The Workhorse, Chapter 3, Part 1

V. Chapter 3

The Pitching Match

While Albert was still pretty much the best baseball pitcher ever, he also tried his hand at psychology, and psychiatry as well. He had numerous other things to do. But when he turned around and became a new Major League baseball player once again, he was demoted to short stop. He had to work harder to make it to the major leagues. He had no more success in his career and he had to work the straw, when before, he had to just live it like he told it. He wrote in his autobiography that he was considering quitting baseball altogether, but he never actually let that sink in too deep, because it was not something he would really ever want to do. That is, quit the Orioles, especially, who he was most fond of, and wore their shirts and their uniforms every day of his life. On the pitching mound, he was chewing bubblegum laced with nicotine and spat it to the ground. He threw the fastest ball of his life. 171 miles per hour. The hand cannon was launched into a bat, but the ball arced high, and was a foul ball. It was called at the line, because it fell just before it, and rolled past it. This meant the whole damn team was out. They got one out after another one game, then relaxed the next. His Orioles, and not the Dugout Orioles who he played with before, were better than before. He was not a new player. They were all in the same damn team. He was a harder and hardier man than they knew or thought of him as well as a home-run hitter from Hell and back again. He had a 0.300 batting average as well as the next man, but he never saw it come to pass that he ever actually had to use that stuff. They started checking for drugs and found he was purer than Heck on a baseball field. He was angry that anyone would dare to cheat. He told them at a wrap-up meeting that he was sure they'd be cleaner next time. It was a good game. 27-0, the Orioles in the lead. They were the fastest, they were the strongest, and they had one good rival to name - the Matchsticks. They were also opponents of the Kansas City Turkey's and the Chicago, Illinois Muffoon's, but he wasn't a fan of either team. Out of bad statistics and just worm-b-gone play after play after play did he finally get his check and assistance that he needed to pay the bills. But posthaste after that, they cancelled on him bar none in the worst way possible. He was asked to step down as the chairman of a motorcycle club. It was interfering with their operating procedures. He left and they continued as the Bad Stud Muffin's of Alabama and Beyond but he still kept his jacket and patches. He couldn't ride with them on without suffering like a fool, though. He began to play baseball even in his off hours. It was the career of a lifetime. All he did was play baseball and wreck shop as their pitcher. He told the team he was the best damn player for them to consider for the Most Valuable Player of the Year award that was coming up. He got the award, but they paid the price. He got the other one for them as well. But they never made the playoff's. Oh, no. He was starkly aware that he was trying too hard to pick up a chicken net, and the trophy was not going to cut it, no way, no how. He had to catch the chicken before he ate it as well. They told the ceremonial playoff's to cut it out and moved on to the world tours. They battled Japan once and lost, 0-32, as they always did in their trial matches. No, it was a good 32-32 home run slammer that ended the game with the Orioles in the lead. But ten times out of ten, his speedball's were enormously effective, and he preferred to pitch righty as well. He wasn't a lefty. So they gave him only right handed gloves and not left ones as well. He had a whole truck full of them one day in the parking lot of the Boise, Idaho stadium. He played exactly the same way, extremely well, all day long in Idaho. In Kentucky and in Georgia he also played a mean game sans dice, and he never threw the ball too fast, not once or ever. He was solidly strong and a major league baseball player. When he was at bat, he preferred to hit the ball into orbit. He was stronger than Caleb had ever been. But they found him at home more on the pitching mound than he was striking them as necessary. They never backed down from including him in a line up, no way, no how. And the coach said they were all amazing. They all flew as fast as birds at times. And they all solidly connected with every pop fly ball and catcher's miss throw away that they ever needed. He scored a $15,000,000 dollar gold-and-bones contract that would last until his death bed departure in 15 years or so. That's one million a year for a rookie turned a major league baseball player. It wasn't hard for him to focus on just playing for the Orioles after that. He won game after game and played them out to one inning was less styled as the big kicker. One day, he got word that he was going to New England. They fought the Red Sox and he learned first hand what a good team was like to be a part of once again. They won, 32-14, and the Red Sox had lost, the same as they ever won, on the right hand side of the score board. See it there now, he said, because that's the last time they'll ever have a chance to win. The big game was coming up. It was a major league season. They made it to the playoffs, but lost in a minefield of decoys and glory days. He was in the playoffs for sure. He told his team they had to win it or else, lest he be more cautious in the future and find out a trade was happening. They manifested enough points to stay on the good side of the play list, but never made it to the final inning. In the end of that season it wasn't them versus the Red Sox, who didn't win and no one cared who didn't in the Orioles, because they weren't concerned with who won, only that they were doing better. They moved on and asked for God's own promises to stop the next team trading schedule, which threatened to trade the micro for the macro-cougar and they lost one player, John St. Albert, was a man who held a 0.278 batting average and was also known as a good pitcher and shortstop as well as a happy family man on and off of the court. He was an Major League Baseball superstar like Albert and Andrew Mahon who used to play for the Yankee's. He was now an Orioles fan like our favorite hero was. Al and Andy became quick rivals on the playing field. They'd chase the ball together, but they never really fought, it was just a bad angle to see them over. They were over the Yankee's' bad performance era and on to a new Orioles best. The Orioles won against the Yankee's one game, 27-38, and it was a tough match to replace. The Yankee's had only 27 points to the Orioles' mega-awesome 38 huge big ones. They didn't have change in major league baseball. He didn't play college football. He also wasn't a race car driver. He wasn't there in the golfing book of legendary players, either, and never hit a putt nor a big strong arc into the great blue yonder. He told his autobiographer that he wanted his image scrubbed really nicely and if they were pressed for time to make sure they knew he was a fast pitcher, and not a good home base runner. They were not pressed for time and they ended up, together, as one and the other, his autobiography team and himself, the subject of the book, were quite satisfied as they ended up, with the book in one hand and a signed baseball from a Major League game in a plastic collection case that had airholes in it to keep the bad stuff out, he would've guessed. He told the media that he was the player to root for, and also that he was going amaze them some day and always did so. He had countless reasons he was the better pitcher. He was stronger, he was faster, he was also more accurate than some other pitchers, he didn't name names, and he would not ever cheat in baseball, or anything at all. He was clean and it was proved time and time again that he was going to stay that way, it seemed. But they were not interested in a trusting relationship.