The Drunken Baseball Psychic

A story from the baseball twilight zone

The Woodbury Heights High School varsity baseball team finally made it to the State Semi-finals for the first time in eleven years. It was no thanks to Garrett Rondowski, arguably the worst player on the team. It was a miracle that Garrett was even on the team.

Thanks to injuries incurred by a couple of other players, Garrett made the team at the beginning of the season. He was essentially a utility bench warmer who was only occasionally called upon to play. It was in the very first game of the season that Garrett was called on to pinch hit for the pitcher in the bottom of the ninth inning with the bases loaded. The team was down by three runs.

At this point in the game Garrett was the only player left on the bench. As he walked up to the plate the rest of the team let out a collective sigh of resignation. Garrett was a terrible hitter and everyone on the team immediately felt that the game would be lost.

But to everyone’s surprise — especially Garrett’s — he belted a grand slam home run over the left field fence and the team won. The worst player on the team suddenly became the team’s hero from game one.

But it did not last. Garrett never got another hit for the rest of the season. He ended the regular season going one for sixteen, giving him the worst batting average on the team. It was that grand slam home run in his very first at-bat that kept him on the team and allowed him to travel with the rest of the team to the State Semi-final game on the other side of the state. He spent that semi-final game on the bench and never saw any action. The team lost and the season was over.

In a state of mental defeat, the team returned to their motel rooms for the night before they re-boarded the bus the next morning to return home. There was a need for sorrows to be drowned. And this is where Garrett was so important.

It was the 1970s when the legal drinking age was still 18 years. While Garrett was by far the worst baseball player on the team he had one uncanny ability that endeared him to all of his team-mates. He was always able to buy liquor despite the fact that he was underage. For his last two years in high school buying liquor was practically a part-time job for Garrett. So many of his team-mates and class-mates would come to him with money asking him to buy some beer or liquor for them.

Garrett would always oblige but with one caveat. Those asking him to buy booze for them had to either also buy booze for Garrett or pay him in cash for his booze-buying ability. Garrett never paid for his own booze. There was always someone willing to pay for his booze in exchange for buying their booze.

Before becoming of legal booze-buying age Garrett had successfully purchased liquor 188 out of 189 attempts. Only twice was he ever carded. One of those times the clerk at the convenience store sold him the booze anyway even though his driver’s license showed that he was underage. The other time he was refused service and asked to leave. Only one defeat out of 189 attempts was nothing short of remarkable.

If only his baseball numbers were that good….

After the defeat in the State Semi-finals game, the team returned to the motel and a large number of them gathered in the motel room that Garrett shared with two other players. It was not long before all the boys were digging in their pockets and wallets for whatever money they could find. The pot of pooled money was then handed over to Garrett and he knew what he was expected to do.

He went to the liquor store across the street from the motel and came back with a case of Schlitz beer and a big bottle of tequila. The boys were quickly celebrating the end of their season.

It was not too far into the merriment when Manny Gutierrez, the star third baseman who let a grounder go through his legs in the crucial seventh inning, stood up and pointed at Garrett, “Okay, mother-fucker! I wanna know what your secret is to buying booze. You’ve got a stellar record. We can count on you — and, by the way, I’m glad you’re still on the team. But tell us how you do it.”

Garrett took a shot of tequila then a long sip of beer, “Okay, okay. I’ll tell you. But there are two parts to my secret. The first part is….”

The room fell silent as all the boys looked at Garrett as he took another sip of beer.

Garrett continued, “The first part of my secret is hair.”

The silence persisted.

“Hey, we all take showers together after games. I may be the worst ballplayer on the team but you all know that I am the hairiest,” Garret unbuttoned his shirt to reveal a massively hairy chest. “And I also have plenty of facial hair.” With his forefinger and thumb, he caressed his moustache then he ran his fingertips through his sideburns.

“The first thing I do before I ever enter a liquor store or convenience store is unbutton the top two or three buttons on my shirt. Clerks see all the hair and they automatically assume I am of legal age. But hair is only part of the equation….”

The boys all looked at each other as they took tequila shots and drank beer then they once again looked at Garrett.

“The second part of the equation is attitude!” Garrett interrupted his diatribe by taking another tequila shot. “Whew! That was awesome! So anyway…. attitude!

“I go into those stores with a dead-set attitude of, ‘I deserve to buy booze and I am old enough to buy it, goddamit!’ I take that booze up to the counter with absolutely, positively no fucking fear whatsoever. Those goddam clerks can sense fear and they can sense your attitude. If they sense any fear whatsoever they’re gonna card your ass. It’s like acting. You’ve got to get into the role so completely that everyone believes it. You’ve gotta sell it. And you can’t show any fear at all. You’ve gotta fucking dare them to sell it to you.”

Garrett took another shot of tequila as all the other boys looked at each other in bewilderment. Some of the boys wondered why the hell Garrett never showed such fearlessness on the baseball field.

The beer drinking and tequila shooting continued as all the ball players talked and partied. Eventually, someone turned on the television set in the room. To everyone’s excitement there was a Major League baseball game on TV. It was a game between the Houston Astros and the Cincinnati Reds and it was only in the first inning. Everyone’s attention turned to the game….

Being from a high school in Texas, everyone in the room was cheering for the Astros. At the end of the second inning as a commercial came on the TV the boys replenished their beers and drinks and took turns going to the bathroom. Several of them looked over to the bed where Garrett had been sitting and they saw that he was now horizontal and sound asleep.

While Garrett was a professional underage booze buyer, he was not that good at handling his liquor. Invariably, drinking always put him to sleep. He was always sound asleep within forty-five minutes of beginning to drink.

The rest of the team forgot about Garrett sleeping soundly as they continued to watch the ballgame on TV while providing much drunken commentary.

By the bottom of the eighth inning the boys were all fairly drunk. The Astros were losing by three runs and were up to bat. Suddenly, Garrett bolted upright on the bed. Everyone looked at him and he appeared to be in a trance or something. Garrett stared at the TV with no expression on his face and his eyes hardly seemed to ever blink.

As the first Astros batter came to the plate, Garrett proclaimed, “This guy’s gonna strike out.”

Garrett’s team-mates looked at him then back at the TV. In four pitches the guy struck out.

As the next batter came to the plate Garrett proclaimed in a robotic voice, “He’s gonna be hit by a pitch on the first pitch. He’ll go to first and then steal second.”

The boys looked at Garrett curiously then turned their attention to the TV. The next batter was hit by a pitch on the first pitch and went to first base. The head of every boy turned back to Garrett in astonishment.

The Astros’ shortstop Dickie Thon came to the plate and Garrett immediately proclaimed, “Dickie! Yeah, he’s gonna hit a triple off the center field fence and plate the baserunner.”

Dickie took two balls and swung and missed at two balls. The fifth pitch was a pitch out as the baserunner took off for second base. The runner was safe.

The boys turned to look at Garrett who was sitting erect on the bed staring at the TV.

On the next pitch Dickie Thon hit a triple off the center field wall scoring the base runner. The Astros were now down by two.

All conversation among the boys had stopped by this point as they looked back and forth between Garrett and the TV.

As the next batter came to the plate Garrett proclaimed, “On the second pitch he’s gonna hit a fly ball to right field scoring Thon.”

That next batter swung at the first pitch and missed. On the next pitch he hit a high fly ball to right field that was caught but which enabled Dickie Thon to score from third base. The Astros were now down by only one run.

Every boy in the room was now officially freaked out. In a seemingly trance-like state, Garrett was calling the game BEFORE it happened!

As the next batter came to the plate Garrett said in a robotic voice, “Single up the middle.”

On the first pitch the batter hit a single up the middle.

Every boy in the room remained silent as the next batter came up to the plate. They were all looking at Garrett.

“Home run in the left field bleachers to win the game.”

The batter took three balls and fouled off six pitches. The at-bat seemed to go on forever as the silence in the motel room was palatable and so was the tension. On the tenth pitch the batter hit a home run into the left field bleachers that would win the game.

After the jubilant homer all the boys in the room turned to look at Garrett to see that he was once again horizontal and sound asleep.

During the long bus ride home almost no one spoke to Garrett. They were almost afraid to. They were too freaked out.

The next Monday at school Manny Gutierrez came up to Garrett in the hall and slapped him on the back. “I gotta hand it to ya, Garrett. The way you called that inning of the Astros game was one of the most incredible things I’ve ever witnessed.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“You know…. how you perfectly called that inning in the Astros game.”

“Huh? What inning? Hey man, I fell asleep and missed the whole game. What are you talking about?”

“Uh…. You don’t remember calling that inning perfectly? You know, where they won the game?”

“They won? That’s cool but seriously I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Manny’s face went blank. He did not know what to say. Finally, he slapped Garrett on the back and said, “That’s okay. It was nothing,” then he walked off.

Two weeks later Garrett turned 18 years old. Curiously, no one ever asked him to buy booze for them again even though he was now of legal age. He was okay with that because now that he was of legal age buying booze was no longer a challenge. And he had no real urge to buy it for himself. After all, booze just made him sleepy.

Copyright by White Feather. All Rights Reserved. This is a work of fiction.