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"Sandy!"
I shook hands and hugged my old/new catcher.
"About time they got you out of the horror that was the Reno Padres."
I was joining a team that actually had a winning record. The Miami Marlins were 30-29 on the season. A far cry from the disaster that was the Reno Padres.
"I heard you two had played together."
A man walked up and shook my hand.
"Mark Green. I'm your pitching coach."
"Coach Green is alright. He won't do you wrong around here. Unlike some others."
"Alomar...."
"I didn't say a word."
"I pretty much run the pitching staff," Coach Green said. "You'll meet Mahir Husam al Din later."
"Who?"
"The Skipper."
"Massure what?"
Coach Green laughed. "That's not his real name. He had it changed. Like Muhammad Ali did."
"I see." First time I would ever be coached by a black man.
"He and Sandy don't see eye-to-eye."
"You don't think it's racial, do you?"
"I don't think so. It could be but Skipper likes to make a lot of changes in the game and Sandy doesn't like being pulled for matchup purposes. Sandy is our best hitter and doesn't feel like he should ever be pinch hit for."
This looked like a powder keg ready to explode.
I just hoped I wouldn't be caught in the middle.
We were at home for a Monday night game against the Osceola Astros when I made my debut.
"Your command and change up have gotten better," Sandy said as we finished warming up.
And then it was time to....
Play ball!
And after 14 pitches, the Astros went 3 up and 3 down with a strikeout to boot.
Sandy was calling mostly sliders and fastballs. I knew to trust his pitch selection so I went with it.
With a 1-0 lead, I had a perfect second innning that ended in a strikeout.
"You have come along real well, James," Sandy told me after the second innning. The Muhammad Ali manager guy had yet to speak a word to me. Maybe because I was sitting next to Sandy. Coach Green had almost understated the animosity between those two.
With two down in the third, I let go of a 2-2 fastball that nearly sailed out into space. To say it was high. Yeah, as high as one of those Cheech and Chong movies my mom hated. The full count fastball was too low and too inside and I had surrendered a walk.
I got away with one on the next hitter. I threw a slider on a 1-2 pitch that was outside but the umpire called it strike three. I could see it had missed the plate but I wasn't saying jack!
Through three innnings, I had allowed no runs, no hits, walked one and struck out four.
"This was how it was for me, too, coming here," Sandy said. "We were so bad in Reno that we expected to suck and expectations became reality. We don't have that problem here."
Alas, twice in the first three innnings, Sandy went to bat with a runner on third and neither runner was able to score.
So we still led just 1-0.
Fourth innning. Three up three down.
In the bottom of the fourth, I got a couple more runs for support and we led 3-0.
The Astros small balled their way onto the scoreboard in the fifth. A lead off single. Sacrifice bunt. Stolen base. Sacrifice fly.
The Astros got a lead off double in the sixth but he was left stranded at third.
So I had allowed just two hits through six innings. I hadn't gotten any more strikeouts. I still had just that one walk as well. The Astros hitters were now seeing me for the third time. It gets a lot harder to get the same stuff by them the third or fourth time you face them.
We were still up 3-1 after six innnings.
The Astros got a lead off single in the seventh but I struck out the next hitter and went on to finish the innning without him getting to second.
Then in the bottom of the seventh, Sandy got an RBI single to make it 4-1. Sandy would score later on a throwing error and we had a 5-1 lead.
On to the eighth innning. I had thrown just 95 pitches. The count was 2-2 and I fooled the hitter with a curveball and I had struck out six. Two grounballs later and we were three outs away from a win.
And that's when the manager spoke to me for the first time.
"Not bad, James. The bullpen will take care of the ninth."
I nodded and sat down.
"Grinds my gears when he does that," Sandy said.
I nodded but wasn't upset at all. A pitcher's arm will only survive so many throws. I was fine saving an innning of my arm for the big leagues.
Besides, John Githens was taking the mound and, from what I was told, he was the Florida State League leader in saves, having gone 12 for 12.
A 5-1 lead was safe.
I would be named the #3 top performance of the day in the Florida State League.
8.0 IP, 3 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 6 K, W
I hadn't gotten a win since my first game back when I had reported to Reno in May.
It was a long time coming and it felt really good.
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