl filled with Pepperidge Farm Goldfish. Believe me, it was no match for Jose Mesa with a pool cue.

The police arrived, and it soon became apparent who they considered the major league team to be. While the Orioles were dismissed with a warning, three WBL players, myself included, were hauled down to the city lockup (Soto and Barranco, ever the wily veterans, had darted out the back door). I spent the rest of the night sharing a cell with several lumps of protoplasm whose smell made me think that some Depends might be in order.

The next morning I was somewhat recovered, apart from a splitting headache and the feeling that a Labrador retriever had slept in my mouth. The three of us were greeted by a minor club official, who informed us that our bail would be docked from our next paycheck. I was also met by my dusky senorita of the night before, who had been turned by sobriety and the light of day into a 220-pounder with hair growing out of her mole. She claimed that I had promised to “pull some strings” to bring her family to this country. I explained that I was a nonentity who had access to no strings to pull, but she persisted. I may have to change my phone number.

Oh well, at least I learned how to say “Your mother is the whore of San Pedro de Macoris” in Spanish. That should come in handy sometime…

[chicoruiz]

As baseball players we spend a lot of time nodding at stupid things from reporters, coaches and fans, and pretending they make sense. We all do it, and usually it's no problem. But the other day, Larry Goll must have had enough. Since I happened to be playing second at the time, I was a witness to it all.

He had walked the bases loaded, prompting a visit from Don Turgeon, our pinhead pitching coach. "The Sturgeon", as we call him, began his words of wisdom with "OK, let's bear down and throw strikes".

"Oh, STRIKES", replied Goll. "You want STRIKES". Well, I wish you'd told me sooner; I've wasted all this time throwing balls. OK, boss; three strikes coming right up".

"Well, just a minute Larry...let's not give this guy anything too good to hit."

"Okay, so what I need to throw is a strike that's not too good to hit."

"Right; just throw three sliders over the outside corner."

"Don, I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm not the kind of pitcher who can throw three sliders over the outside corner. Or possibly even one. I'm more of an 'aim it in the general direction of the catcher and hope he hits it at someone' kind of pitcher. Maybe that's why I'm in the WBL."

"Just don't give in to this guy, Larry, OK?"

"That's what my prom date's parents told her, Don. And unfortunately she listened to them. Don't worry, I'll throw my best curve ball and then hurry up and back up third base."

And that's pretty much what he did. Goll may be too sane for baseball. He needs to be more like Clyde Cobb, our first baseman, who thinks federal agents in black helicopters are watching him. But that's another story...

[chicoruiz]

It’s 1:45am and I’m writing this from a hotel lobby in Boston. I can’t go upstairs because Mauro Soto, my roommate, is entertaining a young lady in our room. Mauro Soto is at least 40 years old, speaks little English and has neither money nor fame. He’s been a professional catcher for at least 23 years, and his body resembles an old brown paper bag stuffed full of doorknobs. I really don’t want to see what type of woman goes to the hotel room of someone like him.

Anyway, I had been reading One Hundred Years Of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, but I needed a break from it, so I was thumbing through my copy of the Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract when I felt someone looking over my shoulder. It was Kevin Brown, our leftfielder and one of the leading mouth breathers on the Washington Nationals.

“Yo, Dean…Hey, I heard of that guy James; he’s full of crap”. This from a man who asks for help reading the hard words in his copy of Hustler.

“Oh, I don’t know, Kevin. I don’t agree with everything he says, but he’s got some interesting ideas.”

“Nah, he’s just some smart-ass jerk who never even played the game. Only us guys who play baseball good really know about it.” Note: Kevin is hitting .215 as a corner outfielder. Write your own joke.

“Like this idea here--- he says stolen bases are way overrated.” Actually that’s not in this book, but stolen bases are about all Kevin does well, and I wanted to tweak him a little bit.

“Oh yeah? Well you tell that guy James he can go **** a ******* until its **** turns into *****. I’ll tell you this, no big league team would ever hire a snot like that; and if they did they’d be in last place, guaranteed.” And with that parting remark, he stormed off.

Maybe he’s right. I wonder if a team will ever put James’s ideas into use? Oh well…Kevin may be a moron, but at least he has a room to go to. I think I’ll close this entry and go see if I can book another room and get some shut-eye. 'Night all...

[chicoruiz]

When you're playing on a team that's in last place, headed for nowhere, in a league that's "major" in name only, most of the dugout conversation tends to be about the upcoming offseason. For the benefit of you, the dedicated Washington fan, I've gathered some information and made some guesses as to how my teammates will be spending the next four months.

FORLORN PHIL FOGLE- Don't know, but if I were him I'd think about getting some therapy or some kind of prescription drug that will cause the corners of his mouth to turn up occasionally. Or just wear a coat hanger in his mouth.

DON TURGEON- Rumor has it that our pitching coach will undergo surgery to reduce the copious flow of saliva that emantes from him during periods of stress. Best of luck to him; I foresee lots of periods of stress for this team.

NICHOLAS BARO is openly campaigning to be in a real major league camp next spring. BARNEY FERNANDEZ is also quietly making inquiries. Management, however, is repeatedly reminding them of the little matter of a signed multiyear contract.

TY MONACO says that he's leaving the winter open for "personal appearances". What personal appearances a pitcher with his record might be called upon to make is a mystery; perhaps he's been subpoenaed.

LARRY GOLL says he's writing a sitcom pilot. I'm not kidding. He says it's not about baseball. I like it already.

CLYDE COBB says he's expecting to appear before Congress to reveal what he's learned about a massive plot involving the Kennedy assassination, the CIA and the Knights of Columbus. I'm not sure Washington is the best place for him to play.

MAURO SOTO says he'll be back for another season, an opinion shared by no one who's seen him play.

And BILL DEAN? Well, management wants me to go to winter ball to learn how to catch, but I'm thinking I'll pass on that; I'm pretty baseballed out. I bought a run-down double in the District, and I plan to live in half of it while I fix the other half up to rent. And I plan to work on my relationship with the girl from the Library of Congress and see where it takes us.

I was thinking about signing up for a few classes at Georgetown, but maybe not. I think maybe I read too damn much anyway...

[ifspuds]

Man, one of the things I miss about dropping out of Writer's Bloc and not having time to frequent the boards over there is reading about Bill Dean. I'm glad you brought this over here. It's just fantastic stuff.

[cknox0723]

Originally Posted by ifspuds

I'm glad you brought this over here. It's just fantastic stuff.

seeing as i never would have known about this wonderful story otherwise, let me echo this as loudly as possible. loved the "meeting at the mound" post. loved this line:

Oh well, at least I learned how to say “Your mother is the whore of San Pedro de Macoris” in Spanish.

you have a fantastic way of closing off your posts/entries and really giving it the feel of reading a diary. demerits for not having kevin brown refer to bill james as "bob james" a la willie mcgee, but that is the only criticism i have.

please, continue sharing your fantastic work with the community.