Double Down in Reno

[roncollins]

Double Down in Reno
Written by Casey Neal
Daily Log of a Fresh-faced Graduate
April 23, 2013


The best thing about Reno is that you can get a good hotel room for about free so long as you agree to bet in their casino. This is like giving Lindsay Lohan a mini-bar as long as she agrees to sip on a sample.

The trip to Reno is filled with awkwardness.

First, there's the fact that Annie begins to wheeze a bit as we get a ways past Vallejo. It's her right front, and it’s giving a noticeable wobble at 80 MPH. Don-o pets her dashboard and asks if she's going to be all right. I don't hear nothing back, but Don-o seems satisfied and he keeps the foot on the gas.

Then there's the fact that I underestimated the drive. I told him that we would be in Reno in about five hours, but it's really going to be seven-and-a-half. "Crud," Dan-o said. It's obvious then that he's upset because he says it with the vigor of a chin-high fastball. "I think they got a car museum there I wanted to see." I find this error as we're eating a leisurely breakfast, and the resulting conversation has us bolting food and rushing to get on the road. All total, it means the opening act of this leg of the trip feels rushed and out of sorts.

Finally, the drive is awkward because I find myself trying to think of a good way to bring up what happened at the Stick last night. It was strange, really, and I know strange. If I hadn't been jack-sober, I would have thought that seeing Willie Mays catch a liner in Candlestick was a mongo A-drop, but I hadn't touched the stuff at all. And when it was over, Don-o had this glow around him – not a physical light, but a sense of being that was something bigger than I can describe. I want to ask him about it, but for the first time, there's a wall between us that I can feel as sure as the wall I feel between a girl like Mezzy and a guy like me.

I stew about it all until just before Sacramento, when Don-o suggests we do the last of the peyote he had in his backpack. "Do it now and we'll be flying when we get west of Sacramento," was his logic. I liked the way he thought, and I dug out beauties. We hit them and, sure enough, the stuff kicks in just as the city skyline appears in our rear-view mirrors.

Hi-ho, Silver, and away, baby.

#

Reno is 5-13 upon our arrival and doomed to be 5-14 immediately upon our departure. They're facing a Crystal Lake squad that's probably better than their 9-9 start, and in Bryan Stewart, they'll face one of the better pitcher in the PEBA – which, at $12 mil a year, he really ought to be. Stewart is interesting because he's got a knuckle-curve, a pitch that can tie up even the best of hitters when they're properly primed for the heater.

Regardless of whether the team is any good or not, Reno's Kingpin Alley is a glorious ballpark. It's a throwback of sorts – double-decker with a towering scoreboard in deepest centerfield. And in Reno, deepest centerfield is really just that. It's a cavernous 440’ out there, but where the Alley giveth to pitchers in center, it taketh away down the lines. It's 352’ and 358’ down each way and in straight-away right and left. At nearly a mile into the sky, balls can fly outta here pretty well on a good summer's day… which this is not. It's a night game, and it's a brisk 42° as we go through the gate. It's a great night, though. Crisp and clear, and I can feel the last run of the afternoon peyote as we step through the tunnel and into the bowl of the stadium.

I can tell Don-o is still irked by missing his car museum, but his irkiness seems to melt away as we settle into our cheap seats in the right field bleachers and he becomes the Don-o I know; drinking beer and muttering to himself about how Tenpin starter John Roach should keep the ball low to the Lake's third baseman Barry Murdock, who leads off the game at 7:06 p.m. Roach listens for three pitchers – a called-strike, a foul ball and a curve in the dirt – but he goes to the changeup and leaves it high in the zone. Murdock grounds it back up the middle and past the shortstop for a base hit.

Don-o grimaces.

He's not specifically a big Tenpin fan, but Roach's inability to keep the ball low on a guy who is a high-ball hitter offends his sense of elegance – which, for him, is what the game of baseball is about. It's even worse because Roach, once a star in Aurora before hurting his shoulder, has been a back-of-the order kind of guy for a couple years. His change is his third-best pitch, and in Don-o canon, you don't give the leadoff guy your third pitch to start the game when you're up 1-2 in the count.

This is probably why Don-o and I get along together so well. We get this stuff. It makes sense. Don-o sees these ideas as a metaphysical set of laws, views them as something constant and reliable, like gravity or a magnetic field or some such thing. I see them more as a guidebook of social principle, like a manifesto or a constitution. Where he says, "Thou sha'not show up my pitcher or I'll plunk your next hitter," I think more in the lines of, "When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for retaliation, it behooves your next hitter to clench those butt cheeks, ‘cause the next one's putting him on first."

Anyway, Don-o's annoyed, and I call out to the peanut and beer guys to order two of each. We settle in to enjoy the game.

It looks bad for Roach early, as he tosses a wild one to put Murdock on second, then gives Murdock a huge lead and lets him steal third. Sok-man Yi singles him home, and the Sandgnats lead by a run.

Reno loads them up with an error and two walks in the bottom half of the first, but they can't cash in.

The S-Gnats get into Roach hard in the third. P.J. Thomas doubles and Eduardo Molina lines a single to right to move him to third. Thomas scores when Chris Holmes lines a 3-2 pitch into left, then Molina scores when Ricardo Longoria does the same thing to a 3-1 changeup.

Don-o looks sad.

Sandgnats catcher Andy Hood finishes the scoring by doubling down the first-base line, and Crystal Lake is up 4-zip.

Between innings, I look at the program guide. Reno has about $45 million tied up in salaries, about half of that in Roach and aging DH Dan Schaffner. Schaffner is an okay hitter but clearly not $11 mil-worth of “okay”. The team probably took both these contracts on as the tax burden for other young prospects, and while today's fans (and Dan-o, for that matter) are now faced with watching the team struggle now, they can at least look to the horizon and see some possible bright spots in guys like Dale Griffith, António Morales and José Sandoval.

In the meantime, though, Tenpin fans have to be content watching guys like Schaffner, Richard Hebert, Murray Harris and Carlos Martínez hold down the fort. And hold the fort they do – for a little while – finding an inventive way to turn a Blair Nelson single and two balks into a run when Schaffner flies way deep to center on a blast that probably travelled 420 feet and woulda been out of about any other park.

The game speeds up from there. Stewart is throwing a masterful game for Crystal Lake (he'll end up going eight and a third and allowing only five runners), and a pair of Tenpin relievers shut down the Gnats until the fateful eighth inning. Jerry Henderson starts out by getting a pair of outs, then gives Murdock a hittable fastball for a single. An error prolongs the inning, then Eduardo Molina literally smokes a ball to right that almost literally leaves the park. Crystal Lake leads 7-1 after the dust has cleared on the 8th, and it's only going to get worse.

Stewart mows the Tenpinners down in the bottom of the inning, and Henderson starts the bloodbath ninth by giving Longoria a fat slider for a single. He gets Andy Hood to fly out but gives way to Fergus Hadley, who brings to the mound both a minor-league repertoire and a can of kerosene. He faces five guys, allows four singles and a walk, then heads to the showers to pick up his major league minimum check.

Seriously, dude. I mean, seriously. I could do that! And I'll do it for just $200K; forget the Union rules.

Héctor Gutiérrez is not a whole lot better. He lets both inherited runners score but gets the Tenpinners out of the inning while preserving his own ERA (perfect example of how some crappy bullpen guys can manage to look good on paper if you're not looking too close, eh?).

So it's 13-1 as we go to the bottom of the ninth, and no, there's no baseball magic happening here, no ghost of Willie Mays striding to the plate, no live roosters around to take off the hex on Reno's bats. The score is 13-1 going into the bottom of the ninth. Three batters and a double play later, the score is still 13-1.

#

We take Annie to the doctor the next day. The doc says she needs a new brake pad and maybe a lube job or she'll blow out a bearing. It'll take a couple hours and might cost more than the car is worth. Don-o shakes his head, glances out at the car with an expression like he might if he were lookin' at… well… lookin' at family, I guess. Then he tells the doc to do it.

We spend the afternoon at the car museum, which is interesting enough if you like cars, which I do and I don't – meaning it was cool for 30 minutes and boring for an hour-and-a-half. But when we're done, we pick Annie up, and she seems to be feeling particularly sprightly as Don-o starts her up and we head outta town.

[Borealis]

Then there's the fact that I underestimated the drive. I told him that we would be in Reno in about five hours, but it's really going to be seven-and-a-half.

Ah.. the dreaded NorCal traffic... first the Bay Bridge, then the East Bay... then Fairfield.... then Roseville... A four hour straight through at 80 on 80 becomes 7 hours... AND that's without snow!

I stew about it all until just before Sacramento, when Don-o suggests we do the last of the peyote he had in his backpack. "Do it now and we'll be flying when we get west of Sacramento," was his logic. I liked the way he thought, and I dug out beauties. We hit them and, sure enough, the stuff kicks in just as the city skyline appears in our rear-view mirrors.

Hi-ho, Silver, and away, baby.

I guess you guys met George Crocker's dealer....

[Zephyrs]

Simply put, that was a marvelous read. Thanks!