Daily Log of a Fresh-faced Graduate
April 29, 2013

The plan was to take Interstate 10 straight through from Tempe to Palm Springs – maybe four hours worth.  But when we get together the next morning, I make a pitch to Don-o that I want to take a detour at Quartzite that will run us down south into Yuma again and includes a few side-roads.  I tell him I want to do this because this path will take us past something called the Salton Sea and lead us into places with names like Bombay Beach, Mecca and Coachella.

“Aw-right,” Don-o says, “but only if we stop and catch the Bulldozers–Borealis game tonight.”

I’m fine with that even though it means it shifts everything in our rigidly planned schedule out a day and I might therefore miss one of the three Duluth games we had planned when we get to Aurora.  Stopping for the game also means we won’t get to the salty lake or Mecca until tomorrow, but I look at my overcooked omelet swimming in its salsa and sour cream and I think it’s worth it.

The truth is that I’m feeling a little pukey now.  We’ve been running for three weeks, seen nine ballparks (if you count Candlestick) and more miles of long highway that stretch to the horizon than I ever thought existed.  Today, I find myself worn down from a long night with the masseuse club, hung-over from a long night with tequila bottles and some unknown medicinal booster in the girls’ incense that, for all I know, could be not a damned thing or could be a carcinogen of the first class.  I could be dying here this morning before Don-o’s very own eyes.  So, yeah, I’m worn out and shaky and on edge for all that and maybe also because all I can really remember of the night before is that the girl I was with was Mexican and that she offered me a job cleaning up her massage parlor when she graduated.

You could say I want to get off the interstate.  I’m glad for the short trip because, right now, I’m just so tired of looking that far forward.  So we follow the Bulldozers now instead of the Knights.

We get to sit in a half-filled John Deere Stadium under an arid nighttime sky and watch something that might be termed a miracle – a 3-1 Bulldozer victory that features an 8+-inning sting by Orlando Ruíz.

“He don’t look like too much,” I said after three innings, “but it’s just one of those nights.”

Don-o shoved the last of a big pretzel into his mouth and mumbled.  “Life is all about those nights.”

Ruíz is a waiver-wire pickup who had some buzz as he made his way through the Liga Dominicana de Béisbol Invernal and the Bakersfield organization.  He struggled in a trial run last year, and that made him available.  Truth is, he’s probably a back-end kind of guy because none of his three pitches are much to report on – but in Yuma, a back-end of the rotation kinda guy can seem pretty special.  And this is one of those nights.  He gets a two-run shot of support from Denny Parkinson and makes it stand up.