By Bill McGuffin
Assistant General Manager
The Chicago Black Sox
Monclova, Mexico – OK, we tried the low-key approach.
Caleca and I had staked out a sports bar that could have emerged fully-formed from the mouth of hell and took aside one of the players for the Aqua Sox (Chicago’s rookie league team) and asked with a minimum of gibbering where the International Complex was located.
The player – a young (terrible) shortstop named Alfredo Rodriguez – shut us down as soon as we asked about his time at the complex.
But not before he’d spilled a key piece of information, which Caleca and I clutched like men drowning in a Gulf of Mexico rip tide. He let drop that the coaches who ran the complex drilled their rules into the players while running them from palm tree to palm tree.
On a beach.
So, this morning, as we drove our rental Lincoln Navigator to Estadio Monclova – where the Aqua Sox play their games – we batted around the significance of this little tidbit.
I took one hand off the wheel and gestured for him to hand me the bottle so I could take a swig.
“Yeah, makes sense, I guess … but wouldn’t we have seen some evidence of it when we were down there for spring training? I don’t remember seeing those complex kids wandering around, or hearing any talk about it.”
Caleca shrugged.
“Yeah, maybe. I don’t know. Could be over in Bradenton or somewhere, and the kids didn’t make it over to any of the games,” he said.
I frowned, wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, and returned the bottle to him.
“Seems to me they would’ve brought the complex players over to at least watch some of the games, and we’d have heard about that, right?”
Another shrug from Vic.
“Ok … well, at least we know it’s someplace warm enough to have palm trees,” he said. “That narrows things a little.”
I nodded as I pulled the massive Lincoln into the stadium parking lot, which was nearly empty with game time still a good 6 hours away.
Caleca stashed the beer bottle in one of the cup holders, and we made our way to the administrative entrance to the stadium. Like I said up top, we’d tried the informal approach and got shut down. Now – since these guys all, in theory at least, worked for me – we were going to get a little more official.
Luis Pérez, the Aqua Sox manager, met us at the front desk, and showed us to a depressing little cubbyhole of an office we could use for a couple of hours.
“Bill,” he’d nodded to me. “And Vic – I’ve been reading about you, lately.”
Former GM Caleca
Pérez looked skeptical but got us settled in the office and said he’d go get Tony Aguilar – another horrendous shortstop prospect who’d joined the Aqua Sox after a stint in the International Complex.
We didn’t have to wait long: there was a tentative knock at the door a few minutes later, and Aguilar stuck his head in.
“Hey,” he said. “You guys wanted to see me?”
Aguilar, 22, a light-hitting infielder from Caracas, Venezuela, entered quickly and took a seat in one of the two plastic office chairs in front of the battered metal desk that took up most of the tiny office.
“Yeah, Tony,” I said from my perch on a corner of the desk. “Hey, I’ll come right to the point. Benedetta Vitale – the general manager of our franchise, and your boss – has asked us to gather as much information about the International Complex as we can. She especially wants to know where the hell the place is. You spent time there, according to your records, so I’ll ask you. Where is it?”
Aguilar looked stricken.
“Guys … guys … you know the complex doesn’t like us to talk about it,” he said.
Vic, who was seated in a frayed fabric-covered swivel chair behind the desk, rolled his eyes.
“C’mon, Tony. It’s not like these guys run hit squads or anything. It’s a damn training facility for baseball players. The assistant general manager of your franchise - asked you a direct question. Give him the courtesy of a direct response.”
Aguilar gulped, looked at the floor, and then squared himself.
“Here’s as direct as I can give you – I don’t know where it is.”
Caleca blinked. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, they picked me up in a car, they drove me around, they took me to a little airport, they put me on a private plane with the window shades down, and then they flew me somewhere. When we got there, it was warm … it was summer, of course. Then they drove me to the complex in a van with no windows in the back, so I couldn’t see any road signs or anything.
“The one thing I can tell you, is there were wide, wide fields of wheat and you could see mountains in the background.”
I looked at Vic, and his eyes widened.
“Wheat? And mountains? What are you talking about? Rodriguez talked about running on a beach,” I said.
Aguilar looked confused. “I don’t know what to tell you – Alfredo and I were there together for awhile, and I never saw no beach.”
Caleca fished his iPhone out of his pocket, rubbed his bleary eyes, and then dashed off a quick text. Minutes later, Luis Pérez appeared with Rodriguez in tow.
Alfredo looked alarmed to see us … and Aguilar.
“What is this?” he asked.
“Well,” I answered, “the thing is, Alfredo, I happen to be the assistant general manager of this franchise, and you play for me – at least for the moment you do – and I don’t think you were straight with Vic and me last night.”
Asst. GM Bill McGuffin
I laughed, harsh and mirthless.
“You told us more than you thought: you talked about running the beach and learning the rules of International Complex. But Tony here says there was no beach – wheat fields and mountains, he says. Which is it, eh, Alfredo?”
Now it was Rodriguez’s turn to look confused.
“Wheat fields? There weren’t any wheat fields. Or mountains. It was flat, green and by the ocean,” he said.
Aguilar looked perplexed. “What are you talking about, Alfredo? There wasn’t any beach. Skipper had us learn the ‘Plex rules as he ran us from White Pine to White Pine on the lawn.”
Alfredo laughed.
“Pines? The only pine was the air freshener in the locker room,” he said.
Caleca and I quizzed them every way we knew how for the next 15 minutes, but couldn’t shake either one of them into changing their stories.
So we thanked a visibly bewildered Luis, and showed ourselves back to the Navigator, which was slowly baking in the mid-afternoon Mexican sun.
Vic grabbed the now-simmering Corona out of the cup holder and nearly drained what was left in one epic gulp.
“Well, shit,” he said. “Our one clue just evaporated … about like this beer.”
I nodded, the gloom washing over me like the pall of a Sox losing streak in Yellow Springs.
“Well, I can only think of one thing to do – we gotta head to our Class A team in Grand Junction,” I said. “We can at least check that bit about the wheat and the mountains, maybe. They grow wheat around there, and God knows they have plenty of mountains.”
Caleca perked up.
“Yeah, plus they got great weed dispensaries out there, too,” he said.
For the moment, at least, we had a reason to go on.
