The Greatest, Part III
A short story, continued further.
The last two weeks, I’ve rolled out the first two installments of a short story called “The Greatest”, about a man whose long-forgotten childhood wish is unexpectedly fulfilled.
This is the third installment of that story.
One home run off of a washed-up former pitcher isn’t enough to get you to the big leagues.
It sure got people talking, though.
It certainly helped that it was—if I may be allowed to say so myself—a freakin’ bomb, the kind of bullwhip-loud-off-the-bat, high-arcing, outfielders-don’t-even-flinch, Dennis-Eckersley-mouthing-WOW moonshot that would cause an opposing ballpark crowd to gasp in not-even-mad-just-impressed unison and cause Chris Berman to start searching a map for the names of nearby towns.
Also, it made a huge dent in the hood of Trevin Hough’s brand-new Tesla Cybertruck when it landed in the parking lot, a fact that made it easier to measure the exact distance—518 feet—and led him to throw a red-faced, spittle-flying, glove-throwing tantrum on the mound. It was quite a scene, and ended up widely reposted and remixed on TikTok in the days after.
(“When McDonald’s says the ice cream machine is down again”, and so on.)
People were finally talking about me.
Amateur Takes Major Leaguer Deep To Settle a Bet
Man Hits Massive Home Run, Wins $10K For Charity
A 42-year-old project manager faced off against a Major League pitcher. You won’t believe what happened next.
The Greatest Baseball Player You’ve Never Heard Of?
Elon Musk Denies Reports That Baseballs Can Damage Cybertruck
The only problem is, they started asking questions that I didn’t have good answers for.
Who is Garrett Patterson, the 42-year-old baseball prodigy?
How Could An Unknown Amateur Hit A Home Run This Long?
Is Baseball’s Steroid Era Back?
Where Have You Been, Garrett Patterson? Baseball Turns Its Lonely Eyes To You, Woo-Hoo-Ooh
Investigating the Case of @DadBodARod, TikTok’s Middle-Aged Baseball Sensation
They were entirely fair questions, mind you, and ones I’d probably be asking if I were anyone other than myself. There’s no good explanation for delayed-onset athletic prowess like this, especially not in a sport where players a decade younger than me are generally considered to be on the downslope of their careers. Only a small handful of players have had All-Star-level seasons beyond the age of 40, and those have been future Hall of Famers, guys on steroids, or guys who would’ve been Hall of Famers if they hadn’t been caught taking steroids.
No one starts being good at this age, and that helped make me the focus of both intense curiosity and unwelcome scrutiny.
In Bull Durham (1988)—one of my favorite sports movies of all time—Kevin Costner’s grizzled-veteran-player Crash Davis schools the young-and-brash Ebby Calvin “Nuke” LaLoosh (Tim Robbins) on the best way for a player to handle the media.
Crash Davis: You're gonna have to learn your clichés. You're gonna have to study them, you're gonna have to know them. They're your friends. Write this down: "We gotta play it one day at a time."
Ebby Calvin LaLoosh: Got to play... it's pretty boring.
Crash Davis: 'Course it's boring, that's the point. Write it down.
Crash’s lesson, of course, is that a player can only get himself in trouble when he deviates from shop-worn aphorisms and gives the media something juicy to hook onto. It’s a good lesson for a regular ballplayer, but one that wasn’t going to do much good in my situation. I’d already given people something to hook onto.
In fact, that’s all I’d given them.
My best option—my only option, I reasoned—was to steer into the skid.
So, when a reporter from the Louisville Courier-Journal reached out to ask how I’d done it, I explained that I’d found a magic bat at a yard sale, and that wielding it had granted me special powers.
When a local news station in Florida called to question my suddenly-flourishing abilities, I recounted the night when I saved a mysterious old woman from drowning, and how she’d whispered “dingers” to me before disappearing into the fog.
When a writer with Baseball Prospectus emailed to inquire how it was possible that I’d never played baseball before, I explained that I’d been busy trying to write a novel for all these years, but that I couldn’t get the sports scenes quite right. I tried my hand at baseball for research, and it turned out I was just naturally good at it?
When Men’s Health pressed me for tips on achieving late-blooming athletic success, I told them that I’d eaten three eggs every single morning for a week, and that you wouldn’t believe what happened next.
When Highlights For Kids asked to do a segment on The Dad Who Only Hits Homers, I attributed my success to eating my vegetables, going to bed at a reasonable hour, and never, ever watching Minecraft videos on YouTube.
Finally, when an ESPN features writer popped into my inbox, I said that I’d been approached by a biblically-accurate birthday angel and they’d granted a wish I’d made thirty-four years ago.
By that point, I’d flooded the zone with enough silly answers that the truth blended right into the lies; I’d successfully shifted the conversation. I wasn’t an inexplicable scientific oddity anymore; I was A Character, and baseball is a sport that adores Characters. From juicy-quote-giving superstars like Reggie Jackson and Rickey Henderson to flash-in-the-pan screwballs like Mark “The Bird” Fidrych to good-enough-but-that’s-hardly-what-they’re-remembered-for eccentrics like the iconoclastic “Spaceman” Bill Lee or the superstitious Turk Wendell, the baseball diamond has long been a place where being a little goofy can make you a pariah, but being a full-blown weirdo can make you beloved.
It hadn’t gotten me a tryout yet, though.
There was a bit of buzz at the big-league level, to be fair. A few fans at an Oakland A’s game unfurled a “SIGN THE DADBOD” banner on Opening Day, and the Cincinnati Reds floated an offer for me to throw out a ceremonial first pitch, but the serious parts of the game—the parts I needed if I was going to take advantage of this gift before it disappeared—weren’t taking me seriously.
Garrett: I don’t know how I get a Major League ballclub to give me a chance Danny: once again I am suggesting you simply go down to the ballpark and ask if they’re hiring Danny: to my knowledge you still have not done that Chris: the Trevin Hough thing worked pretty well. Maybe you should just do more of those Chris: you could just travel from town to town challenging other problematic former baseball players to duels, setting right things that once went wrong Chris: heck that could just be a TV show Chris: you wouldn’t even need to play big league ball Jeff: the baseball Ronin Brian: do it Columbo-style, we see the home run first and then you spend the rest of the episode explaining the guy’s bad tweets or whatever Garrett: I do appreciate the idea Garrett: I’ve always envisioned myself as a young Peter Falk, and it would give me an excuse to buy a raincoat like his Mike: it’s a good coat Brian: Peter Falk was 41 when Columbo debuted Garrett: I’m just not sure there are enough problematic baseball players out there for me to challenge on a weekly basis Brian: so technically you’d just be an age-appropriate Peter Falk, not a young one Jeff: I’m pretty sure most baseball players are problematic, some just post more than others Garrett: after what I did to Hough, though, I’m not sure any of them would be willing to take me on as readily as he did Chris: “baseball is scared of me” – garrett, humility king Danny: they ain’t played nobody imo Garrett: beyond that, I really want to get a shot in the majors. I mean, I’ve been gifted these skills, I’d feel like a pretty big failure if I didn’t make the most of them Jeff: I acknowledge and understand what you’re saying but I’d also just like to take a moment to point out how wild this conversation might've seemed a month ago Jeff: “i will feel like a failure if I do not make Major League Baseball” woulda been a hell of a statement when we were comparing notes on TENS units and fiber supplements Danny: in conclusion, baseball is a land of contrasts Chris: maybe you need to put on a pressure campaign Chris: like, you’ve got a bit of the popular will behind you, right? Baseball fans know who you are now, or at least the excessively-online ones do Chris: you should just start going to major league games, sitting in the stands Brian: ooh you could be like that guy who went to a bunch of playoff games and always sat behind home plate wearing a bright-orange Marlins jersey Brian: you know, Marlins Man Jeff: do a Marlins Man! Mike: COMMENCE THE MARLINS MAN PROTOCOL Garrett: okay guy but I do not have Marlins Man money for tickets Danny: you have to spend money to make money Danny: (I just came up with that) Chris: sports fans are obsessed with potential. Think in football, any time a team has a backup quarterback who was good in college, all it takes is one interception for the fans to start demanding the starter be pulled and the backup to take over Chris: you could be that, but for baseball. All it’d take is a couple games of struggle and the fans would be clamoring to put you in the game Brian: we could go and start a chant Mike: do a Bad News Bears in Breaking Training Mike: LET HIM PLAY Mike: LET HIM PLAY Mike: and so on Mike: you get the idea Garrett: this isn’t the worst plan Danny: to be fair waiting until age 42 to develop baseball skills at the hands of a birthday angel probably actually is the worst plan Danny: I probably would’ve just tried to be good at sports when I was a normal sports age Danny: but it seems to be working for you Danny: so it doesn’t actually matter if it’s a good plan or not Danny: Bad Plans Have Feelings Too Garrett: you’re very wise, Danny Danny: we’re hearing it more and more
I considered the merits of the Marlins Man Strategy.
Box seats in view of the center-field camera for games that would draw a reasonable television audience were expensive, but that wasn’t even the real issue. To become familiar for showing up at ballgames doesn’t just require a good seat and a bright-orange jersey, it requires repetition. I’d have to show up to lots of games—high-profile games, games in different cities, games with stakes—the kind of stakes that don’t happen until the season is crescendoing in late summer and fall, at which point my chariot may well have turned back into a pumpkin already.
I decided to take the Reds up on their offer, throwing out a ceremonial first pitch before a game. The slot wasn’t a terrific one—a Wednesday night game in mid-April where the biggest actual draw was a ‘Bark in the Park’ promotion—but I figured that even if I blew it, at least I’d probably get to pet some dogs.
A gameday-operations assistant ushered me out to the mound, and the PA announcer’s introduction of “social media star Dad Bodarod” (confusingly emphasized like “baccarat”) was met with barely a murmur of acknowledgement from the crowd of diehards and doodles gathered on a chilly April night. I toed the rubber, wishing I’d worn cleats. I didn’t even own cleats. Why hadn’t I bought cleats for this? That was an unforced error. Throwing out a first pitch in dusty New Balances was risky. What if I slipped?
I thought about the first pitches I remembered anyone else throwing. Mariah Carey four-hopping the plate while wearing heels. 50 Cent sailing one closer to the dugout than home plate. Former Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory throwing a pitch so bad the umpire jokingly threw him out of the game, a pitch so bad I remember who former Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory is solely on the merit of the pitch.
Now, what are the good first pitches you remember? George W. Bush after 9/11? That’s a hard set of circumstances to recreate, and not one that I’d want to even if I could. The bar for success in throwing a ceremonial first pitch is getting it to the catcher without them having to get up and run for it, and the reward is not becoming a meme.
I needed more than that.
I held the ball like an egg—Bull Durham again—and closed my eyes. I wound back, imagined it sailing to the backstop, and—THWAP.
“Shit!”
I opened my eyes, expecting the worst, but the bullpen catcher who’d been manning home plate was trotting back to the mound holding the ball, shaking his glove hand in surprise.
“Dang, man, you should’ve told me you were bringing heat like that,” he laughed. “I was expecting a ground ball, not a surface-to-air-missile. What’d you say your name was again?”
I received a few congratulatory back-pats on my way off the field, and settled in to watch the game. I signed a couple autographs, posed for a few selfies, and spent twenty-four dollars getting the kids Dippin’ Dots in souvenir helmets that I’d surely throw out in a week. I’d done what I could, and hey—I’d gotten to throw a pitch off a Major League mound.
That might have to be enough.
“Mr. Patterson?”
“May I ask who’s calling?”
“Yes, Mr. Patterson, my name is Jared Dewberry, and I’m calling on behalf of the Metts.”
“Holy shit, the New York Mets?”
“Oh, no sir. No, I’m with the Queen City Metts.”
“Oh. Wait, who?”
“We’re a non-affiliated Minor League Baseball team playing in the Midwest League.”
“You do understand how your introduction might be a bit confusing, don’t you?”
“I don’t follow.”
“Well, you led with just the team name, which happens to be the same as a Major League team.”
“No it isn’t.”
“You just said you’re the Mets.”
“Sir, those are the Mets. We’re the Metts.”
“What?”
“The Metts. Mettwurst. It’s a type of smoked pork sausage popular in Germany and certain German-American communities in the American Midwest.”
“Your team is named after a sausage?”
“Well, no. Officially, the team’s name is the Ohio Valley Bluebirds. That’s a bit old-fashioned a name, though, and we’ve found that there’s good business to be had in merchandise sales if we roll out ‘fun’ names on a regular basis. This year, a number of the teams in our league have adopted niche regional food nicknames. There’s the Booneville Slugburgers, the Southern Tier Spiedies, the Hazleton Shoofly Pies, The Grand Rapids Golumpki, the Johnstown City Chickens, the Roseland Gym Shoes…”
“Gym Shoes?”
“It’s a type of sandwich specific to certain neighborhoods on the West and South Sides of Chicago.”
“Ah. Never heard of it.”
“Not many people have. But the people who have heard of it will be absolutely delighted when they see that a minor league baseball team is named after it. Same for all of those other dishes. We temporarily rebrand, slap an anthropomorphic version of that niche foodstuff on a hat, and a small but significant subset of people will pay forty bucks for it without even thinking twice. We sell as much merch as we can until interest tails off, then ditch the name and start the cycle fresh. It’s not always food, either. It can be things of specific regional interest, or short-lived memes. In the last ten years, we’ve been the Orange Construction Barrels, the Can Opener Bridges, the Baby Hippos, the Bad Drivers and the Left Sharks.”
“I see.”
“The minor leagues operate on thin profit margins, Mr. Patterson, and even more so at our level. When you find a revenue stream that works for you, you can’t look askance at it.”
“No, I suppose that makes sense.”
“We also try to pursue compelling storylines where they’re available. One-time Major League players who want to hang around for one more year. Long-time retired players coming back from the golf course to see if they’ve still got it. Celebrities who want to try their hand at playing ball. Figures in the public interest. People with a certain degree of attention flowing in their direction. People like you, Mr. Patterson.”
“Are you offering to sign me to play for your club?”
“We’re offering to have you star for our club. This may not be the big leagues, but it’s a chance to play organized professional baseball, and we’d love to make you a Mett.”
“I would also like to try one of these sausages, to be clear.”
I was pleasantly surprised by the crowd.
The Metts’ stadium was an unassuming structure near an exurban highway interchange, but it was cozy inside, and probably half of its four thousand seats were filled on a warm early-May afternoon. I’d been worried that the team—made up of real baseball players—might reject my presence as a sideshow, but I found my new teammates to be gracious, accommodating, and completely unfazed by the peculiarity of my circumstances. The idea of a 42-year-old playing professional baseball for the first time ever was absurd, of course, but the idea that anyone could make a living playing a game was absurd if you thought about it too much.
I was chasing a dream, and so were they. That was enough to make me one of the guys.
That’s not to say that I didn’t stand out, though.
I could feel the players clam up a little bit when I entered the dugout, but that had more to do with my being a decade and a half older than them than anything else. I felt like a substitute teacher, and wondered if I should bring up some popular music to prove I was a cool substitute teacher.
(Of course, I’d have to know what was popular with people that age first, and that wasn’t research I was interested in doing.)
The Metts had no interest in soft-rolling my debut; I’d be the starting pitcher and cleanup hitter in my first game. That alone was worth extra buzz, Dewberry explained, as they could market me as “The Shohei Ohtani of the Ohio Valley”.
(It wasn’t as catchy as the names the guys had come up with, but I wasn’t going to second-guess their marketing strategy, and I didn’t really want to be called Shohei Oldtani either.)
I dug in to face the first batter, and a fresh flood of doubt filled my head. I’d managed to make it through a ceremonial pitch without embarrassing myself, but this was the first time I’d be facing live hitters, and I just hoped that I didn’t hit someone or get run off in the first inning.
I wound, unleashed a fastball, and—
CRACK. THWAP.
He’d lined it straight back at me, and the flash was so quick that I felt like I’d been shot. I looked down at my glove, and the ball was there. Huh.
One down.
Maybe this would go okay.
As the next hitter dug in, I wondered if I could throw a curveball. As soon as I had the thought, my fingers instinctively shifted on the ball, and my next pitch broke like Clayton Kershaw’s best. Was it really this easy? I thought about a slider, I threw a nasty slider. I thought about Mariano Rivera’s cut fastball, and I threw one just like it. It was like playing a video game on the easiest difficulty setting, something I’ve always been fond of doing. Choose a pitch, throw a pitch. I even tried a knuckleball just to see if I had that in my repertoire, and it darted so sharply the batter fell over swinging at it. (I felt a little bad about that one.)
End line: a complete game shutout. One hit. No walks. Twenty-three strikeouts. I also hit two home runs, a long double, and was intentionally walked twice, much to the disapproval of the crowd, which I swear was larger by the end of the game than it had been at the beginning. The game was recapped on the local news and on ESPN, and highlights sizzled across social media. The Metts sold two thousand tickets to their next game that evening, and three thousand hats.
In my second game, I hit three home runs, walked twice, and made an over-the-shoulder catch in deep center field that earned favorable comparisons to Jim Edmonds or Willie Mays, depending on the age of the person making the comparison.
In my third game, the pitchers for the Lebanon Bolognas wouldn’t give me a thing to hit, so I set a Midwest League record for stolen bases in a single game with seven.
Before I knew it, the Metts were the hottest ticket in town, selling out every game, and Dewberry was fielding media requests from outlets that—much like me—hadn’t even heard of the club a month prior.
A few weeks into our run, I was stretching in the outfield before a game against the Boston Coolers, a team from Michigan whose geographically-deceptive name referred not to their home city but to a drink made with vanilla ice cream and Vernors ginger ale—when our second baseman, Ryan, trotted over to me. He was a quiet young man with a steady glove, decent baserunning skills and warning-track power, and I’d enjoyed playing with him even if we hadn’t spoken directly to each other.
“Mr. Patterson?”
“Ah, Jesus, Ryan, don’t call me that, you make me sound like I’m your dad’s friend.”
“Sorry. Uh, Mr. Garrett? Can I ask you a question?”
“Of course you can, son. We’re teammates, aren’t we?”
“Right, yeah, of course. I was, uh… I was just wondering, um, how you did it.”
I sat up out of my stretch, suddenly concerned. Was he onto me? Did he know that my success was built on a lie? Was he aware of the secret power of long-delayed birthday wishes, and was about to excoriate me for stealing baseball valor? Heck, was what I’d been doing ethical at all? I’d seized on the opportunity to play professional ball, but I hadn’t considered that every home run I hit was a home run given up by someone who’d worked far longer and harder to get here than I ever had. Was I making their improbable road to the show even more improbable by dinging their stats?
Am I an asshole?
Those thoughts all ran through my head at lightning speed, but I’d probably still hesitated too long. I was overthinking this.
I let out a nervous, self-effacing chuckle.
“Gosh, I don’t know, Ryan, I just throw it, and—”
“Oh, that’s not what I mean, Mr. Garrett. I just mean… I’ve been playing baseball since I was five years old, and I’m twenty-six now. I played tee ball, coach-pitch, Little League, high school, travel ball, college ball, and I’ve now been on five minor league teams in the last four years. I think I’ve got something to show people, but I’m getting to the point where scouts won’t even consider me, if they ever did. I was starting to think about giving up, going and working for my dad’s landscaping company, but then you showed up here. I realized that if someone, uh—y’know, your age, no offense—can play ball like you’re playing it, then maybe there’s still a chance for me, y’know? It’s just hard to hold on to that hope when you’re hanging on by a thread, and so I just wanted to know how you did it. How you kept hope all that time.”
Shit. I am an asshole.
Before I could answer, we noticed Dewberry running out to right field, face red with excitement.
“Mr. Patterson! Mr. Patterson!”
“For crying out loud, can anyone here not address me like I’m the assistant principal?”
“There’s a call for you in the front office. It’s from Chicago.”
“Aw, geez, Jared, you’re not trading me to the Gym Shoes, are you? I thought we had somethin’ going here.”
“No… I mean Chicago Chicago. The White Sox!”
“Oh.”
“Shit.”
To Be Concluded in Part IV…
—Scott Hines (@actioncookbook)
I'm not sure the White Sox are really a step up from independent minor league ball
The text thread with the friends has been laugh out loud funny every time you've done this. Danny is a gem