The Phenomenon by Rick Ankiel

Author:Rick Ankiel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Published: 2017-04-17T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

FIFTEEN

I wanted to feel better about myself. I wanted to feel good about tomorrow. At the same time, I didn’t want to care so much. I didn’t want to carry a few lousy hours at the ballpark around with me all the time. Baseball had always made me feel special, and then, starting one afternoon, I didn’t ever want to think about it. Before, baseball was the light that drew me through the day, that pulled me out of bed in the morning and sang me to sleep. Now it haunted me. Taunted me.

I needed a break, and yet the routine was relentless. Every day was filled with baseball, which meant failure, or the brink of failure, or the recovery from failure. Even on the good days, and there were good days, there was no avoiding tomorrow, which I tried to assume the best of. I suspected the worst.

There were ways I could have coped. I could talk to Harvey. I could practice distraction, optimism, and focus. I could count my breaths and ask my heart to settle. I could go to the ballpark every single day and work, and throw, and believe, until I was physically and emotionally spent. I could smoke dope and drop ecstasy. I could drink beer and pretend I was fine until closing time.

Because I was desperate to win my career back and be a reasonable human being and forget what an effort it was, I chose all of it. I ran every lap. I showed up for every drill. I threw every bullpen. I read every self-help book, including Harvey’s. I’d never read a book before, not front to back, not even in school. Harvey handed me a copy of All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy, his go-to introduction to himself and the world as we would try to bear it together. Years later, I learned this was the book he’d first prescribed for Jim Abbott, another pitcher with challenges, and others he’d helped. By the third page, having read the first two begrudgingly, my mind lit up. It hadn’t occurred to me that there would be books I would enjoy, that I’d learn from, that would offer a moment away from the noise. That experience—not only did I read every word, cover to cover, but I was sad it had to end—led me into bookstores, to James Patterson, to Dan Brown, to Lee Child, and then to the shelves where the books assured me I could be OK. They taught me the breathing exercises. They had names for the stuff that filled my head and quickened my pulse. They talked about the fear. I’d never heard anyone talk about fear. Not anyone I’d ever respected, anyway. A baseball field was no place for fear. Neither was Fort Pierce.

So Harvey would call every day. Or I’d call him. And maybe there was a message in All the Pretty Horses for me—he wouldn’t really say—and maybe the message was that there was no message. Not everything had to mean something.

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