Opening Day ... the rookie walks into the home locker room and finds his locker near the corner. It is the same spot that he has been a few times before since the conclusion of Spring Training, but today it somehow looks different.
He still sees the picture that he has on the shelf, a 5x7 of a little boy out in the field with a hand-me-down mitt and his dad holding a bat after they had been playing ball on a summer afternoon. Underneath hanging on the closet rod below the shelf was a neatly-pressed uniform with the number 22 pressed boldly across the back. The rookie is none other than former second round pick Bhadrasila Chetlapalli.
After a short speech/rally cry from manager Roberto Solis, Bhad found himself walking with the others through the tunnel. As the tunnel turns into the dugout, he can hear the noise from the what would be the near-capacity crowd of 49,836 fans with bridled anticipation. Bhad is a long way from his home on the outskirts of Calcutta a half a world away from his home country of India.
After the lineups were introduced and the star-spangled banner was played, it was time to go to trot to the mound. The crowd was roaring. Not a music fan by nature, the stadium sound guy picked out and starting blaring Bhad's walk out song (Bad Blood by Neil Sedaka)
The stakes were high being drummed up by the local media and being the opening day starter. During the warm-up pitches, Bhad felt like he had a dozen rice weevils in the pit of his stomach.
As it was time for the game to be played, the Bikini lead-off hitter was Amin Abdul-Halim. After working him to a 1-2 count, Bhad got him to ground out to third but Jorge Garcia booted the ball for an error.
"Dang it, Jorge!" Bhad muttered to himself.
A little rattled, Bhad was still able to work to an 0-2 count on the next hitter for a fielder's choice.
Later in the inning, Bhad got a strikeout and issued a walk in between two singles, the last one driving in two first-inning runs.
"This is your chance - don't blow this," Bhad thought. He then proceeded to get a groundout to first base to end the inning.
For the next four innings, Bhad threw four shutout innings before being pulled in the sixth inning own by a score of 2 to 0. His final box score numbers included five innings pitched, five hits, three walks and no runs scored while striking out six.
This story did have a happy ending for Bhad. Although he got a no decision in this outing, he did well enough to get the game into the hands of the bullpen who pitched four perfect innings while the young Valencia bats erupted for 7 runs in the 7th inning enroute to a 7-2 victory.
After the game, Bhad's manager just had one sentence for him. "Hey rook you did your job!"