It was my surefire cure for the blues.
Around noon, I threw on my tank top, shorts, and Nike training
shoes and headed to the seashore, where the cloudless sky
and the vast expanse of blue-green Atlantic-along with the
endorphins coursing through my body-usually acted as Valium
to my nerves, no matter how frayed. My body took on the rhythm
of the velvet-voiced companion on my Walkman, Natalie Merchant.
A cool breeze swept off the ocean. I watched cruise ships,
veritable floating cities, head out of port for Caribbean
fun.
It was March 1996, my first spring
without Cactus or Grapefruit League* training camp. The clock
of my life was set to baseball's schedule, and I was lost
without it. As I turned around and headed back home, my shirt
already drenched, I switched on the radio and turned the dial
to 560 WQAM, the Florida Marlins' radio station, thinking
maybe a little baseball was what I needed.
The Marlins' Robb Nen was facing the
Braves' Chipper Jones in the ninth inning. As I listened to
the sounds of the game, the crack of bat against ball, the
shouts of fans, the banter of the play-by-play announcers,
I saw myself standing on second base after lining one into
the gap.
I could still do that, I thought. I
should still be out there mixing it up with the greatest players
around. I'm no quitter.
I wanted to race over to Space Coast
Stadium, the Marlins' training facility, and beg the team
to let me suit up and take my familiar position in center
field. Even the bench, the source of so much frustration during
my playing days, suddenly seemed like the best seat in the
house. After ten years with the Tigers, Dodgers, and Padres,
any team would do, as long as I could be back in the show.
Had I left too soon? At the age of
thirty-one, I was haunted by the notion that I still had many
years of baseball left in me. On the beach, the length of
my stride increased as I tried to stifle the voice of regret
in my head.
I reminded myself of why it had to
be this way. I'd sacrificed my love of the game to another
kind of love. Four months earlier I'd fallen for a wonderful
man, Efra’n Veiga. We were building a life together.
I'd finally achieved the sense of security and stability I
lacked while locked in the big-league closet. There was no
way I was going back to hiding. I just couldn't bear any longer
the constant fear of exposure, the anti-gay remarks of teammates
and coaches, and the exhausting, grinding pressure of being
someone I wasn't.
Baseball, I knew, wasn't ready for
a guy like me, no matter how well I played. The game wasn't
mature enough to deal with a gay ballplayer, and I wasn't
in an emotional state to take it on by myself. It was time
to change course. I had a good life. I had my health. I had
a partner who loved me. I wasn't a victim or a hero, but I
was tired of being a pawn.
My last conversation with my agent,
Dennis Gilbert, just a few weeks earlier, ran through my head
like a scene from a horror flick. Despite the fact that I'd
torn up the Pacific Coast League the previous season in between
three trips back and forth to the majors, he was having no
luck securing a major-league contract. Six teams were offering
minor-league contracts with a chance to make the big club
out of spring training. This was standard for a reserve like
me, basically an inexpensive insurance policy for a team,
but this year I was determined not to settle for so little.
"Dennis, if I don't get a good
deal, I'm not going back," I told him. "I'm sick
of the bushes."
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