Gardner WebLog

Many moons have passed since I last posted, and for this I am sorry. We’ve been on the road, back home, Ellen was here for a while, on the road for a doubleheader, on a losing streak, and just now today we snapped out of it with a hit in the bottom of the 11th inning. Whew.

We left I think on May 14th for an 11 game road trip down south. We swept Rancho Cucamonga, and were pretty stoked going into the series against Lancaster. Unfortunately, the wind at that stadium blew a lot of the balls the Jethawks hit out of their stadium and they swept us. Visalia was a mixed showing—a terrible hotel, but a nice little town that reminded me a lot of Bishop—we won three of four games. I pitched in two of the Visalia games and did well.

It’s about this time in the season when things just start flying by. May is almost over. What happened to this month? I think one night I put my ipod on in the bus and woke up like a week later. It’s really weird how time passes so fast. It was fun again playing in Southern California—Rancho Cucamonga is like 15 minutes from Claremont, so it was great to see friends, coaches, relatives, etc. out at the game. Unfortunately, I was pretty much ‘shelved’ for the entire Rancho series, so the people who came to the games got to watch me stand around awkwardly in the bullpen! I was wearing a uniform, though, so I think they’ll believe I’m on the team.

Ellen was out here this weekend which was great, too. Because of bad weather and the ineptitude of the entire American Airlines Corporation, however, her flight was cancelled and she arrived a day late. She probably watched more baseball than she’d ever wanted to in her life, and didn’t complain at all. A total champ. I rewarded her loyalty with two very mediocre outings against Modesto—ugh. A really fun weekend though.

Anyway, with a win tonight, the Giants are back, the blog is back, and I’m back at home after being away. Back to the routine! I hope everyone’s Memorial Day Weekend was great…

Yesterday the pitching coach came up to meas soon as I arrived at the park, and said “You know you’re going up to San Francisco tomorrow, right?”  After an awkward pause, I shook my head, laughed, and waited for the punchline.  Nothing.  “Yea, you’re going up to throw live to Durham who’s coming off the DL.”  Whoa.

Another righty on the team and I were told to be at ‘the field’ (AT&T Park, in the middle of San Francisco…) at 1 o’clock this afternoon.  We showed up, parked in the players’ parking lot, and walked in the back entrance of the field.  I could see into the stadium through a little slit in the fence, and it would’ve been a greate slow motion movie sequence.  Light glinting across the rich green grass, crisp white lines, and brilliant yellow foul poles.  Someone could say that it looked just like any other baseball field, but then again, a Ferrari looks just like any other car.

We walked down a little ways, right to the clubhouse.  It was the first clubhouse I’ve ever been in that smelled good.  You walk in, and first notice that the old gym stools in front of lockers have been upgraded to leather executive’s chairs with the SF logo embroidered on them.  Dark wood lockers, TVs mounted on the walls all over the place, and a stereo played mello music as the clubby’s walked around hanging laundry up in random lockers.  We were actually given our own lockers for the afternoon, and I just plopped my bag down and tried to convince myself that I was there to do a job, not sightsee.  It was like walking through Disneyland, only everything was real.

We dressed out, and walked down to the field.  We were slated to throw a simulated game—about 20 to 25 pitches each, so that Durham could see pitches from both a righty and lefty.  Again, I felt like I was in a movie.  You walk down the tunnel, turn right, past a few cages and hitting equipment, and then another left, up some stairs, and there’s the field.  You walk up the stairs, and splayed out in front of you is the stadium.  The first thing I noticed was how it went up.  Most of the time when you play catch at a field, you see trees, the sky, maybe a building in the distance as your background.  Here, all you saw were seats—everywhere.  The upper deck is literally on top of you.  I can’t imagine what it would be like to play there when the place is packed.  Awesome.

I ran a couple sprints in the outfield, and my legs felt amazing since my adrenaline was pumping so hard.  We started playing catch, and again, my arm felt great.  You try not to smile, try to pretend like you’re used to playing in a multi-million dollar stadium in the middle of a huge city, but every once in a while you just shake your head and laugh at it all.

Pitching was somewhat of a blur.  Durham stepped in, the first pitch the catcher called was an inside fastball, and my first thought was don’t hit the guy.  I put one over the plate and he slapped it to second base…I think.  Everything went pretty well—Durham got hold of one to left center, but then again I pretty much served it up right down the middle.  He’s a good hitter—waits till the ball is really deep in the zone, then slaps it the other way.  I threw all fastballs and changeups—no curves.

About halfway through the outing, I looked over to the visitor’s bullpen, where it looked like a smaller righty from the Cubs was throwing a pen.  I didn’t focus on it until the next time I looked, and realized that the guy throwing was Greg Maddux.  Great—first time pitching in a big league stadium, to a big league hitter, and I have a 300 game winner throwing a pen behind me.  Stay focused?

Anyway, it was a great time, and afterwards the bullpen coach came out and we worked on some stuff together, still on the game mound.  Basic stuff, like keeping my weight back when I come set.  Coincidentally, we have the same last name.  He seemed pretty positive about my pitching, so that felt good too.  I wasn’t as receptive to coaching as I could have been, since I was still trying to steal glances at Maddux over my shoulder.  Nuts.

All in all, it seems like the afternoon went by in about a second and a half, but it was awesome—definitely something I’ll remember my whole life.

I think it’s fairly clear who the better SCIAC player is.  He’s the kid I taught to pitch when he was 8.  And of course he’s a good hitter, he hit off me his entire childhood!  Haha.  If you had come up to us playing catch in the back yard fifteen years ago and told us we’d be doing what we’re both doing now (and where) we would’ve gone nuts!  While he might want to have that pitch back (he won’t get it back), the fact that he had enough focus to excel both on the mound and at the plate like he did this year is awesome.  Good job Kyle.

It was fun seeing the guys on the Redlands team the other night—they have a good group and I hope they have a good run in the tourney. 

We’re down here in San Bernardino, staying in Colton (a little iffy…one of the umpires told our catcher not to even leave the hotel).  I came in two nights ago and snagged the ‘L’—not very much fun—they squeezed in the winning run with the bases loaded.  It’s never fun to lose one in extra innings, and it’s even worse when you’re on the mound when it happens.  I started my windup to the plate, and right as I separated our third baseman yelled ‘Squeeze!’ but I couldn’t really react by then.  The guy laid down a great bunt, the runner executed it perfectly, and they won the game.

So the ups and downs continue.  As I continue playing this game, sometimes I feel like the highs get higher and the lows get lower.  Lee Smith is in town for this series too.  Aside from his usual hilarity, he gave a good talk to the pitchers before BP today.  He said that the guys who are able to keep an even keel throughout their careers are the ones who make it.  I think he meant that it’s ok to get really mad and throw stuff when you do poorly, but you can’t let bad outings affect your mental approach for your next time on the mound.  Similarly, you can’t go throw a gem and think that you should be in the big leagues.  Keeping a balanced perspective is very important in baseball.

This morning I woke up early to drive out to Santa Cruz to surf, but walked out of my house only to see that I had a flat tire.  I wish that someone could’ve videotaped me getting the jack, finding the spare, cranking down the spare, jacking up the truck, taking off the tire, etc., because I bet it would’ve looked really funny played at like 2X speed.  I kept walking back and forth, inside the house to get a wrench, back out, checking to see if the tire was off the ground, I felt like an idiot.  But I got the spare on, and drove to Santa Cruz.

The surf was great, not too big, but mellow and fun for sure.  I don’t know why, bur surfing makes my arm feel absolutely amazing.  I was only out there for an hour, but this afternoon playing catch my arm felt phenomenal.  More on that later.

After batting practice, but before the game, the team has about an hour to do whatever we want.  I usually read something, grab some food, or veg in front of the TV watching the big Giants game and get really excited when I see someone I played with or against on TV.  Even though my roommate from last year is hurt, he still sits in the dugout so he gets on TV sometimes.  It’s very exciting…haha.

Anyway, I was sitting watching TV this afternoon, when for no reason someone said that they didn’t vote.  I turned and gave a look, and then launched into a sarcastic tirade against the lazy youngest voting cohort, and how it’s a responsibility not a right, etc.—being funny, not insulting.  A couple guys came around, and they each said they didn’t vote either, because it takes too long to figure out who the best candidate is, and you can’t get good information from the media because they’re all biased, and so on.  So I, feeling confrontational, called them all ignorant, which went over real well, as you might imagine.  By this time our pitching coach had joined the fray, as I attempt to explain how voting is an important part of being a citizen, without sounding like a total dork/nerd/Pomona student.  Within about 5 minutes, almost the entire team had launched into a huge political debate.  Another reliever came in from BP and started praising Bush, and he was promptly verbally assaulted by our video guy, a staunch Dem.  Issues debated included the war in Iraq, social security, a draft (military—not baseball), Title IX in college sports, and more.  At one point, I sat back and just listened to like three different heated political exchanges going on in the room, and laughed out loud.  We went from sitting watching a baseball game on TV to Larry King Live in about 5 minutes.  It was hilarious.

So as for the game, I got in, ended up getting the win, and felt good.  It was nice to finally do well at home.  Tomorrow we have a day game, so the plan is to surf again in the evening, and build a fire on the beach.  We get paid for this?

Sorry for the blog hiatus…we’re back on track and should be fairly consistent with postings in the future.  Since the last post, it’s gotten really hot in San Jose, and summer is here.  We had a total of like 10,000 fans at the three games this weekend, which was awesome, and Noah Lowry was down on a rehab assignment from the major league club so he threw for us on Friday night.

Watching Lowry pitch was really fun.  I guess a lot of guys don’t take their rehab starts very seriously, but he was pretty intense.  He doesn’t throw anything overpowering, but puts every pitch exactly where he wants it to go, and throws any pitch in any count.  Pretty cool.  He also bought the entire team steak dinners after the game.  Also very cool.  It’s an unwritten rule that big leaguers who come down to pitch in the minors on rehab starts have to buy the team dinner.  Apparently Lowry dropped like $500 on Outback.  Must be nice.

This new year also brings with it a new whole set of between-inning stunts and promotions.  They’ve really stepped it up in San Jose—we’re not talking about the dizzy bat race or mascot antics anymore.  They have this huge truck that they drive out onto the field in between innings called the Smash for Cash van.  Fans are paired with a player, who throws two baseballs at the van’s headlights, trying to shatter them.  Both the fan and the player win money if the headlight breaks.  It’s fun stuff…the crowd goes wild when someone breaks it.

And then there’s the beer batter.  A San Jose tradition, the beer batter is a player from the other team chosen before the game.  If a San Jose player strikes him out, all beers are $1 for the next 15 minutes in the ballpark.  When the beer batter is up, the entire crowd is on their feet.  Each strike increases the volume level, until that third strike, when the entire place goes nuts and empties out into the concessions area.  It’s hilarious to watch all the beer drinkers stream down there after the beer batter strikes out.

Finally, San Jose got a huge jumbo-tron in the outfield in the off-season, and the producers are getting pretty good.  Most players have action shots that appear with their stats when guys are up, and they’ll play random video clips too.  Last night they played all of Barry Bonds’ at bats in the big league game.  It was bad when the entire dugout was watching the big screen instead of the game going on on the field.

So things are good, and summer is here.  Play ball.