Off Topic
Travelblog of Thom S. Hunter
Editor’s Note: This is a running blog that will cover minor league players in the Yellow Springs organization. We initiated it because this kid reporter was hired without my knowledge and we needed to do something with him. He seems flaky to me. Seems like a waste of good cash. But what do I know? Good luck.
July 6, 2045: CAT ISLAND – When the puddle hopper I took to Cat Island landed, I got out of the plane and literally kissed the ground. This is my kind of place, filled with ocean breeze, mango-filled cocktails, and women who wear gauzy clothes that flutter in said breeze. I admit, I’m smitten as a kitten.
Someone else who should be as smitten is a kid named Chris Lacey, who I understand came to town a couple days back and is just now getting his sea legs. I, of course, need to file this august, but possibly lame-assed report later tonight, but apparently, when they give you $12M to sign a minor league contract, you get a few days to settle in. Lacey, an 18-year-old reliever, for example, has yet to appear in a professional baseball game.
The first thing any sane-minded YS9 fan might ask is simply why in the hell an 18-year-old high school kid from British Columbia would be given $12M to sign a contract to begin with. Sure he threw a 2.23 ERA in eight starts against high school hitters. Whoopty-froodle-do. And when you talk to scouts you don’t hear a bunch of superlatives. Instead, you get comments that sound like they're coming from a guy eating at a $15 buck buffet. “Hey, the heat-station prime rib ain’t bad, and the chicken wings aren't nearly as greasy as they were yesterday.” High praise indeed. Hubba dubba hubba. In this case, though, it’s more like, “did you see that cutter moved a bit? And wow, that slider almost slid.” Which sounds more like the slider made it to second standing up.
What-the-hell-ever.
No, to get an idea why the kid was given a wad of cash that would make a CEO on the bottom of a Fortune 1000 list gag, you cannot just listen to the scouts. Instead, you've gotta meet him.
Which I did this afternoon when I saw him sitting in the bullpen. I walked up and gave him my hand, “Thom,” I said, blowing my smoke up into the ocean breeze to keep it from him. Then Chris Lacey stood up and Jebbuz, Sweet Jebbuz, the standing just never ended. At 6’11” and 210 pounds if you pretend to squint and see 200 as 210, the kid is built like an over-sized pogo stick.
Suddenly you get an idea why some scouts talk about splits and being hard on right handed batters. With wings like that and a sidearm motion that looks like a rattlesnake strike, you can imagine a right handed batter might as well just curl up and cry as stand in and take a chance.
It was then that I saw he’d been pumping iron there on the bullpen bench, doing curls with a twenty-pounder, which he shifted to his other hand to shake.
“Gotta get stronger,” he said with a sheepish grin that defanged me as I shielded my eyes and squinted into the stratosphere.
Which is probably good, because to be honest I was a little testy when I’d gotten here. I wanted to hit the Tiki bar and reacquaint myself with Julia--the bartender I figured should be on duty--rather than sit here with an 18-year-old multi-millionaire. But that smile shut me down, and the realization that he was working out even then kept me from asking a couple of the more embarrassing questions I might have asked. Like: “Why are you worth $144,578 and 31 cents an inch?” I mean, talk about your set-up, am I right? Talk about playing the straight man.
Instead, I asked a bunch of bullshit everyday questions which he answered in everyday bullshit ways that you want to read about as much as I want to write them. So as I walked away I was left to ask only myself if I was living in a world in which Chris Lacey was actually worth $12M or not, and, if so, whether it was just some cruel joke or whether I was in on the ground floor of something amazing.
As I sat across from Julia the bartender and sipped the first drink of the day, I kept answering myself.
“Who the hell knows,” I muttered to the salt-touched ocean breeze. “Who the hell knows?”
July 6, 2045: CAT ISLAND – When the puddle hopper I took to Cat Island landed, I got out of the plane and literally kissed the ground. This is my kind of place, filled with ocean breeze, mango-filled cocktails, and women who wear gauzy clothes that flutter in said breeze. I admit, I’m smitten as a kitten.
Someone else who should be as smitten is a kid named Chris Lacey, who I understand came to town a couple days back and is just now getting his sea legs. I, of course, need to file this august, but possibly lame-assed report later tonight, but apparently, when they give you $12M to sign a minor league contract, you get a few days to settle in. Lacey, an 18-year-old reliever, for example, has yet to appear in a professional baseball game.
The first thing any sane-minded YS9 fan might ask is simply why in the hell an 18-year-old high school kid from British Columbia would be given $12M to sign a contract to begin with. Sure he threw a 2.23 ERA in eight starts against high school hitters. Whoopty-froodle-do. And when you talk to scouts you don’t hear a bunch of superlatives. Instead, you get comments that sound like they're coming from a guy eating at a $15 buck buffet. “Hey, the heat-station prime rib ain’t bad, and the chicken wings aren't nearly as greasy as they were yesterday.” High praise indeed. Hubba dubba hubba. In this case, though, it’s more like, “did you see that cutter moved a bit? And wow, that slider almost slid.” Which sounds more like the slider made it to second standing up.
What-the-hell-ever.
Which I did this afternoon when I saw him sitting in the bullpen. I walked up and gave him my hand, “Thom,” I said, blowing my smoke up into the ocean breeze to keep it from him. Then Chris Lacey stood up and Jebbuz, Sweet Jebbuz, the standing just never ended. At 6’11” and 210 pounds if you pretend to squint and see 200 as 210, the kid is built like an over-sized pogo stick.
Suddenly you get an idea why some scouts talk about splits and being hard on right handed batters. With wings like that and a sidearm motion that looks like a rattlesnake strike, you can imagine a right handed batter might as well just curl up and cry as stand in and take a chance.
It was then that I saw he’d been pumping iron there on the bullpen bench, doing curls with a twenty-pounder, which he shifted to his other hand to shake.
“Gotta get stronger,” he said with a sheepish grin that defanged me as I shielded my eyes and squinted into the stratosphere.
Which is probably good, because to be honest I was a little testy when I’d gotten here. I wanted to hit the Tiki bar and reacquaint myself with Julia--the bartender I figured should be on duty--rather than sit here with an 18-year-old multi-millionaire. But that smile shut me down, and the realization that he was working out even then kept me from asking a couple of the more embarrassing questions I might have asked. Like: “Why are you worth $144,578 and 31 cents an inch?” I mean, talk about your set-up, am I right? Talk about playing the straight man.
Instead, I asked a bunch of bullshit everyday questions which he answered in everyday bullshit ways that you want to read about as much as I want to write them. So as I walked away I was left to ask only myself if I was living in a world in which Chris Lacey was actually worth $12M or not, and, if so, whether it was just some cruel joke or whether I was in on the ground floor of something amazing.
As I sat across from Julia the bartender and sipped the first drink of the day, I kept answering myself.
“Who the hell knows,” I muttered to the salt-touched ocean breeze. “Who the hell knows?”
