Free The Bullpen Gospels by Dirk Hayhurst Page B

that, fucker!” Ox belched.
    “Why me? Your hair is just as long as mine!” I said to Drew.
    “I’m in a big-league uniform. I can do whatever I want.”
    “Immunity,” Brent casually noted, nodding his head casually as if Drew’s uniform were irrefutable law.
    “Great way to start off my spring. Now Grady thinks I’m a rebel.”
    “Have you seen some of the guys in this organization? We gave a kid who bit a bouncer three million dollars and you’re worried about your haircut?”
    “So you think he’ll fine me three million dollars?” I joked.
    “Hope so,” Ox said, angling past me with a stiff shoulder. “I’m gonna try to piss. See you on the other side, boys.”
    Drew patted his pockets. “Wanna borrow my Whizzinator?” A Whizzinator, in case you’ve never seen one, is a fake plastic penis connected to an extraneous bladder where a clean specimen is stored. The Whizzinator slips “inconspicuously” over your own package and makes it seem as if you are really whizzing your own pee. Color options include, Black, Latino, and Flesh. So utterly ridiculous, it has become a joke among most athletes.
    “No thanks, I got my own.”
    “Don’t be surprised if the piss testers act disappointed with your package, Ox. I’m a tough act to follow,” I yelled after him.
    “That’s surprising, considering you sit down to pee.”
    It was good to see friendly faces and joke around, but spring training was no joke. This wasn’t a vacation, and our job wasn’t to come into the office and play nine to five around the watercooler. This was a competition, and starting tomorrow, we’d begin fighting for spots. I may have come here with mixed emotions, but now that I was here, I had a job to win if I wanted to go any further. It was baseball in the driver’s seat from here on. To feel even like I’d a shot at something resembling a future in this game, I needed to make the Double-A squad out of camp, no small feat. After all the laughter, roles would be won, at any cost, even if it meant taking it from the best of friends.

Chapter Eight
    “Alright men, let’s bring it in.” Wyatt Earp, so everyone called him, was our high-voiced field coordinator. His order to group up meant our first morning meeting was ready to start. The players stopped loitering by the field six fencing and crowded in on Earp’s command, forming a semicircle around him. He told us to take a seat, which we did Indian style in the morning dew atop manicured Arizona sod. The coaches and trainers remained standing, spread out before us like they were going to read to us like kindergarteners. Today would mark day one of camp, a day of intros and rules.
    Earp led things off, reintroducing himself, though he needed no introduction. He was already infamous. He was a decision maker, like Grady, which meant he held our futures in his hands. The slope to the top of the game is so steep, it’s hard to like the folks who decide who makes it there. Statistically speaking, the decisions they make you probably won’t like. You learn fast who they are and pander accordingly.
    Though Grady was hard to read, Earp was obviously biased. Everyone who’d been around him for any length of time knew he was obsessed with high numbers on the radar gun. He carried said gun with him everywhere, hence his nickname. Since the vast majority of pitchers didn’t generate the kind of numbers that turned him on, it was generally assumed Earp didn’t like anyone. Even if you pitched a great game, he’d bring up that you weren’t throwing hard enough. He always touted this character trait as honesty, but it was a blunt, unhelpful kind of honesty that made you wish he’d just lie to you for a change.
    He gave the floor over to Grady, who choked out a greeting to us in his raspy, two-pack-a-day voice. “Gentlemen, welcome to camp. If you take a look around you’ll notice there are a lot more of you than we have roster spots for. I’m sure I don’t have to explain