Ray Kowalczyk called me in the bottom of the fifth, which is something Ray does when he’s about to need a witness. “Duke,” he says, no hello, “they’re warming up the lefty.” I knew before he said it. You could feel it through the screen. The kid on the mound had given up a bloop single and a four-pitch walk, and somewhere in a windowless room in Tampa a 28-year-old in a quarter-zip had just refreshed a spreadsheet.
Our ace was at 73 pitches. Seventy-three. He’d struck out seven, given up two hits, and looked like a man who could’ve thrown until Tuesday. The manager came out of the dugout walking like a guy who’d been handed a script and didn’t agree with the script but had to read it anyway, because that’s what they pay him $4 million a year to do now. Hold the card. Read the card. Pat the kid on the rear.
Coach DiMaggio, God rest him, would have set fire to the dugout. Coach DiMaggio left a kid in once with a 104-degree fever and a torn fingernail because, as he put it, “his stuff is still moving and his eyes look correct.” The boy threw a complete game and lost six pounds. We won 3–1. Nobody mentioned a leverage index because the leverage was a Mahoning County title and DiMaggio’s tobacco spit, which he aimed at the bullpen phone whenever it rang.
The kid they brought in is what they’re calling a Leverage Specialist now, which is the kind of job title that should be illegal in a sport with a hot dog in its logo. Throws 99. Slider does a tap-dance. Walks the first guy on four sliders that all tap-danced into the dirt. Gives up a double to the next guy, who hadn’t seen a fastball over 94 in his entire minor-league career and was probably as surprised as anyone. Tie game. The card had spoken.
Postgame, the manager stood at the podium and said, “We liked the matchup.” He did not look like a man who liked the matchup. He looked like a man who had been told, eight hours earlier, what he would be saying at 11:14 p.m., and was getting it over with so he could go eat a sad chicken caesar in the family room.
I called Petey Corrigan, who you may remember played a couple seasons in the Cape Cod League and now coaches at a juco out near Sandusky. Petey says now they have an iPad in the dugout that pings. Pings, Duke. When a pitcher hits 70 it makes a noise like a microwave. Says one of his kids last spring heard it ping and walked off the mound mid-windup. Just stopped. Had been trained.
This is what we’ve done. We’ve taken the manager — a job that used to require a man to chew Bazooka and yell at an umpire about the moon — and turned him into an executive assistant for a database. The ace knew it walking off. Didn’t even argue. Touched the bill of his cap. Sat down. Pulled a tablet out from under the bench because of course there’s a tablet under the bench. Reviewed his own outing while it was still warm.
And the fan, meanwhile — the fan who paid $14 for a Modelo and $9 for a pretzel that was room temperature — is informed by a man named Trevor in the booth that this was “optimal.” Optimal for whom, Trevor. Not for me. Not for Ray. Not for the kid who got yanked, who is 27 years old and has had two surgeries and would like very much to throw the seventh inning of a postseason baseball game one time before his elbow turns into wet bread.
Ray hung up before the ninth. Said he was going to bed. Said when he was a kid his old man took him to a doubleheader at Municipal and a starter went 17 innings and got a steak dinner and a handshake. Said baseball used to be a game and now it’s a PowerPoint with seeds.
Denise is bringing chili tonight. She says the recipe’s from a podcast. I told her I’d eat it anyway.