by Marvin Pritchard, Charleston Gazette
10/7/2008
BAKERSFIELD, CA - Sitting on the simple maple oak shelf are two trophies. Each one given to celebrate the accomplishments of one of the finest catchers in the league, the trophies are a source of immense satisfaction for Russ Huber. At least, one of them is.
“I’m gonna get another one,” he declares, pointing to the shelf, “and then I’m gonna throw that one out.” Huber points to the trophy on the right, which is noticeably smaller than the other. “That one came with a car,” he bragged, indicating the one on the left, “and this one came with a free dinner for two at the local hole in the wall.” Huber snorts, and wanders over to the window. The trophies bear the same “All-Star” inscription, but it is the words above that reveal the source of Huber’s dissatisfaction. One reads “Planetary Extreme Baseball Alliance.” The other, “Alianza Beisbol Al Sur de la Frontera.” After an all-star season in the premier American baseball league, Huber was one of the many players forced to travel south of the border to Mexico to continue their careers after PEBA’s free agency season proved to be one giant wet firecracker. For Huber, the trek was a return.
But the inferior trophy is not the most interesting object on Huber’s shelf. To its right sits the reason that Huber will go down in the history books: his first catching mitt, into which he can still squeeze his right hand.
When Huber was growing up in the tiny town of Mila Doce, Texas, baseball was his life. Before, after, and sometimes even during school, Huber would play baseball. Huber’s father worked double shifts at a factory in a nearby town, and rarely got to see his son play ball. One weekend, after much pleading from the then 10-year old Huber, his father agreed to umpire an informal tournament amongst the boys. To his surprise, he discovered his son was catching without a glove, one-handed – and with his right hand.
“He never said anything about it,” Huber mused, starting out the window. “But the next day when my dad came home from work he had that.” Huber turned around and pointed at the glove on the shelf. “I used that thing until I’d made enough money in Mexico to buy a new one.”
Huber never attracted the attention of any MLB teams due to his quirk. He hit .570 in his high school career and went completely undrafted and unscouted. Without the money to go to college, Huber went across the border to Mexico, trying to find work to help his family the only way he knew how – playing baseball. He was signed by the first team he tried out for, the San Luis Potosi Jardineros. After ten years in Mexico, including three championships and an MVP award, Huber received the call he had been waiting for all of his life. It was from Billy Adams, the head scout for the Bakersfield Bears. Adams told Huber the Bears were going to take him in the inaugural draft, and wanted to know how much it would take to sign him.
“I assumed they didn’t know about my catching,” Huber said. “I told Billy they were making a mistake.”
“I thought he was holding out,” Adams told me over the phone. “I asked him if he wanted a chance to play in the new and improved majors, and he told me-”
“Not at that price,” Huber grinned. “I thought I was going to get to camp and have them throw a fit over my style and they’d kick me off the team and I’d be stranded in California. Best false assumption of my life.”
Adams thought Huber was negotiating. So he upped his offer – which he now realizes he hadn’t even told Huber about. “I told him he would be our starting catcher on Opening Day and would take home nine million for the season. After the year was over we could talk when he’d had a chance to see if the majors were the place he wanted to be.”
Huber says he politely accepted the offer, hung up, and threw the telephone out of his apartment window in a fit of glee. The lefty packed up his things, scrawled a resignation letter to his manager on a napkin, and drove out to the ballpark to give it to the clubhouse manager. He then hit the gas and didn’t let up until he arrived in Mila Doce. There he loaded up his family and then headed straight for Bakersfield.
“We were going to send a rental car down to pick him up. In a week or two,” Adams recalled. “I did not expect to receive a call from the GM two days after I talked to Huber, asking why a crazy man with a left-handed catchers mitt was in his office, asking for nine million dollars.”
After Huber’s abrupt introduction to the Bears franchise, he settled down to life in the majors and became a member of the inaugural class of PEBA all-stars. His departure from the franchise was not as humorous. When his contract expired at the end of the year, Bakersfield made it known they had no interest in resigning the “novelty” catcher, as he was dubbed by the Bakersfield Californian. To Huber’s frustration, twenty-three other teams agreed with them. With no offers from any PEBA team, Huber was forced to return to the ABSF for the 2008 season.
This year, Huber posted the best numbers of his career: .339/.460/.634, and earned his first ABSF all-star trophy. “I was an all-star before,” Huber noted. “I think they felt they had to give me something because I’m all famous now.”
Will Huber’s 2008 be enough to allow PEBA fans to once again witness a once-in-a-lifetime player? Huber hopes so. But if not, he says he’s open to playing anywhere. “I’ll stay here in Mexico, I’ll do whatever. Japan would be cool.”
Left Behind
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John
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Damn you for beating me to the punch!Bears wrote:i'm obviously biased.
but this is the best written, most realistic, best thought out article in peba history.
I actually wrote Tyler earlier to express just this sentiment.One thing I've discovered during our time together is that each of you has a particular skill when it comes to writing. The Bears specialize in humorous characterization. The Calzones write the most realistic game recaps. So on and so forth. West Virginia's specialty is narrative stories, and that's just awesome because we don't get as much of that as a rule. But it's all these different specialties that everyone brings to the table that make this whole thing so much fun. Every new article is guaranteed to be a totally different (and totally enjoyable) experience depending on who wrote it.
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Tyler
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John
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Coal Sox wrote:Oh, and Bakersfield, I did a search of old articles to see what you'd written about Huber in the past to make sure I didn't violate canon. Huber can cook a mean deviled egg and liked to take advantage of Cobb in his weaker moments. Hopefully this story meshes with that personality.
for building on what's come before! 
