The Baseball Whisperer Read online

  The Montreal Expos drafted Jamey Carroll in the fourteenth round of the major league draft in 1996. He signed on June 20. For seven years, he played in the minors, often replicating his experience in Clarinda with the long bus rides, mediocre motels, and fast food. His coaches loved the way he played the game, and his teammates admired and respected him. Yet after that seventh season, playing for Triple A Ottawa, it seemed to him that it might be time to think about life after baseball.

  After the season in Ottawa, he headed home to southern Indiana. Late in the major league season, when the Expos were playing the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field, one of the Expos’ infielders, José Macías, broke his hand. The team needed a replacement quickly, and Carroll’s phone rang. Among other factors, he was closer to Chicago than any of the other candidates. He said yes immediately and headed quickly north to Chicago. All the years, all the near-misses, sacrifices, and doubts, all of that was about to be washed away in one of baseball’s most venerated stadiums.

  On September 11, 2002, Jamey Carroll put on a major league uniform and walked onto Wrigley Field. His manager was the Hall of Fame legend Frank Robinson, a man of almost limitless ability as a player but definitely limited patience as a manager. Carroll delivered two sharp hits in his first game, and Robinson penciled him into the lineup for a second game. At age twenty-eight, in his second big league game, according to the Washington Post, Jamey Carroll was the oldest player in the lineup. He collected two more hits.

  Carroll would never return to the minors. He went on to play with seven different teams through the 2013 season, with a career batting average above .270. To the surprise of no one in Clarinda, Carroll was twice nominated by his team for Major League Baseball’s Heart and Hustle Award, which is voted on by active players and MLB alumni for the player “who demonstrates a passion for the game of baseball and embodies the values, spirit, and traditions of the game.” When he was with the Dodgers, he won the Roy Campanella Award, which is given to the player who best exemplifies the spirit of the former Dodger catcher.

  “When I walk away from this game, I want to be known as a good teammate and a guy who left it all out there,” Carroll told his hometown newspaper, the Evansville Courier & Press. “When you get something like this that’s voted on by your teammates you kind of have an understanding that what you do is appreciated.”

  His manager with the Dodgers was Don Mattingly, who grew up within twenty miles of Carroll in southern Indiana. Mattingly summed up Carroll’s ability by telling the Courier & Press, “He’s the guy who you don’t truly appreciate until you see him play every day.”

  In the minor leagues, the story of Carroll has become the one that coaches use when players start to question themselves and wonder if the call will ever come. “Everybody uses him,” Tim Leiper, Carroll’s manager in the minors, told Adam Kilgore of the Washington Post. “He’s the guy. He’s the story.”

  In that same article, Adam Wogan, then the Expos’ farm director, said that Carroll’s overall skills made him indispensable. “He’s so good defensively,” Wogan said. “He can go anywhere. He’s so sound fundamentally. I’ve never spoken to a guy that managed him that didn’t say he absolutely had to have the guy on his team.” The fact that the Expos were collapsing, Kilgore noted, probably enabled Carroll to get his shot. At his age, most organizations would have played a younger prospect instead of a player who seemed on his way to being a career minor leaguer. In the majors, Carroll played shortstop, third base, and second and hit .272.

  “It seems like every manager he’s ever had said, ‘I need this guy on my team,’” Leiper told Kilgore. “So many things had to happen right for him to do it. No matter how many times he got kicked, he continued to work hard. So many guys would have quit.” Carroll, Leiper said, didn’t seem to know how to take a day off.

  His best season as a professional came in 2006 when he hit .300 for the Colorado Rockies. In the 2012 season, Carroll signed a two-year deal with the Minnesota Twins that paid him $3.75 million in the second year. In the late summer of that year, the Kansas City Royals traded for Carroll. In the heat of a pennant race, the Royals’ front office—people like Mike Arbuckle—went for the player from Clarinda who, as Richardson noted at Merl’s funeral, always ran “as though the devil were on his heels.” “I always felt like I was that twenty-fifth guy trying to make the team,” Carroll told Kilgore. “And that’s how I’ve always treated it.”

  Carroll’s journey continued in the 2014 season, when he was invited to spring training with the Washington Nationals. Coaches put his locker next to that of Anthony Rendon, their promising infielder. Rendon said that he picked Carroll’s brain every chance he got and told Kilgore that Carroll was “a great mentor to me.” But even veteran players said that Carroll was a role model. Denard Span, the center fielder, said that Carroll had always been the kind of player who was ready an hour ahead of his teammates, every game. “He inspires me,” Span told the Post. “Knowing how old he is and watching the way he plays the game, he never takes a play off, never takes anything for granted. I’m ten years younger than him. Whenever I’m sore or aching, I look at him and he kind of gets me going. Every team needs a guy like that.”

  One day before the Nationals broke camp, the team released Carroll, a decision that manager Matt Williams said was the most difficult one he had to make that spring. From 2002, when Carroll made his debut, to 2014, only three players who were twenty-eight or older at the time had continuously been on a major league roster: Derek Jeter, Ichiro Suzuki, and Jamey Carroll.

  In Carroll’s final game, on September 27, 2013, against the Chicago White Sox, he went 1-for-3. His last hit was the 1,000th of his career.

  10

  Stepping Off the Field

  AS THE 1997 season approached, Merl Eberly was taking a measure of himself as well as his team. All the years of balancing the demands of his job, his family, and his beloved Clarinda A’s were beginning to make his powerful shoulders sag. He finally acknowledged that he couldn’t keep going as he had for the previous four decades. In addition to the physical and emotional toll, so many things were changing about the game that he was prompted to question his own commitment, something that had been unshakable.

  He often used his column in the team newsletter, Dugout News, which was sent to A’s alumni and supporters, to deliver an upbeat message about the team and its prospects or to tell a story about connecting with a former player, like Ozzie Smith. But this year the tone of his column was decidedly different, revealing an accumulated frustration. As usual, he confronted the situation with an unsparing bluntness.

  “We, the Clarinda A’s baseball program, are at a crossroads. Cutting back is not really an option anymore. We have done that for the last four or five years. Now, it’s just a matter of getting financial assistance from our alumni if we are going to keep a competitive program—or perhaps even maintain a program, period.

  “Baseball has been a part of the community for years, in fact since 1955, and there are not a whole lot of us from those early days still around. It’s just the way it is, a fact of life that is no one’s fault, but that is not the problem—increased costs and the dwindling of small community-based businesses is a large factor. Being in business myself I can certainly say that there are a lot more out there asking for contributions than there were in the past. It isn’t even a matter of wanting more—we are at a level of trying to maintain.”

  He appealed for funds for a new scoreboard and new batting cages, really basic needs that would give the A’s at least a hope of remaining on an equal footing with the other teams. He also acknowledged the economic transformation that was accelerating in Clarinda and throughout rural America. Small, locally owned businesses were having great difficulty competing against the big-box chain stores, and some people were starting to shop online, with their dial­up modems that could take them anywhere in the world. The pace of life, even in Clarinda, was becoming more hectic. Merl was trying hard to make time stop, or a
t least slow it down, and there was a cost associated with that. “Any help will go entirely toward getting things back in shape in order to guarantee a longer future for other ‘boys of summer,’” he said.

  In Clarinda, there was always friction over whether to make the A’s games an option that everyone could afford or to try to raise as much money as possible. Merl always chose the former. Season tickets for that year were $20 for an individual and $30 for a family, for thirty-one scheduled home games. But young families, who had been so essential to the team’s success, were facing their own conflicts. It was now the norm to have both parents working, and children were indulging their own passions with time-consuming travel sports and other activities. You could also watch professional baseball on television almost any night of the week, so the A’s had plenty of competition for people’s time.

  The A’s decision to leave the Jayhawk League was having consequences too, even if, from Merl’s perspective, it had been worth it. To comply with NCAA rules and be eligible for a subsidy from Major League Baseball, college summer teams could only have players on their roster who had at least one year of eligibility left. That left seniors and recent graduates with no place to go, even if they burned with the desire to keep playing, and Merl thought it was important to give those players that one final shot at a second chance of being discovered. To Merl, the Jayhawk League had become another “win at all costs” enterprise that put a premium on team revenues. The more flush teams had more than double the budget of others, and sometimes the A’s disadvantage relative to an opponent was even greater. “That makes it tough too,” Merl said.

  It wasn’t simply the finances. The players were changing too, and that weighed on Merl at least as much. Merl had played his first game at about the age of ten and would play competitively for more than thirty years. He loved everything about the game—the physicality, the mental dimension, and the lessons that carried beyond the field, like learning to deal with failure. He just wasn’t seeing the same kind of pure passion for the game that he’d always had in the young men coming to play for him now. In another edition of the newsletter, his frustrations poured forth. “Could it really have been that long ago—that baseball was a game of fun,” he wrote. “That it was played with excitement, with the true feeling of competition and love of the game being the biggest attraction—or is it the years gone by blur our memories of the 50s, 60s and 70s? I hope it is not the latter, because I know it was for ME [Merl always signed his column “ME” and referred to himself that way] and apparently for a lot of people who enjoyed competition—not always friendly on the playing field, but seldom carried off the field with you after a game.

  “Why the change today? Maybe it’s because many of the young people go at it year round, weight rooms, clinics, winter, summer, night and day.

  “Maybe it’s the money brought to professional baseball by big corporate owners selling entertainment, not just the game, but all of its surroundings supported by the commercial world of the media and the lines of promotion.

  “Maybe it’s the high school athlete and parents who think of the sport only as a way to a college scholarship—think a minute of division I college programs—big $$$—or an eventual chance at the professional draft somewhere down the line.

  “Don’t misunderstand, money was exchanged for services if earned back in my era, pitching and winning could earn you up to $100, but losing was never rewarded with more than a thanks and expense money, enough for a tank of gas at .25 to .50 a gallon.

  “That was thirty to forty years ago. Look at today when a young man can make millions before he ever swings a bat or throws a ball at the professional level if they are one of those chosen few. Where has the ethic of proving your worth before being paid gone? We all had dreams when we were young and rightly so, but I don’t ever remember that I wanted to be Yogi Berra because of the money he made—it was because I loved the game.

  “Many young people today are hoping and working year round for a scholarship and/or a professional chance to make a living in their chosen sport. They are not always doing it for the love and enjoyment of the game, but being pushed by society and the dream of big money robs them of young years when competition is supposed to be fun . . . When personal goals are the only reason for competition, then the team concept is gone and when the letter ‘I’ is inserted in the word team—the fun for all disappears.

  “Coaches need to get back to teaching the game and let the athletes play as much as they can for themselves. It’s hard to do for a society that demands winning in order to keep a job, but maybe then some of the right things that athletics should stand for can return to the front page of our sports sections and the game can be fun for all.

  “Can this happen? I have my doubts, but it would be great if we could believe it would and the kids would all hustle in and out and pull for each other to do their best for their team’s sake and not just for the MONEY that could be made down the road.”

  Those sentiments had been building for a long time. A year before, Merl had lamented that players were no longer willing to honor their commitments. “An ugly monster is raising his head—the behavior of the athlete, basically more off the field than his athletic ability. His commitment if you will. Coaches, I wonder what you are telling your athlete as you send him out to the summer program?

  “Do you tell him that if he goes it is a commitment for the length of the season? Do you tell him that people open their homes for him and that he will have to go by their rules? Do you tell him that people work ten months to provide a summer program, raising funds, etc.? Do you tell him that nearly all the people volunteer their time and money? Do you tell him he is a guest in that community and his action on and off the field represent himself, his family and his school?

  “Do you tell him that quitting is a step back for all involved? Do you tell him to contact you before making that kind of decision? Do you tell him that he is expected to hustle and abide by team rules? Do you tell him that he is to go all out, baseball wise, for only about four hours a day? Do you tell him that loyalty is important for success at any level of the game? Do you tell him he is going out to improve his skills—not to stay out till all hours? Do you tell him it only takes one player to ruin many years of efforts by others?”

  The A’s had had their share of issues—occasional drinking incidents, even more rare instances of drug use or players sneaking out to chase girls overnight—but considering the age of the players and that they were coming from a college environment, misbehavior was clearly the exception. One of the reasons Merl wanted the players to have jobs was so they would have as little idle time as possible. It just seemed to him that the players were now arriving in Clarinda with a sense of entitlement he hadn’t seen in Ozzie Smith, Von Hayes, Buddy Black, or Darrell Miller.

  “As far as I am personally concerned, I never met a young person I didn’t like, but some summers have certainly been bigger tests on that sentiment than others and when the season is over, there are never any hard feelings, only a few disappointments.

  “The way I see it—quite simply, either the athletes try to help summer baseball survive, both on and off the field, or in a few years it could be gone . . . If I believe in anything it is in the basic goodness of people and it is my hope that with help from all quarters the attitude and hustle will continue to bring many more memories of ‘The Boys of Summer’ in the years ahead.”

  No matter how low he was feeling, Merl wasn’t ready to call it quits. He had a good group of players coming for the summer of 1997, and he would give them everything he had. Privately, though, he had come to a decision. This season would be his last as the field manager.

  Rod was on the roster that year, ready for his junior year on a baseball scholarship at the University of Alabama–Birmingham—a Division 1 program consistently ranked among the nation’s best at the time—and on the cusp of a professional baseball career of his own. The previous season at Highland Community College, Rod had 18 home
runs and 73 RBIs in 56 games. He was drafted in the twelfth round by the St. Louis Cardinals, his favorite team. Both of his brothers had signed as free agents, but Rod actually had his name put up on a major league draft board. He said the Cardinals offered him $15,000, but Merl thought that was too low because the average bonus for a draft choice in that round was $30,000. The scout who had tendered the offer didn’t budge, though, and Rod turned the offer down to head to Alabama.

  That was also Ozzie Smith’s final season with the Cardinals, and Rod, Merl, and Pat went to St. Louis in the late summer to catch a game before he headed back to school. The Cardinals’ cross-checker scout, whose position far outranked that of the scout who had recommended that Rod be drafted, came up to Rod and Merl and said he was sorry they couldn’t reach a deal; he told them he thought Rod would sign for $30,000. “What are you talking about?” Merl said, and they told the scout that Rod had never received the higher offer. “The guy was white as a ghost,” Rod said. Apparently, the lower-level scout never conveyed the offer.

  It was a moment that showed that for all of the Eberly family’s connection to baseball people on every level, even they didn’t get the full story about Rod until it was too late. They were too trusting in what the original scout said and didn’t even think to bother Ozzie Smith by conferring with him about the offer. Years later, Rod downplayed the moment. “That was the one bad thing that happened to me,” he said. “It was very hard for me to handle hearing that. I didn’t process it until I was at UAB. And for the first six weeks or so, I couldn’t hit. And I had always been able to hit.”

  Back at school, he struggled. He carried the burden of the reputation of one who had been drafted in the twelfth round and of the expectation that he would excel among college players. He was also thirteen hours from home and family, feeling isolated.