Mental Notes & Random Musings

Miguel Barceló was not exactly heading to the hall of fame as his zero and six record this year was merely 3 wins shy of his 3 and 3 record this time last year. Lily took a little time this morning to figure out the pitcher who she noted has a “seriously nasty sinker ball” which Jack had conquered, and watching the tape she saw that the catcher that she appears to be replacing had hardly ever called it. “What was up with that? He so rarely called for a sinker pitch and Barceló could have thrown seventy percent sinker pitches and simply let the ground balls dominate the game, couldn’t he?”  Jack shook his head a bit and looked on at the tape before saying, “Well actually, it does not look like he pays any attention to the signals anyway. There is a fast ball up, and in comes a cutter down. Here is the signal for the sinker and it is a riding fast ball,” and then Jack looks back again and makes a strange “pffft” noise before stating, “You just do not know with those two, they really ...

“Oh God Jack, I can’t wait to hear Nolan now when you call him to tell him that you just tied his no hitter record!” comes booming down that long corridor underneath the park. The long, wet, and scrawny corridor, which Jack has walked down 80 times a year for the last 20 years, still smells funky, but Jack knows that he is going to miss it badly this time next year.  “He’ll remind me that he got about 1500 more strikeouts than me and lasted an extra six years in the game, so I’m going to have to tell him that I’m dating his daughter too,” Jack yells back to John as they make their way onward towards him but then pipes up over the confused look on John’s face “Yeah when he gives me that look I’ll say ‘oh yeah that was the love child your wife had with Seaver’ and then hope that his knee is still bad” and the two of them started cackling away.  The hallway is not much bigger than Lily and her 230-pound brother to walk down, side by side, as Jay is mimicking her every step perfec...

Lily is having a tough time of it now as Jack is shaking off everything. The one to nothing score is not making the events any easier to deal with as Jack is out of gas with a no hitter on the line, one strike out away from 4000 strikeouts and two outs in the ninth inning. Lily finally calls “Time” to the umpire and then trots out to the mound, where Jack looks increasingly pained as she gets closer. “Listen Jack, do you want that 4000, or do you just want to get out of this game with the no no?” Jack looks at her with the sweat rolling down his cheek, and says to her quite frankly, “I just want to get out of here with a win Lily. The only stat I have ever cared about is the W, just so you know and the two of them hear the umpire starting to make the usual noises that they make to speed the conversation along. Jack then adds, “Besides I have a few no noes, and I have a whole season to get 4000, so I’ll probably get there, God willing.” Lily’s trot back to the plate is a bit confusing, ...

Lily barely had enough time to put her catcher’s equipment on before she had to get back out on to the field. The next batter was sat down on his second pitch with a towering pop fly that almost made it out of the infield. The second baseman caught it with little effort, and the team was to take the field, but not before Jack, who had been talking Jay’s ear off still, grabs Lily by the arm and says to her, “Thanks, for the lead Lily. Time to go humiliate the other nine players some more,” and then he trots out of the dugout ahead of her, in hopes of seeing the crowd’s reaction when Lily comes out in her catcher's equipment. He was right as they all started screaming louder as she pops out of the dugout. Her attention is focused on the crowd as she trips over an imaginary curb in the base path and barely recovers herself by stumbling forward into a sort of stumbling half run. “I’ll have to talk to the ground crew about making the chalk lines so high after the game,” she quips at the...

Tug has always believed that catcher's bat last, it was the way he did it in his day, and it is going to be how his team does it now. The way this game is going already, both pitchers are throwing a shutout, and Lily grabs her bat and starts walking towards the exit from the dugout, so that she can take her place in the on-deck circle for her first major league at bat. The hand that grabs her as she is walking by belongs to Jack, as he says to her, “Ok you must take care of your pitcher Lily, and you of all people should know that. Do not leave me hanging into the eighth inning with a zero-to-zero tie going, ok?” and then he gives her a wink, to signify the understanding that he hopes she has. “Nothing like a little more pressure Jack, thank you,” she says to him as she winks back. She looks down to the end of the dugout where her brother sits staring out at the field, and as usual she tries to figure out what he is looking at, but as she does, she sees Jack go back over to sit nex...

Lily was able to catch on to Jack’s motion and feel for his pitches easily during his warmups, so it gave her mind time to wander towards other things, like how Jay is doing. He has never had to be without her during game times before. She left him staring at his locker when she made her trip to the bullpen with Jack, and she figured that at the absolute worst, he would simply sit there for the game. Of course, the new and improved Captain Random really has not been acting up since yesterday, but then again, he has not given her any reason to believe that he was going to sit and be quiet either. It is hard when you do not have a clue what someone is thinking, especially when they have proven that you do not know what they are thinking for so long. Lily notes as she watches Jack that his mechanics change dramatically from pitch to pitch, like he is trying to find a spot that doesn’t hurt as much, and yes it is that obvious, but she also understands that he knows what he is doing, so she...

As they make the walk into the Red Sox clubhouse to be introduced to the equipment manager Richie, it amuses Lily to notice that the locker rooms in the last two parks were nicer than this one. “I wonder if anyone in the other two systems realizes that they have nicer digs then they do here,” she says slyly to Chris, but it is of course overheard by everyone. “It is about tradition Lily. They just want to be here,” then Jack pauses for a minute, and starts again, “Well most of them anyway, there have been a few that I have wondered about,” and with that last piece of knowledge Jack started cracking himself up. One of Jack’s greatest traits is that he is his own best friend, as well as anyone else who will let him. That interesting aside from earlier when we talked about the stone-faced Jay Franklin seeming ordinary, because pitchers do not like to be bothered, well not Jack. Jack is quite the contrary, and if someone does not bother him during a game he is pitching, then he will bother...

The walk down Jersey Street in Boston Massachusetts still makes John look around in awe, so you can imagine what it does to Jay. Well actually it does not do anything to Jay; he merely strolls alongside his sister at the same pace that she walks exactly. Another interesting fact about Jay is that he will completely alter his walking speed to mimic Lily’s and sometimes that bothers her, but usually it works out better that way, because she always knows when he has strayed off somewhere. The big doors to Fenway Park had a man standing there waiting for them in a nice suit, which they recognized immediately to be Chris. “Yeah, I do wear suits when I am going to see the big boss, it’s how I justify my salary,” he says to both as they walk up. Lily gives him a bit of a fake smile as she is obviously nervous. Chris although impressed with how she looks in it, chuckles a bit at the thought of taking someone to meet the general manager of one of the oldest franchises in baseball, in the oldest...

Jay walks down the trail from the dugout beside his sister the way he always does, with no emotion, no look on his face other than blank, and Lily does find it a little frustrating. The revelations of him coming to life during the game are fresh in her mind and she was hoping that it might carry over a bit. This is probably the first time in over 3 years she had carried any hope, other than the usual, that her brother was going to animate at all, but it was after all fleeting as her mind starts to remember that this happens once in a while and any attempt to stimulate it just brings forth futility and frustration. Back inside of the cozy confines of the clubhouse, they see John and Chris standing over by their lockers, well Lily does anyway. John is holding a new bat which he holds out for Jay, who walks past it, leaving John to chuckle and quip, “See he knows he won’t need this for a while already,” and then walks over to the other side of the locker room to talk to someone else that ...

“Jay’s sinker has been on, but this last inning is going to be rough Skip,” Lily says to her manager as she heads out to the diamond. Lily had noted that the fast balls are still working, but the best batters in triple A are on that other team, and they have figured out the timing on the fastball now. It is the first time that Jay has ever given up six hits in a game, but still the score is two to one for the good guys, and he only needs three more outs. Along this path of today’s game, she has done her best to guide Jay to the end, but it is getting a lot harder.  As she finally squats behind the plate the catcher for the other team approaches the plate waving his bat and checking for nicks. She finally gets up the nerve to ask him, what she had been dying to since the first inning started, “What did you say to my brother when he was at the plate a couple of innings ago?”  He starts laughing instantly like he was sorting through some old jokes in his mind and says to her, “I ...

Lily walks away from the plate with her bat on her shoulder for the second time today, as she is now the opposite of what she was in double A. That pitcher on the mound, had found the hole in her swing and is fully exploiting it, and she just cannot hit that outside splitter to save her soul. “I just wish I could lay off of those Skip, sorry about that,” she says to Bill on her way by him in the dugout to which he instinctively gives her a pat on the behind and then looks at her in shock. Lily being who she is, takes a step back and looks at him saying, “Come on now Skip, you hit like a girl,” and then one of the usual winks that she simply does.  Grabbing her gear, she walks down to the end of the bench where her brother is sitting staring into the field, but not at anything in particular, and she states to him, “They are catching up to you Jay, I hope you can get that sinker going, because you are going to need some of those painful ground balls that keep them honest,” and then s...

The players in the clubhouse of McCoy stadium are looking at Lily and Jay a lot leerier than they had been used to in their other venues as they walk in the door. The air is almost icy cold, and Lily does make a mental note that her brother’s vacant stare might appear to be more put-offish than normal. The average hello’s and “how are you” niceties that they had gotten back in Portland are not there this time, but who can blame them as most of these players are journeymen who will never see the major leagues, and the rest are kids who have been trapped here for several years waiting for their break. It did not take a genius to realize that these two are climbing the ranks too fast to be sitting here in Pawtucket Rhode Island for too long.  The manager of the team is the first to greet them and he simply goes straight to Lily as he looks a little uneasily at Jay, which alerts her right off that he has been alerted to the situation. He takes a long look at Jay and then asks Lily, “Do...