Molina Page 19

“Hey, man, we each got a stolen base, so who cares?” I said.

  In the paper the next day, Sciosia said, “What are the chances of both Molinas stealing a base on the same night? What odds in Vegas would you get on that one?”

  I started just 113 games that season, the fewest in my Major League career (when I wasn’t injured). I was yanked before the end of a game twenty-nine times. Crazy. Still, I hit nineteen home runs.

  While I headed back to Yuma for the off-season, Yadier and the Cardinals headed to the playoffs and reached the National League Championship Series again. Their opponent? The New York Mets, the team I was supposed to sign with. I loved watching Yadier play. He was as quick as Cheo and threw even harder. The Cardinals timed his throw to second base at 1.7 seconds. The average is 1.9 seconds, which is what I usually threw. Over the course of the series, Yadier nailed nearly half of the Mets’ would-be base stealers, a percentage on par with All-Star catchers like Pudge Rodriguez.

  The NL Series went to a seventh game. The Cardinals were tied at one in the top of the ninth inning with a runner on base. Yadier stepped to the plate to face Mets reliever Aaron Heilman.

  I yelled at the TV, “He’s going to throw you another changeup! Sit on it, sit on it. That’s what’s coming.”

  Heilman threw a changeup. Yadier smashed it over the left-field wall for a two-run homer to put the Cardinals ahead, 3–1. He pointed to the camera, and I pointed back. “I told you!” Yadier had batted just .216 during the season but hit .358 in the Series. Another Big Money Molina.

  Cardinals reliever Adam Wainwright loaded the bases in the bottom of the ninth. Yadier went to the mound twice to calm him. I could almost hear him: “Stay back, trust in yourself, keep your focus.”

  Wainwright struck out All-Star Carlos Beltran to clinch the pennant. Yadier was going to his second World Series in three years. Only two other catchers in history had played in two World Series before the age of twenty-five—Yogi Berra and Johnny Bench.

  The Cards would play the Tigers, Pudge Rodriguez’s team. Mai and Pai were there, which meant that among the 42,479 fans at Game 1 of the World Series in Detroit’s Comerica Park was a quiet fifty-five-year-old factory worker who had coached both starting catchers.

  I didn’t go. I hadn’t seen my girls since July and didn’t want to leave them again. I watched every pitch on television with them and Jamie, and I called or texted Yadier every night. He couldn’t fall asleep after games, so Mai, Pai, Cheo, Vitin, Tío Felo, and a few others stayed up with him until about 3 a.m., talking and laughing, playing dominoes, drinking beer, eating chicken wings, and analyzing the game.

  Yadier was spectacular in the Series. He carved up the Tigers’ pitching with seven hits in seventeen at-bats, including two doubles and an RBI.

  The Cardinals won in five games. Jamie, the girls, and I danced around the living room and hollered every time we caught a glimpse of Yadier in the clubhouse drenching his teammates in champagne. I wished I could have seen Pai’s face when Busch Stadium in St. Louis erupted after the final out.

  Three sons.

  Three catchers.

  Now three World Series rings.

  IN A SURPRISE to no one, the Blue Jays didn’t pick up my option.

  My new agent said he could get me three years with the San Francisco Giants. “Fifteen mil at least. Maybe eighteen, who knows?”

  Sounded good to me. I asked about their current starter, Mike Matheny. He had been the starter for the Cardinals before Yadier was promoted to the position.

  “He might be done,” my agent said.

  Every catcher in the league had been following the story of Mike Matheny, a veteran known as the Toughest Man Alive. He had taken a series of foul tips to his mask earlier that season. He stayed in the game for a few more pitches until his vision blurred and his head began to pound. He went to the Sports Concussion Program at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, where doctors put him through a battery of stress tests. He experienced the same symptoms every time: fatigue, memory problems, a tough time focusing, trouble seeing straight. He was diagnosed with “extensive concussion syndrome.”

  I went down the list of symptoms. Blurred vision. Headaches. Light-headedness. Check. Check. Check. After a foul tip to the head, I’d squint a few times to get my vision back. Take aspirin between innings. Once I took a foul tip so hard that I felt pain in the back of my head. But I didn’t get it checked out. I didn’t leave the game. I never left a game. I wondered sometimes why it was a much bigger deal when a batter got hit in the head but not a catcher. It was expected of a catcher. We were supposed to shake it off. But Matheny’s situation got me wondering. How many blows could my head withstand without consequences? Would the next foul tip be the one that drove me into retirement? I put it out of my mind. You couldn’t think that way.

  “Please, tell the Giants yes,” I told my agent.

  “We can get more.”

  “Just tell them yes.”

  The final contract, if I earned all the bonuses, would be worth $18.5 million over three years.

  I asked Jamie to move in with me. She said no. “Let’s wait until we can do this right,” she said. “When you can make a commitment.”

  The divorce was dragging on.

  MAI WAS ALREADY outside when our rental car pulled up. It was a few weeks before Christmas in 2006. Kyshly and Kelssy tumbled out of the car and rushed into their abuela’s arms. I let out a long breath as if I’d been holding it in for months. I needed a dose of home. I needed to smell the flamboyan and eat some onion steak and lay eyes on my father. He hadn’t taken my calls for months. He couldn’t avoid me if I was right in front of him.

  When he appeared in the doorway, the girls ran to him, and the three disappeared into the house. Mai hugged me tight. She squeezed my shoulders as she stepped back.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know. Everything all right?”

  “Let’s get your things inside.”

  She hauled out the bag of groceries I had bought on the way. I carried the girls’ suitcases. Pai was in his usual chair in the living room. He was listening to the girls chatter about the flight and school. He didn’t get up or look at me.

  “Bendición, Pai.”

  “Dios te bendiga,” he said without raising his eyes.

  I hesitated, waiting for more. But he said nothing. I walked past him and into the kitchen to help Mai with the groceries.

  The next day Pai was still distant. He didn’t ask about the Giants contract. He didn’t ask me to go to Junior Diaz’s. I stayed in a hotel.

  Yadier and Cheo lived about ten miles from Mai and Pai on the same block, seven houses apart, in a gated community. We went to Yadier’s for dinner and talked about the World Series and cars and old friends and family. My new team, the Giants, was scheduled to play the Cardinals the first month of the season. Yadier and I had never played against each other.

  “You try to get me out, because I’ll be trying to get you out,” I said.

  “Don’t worry!” he said, as if the thought of going easy on me had never crossed his mind. He was as competitive as anyone I knew. We were the closest of brothers, but not on the field. On the field, our teammates were our brothers.

  That night at Yadier’s, Pai played dominoes and pulled the girls onto his lap. He drank his Coors Light as always. But he was still not talking to me. My brothers told me Pai missed me. They said my living in Arizona instead of in Puerto Rico with the rest of the family probably didn’t help, though they understood I had no choice: That’s where my girls were. Maybe Pai felt that living in Arizona was some kind of rejection, and now the divorce was a second blow against the family. Cheo and Yadier didn’t take sides. They loved Pai and they loved me, and they just wanted everything back to normal.

  One day at Titi Graciella’s, I ended up playing dominoes with Pai, my cousin Ramirito, and Pai’s brother, Tío Tití. Pai couldn’t help but look at me. He even ma
de remarks in my direction. It wasn’t a conversation, but I was having fun. He was there.

  I stopped him one day as he arrived home from work.

  “Pai, we’re leaving in a couple of days. I’m sorry if I hurt you or Mai. I never wanted to hurt you. I know you’re upset, but trust me, the girls are fine. You can see they’re fine. They love Jamie.”

  “I’m not upset with you.”

  “You don’t want to talk to me.”

  “I’m not mad.”

  Then he walked away.

  When I called the following week from Arizona, he didn’t come to the phone. I was disappointed, but I wasn’t crushed. Progress. Maybe that was the test. Pai’s rejection was forcing me to measure my need for Jamie against my need for him. Maybe, whether he realized it or not, he was giving me room to become my own man.

  Jamie had been asking me for a month to join her in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, in December for her family’s annual trip. I said I couldn’t. I had to go to San Francisco for a press conference. But I already had a plane ticket. I was going to surprise her.

  When I arrived in Cabo, the front-desk clerk called Jamie’s room to say there was a surprise for her in the lobby. She was on her way to the beach and said she’d get it later. No, the clerk said, you have to pick it up now.

  Jamie emerged from the elevator and cried when she saw me. “I can’t believe you’re here.”

  I had gotten my own room but it wasn’t ready, so we went to hers to stash my bag. “I can’t wait for my parents to see you!” she said. “They’re outside. I’m late already to meet up with them.”

  “Wait.”

  From my bag, I pulled out a new memory card for her camera. (She had told me hers was full.) I pulled out a bracelet with a dolphin charm. She loved dolphins. I pulled out a Brett Favre jersey, her favorite player.

  “Thank you,” she kept saying. “But let’s do all this later. Everyone’s waiting for me on the beach.”

  I couldn’t wait.

  I sank to one knee and opened a little white box. Jamie pressed a hand to her mouth. The ring was simple but beautiful: a cluster of little diamonds in a circle and two lines of diamonds down the sides. I wanted her to know I was for real and to wait with me through what was turning into a difficult divorce.

  “Will you marry me?”

  “Yes, yes!”

  We were hugging and crying when we saw Jamie’s mother, Jennifer, marching up the garden path toward the sliding glass door of Jamie’s room. She did not look happy.

  Jamie flung open the door.

  “We’ve been waiting—” Jennifer started to say.

  “Mom! Look who surprised us!”

  Jennifer’s face lit up and I gave her a big hug. We toasted our engagement at the pool with Jamie’s father and sister and family friends. It was the first time I’d spent time with Jamie’s family, other than brief dinners after games. Her father and mother had remarried each other after their divorce when Jamie was younger. Their reunited family was happier than ever. We had a great three days. When I left, Jennifer told me she had never seen Jamie so happy.

  I called Mai when I returned to Yuma. I knew the news of my engagement would not go over well. It didn’t. This was one time I was relieved Pai wouldn’t be coming to the phone. When I told the girls, they were worried more than angry or sad. Their mother and I had been apart for long enough that it was becoming the norm. “What’s going to happen to us?” they wanted to know.

  “Jamie loves you. We’re a family. We’re always a family. We’ll just be a slightly bigger family.”

  PITCHERS AND CATCHERS report to spring training earlier than the position players. The New York Times’ headline in January 2007:

  “Three Weeks to Pitchers and Molinas.”

  The first thing I thought when I saw it: I’ve got to tell Pai. See what the Molina name has come to mean?

  Then I remembered.

  I told Mai instead. I knew she’d tell Pai, not only about the headline but also what I said about the Molina name. We were still tied together, even if his back was turned.

  The Giants’ clubhouse sounded like any other in early spring—the catching-up conversations, the clatter of new bats pulled from shipping boxes, the dull hum of faucets and showers. The guys were friendly and made me feel welcome, even superstar Barry Bonds, whom I had met during the trip to Japan in 2000. He gave me a big smile and a hug and announced, “This guy right here is the man.”

  But it didn’t take long to see the cracks and ruptures. This team was Bonds and twenty-four other guys. Bonds kept himself so separate and held himself so above everyone else. I had gotten a taste of his personality during the All-Star trip to Japan. One day on the team bus, Bonds was talking loudly about how many houses he had, how many cars, how much money he had. In the beginning everyone listened, but then it got to be too much. Nobody said anything. It was Barry Bonds, arguably the best player in baseball. Suddenly Gary Sheffield stood up.

  “Hey, Barry, why don’t you shut up? Nobody here cares how much you have.”

  Bonds barked back at Sheffield, then Sandy Alomar barked at Bonds. The two had known each other since their fathers, Sandy Alomar Sr. and Bobby Bonds, played together for the New York Yankees in 1975. “I kicked your ass then, and I’ll kick it now,” Alomar told Bonds.

  In the Giants’ clubhouse, Bonds had the run of the place. I’d never seen anything like it. There wasn’t much the Giants’ new manager, Bruce Bochy, could do. All the rah-rah speeches in the world weren’t going to turn a Barry Bonds team into a unified whole.

  I threw myself into helping the Giants’ young pitching staff, in particular a baby-faced rookie named Tim Lincecum. Timmy, a first-round draft pick, looked like the batboy—five feet, eleven inches tall and maybe 160, 170 pounds—but he pitched like Sandy Koufax. He threw 95 mph and had a great changeup, slider, and curve. But what made him so good, at least in large part, was he believed no one could hit him. People were already calling him “the Franchise.”

  “This kid is going to be unbelievable,” I told Jamie on the phone one night, “once he really knows what he’s doing.”

  He became my little brother in the clubhouse. He listened to everything. He never shook me off in a game. He was introverted and humble, especially for someone with such extraordinary talent and someone who was becoming so popular in San Francisco that he could barely walk out of his apartment without drawing a crowd.

  Every day I found myself in quiet conversation in the clubhouse or dugout with one player or another, not just Timmy, offering encouragement to a guy on a bad streak, suggesting a particular approach against an opposing pitcher. As the season unfolded, I found myself echoing Pai:

  “You got to just think about today, man.”

  “Don’t try to do it all yourself. You got a whole team here with you.”

  “Just keep working hard every day. All-out, all the time. It’ll turn around. You’re too good, man, for it not to.”

  But I couldn’t figure out the pep talk I was supposed to give myself when we blew another game. Every loss—even when we were nineteen games out of first place—cut me like a fresh wound. You’d think after all these years I’d have listened to my own advice—let it go, tomorrow’s another day. But I slumped in the chair at my locker, unshowered, angry, frustrated, miserable.

  When Jamie was in town, she waited in the family room across the hall from the clubhouse. By the time I emerged, she was the only one left. We walked back to the apartment I had rented near the ballpark. Jamie still lived in Los Angeles, doing freelance work. But she visited as much as she could.

  “Let it rest,” she said when I went on too long about a loss and the mistakes I had made behind the plate. She cooked something, then coaxed me into marathon games of dominoes or Boggle. She killed me in Boggle—she’d get thirty points to my seven or ten. But every new game, I’d think I was going to win. Eventually, late into the night, my mind was settled enough to sleep.

  I’d show up at the
field the next day convinced anew that we were going to win. I had no patience or respect for the guys who weren’t. Some had stopped caring about wins and losses. They just wanted to pad their own numbers. Losing was bad enough, but losing that way, with no regard for the team? I confronted several of the worst offenders. But nothing changed. When I strapped on my gear and mask, they felt more than ever like armor. I couldn’t tell sometimes if I was battling the opposing team or my own.

  THE DIVORCE HAD turned even uglier, with grinding, exhausting battles at every turn. But I was happy. I loved being with Jamie. I loved watching her fly around my apartment cleaning this and that and me play-fighting with her because she wouldn’t sit down. I had no interest in going to bars or hanging out with the guys. There was no place I’d rather be than at home with her, talking, playing Boggle, watching TV, eating dinner.

  So Jamie surprised me one day when she said, “You’re shutting me out.”

  “What? No, I’m not. I’m tired.”

  “You’re depressed. You miss your father. It’s killing you, Bengie. You know it is. You can’t keep letting this drag on.”

  “What am I going to do? He won’t talk to me.”

  “Call him anyway and keep calling. If you don’t know what to say, talk about baseball. Ask him about when he played.”

  Jamie got a sheet of paper. “Write questions.”

  “He’s not going to answer.”

  “Just write.”

  I sat at the kitchen table.

  What was it like watching Roberto Clemente and Orlando Cepeda play?

  What did you do to get out of a slump?

  How did you lead your team when you were such a quiet guy?

  Why didn’t you go the Major Leagues?

  I wrote pages of questions.

  The next day, I dialed. Mai answered. I caught up on the news, then asked if Pai could come to the phone.

  “He says to tell you hi.”

  “Tell him I want to ask him some questions.”

  “Mi hijo, let it alone. He’ll come around.”

  One night in Colorado, during the first week of September, I snapped, breaking one of Pai’s golden rules. After another bad loss, our fourth in a row, I blasted my Giants teammates in the press. Not by name. I was careful about that. But otherwise, I let rip a tirade unlike any in my life.