April 13, 2020

By Ryan Di Francesco

Canadian Baseball Network

Minor Tales: Plane to ‘Pen

(The following story was inspired by true events)

Cheap art hangs on the wall of a tan-coloured one-bedroom room in a hotel in small-town America. No golden Hollywood glam. The walls need a first-class bang of colour, splashed with inspiration, and a little life. The beds aren’t dressed in luxury crisp sheets made with 100% Supima cotton. They have no sateen finish. There is a stale smell that lingers from hallway to hallway and from room to room. The old brown carpets are worn in, a victim of years of soles digging into synthetic fibers that once looked fresh.

There is a thick layer of dust on the blinds. No room service. Coffee and muffins in a side room near the lobby. No place for a star. No place for a CEO. No place for the upper crust of society, or for a major league baseball player. No New York Yankee would stay there, or even an Oakland Athletic, but they did at some time while on the minor league road. It’s a minor place to sleep for kids with major dreams.

***

Toronto Blue Jays pitching prospect, Jackson McClelland, who was on the road with the double-A New Hampshire Fisher Cats, was staying in another humdrum hotel, but this time it was in Akron, Ohio. No Four Seasons. All the same. But none of that mattered to Jackson. It was just another room with more unoriginal paintings, with more beaten in brown carpets and more tan-colored walls, another hotel room to sleep in on the road to the American dream.

Just as long as there was baseball.

It was late into the evening and the sun had long kissed the western dirt goodnight. Jackson was in the shower when the hotel phone on the bedside pierced the quiet with its sharp sound.

. . . . . RING!

Jackson quickly jumped out the shower.

. . . . . RING!

Reached for the hotel towel.

. . . . . RING!

And ran from the bathroom and picked up the phone, “Hello … Yeah … Okay … Tomorrow? Lehigh Valley … You got it!” Jackson placed the phone down, water dripping on to the old worn-in brown carpet and went back into the bathroom and looked at the pool of water on the floor and smiled.

The stale summer air smelled sweet. The wet, dirty bathroom floor. Clean.

Mike Mordecai, the manager of the Fisher Cats, told Jackson he had been promoted to the triple-A Buffalo Bisons. Jackson didn’t sleep that night. He stared up at the popcorn ceiling with a busy mind that danced from one thought to the next. The moon pushed the stars across the sky and Jackson’s thoughts with them.

One step closer to the show. One plane to a new ‘pen.

***

Alarm Buzzed. Sun shone. Shave. And Jackson rushed out of the hotel and went straight to the airport, leaving the Eastern League behind.

Check-in. Luggage. Regional Flight. A hunched over 6-foot-5 Jackson walked slowly down the tiny aisle of the small regional jet. He managed to squeeze and wedge himself into his seat. Half of his body spilt into the aisle, as he tried to contort his larger than average frame into the most comfortable possible position. Other passengers on the flight looked at Jackson curiously. Some wondered what NBA team he played for and some thought he was an NFL tight end.

“You play football?” An older lady asked.

“No mam, baseball.”

“Baseball?”

‘That’s right.”

“Good for you. Give me baseball. Any day.”

Jackson smiled.

As the plane cut through the air on its way to Pennsylvania, he thought about all the hard work it took for him to get on to that flight. He thought about it all. His parents. Their sacrifice. His rare gift. His chance. He thought about how he wished he had slept more last night and how uncomfortable the seats were. The jet engines hummed and his mind along with them. He thought about triple-A and how he was one phone call away from the big leagues. 

Land. Check-out. Luggage. Cab.

He arrived at the stadium around 5:30 for a 7:00 p.m. game. He walked onto the grass, joined his teammates, and looked at the bullpen where he would sit for most of the evening. Jackson was humbled to play with and against a lot of players who had spent time in the majors. He was humbled to sit in a triple-A ‘pen and to go from the cheap hotel in Akron and into a small regional jet that flew him to the Lehigh Valley region of Pennsylvania. He was humbled by it all.

***

It was the perfect August evening for baseball. A few cumulus clouds sat in the pale, blue sky and before the night smothered the day, the sky exploded with colour. It was a carnival of lights – a cotton candy sky with a canopy of blue that looked good enough for Vin Scully to eat. The perfect Lehigh Valley treat.

Jackson sat in the bullpen behind the outfield wall and looked around Coca-Cola Park and up at the Lehigh Valley sky. And that’s when the idyllic moment crashed into him. There he was in a stadium that he had never pitched in before, in a league that he had never pitched in before, on a team he had never pitched for before.

New ‘pen. New league. New cap. He glanced over at the guys who sat beside him, some familiar faces, guys he had pitched with through the Blue Jays’ system, and that helped ease him into his new surroundings. Jackson sat back and watched baseball, waiting for the call.

The summer sun sank across the sky, diving into the west, blazing away, while fans sipped beer, ate hot dogs and popcorn, a perfect American night. Jackson’s dream.

The darkness fell into place and the stadium lights popped brightly blasting the field. Pitch after pitch. Stars fell into the sky like little spectators. Glowing. And Jackson sat still, looking on, at the stands, at the field, waiting, like he did in stadiums before. But it’s always only a matter of time. The phone always rings.

Give him the baseball any day.

The Bisons scored first in the top of the fourth. They put up three runs and then added another three runs in the fifth to take a commanding 6 – 0 lead. Taylor Saucedo and Matt Dermody combined for 5 2/3 innings of near perfect pitching, allowing only two hits off of the Philadelphia Phillies’ triple-A club, keeping the IronPigs bats silent and preventing their wooden barrels from driving in any runs.

After Dermody painted the outside corner with a fastball for a third strike and recorded the second out of the sixth inning, the Bisons manager, Bobby Meacham, walked out to the mound to make a pitching change. Catcher Michael De La Cruz saw his manager come out from the dugout, he sauntered to the dirt hill and was met by the rest of the infield who stood around the centre of the diamond.

Dermody gave the ball to Meacham, looked over his shoulder and saw the new kid jogging to the mound from the outfield. Jackson took the baseball from his skip. The fans looked up to the big jumbotron in left-center and saw a picture of Jackson McClelland.

Most of them hadn’t seen the big righty pitch before, or even heard his name. Not a single fan in that stadium knew Jackson woke up in Akron that morning. Or that he squeezed onto a regional jet plane to get there.

They didn’t know that he decided to put studying Sports Medicine at Pepperdine University on hold for this rare baseball opportunity. They didn’t know about any of his injuries, or any of the rehabilitation in Dunedin, Fla., that he went through a few seasons ago.

They didn’t know that last Thanksgiving, as Jackson’s father told me, while most of America was sprawled on their couches like gravy-smothered mashed potatoes, Jackson was outside pushing a car down the street because the gym was closed and he wanted to work out.

To them, Jackson was just another player in another uniform that night. Another player a part of the baseball spectacle before their eyes. But for the first time in his career, his name was written on a triple-A scorecard, and he walked onto the hill in Lehigh Valley a triple-A pitcher. For the first time, he was putting his toe against triple-A slab.

And Ali Castillo, bat in hand, stood there waiting.

Castillo, set foot in the batter’s box, in an open stance, and rocked his bat back and forth. Jackson set and fired an outside fastball that was fouled off. Castillo stepped outside the white chalk lines and fixed his batting gloves. He looked at the big Buffalo righty on the mound and then dug his cleats into the dirt and rocked his bat back and forth. Jackson gripped the baseball in his mitt, set, and hurled a 95-mph outside fastball that Castillo watched soar past him for the strike.

Castillo was in a quick hole.

Jackson was one strike away from recording his first triple-A K. He took a deep breath and sighed. He touched the brim of his cap, looked at De La Cruz throw down the sign. His catcher set his glove on the inside corner of the plate. Castillo rocked his bat back and forth again, and Jackson set and delivered again.

As the baseball cut through the air, De La Cruz dropped his mitt a few inches from where it was set to try and catch the pitch, but Castillo barrelled the ball and drove it into centre field for a base hit. And Jackson’s triple-A career began.

The big righty pitched 2 1/3 innings that night, gave up 4 hits, 1 walk, and had 1 strikeout. It was hardly the perfect outing, but he didn’t give up a run. And Jackson was one ‘pen closer to his big-league dreams.

***

The minor league bullpen is a holder of baseball dreams. A small space tucked away in the corner of a small-town stadium. It is a pine bench where many young hopeful pitchers pass through season after season. It is a pit stop for some as they pitch their way through the system, providing a temporary home for new faces and names year after year. Some get promoted to the big lights of the Major League circus, while others fade into obscurity.

Sometimes minor league bullpens become a permanent home for pitchers, while others loll in major ‘pens for an entire career going from big city to big city waiting for the call. Some get to peek over the major league fence for only a few days, while others just hear stories about what it’s like to view the field from there. Jackson hopes to peek over the fence at the Rogers Centre and wait for the call.