As the Charleston Statesmen prepared to board a flight en route to London for their upcoming three-game tilt, a 23-year old man waited with the rest of the team. He didn’t seem to have many friends yet – and PEBA insiders are wondering how a team with veterans like Conan McCullough are going to react to the “Beast from Brazil,” a young centerfielder by the name of Odilon Infinita.

Infinita – last year’s minor league player of the year from Charleston – was called up to the bigs in preparation for an important three-game road series against the London Underground. With starting center fielder Larry Smith out with a strained oblique – possibly for a month – Infinita will be serving back-up duty with the Statesmen and will get a trial-by-fire against what might be the best team in baseball in this short 2018 season. He fared well against AAA pitching – a .317 BA and a staggering .346 against left handed pitching – in 60 at-bats in Raleigh. (Only one of London’s pitchers in the three-game series is a lefty, Ángel Luján.)

But the book on Infinita is that with his prodigious talent comes an even more prodigious temper.

“If people are not going to do things the right way, I am going to say something,” Infinita said.

But there’s a difference between saying something, Raleigh insiders say, and getting in the face of fellow players. Infinita, is, to put it bluntly, a screamer. People have been generally glad to see Infinita go. Southern Cal was glad to see him go, Columbia was glad to see him go, Rockville was glad to see him go and now Raleigh is glad to see him go. Through his history in baseball, Infinita has proved himself as a very volatile player.

“I don’t know how he can even function,” an unnamed Raleigh player said. “This is baseball. You just can’t blow up when something goes wrong.”

“That guy is just always pissed-off about something,” another player said.

Charleston manager Aric Kinast did not seem too worried. “I kind of like those kind of players, you know, red asses. I’d rather have someone who cares than someone who doesn’t.”

Infinita goes a little bit beyond just caring. During an end-of-the-season party in Columbia, when the food was catered by local restaurants and bakeries, Infinita considered the food a little sub-par. Even though he wasn’t playing for the food, he wrote a letter to the restaurant that provided the soup in which he expressed his displeasure. “We are not sub-par human beings,” Infinita wrote, “so why are you sending us sub-par soup?”

If there are to be any more complaints, Infinita will be hard pressed to find them. This is Charleston, with a lush park, lush ownership, and a generally relaxed, Southern way of living. The food will not be sub par. His fellow players are among the best in the country. But rest assured, for if past practice is any indication, Infinita will find something to complain about.