“This is the end... for now.”
A True Story of a Former NCAA D1 Athlete
The hotel phone started to scream. This is the modern day rooster. Courtesy wake up calls never feel courteous.
My body was as stiff as a wooden board. I could feel every muscle aching and my back spasms get off to an early start. Even opening my eyes was a competition between my exhaustion and waning motivation. I did the most ungraceful shimmy type of move to get out of the bed in one piece.
It was almost noon, and I was already missing morning workouts to prepare for the semi-final round that night. This was the Florida Tropicana tournament, with professional scouts everywhere. Even at the morning warm-ups. Instead of fighting to live my dream, this was what I had come to; staying up all night binge eating and drinking, smoking a pack of cigarettes a day, and setting my wake-up call for 11:30 AM when morning workouts started at 10 AM. The team would return to the hotel around one o’clock. I did not want to be a mess in bed by then, so I fought to get up from the edge of the bed after having my wakeup smoke.
I stumbled to the bathroom door, kicking all the beer bottles and empty food containers along the way. This was what I called a “power binge.” A power binge consisted of any food consumption in one sitting that added up to over five thousand calories. I know it sounds like a lot, but I was at the point where I could handle anywhere from three to five of those binges per week. Ironically they would be accompanied by a light beer or diet soda if I was not drinking bourbon. What can I say? I did not want to drink my calories.
As I arrived at the bathroom mirror, I was disgusted by my reflection. My weight gain was becoming more evident and I had a grayish tone to my skin that resembled clay. A twenty-one-year-old man should not look like this - especially a top division collegiate athlete. I had formed the most grotesque pattern of stretch marks on the front of my stomach which was as red as an apple and extremely painful. It looked like I had been stabbed multiple times around my torso. I wished I could vomit, but it was not happening. Throwing up on demand was never a talent of mine. God bless bulimics.
I turned the faucet on with my left hand and made sure the water temperature was just right for my toothbrush. As I transferred my toothbrush from my left to right hand, something was wrong. I could no longer lift my right arm at all. It had gone completely numb, accompanied by a strange burning sensation that I had never felt before. This was out of the ordinary. It felt like a swarm of scorching hot spiders were crawling chaotically on the inside of my shoulder and down through my elbow. Tears uncontrollably dripped from my eyes. I did not know what hurt worse; the physical or emotional pain that I was experiencing. Perhaps it was the perfect combination of both.
I could hear my cell phone ringing on the bed. I rushed over as quickly as I could to answer the phone. It was my father. He asked me how the trip was going, and I did my best to fight back the tears from the pain that I was experiencing. I do not think he was sold on my pitch of everything going perfectly, but he did not push me to talk about it. The conversation was short, and I hung up faster than he could say goodbye. I felt terrible, but I could not hold the pain in for another second.
Suddenly, I heard knocking at my door. I still had not cleaned up or put a shirt on yet. It was Coach Belton, the pitching coach of our team. He sounded sincerely concerned - he had always been good to me. When I was very young, my dad used to send me to private pitching lessons with Belton. At the time Belton was a minor league pitcher giving pitching clinics locally during his off-season.
“Josh, please listen, man. Just open the door. Nobody is mad at you for missing practice. I am just concerned and want to make sure that you are okay.” “I’m good,” I blurted back. “Okay Josh, I’m going to get a copy of your room key. Save us both the hassle and just let me in.” I took a deep breath as my heart sunk from my chest to my stomach. The second I opened that door I was letting Belton into my own personal hell. The freak show starring yours truly. Part of me wanted him to see what I was going through on the improbable chance that he could save me from myself. I gulped down a handful of ibuprofen and opened the door. We started our conversation at the doorway…
“You look like shit, dude.”
“Yeah Coach, I do.”
“Your shoulder is hanging.”
“I’m okay. I have some ibuprofen…”
“I brought you a pretzel and a Gatorade. Let’s talk.”
“Take the Gatorade, leave the pretzel.”
As Belton entered the room I could see his immediate reaction was that of concern. We sat on the bed and spoke for a minute about what I missed from morning warm-ups. There were some funny stories and information on the game later that night that I needed to know. Then the serious talk was about to begin.
In case you have never played organized sports at a competitive level, let me explain something to you. Yes, I just totally broke the fourth wall for a moment. Please forgive me and let us move on. When a coach asks an athlete if he is healthy enough to play, there is an honesty rate of about twenty percent. Most athletes will play through the worst of injuries if they feel it is best for the team. In cases like mine, being the captain on a scholarship with all of the pressure on your shoulders, saying that you are too hurt to play is considered quitting. We literally had starters playing through fractured bones, bruised ribs, and shin splints; if a player could physically move they considered themselves well enough to play. I had pitched through a ruptured meniscus in my right knee throughout my whole senior year of high school. To this day, my knee has never fully healed.
The “are you hurt,” conversation began and I denied it the whole way through to Belton. I repeatedly said I was fine and the pain was no more than the usual. I pulled out all the tricks in the book, including the claim that I had just slept on my shoulder in a weird way. Just as I thought I was getting off the hook, coach Moreno walked through my door and into the room.
“What’s up, Josh?” He looked around the room. “Have a crazy night? Listen, Thompson said you are having shoulder issues flaring up again. You okay?” “Yeah coach, don’t listen to Thompson. He’s just being an overprotective catcher.” Moreno stared at me in a weird way for a minute, trying to test my honesty. “We need you to pitch tonight Josh. Don’t mess around.” “I am fine, coach.” Then Belton intervened.
“Okay Josh, go touch the smoke detector.” Belton stared at me for a second, seeing if I would go for the bait. The smoke detector was about an arm’s reach away over my head. I got up and slapped the detector with my left hand. I turned and smiled, and sat back down. Belton was wearing a very concerned look on his face and was not in the mood for my joke. “Very good, Josh. Now do it with your right hand.” “This is stupid,” I said as I tried to deflect the request. Coach Moreno started to insist, “What is the big deal, Josh? Just stand up and do it.” I tried to muster up every bit of energy that I could. As I went to reach up, the same feeling as earlier with my toothbrush returned aggressively. I got my arm about six inches up from my side before it involuntarily hung back down. I could not touch the damn smoke detector, and now my own personal smoke screen had been cleared. I was caught.
“Okay, so you’re hurting,” said Moreno. “Go to the trainer’s room and get a Toradol shot. You’ll be good to pitch tonight. I think Vanessa is in her room.” Moreno immediately left the room after he let me know where the trainer was staying.
I turned to Belton and told him I was tired of everything. I was tired of the shots, the ibuprofen, the lying about my pain. I hated how physically difficult every second of my life was becoming when I was not on the mound. Belton just listened and nodded his head. As he stood up, he stretched his arms and turned to me slowly. “I’m no shrink, but what I do know is this. If you don’t figure this whole thing out you’re going to look back five years from now and talk about how your glory days have passed you by.” Coach Belton was right about me looking back, only now I believe my glory days are still ahead of me.
I never went to the room where our trainer was staying. I went straight to the bus as we took the trip to the field. Coach Moreno sat with me on the bus ride to the field. He informed me that he knew I never went to Vanessa to get the shot. I assured him I could still throw and I would be fine. I had a whole bottle of ibuprofen and a sandwich case with some of my stronger prescription pain medications in my equipment bag. My brilliant plan was to down half the bottle all at once before the game with the prescriptions, and then the other half of the stash gradually throughout the game. As long as I could lift my arm; I could pitch. I was on two days rest, which was an adequate amount of time for a tournament like this.
I followed through with the first half of the plan, taking half of the bottle and forcing each arm lift throughout my warm-up. I could not get enough juice going to feel comfortable, and my back spasms started early. I took more ibuprofen, and now only had about a quarter of the bottle left. The game had not even started yet, and I had taken enough pain medication to numb a horse and its jockey. Jockeys are really small guys, so that alone is not anything to write home about. But numb his horse too - and you may have taken too much.
I got out to the mound feeling shaky. Somehow, by the grace of God, I got through that first inning in approximately six pitches. I got lucky and was happy that I did not have to throw too much to get things started. My teammates were all telling me how happy they were that I was pitching. The Yankee scouts from earlier in the week were in attendance behind home plate, along with an entire section of scouts from various teams. I just blurred out all of their faces and focused on pitching the best game that I could. It was similar to Kevin Costner in For the Love of the Game when he says, “Release the mechanism.”
I made it all the way through the fifth inning, giving up no runs, two hits, one walk, and six strikeouts. I had run out of pills and had to go out for the sixth. Our bullpen was thin and unreliable, so the coach was really set on having me throw one more inning. My only option left was to just go to the trainer and discretely get more pills. After a long and tough inner battle, I decided against that route. My arm was a beat-up truck with high mileage, and I was going to drive it as far as I could until the wheels fell off.
A feeling started to creep up that this was the end. One last inning to complete my baseball career. My whole portfolio of work and dedication was going to be summarized into the next three outs in this one game.
I sent a text message to my dad from the dugout, “Thanks for the support. Love you.” For a moment, I put everything behind me. The weight gain, the pain, the depression; it was all obsolete. There was no pressure, no scouts, no game; this was for me. If I had anything left in me, it was going to be left out on the field. I was walking willingly through the door to career suicide and made peace with myself.
That next half-inning before I went back out to the mound probably took about ten minutes, but it felt like a lifetime. Coach Belton came and sat down next to me as I was preparing for this spectacular finish. “The scouts from the Phillies organization just put in a bid for you. Not trying to add to the pressure, I just thought you’d like to know. They want to meet with you when you get back.” “I don’t think I will be available for that,” I responded calmly. Belton’s eyes began to water a little bit. “I know,” he said, fighting away tears. “I just thought you’d like to know. It’s been an absolute honor to coach you.” I nodded and gave him a quick hug. “I’m okay coach, I’m just tired.” “You sure you want to do this?” I quickly nodded my head, and the coach tipped his cap to me. As he walked down the dugout, he left his glove next to me. I did not have to say what was going on; Belton already knew. He had a saying he would always say to our pitching staff, “Pitch every inning like it is your last.” Those were the words inscribed on his glove. I was about to experience the ultimate personification of that quote.
As I walked out to the mound, everything was a blur. This was the moment to justify everything I had fought for in each inning I had pitched throughout my lifetime. I just wished that my father would have been there for it. No one had been more supportive than him.
I inhaled deeply to get that smell of the ball field into my lungs. I wish I could have trapped that scent in a bottle and kept it forever. This was my time to show everybody at that game (and watching on television) why I wore that captain’s patch on the sleeve of my jersey. It was so much more than a letter.
Wearing Coach Belton’s glove, I struck out the first two batters with the best sliders I had ever thrown. I was not looking at anyone watching the game, but I heard the reactions for each of the third strikes, and it was the loudest I had heard the crowd the entire tournament. One more out to go. One more out and I could feel satisfied knowing that I gave my all on that baseball field in Florida that night.
As the third batter approached the plate, I felt the spiders-crawling feeling up and down my arm again.
Over the course of the season, I had worked with one of our relief pitchers who pitched, “submarine” style. He is now in the major leagues and has been for three years. His name was Chad. I never knew how significant those practice sessions were going to become. I could no longer lift my arm over my head, but I could swing it under my body decently. It was time to break out the submarine style practice and put it to work.
I threw four submarine-style pitches that all looked great, and got the last hitter to strike out looking. My whole dugout erupted excitedly when I threw that last pitch. I could not hear anything. All I could feel was my arm tingle and then go completely numb. If there was any doubt in my mind that this was the end, it disappeared as soon as I threw that last pitch.
As I returned to the dugout, Coach Moreno came over to me. “Nice angle switch. I’m putting Chad in to close, and now because of your creativeness, they got used to the sub delivery. Anyway, you have a meeting with the Phillies when we get back. Thank me later.” I nodded my head and continued into the end of the dugout. My phone had a message from my father that read, “Always proud of you son. Love you too.”
Belton gave me a high five and handed me a tin of Skoal chewing tobacco. I threw in a pinch of tobacco and sat with him for the remainder of the game. We won. The whole team celebrated as I walked around giving left-handed high fives to my teammates. They had no idea that would be their captain’s last sail with his hands on the wheel. As long as the ship was not sinking, I was happy. I was not abandoning the boat; I was just going to b enjoying the ride as a passenger for the first time in a long time.
We ended up losing in the finals, but it was still a great accomplishment to come in second at the Tropicana tournament. I ended up going out with the team the night we lost the finals- thanks to the help of my best friend, ibuprofen.
We got on the plane and had a relaxing, safe flight and bus ride back to campus. As we reached our destination, Coach Moreno pulled me aside. “So if I’m hearing correctly, you’re too hurt to pitch?” “Yes, sir.” It felt amazing to honest about my arm aliment for the first time in my career. Moreno took a breath and said, “Okay, no problem. Listen, you can’t keep your scholarship since you can’t play, so you’ll have to pay the full tuition if you decide to finish your academic path at this college. Also, you’re going to have to pack your things and be out of the apartment we provided for you by tomorrow. Coach Jason already picked up the car we provided for you, too. I hope you understand.” I took a minute to process everything the coach had just said. I stayed calm and asked, “So that’s it?” “Yeah, Josh. That’s it.” Coach Moreno extended his hand for a handshake, and I decided to do the honorable thing and extended mine as well. Only this time I used my right hand.
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