Molina Read online

  I told my wife and her parents and Kyshly and Kelssy, who had no idea why we were all so excited. I called my parents, and Mai screamed.

  “Benjamín! The Angels want to sign Bengie for four years! He’ll find out about the money tomorrow!”

  “Tell him to take it!” Pai hollered back. I could hear him as clearly as if he were on the phone himself. “Tell him don’t be dumb enough not to take it. Don’t think about the money. Tell him he had nothing before. Just take the years and be happy.”

  “Tell him I know that!”

  I couldn’t sleep that night wondering about the money. Real Major League money. I paced the living room floor all the next morning, staring at the phone, willing it to ring. My wife suggested we take the girls to the movies. I was driving them all crazy.

  “You go,” I said. They left.

  The phone finally rang around three.

  “Four point two five million for four years plus a five-hundred-thousand-dollar signing bonus,” my agent said.

  Almost $5 million guaranteed. Five million.

  Pai couldn’t make that in a lifetime. In ten lifetimes.

  My agent said he thought the Angels would go higher if we pushed. “We can get more,” he said.

  “No, no, no. I don’t care, Miguel. This is good for me. I just want to play. If I get hurt, now I have security. They still have to pay me. Just say yes, we want it.”

  I’d earn $350,000 in 2001 and 2002; $1.425 million in 2003; $2.025 million in 2004; and $3 million in 2005 if the team picked up my option. The Angels announced my new contract the next day and arranged a conference call with Los Angeles reporters.

  “This is the greatest day of my life,” I told them.

  Money bought more than houses and cars. It bought stature and respect, security and freedom. Anyone who said money wasn’t important never lived without it. When you have enough zeros on your paycheck, no one can say you’re too small or too slow or too much of a risk. The paycheck proved otherwise.

  Cheo and Yadier called me and said the Angels were getting me cheap. You’re worth way more, they said. My loyal brothers.

  My wife and I made wish lists. A house in Yuma, for sure. She wanted an Escalade and an additional bedroom in her parents’ house. I wanted to buy my parents a bigger house in a safer barrio. I wanted Pai to quit the factory; I had enough to support them.

  “What do we need with a new house?” he said when I presented my plan. “The family is here. Our friends. Everyone we know.”

  “At least stop working. Enjoy your life.”

  “I got to take care of my gorda,” he said, referring to Mai. He teased her about being fat. “I have to get all her medicines. If I don’t keep working, I don’t have insurance.”

  “I’ll put you on my insurance.”

  “I’m not leaving my job. I’m taking care of my family myself.”

  “Let me buy you a car.”

  “I can buy myself a car. You use that money for your daughters. I don’t need your money.”

  There was an edge to Pai’s voice. I wasn’t sure what he was thinking. Was he worried that he’d lose his stature as head of the house if he took money from his son? I wished he understood that the money was as much his as mine, that he was the reason for all of it.

  It occurred to me that I had never heard my father talk about wanting money or about what he had or didn’t have. He and Mai lived paycheck to paycheck. He’d get paid on Friday and the money was gone in two or three days. They never had a bank account and paid everything in cash: groceries, utilities, gas, clothes, the mortgage. He was proud to work hard week after week without ever getting ahead. To live where he lived, among his family and friends, to have food on his table every day, that was success enough.

  In my baseball life, money seemed to be the subtext of every conversation. Houses, cars, clothes, gadgets. Contracts, bats, gloves, gear. First class or business? Town car or limo? Suite or superior king? Private school or public? In amateur baseball and the minor leagues, guys measured their worth in performance: RBIs, batting average, fielding percentage, ERA. In the Majors, worth was measured in dollars.

  The next day, my cousin Rolando called from Southern California to share reports from the Los Angeles newspapers. Scioscia said I was “a guy who pushed through the cobwebs of not playing every day in the minor leagues, who was not considered a top prospect, but emerged as one of the top catchers in the American League.”

  Soon after my deal was completed, Yadier came to terms with the Cardinals for $325,000. He would report to spring training in January and play rookie ball during the upcoming 2001 season.

  Then Cheo got a call from his agent with devastating news. The Cubs had released him.

  Cheo had been in the minors for eight years with a few brief stints in the Majors. Now he was out of a job. His agent was working the phones and said several teams were interested but there were no contract offers yet. I called Cheo every day from Mexico. He was as low as I had ever heard him—yet he was genuinely happy for me when it was announced I finished third in Rookie of the Year voting and had been invited to play in Japan on an American All-Star team.

  The team—which included Barry Bonds, Randy Johnson, Sandy Alomar, and Omar Vizquel—was to gather in Los Angeles and depart for Japan from there. When I landed at LAX on a Monday afternoon, I called Jamie at her office. She wanted to hear everything about the new contract and the All-Star team. What was new with my Angels teammates? How was my family?

  I told her I needed a shirt and tie to go with the suit I had bought in Mexico, and she offered to drive me to the mall. We had never been in each other’s company off the field. Even on the field we barely spoke. Our friendship had played out over the phone. But the conversation flowed in the car, in the food court, and in the men’s department at Macy’s as easily as it did on the phone. We hung out all day and decided to watch Monday Night Football together at the hotel. She invited two friends to join us. We ordered pizza.

  “You know how to tie a tie, right?” Jamie asked while we waited for her friends and the pizza.

  “Yeah, of course.”

  I had no idea. I never learned. Pai didn’t wear ties.

  Jamie raised a skeptical eyebrow. I laughed.

  “Okay,” I said. “Show me.”

  She draped the new tie around my neck and crossed and tucked until she had a lopsided mess. She laughed and unraveled the knot and started again. Her face was inches from mine.

  Her second attempt was no better. Now we were both laughing. “No, no, I think I got it this time!” she said.

  “There!” She pushed the knot up to my neck and tugged softly to tighten it.

  I looked in the mirror. “I’ll never be able to do this.”

  “You look great.”

  I believed it. I didn’t feel ugly around her. She had that effect. No matter what lousy thing happened in a game, or what kind of crazy argument I had with my wife, Jamie’s voice took me to a place where I was this other, better person. I knew I was falling in love. And I knew there was nothing I could do about it.

  I carefully loosened the knot, lifted the loop over my head, and laid it on the desk, praying it would still be intact in the morning. Jamie and her friends watched the game from the little sofa. I took the chair by the desk. All three women hugged me when they left. In the morning, I slipped on the tie for the flight to Japan. I was a rookie among superstars. I said little and copied what they did. One day some of the Spanish-speaking guys—Sandy Alomar, Omar Vizquel, Livan Hernandez, Javier Vazquez—invited me out shopping. I had $1,500 in my pocket from the per diem we were given for the trip. I could splurge if I wanted. They stopped first at an electronics store to find computers compatible with American systems. One player bought five computers. Another bought ten. Christmas gifts, they said. Holy crap. I found myself spending $1,200 on a laptop with a big screen. And another hundred on a phone I never figured out how to use.

  Then came the jewelry store. Livan found a wa
tch he liked. He asked for the price. I was figuring $1,500, maybe $2,500, though I couldn’t fathom anyone spending that much on a watch.

  “Fifty thousand,” the jeweler said.

  Fifty thousand? Five-oh? There was no way Livan was going to spend $50,000 on a watch. You could buy a house in Dorado for that.

  “I’ll take it,” Livan said.

  I realized I was shaking. In what kind of crazy universe did a watch cost $50,000? And how do you pay for that on the spot? Do you just hand over $50,000? Livan handed over his credit card.

  The jeweler returned a few minutes later.

  “Sir, this card has a limit of twenty-five thousand dollars.”

  Livan turned and looked at the rest of us, as if we were going to loan him the rest. I looked out the window to avoid making eye contact.

  “Here,” Sandy said, handing over a credit card. Livan would pay him back when they got home. Livan showed off the watch as we left the store. It looked no different to me than a gas station watch. But I said, “It’s pretty, bro. Really nice.”

  It was like dropping into somebody else’s life for a week.

  CHEO SOUNDED EXCITED over the phone. It was mid-January. I was back in Mexico. With spring training around the corner, Cheo still hadn’t signed with a team.

  “Angels called,” Cheo said.

  I swung my legs off the bed and onto the floor, sitting bolt upright. “For real? What’d they say?”

  “I’m going to spring training. Nonroster invitee.”

  I howled. “Yes!”

  Cheo laughed. “You sure you’re okay with this? I don’t want you feeling like I’m trying to take your job or anything.”

  “Listen, Cheo, if you take my job, I’d be the happiest person in the world for you.” I had meant it. I said the same thing to Angels general manager Bill Stoneman when he called me a few days earlier to see how I felt about it.

  Days later, I received more good news. I was the winner of the Big Brothers Big Sisters of Los Angeles “Rising Star Award,” beating out Kobe Bryant. My wife didn’t want to fly with me to Los Angeles for the banquet. I gave my complimentary tickets to Jamie, her friend, and her friend’s fifteen-year-old daughter. Jamie and I didn’t sit at the same table—I barely saw her that night—but I loved that she wanted to be there for me.

  WHEN I ARRIVED at spring training in 2001, a small stack of fan mail waited in my locker. I had never received fan mail. I opened the first envelope, and a baseball card slipped out. I picked it up off the floor. Fleer. Angels. Me. Ben Molina, it read. My rookie card. A genuine Major League Baseball card.

  I turned it over to check out the number on the top right-hand corner: 40. I wondered if kids still played the baseball-card betting game that filled so many hours of my childhood. Would this card ever be worth keeping safe inside a metal lunch box?

  The letter writer asked me to sign the card and send it back in the enclosed stamped and addressed envelope. I opened the next letter and out fell another card. Every letter had a card to sign and return. The Angels’ media relations director, Tim Mead, asked if Ben was correct or if I preferred Bengie. I said Bengie. He said he’d have it corrected for the following year’s card.

  I signed and mailed all the cards back to their owners. Except one. I said a quick apology in my head to the kid who sent it, then put it in an envelope addressed to Pai. I pictured him lifting the card and reading the name across the top. My name, yes. But his, too.

  I officially signed my new contract a few days later in the general manager’s office at the Angels’ spring training complex. I knew the big numbers typed on the pages belonged to me, but the money didn’t feel real. Before I left Mexico, my wife and I had bought our first car, a Yukon Denali, which she kept with her there. I didn’t have a car yet for myself. I didn’t have a cell phone. I still planned on living at the Candlewood Suites in Anaheim during the regular season.

  As I was signing, Bill Lachemann stuck his head in the door. “Congratulations, B-Mo!”

  I rose and shook his hand. “Do you remember what you told us in rookie camp?” I asked. “You said only three of us would make it to the Majors.”

  “I say a lot of things,” he said.

  “Know how many of those guys made it?”

  “How many?”

  I smiled. “One.”

  During the first week of camp, Jamie arrived with the KCAL crew one morning. I hadn’t seen or talked with her since the awards banquet in Los Angeles four weeks earlier. She was chatting with her crew near first base when I emerged from the tunnel. Her face lit up. I’m sure mine did, too. Our friendship still wasn’t known among our colleagues at the Angels and KCAL. I waited until the guys walked away before greeting her.

  “Bengie!” She wrapped her arms around me, the first time she had ever shown me any sign of affection in public except at the end of our Monday Night Football evening. I had seen her give the same kind of hug to other baseball pals—warm, but nothing more. Still, it was new for us.

  The clubbies put Cheo’s locker next to mine at Tempe Diablo Stadium. Two “Molina” nameplates side by side. I wanted to take a picture and send it home. Your two boys, Pai. Reporters asked Cheo what it would mean to make the team as my backup. “That would be the greatest thing that could happen,” he said.

  After practice one day, I asked Cheo to teach me his pickoff move. “Show me what you do with your feet.”

  Cheo was much better than I was at nailing runners. He could catch a pitch and snap the ball to a base in one explosive burst. Yadier had the strongest arm, but Cheo had the quickest release. They were more graceful and natural than I was. I was the mechanic and the technician, the factory worker mastering the assembly of electrical outlets. I had to learn everything step by step.

  Cheo crouched behind the plate as if receiving a pitch. Then he leaped to his feet and shifted forward in a single motion, firing an imaginary ball to second base. The whole thing was so fast I couldn’t follow what he did. He showed me again, more slowly. I could see this time he was leaping up before the ball hit his glove. His feet were already jumping forward.

  I got behind the plate. I couldn’t push myself forward the way he did. I couldn’t jump to my feet until after the ball touched my glove. But I worked on it every day.

  In spring games, Cheo played great, as I knew he would. The pitchers loved him. But his hitting wasn’t coming around. When camp broke, Cheo went to Triple A in Salt Lake City. Yadier was in rookie camp in Jupiter, Florida. And I was in Anaheim.

  Mai and Pai took turns calling each of us every day. Pai called in the late afternoon after he got home from work and before he changed his shoes to go to the field. He still coached every day, hauling his bag of bats and balls across the street. Instead of three sons, he now had dozens. All the boys in Kuilan seemed to find their way sooner or later onto Pai’s field. Long after they moved on to higher-level teams or into factory jobs or professional ball, they continued to stop by the house to introduce their girlfriends or to ask his advice. Pai would tell them to grab a soda inside, from the same little fridge he and Mai kept in their bedroom, near the only available electrical outlet. That fridge was just for his players.

  I would picture all this when I heard Pai’s voice on the phone. I’d tell him about losing my feel at the plate or calling the wrong pitch in a crucial moment. I still needed to hear Pai tell me I’d be okay.

  “Calm down,” he’d say. “If they punch you out today, you have another opportunity tomorrow. It’s going to be fine. Did you play all-out?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, then. Tomorrow you play all-out again.”

  Mai was less diplomatic. “Why are you chasing balls up in the zone?” And: “Every single time there was a man on second, the first pitch they threw was a slider. Didn’t you notice? You had to notice!”

  If I told her I called just to say hello, she didn’t care. “You’re going to hear me.”

  “Okay, Mai, okay,” I’d say, laughing. “I h
ear you.”

  With all three of us in the States, Mai wanted to visit more often. She wanted to spend a week with each of us. Pai said he couldn’t be away from the factory that long.

  “You don’t have to work!” I said. How many times had I told him to stop working? Yadier and Cheo told him, too. “We will take care of you! You’ve worked hard enough.”

  “Your money is yours,” he said.

  With one of his first paychecks, Yadier bought fancy rims for Pai’s Toyota Matrix. Pai promptly hit a pothole on Kuilan’s ruddy streets; one of the rims split and punctured the tire.

  “I told you I didn’t want that crap!” Pai barked at Yadier over the phone. “I’m on foot now because of those rims!”

  Yadier also got Pai a cell phone. “I don’t like talking,” Pai said.

  So Yadier recorded a greeting for Pai’s voice mail: “This is Benjamín’s phone. Leave a message, and he won’t call you back. So don’t leave a message. This is his favorite son.”

  When I bought Pai an expensive watch, he stashed it in his dresser drawer. I never saw him wear it. I bought him a necklace chain. He never wore it. If we bought him clothes, they had to be simple: jeans, solid-color shirts, nothing that would attract attention. The only gifts he happily took were gloves, bats, helmets, and catching gear, because they went to the kids. My brothers and I always sent whatever we had.

  Mai, on the other hand, reveled in all our gifts. She loved the bracelets and chains, earrings, clothes, furniture. Like Pai, she wasn’t flashy, but she enjoyed having her sons spoil her. “I battled for you guys, I’m taking it!”

  During one visit, I asked Tío Chiquito to talk some sense into Pai. Get him to retire, I said. Tell him to take it easy for once. We want to take care of him.

  “When he cannot work anymore, then help him, but if he’s still working, let him be,” Tío Chiquito said. “Let him be a man while he is still a man.”

  A MONTH INTO the season, the Angels’ Triple A manager told Cheo to get on a plane to Anaheim. The Angels needed him. He was thrilled until he found out why: I had partially torn my right hamstring rounding second base. The doctor said I’d be out for two months. I told Cheo his promotion was the only thing that made the injury tolerable, which was true, but just barely. I was devastated. I started worrying that my career might be over. When I was a kid, Pai told me the story of Wally Pipp, who sat out with an injury and lost his job forever to a backup first baseman named Lou Gehrig. I didn’t trust my good fortune yet. I was still afraid it was all going to be taken away.