If I Never Got Hurt Last Year...

It's done. There's nothing I can do about it. These are the two phrases I tell myself every morning that I wake up not with my team in New York but with a minor league franchise based out of Nashville. I got hurt a year ago. My surgery was 385 days ago. Physically, I'm fine. Mentally, I just can't get over myself. I've been a starting pitcher since Little League. Heck, in 1980 I threw my first no-hitter, all 6 innings of it (I hit a home run too). Relief pitchers can't throw no-hitters. Relief pitchers put out fires other people started, usually starting pitchers (like I used to be). Relief pitchers wait, warm up, sit down, warm up, sit down, get angry with their manager, then shower and never get in the game. Relief pitchers get frustrated and have to have incredible egos and incredible self-confidence. If I never got hurt last year, I wouldn't have to think about this. But I did get hurt. And now I'm a relief pitcher. There's nothing I can do about it.

I'm not a control freak, or never was before. But I think I'm becoming one. Is that possible? To change later in life from a colorful, flexible fellow to a colorful control freak? I guess so. It's happening to me. Just like that injury. It is what it is, as someone recently said.

I don't like to sulk. It generally doesn't get me anywhere. I spent about 180 of the last 385 days sulking and all it did was get me fat and help me notice the bald spot growing on my forehead. Valuable lesson learned. If I'd never gotten hurt last year, I'd never know sulking was bad.

Relief pitchers can't sulk. They have to be ready every day to play, kind of like outfielders, only more in charge than outfielders, who just stand around waiting for something to happen to them. Relief pitchers make things happen. Pitchers make things happen. I've always been a pitcher. Always tried to make things happen - good things. Maybe I've always been a control freak and didn't know it.

Imagine if you spent your whole life doing something, then something happens and you can't do that thing anymore. Like breathing. Imagine if you could breathe your whole life, then you suddenly can't. It stinks. Horrible metaphor, but that's how I felt while sulking. I couldn't breathe. I thank my lucky stars, I thank God, Yahweh, Buddha, Reagan - I thank who or whatever it is/was that taught me to breathe again. Now I'm breathing one inning a day, one day at a time. I'm used to 7 innings every fifth day. So if I can get around the possibility that I could conceivably pitch 7 innings in a week (one per day - stay with me), I'm therefore pitching just as much as I ever did before. I'm just spreading it out.

It's like if you put a big hamburger on your plate. You want to eat it. And there's a lot of it. Now put that same hamburger, cut up, onto 25 plates. It's not as effective, in terms of presentation to one's hunger palette, as one big burger on one plate. I used to eat one big burger every fifth day. Now I'm eating White Castle every day.

There's more. If I never got hurt last year, I wouldn't have spent as much time with my family last year as I did. Which makes this time, right now, even harder. You get used to things. I was used to a life on the road before the injury. Then I got used to life at home. Yes I was sulking, but I was doing it in the presence of my wife and daughters. They hated me for it, but that's their problem. Now, I'm healthy and on the road again (17 of the first 24 days of the Hounds' season are on the road - and my family isn't even staying with me in my Nashville trailer). And I'm missing my three girls (I threw my wife in there as a "girl" to make her feel better after my previous "that's their problem" statement regarding my sulking at home earlier in this paragraph. Oh, I could have deleted the statement and never had to throw in the "girl" line as an apology gift to my wife, but I didn't so sue me.) Bottom line: If I never got hurt, I never would have known how important my family is to me.

There are other things that have happened that may not have occurred. If I never got hurt last year...

• I never would have had the off season contract dispute with the team.
• The Vets wouldn't have had to fire Larry Picketts and hire Rick Churches to manage.
• I never would have gotten into heated arguments, many times publicly, with Rick Churches because he wouldn't be my manager, laid back Larry Picketts would be.
• Rick Churches would still be in the NYS (our regional sports network) broadcast booth, not managing, and my father, "Red" Scott, would still be anywhere but New York broadcasting games.

If I never got hurt last year...

• I'd already have my 300 wins. Now, as a reliever, it may take me 3 seasons to win 13 more games. Do I want to play that much longer? More important, does anybody else want me to play that much longer?
• I never would have started this blog.
• I'd still be talking to the media.
• I never would have "grown" and "matured" and would be my old, happy, ignorant, lovable self.
• I wouldn't be in as good a shape as I'm in right now.
• I wouldn't be playing in the minor leagues, on rehab assignment. I'd be in New York on a starting assignment.

If I never got hurt last year...

• My Nashville Hounds would probably have a better record than 4 and 16.
• I probably would not be a de facto owner of my Nashville Hounds, thanks to billionaire Charlie Walker.
• I never would have met Andy, my personal trainer who also serves as my security "detail" in Nashville. (He's very big. Don't mess with him.)
• I never would have been sued by the team psychologist (not psychiatrist - there's a difference), Dr. Henry Cohegans, for breaking the terms of our confidentiality agreement because I wouldn't be blogging or even going to him because I never got hurt.

If I never got hurt last year...

• I never would have had public run-ins with my father, "Red" Scott, NYS broadcaster who's mad at me for not talking to the media (him) on the record but blogging instead.
• I never would have been as fulfilled as I am right now with my life.
• I never would have been turned into a relief pitcher.

You know what? It happened. It just did. And there's nothing I can do about it except move on. No more sulking. No more regrets. I got hurt last year and now I'm better. I can't wait to prove myself again in New York.

Selling Spit On eBay

I was told it had to happen, but I just don't think about these things. I'm busy getting my work in, making my right arm not fall off at the elbow. I'm busy traveling with this minor league team, my Nashville Hounds, wondering how much longer I'll have to play in AAA. I'm busy staring into a mirror and looking at the upper right part of my head, where the hair used to be but is slowly deteriorating into something horrifying to me that the scientific community calls "male pattern baldness." My father, the dreaded "Red" Scott, is not bald. And I heard my mother's father, whom we'll call Grandpa and is the one my biology teacher in high school said mattered the most when it comes to the condition of my follicles, still had hair in his forties (he died at 50, so we'll never know how his hair would have developed or regressed). So I stare at the mirror, finger the growing presence of flesh, and watch the final dismantling of my youth, almost like the Russians taking down some nukes aimed at small towns in Iowa, towns that just, by chance, happened to have nukes aimed at Russia. These are the things I think - some say worry - about. Not the presence of my DNA up for sale, by someone else, on eBay.


During the Hounds' last homestand in Nashville, a week ago, I had the pleasure of drinking from a bottle of water, Poland Spring, I believe, on my walk from the stadium clubhouse to my trailer in the Pepsi Field parking lot. Feeling hydrated, I was looking for a garbage can to dump the bottle and small amount of remaining liquid. That's when a stranger, whom we'll call Grandpa - just kidding; this was a woman who, from the look of her, enjoyed her Southern cooking - saw me, asked for an autograph (I obliged with my adopted Southern hospitality) and said she'd throw out my bottle for me. I didn't think twice as I handed her my bottle and thanked her.

Flash forward to yesterday (Wednesday). Here we are in Omaha, about to play the Cats, when, in response to the PA guy, about 3000 fans suddenly throw their bottles of water onto the field. While batboys and team employees scurry about, picking up the plastic containers, Hounds manager Dusty Graves comes over to me, pats me on the back, and tells me I'm now officially "green." I have no idea what he's talking about.

An Omaha Cats employee - could've been a marketing person, could've been an intern, could've been their GM (one minor league employee typically performs the tasks of 5 of their big league counterparts) - comes to our dugout and asks Dusty if it would be okay for me to join him (the employee, a very tall one - skinny too) on the field to mention something about Earth Day and recycling. Dusty laughs and shrugs. "Fine with me," he said. The employee comes over, shakes my hand, and asks me to follow him. I do, happy to have heard the subject matter Dusty had just agreed I would speak about.

There's a loud ovation. "Spit King" flashes on the board. I'm oblivious. The employee asks me to turn. Then I figure it out. eBay and Poland Spring have jointly sponsored the evening's game because of me, because of the bottle of water I let a fan throw out for me. There on the scoreboard is a scanned photo of the bottle. It's part of an eBay website page. It's up for auction. The most recent bid was for $467.55. All for a piece of plastic holding a half-ounce of my backwash. There were 16 hours and 33 minutes left before bidding would close.


I turn back and am told the ballpark is sold out. There weren't 3000 fans there (3000 bottles were thrown, but not every fan elected to throw their bottle), there were nearly 8000 fans. All there for Earth Day's "Spit King" festival, sponsored by eBay and Poland Spring.

I spoke into a microphone set up at home plate. "Baseball been berry, berry good to me." The older Saturday Night Live crowd, the ones who remember Chico Escuela, the former fake ballplayer played by Garrett Morris, laugh. That's about 150 people. Meaning my remark basically brought silence to the crowd. That's a real confidence booster.

I continued. "You know, Omaha, recycling is good, right?" Some hand claps. A whistle, probably aimed at a hot groupie or another man who had more hair. "I think Omaha should always recycle, especially on Earth Day. Right?"

Were they as bored as I was, I wondered. I was happy for the preparation time I'd been given. "Omaha, I've always loved you, as you are part of the Earth, Mother Earth, my Mother Earth, the planet that raised me from a wee pup."

A few more whistles. Some more clapping. Then, it hit me. There was one reason alone why I'd been forced into this situation. But it was nothing a little supply & demand economics couldn't cure. "Omaha, Nebraska, I have an idea. After the game, let's line up and I'll drink a little bit from your bottles of water. Then we can all go on eBay and make some money. Huh? What chu think 'bout dat, Omaha!"

I had them going. "Why should one kook make all the money when 8000 of you should have the same opportunity? Am I right, Omaha? Nebraska? Tell me I'm wrong and I'll just slip into something more comfortable and go to bed."

Now the cheers were there, supporting me, letting me be the dufus I've always had the ability to be. "So sell your Poland Spring bottles on eBay. Those left over, recycle them. Let's save our Mother Earth. Because she been berry berry good to us!"

Those 8000 fans had the power and fury of at least 8250. They were that loud.

Then what happened? Well, I spent 4 hours after the game sipping from water bottles. By 2Am, I was done. When I woke up this morning - extremely tired; being a dufus always comes back to haunt me - I went on eBay and saw not one, but 679 bottles of water featuring my DNA backwash up for bidding. The original bottle? Almost at $500, but no longer climbing at the speed of sound. I considered my idea a success. The large, crazy (yet probably very smart) Southern lady wasn't going to get the amount of money she thought she'd get from me, I had some new friends in Omaha, and Mother Earth could relax for one last day. Who knew that my spit could change the world?

When Going Public Backfires

The little spat my father, Vets announcer "Red" Scott, and I have had over the past few days grew larger last night. We beat Albuquerque in the afternoon and I pitched a 1-2-3 ninth inning, probably my best outing since the return of my healthy arm. The game ended around 3:45 and we were on plane flying to Omaha by 7:00 (what were 11-hour bus rides in AAA as recently as the 1990s are now 3-hour plane flights). I got to my lousy hotel room (what were lousy hotel rooms as recently as the 1990s are still lousy, only 10 years older) by 11:30 and, as I turned on my laptop, got a text message on my cell phone: "Jimmy, I'm going to kill you."

Now before you start thinking this is going to turn into a horror movie (I guess the demented serial killer with the manual miter saw would be waiting for me inside the box spring of my bed), you should know who wrote the text. No, not a fan who lost a bet on me (I have received death threats in the past, seriously, from guys who stood to owe lots of money to bookies if I pitched well on a particular night). My father wrote the text. And he isn't really going to kill me. He's just mad.

Because...

He said some dumb, untrue things about me on a couple of NYS broadcasts. I posted some true, but possibly dumb, things about him here. The media has printed and said plenty more, which he liked at first, since he's part of the media and I refuse to speak to them. His "brothers" were going to stand beside him. That's what he thought. Because I don't speak to the media, he thought the media would automatically side with him in this dispute, whether he was right or not. Only, he's starting to get skewered just as badly as me. He's starting to look as bad as me (even though I'm definitely going bald - I can just tell - and he's still got a full head of hair). The media have turned their backs to him.

So that has angered him. But it isn't the sole reason for the horror-inducing text message. There's more.

There were two voicemails on my cellphone that I didn't mention earlier. Both were from my super agent, Jack Perry. The first:

Jack: Jimmy, call me.

The second:

Jack: Call me now.

Jack's a no-nonsense kind of guy. If he needs you to call him right away, he's most likely got a very good reason for you to do so. I decided to eat before speaking to him.

Around midnight, just as I was stuffing my mouth with a piece of toast smothered in grape jelly (the kitchen in this dive of a hotel only makes breakfast for room service starting at 11PM in the evening), my phone went off. My girls stole my phone for a little bit last week and put on a bunch of ringtones. Now, if I receive a call, some hideous Hip Hop song bleats out of the phone's tiny speaker, reminding me of when the 19 year old guys come up to bat in these incredibly (compared to as recently as the 1990s) nice AAA ballparks. Thus, I had a piece of toast (rye) halfway down my throat when I hit Talk, instantly ridding the room, my ears, and the serial killer in my box spring of the hideous Hip Hop song.

Me: (unintelligible choking sound)
Jack: You didn't call me.
Me: (more choking)
Jack: Swallow, please.

I guess you can now tell Jack has heard me answer the phone with a neck full of food before.

Me: (after swallowing, taking a drink, the liquid going down the wrong tube, coughing and then clearing my throat, then having another drink and clearing my throat again) What?
Jack: You didn't call me.
Me: Yet. I hadn't called you yet.
Jack: Don't get all tense with me.
Me: You're funny when you make jokes about the English language.
Jack: Huh?

Great agent - a super agent. Terrible sense of humor. Just ask one of his three ex-wives.

Jack: Got a call from Mrs. Delaney tonight. She owns your team.
Me: I have heard of the woman.
Jack: She wants you and your father to make nice immediately or he's going to be suspended or fired.
Me: But nothing will happen to me?
Jack: You'll feel really guilty.

So it was now up to me. Either man up and speak with the father I wasn't speaking to so we could end our public squabble, or keep up the public squabble and see him removed from office in disgrace, eventually led away from a Chevy Caprice in handcuffs, a dark raincoat draped over his embarrassed head (that is less bald than mine even though it's 33 years older than mine).

It was 2 AM on the East Coast. I couldn't call Vanessa for her thoughts. She was busy asleep, probably dreaming of men with hair. I couldn't call my shrink since I don't have one anymore as a result of his lawsuit against me for breaking the terms of our confidentiality agreement. There was only one person I could call.

The phone rang. I heard a real ringing sound, not the latest hit by Chingy. The "Hello" was spoken clearly, the voice deep and respected.

"Dad," I said, "it's me. I'm sorry."

Public squabble over.

"Red" Scott

There is nothing scarier than the fury of a parent. Even if the son is 40 years old, an angry father in his early-70s can still be like seeing the shark for the first time in Jaws.

I received a phone call this morning about my dad, "Red" Scott. "Red" is now announcing for the NY Veterans, parent club of the AAA Nashville Hounds, which I'm currently rehabbing with. In typical "Red" fashion, he threw me under a bus in last night's telecast from Chicago. Our problem stems from some misinformation "Red" gave to me in spring training, then a lie he spewed about me to reporters over the weekend. He likes to use his access to me, his son, as a way of drawing attention to himself. (Hey, I credit him for doing this and not Munchausen by Proxy.)

I called him out in my post yesterday, after protecting him for a month, for giving me the embarrassing misinformation in spring training, which I blogged about and which subsequently became a big deal due to my inaccuracies. By all turns furious with my "outrageous behavior," (his words last night), "Red" spoke on the air last night about me as if I was the devil himself. Here's part of what he said:

Red: That Jimmy... He's a piece of work. Maybe if he worked a little harder he'd be in Chicago tonight with the team instead of languishing away with his computer in Nashville.

If I had been in the booth with him, here's what I would have said:

Me: Shut up.

Our conversation would have continued like this:

Red: No, Jimmy. You've never worked as hard as I did at baseball.
Me: Maybe because I had talent.
Red: And where did you get it?
Me: Mom.
Red: Not true. Your mother can't even hold a hot dog right side up.
Me: I thought hot dogs were based on the horizontal principal of -
Red: My point is you are who you are and you are where you are today because of me.
Me: I'm not really in this booth with you. This is a fantasy.
Red: You can't even fantasize right. If I were you fantasizing right now, I'd be in Angelina Jolie's bed, not in a booth.
Me: I'm not tired.
Red: Wisenheimer.
Me: How can I be who I am if I'm nice and don't use people.
Red: All you do is use people. You're a big league ballplayer. It's in the job description. You blow your nose and somebody picks it up for you.
Me: The tissue, you mean.
Red: Huh?
Me: Paraphrasing, you said my nose, if blown, would end up on the -
Red: Why don't you just play baseball? Quit with the blogging. Quit with drawing attention to yourself. Play the game.
Me: Said the man who draws attention to himself like Michelangelo.
Red: I do it for you.
Me: You embarrassed me in front of the whole world.
Red: Did not.
Me: Did too.
Red: You deserved it.
Me: You know in court, your last phrase would mean you admitted to embarrassing me.
Red: So what?
Me: More admission of guilt.
Red: I'm going to the bathroom.
Me: Lotta good this fantasy did for me today.
Red: Yeah.

He's an upsetting man. You can't win with him. But in this case, he thinks he's got the last word. I added up how many people were exposed to his "last words" last night:

NYS Telecast: 350,000 viewers
Print Media Coverage: 1.4 million
Web Media Coverage: 6.75 million
YouTube: 679 hits (as of 4:35 EST today)

I average 647,000 hits on this blog daily. Add that to all of the numbers above, then subtract 679, and I'm ahead. If he was a better man, he'd pledge $1 to charity for every viewer on NYS who hears his reaction to this post tomorrow (the game is in progress in Chicago, so he won't get this in before it ends - burn on him). He's not a better man, nor is he rich, so the charities can keep their wallets closed. You won't see a dime from the guy.

Still, Mom always said to be better than Dad in everything - baseball, marriage, life in general. Hmm. Maybe that's where I got "it" from.

Let's revisit my broadcast booth fantasy:

Red - My point, again, is you are who you are today because of me.
Me - You forgot one thing - Mom. Well, she's not a thing. She's a person. But what I'm trying to say is I got everything from her. She made me better than you. You only served as a benchmark for me to achieve my greatness.
Red - (sitting in thought, scratching is gray hair that was never, ever red) See. I was a benchmark. Without me, you're nothing.
Me - I'm going to the bathroom.
Red - Lotta good this fantasy revisit did for you.
Me - Yeah.

Bottom line - I love you Mom. Dad, I love you too. I can't stand you, but I love you. Say what you want on the air. Try to ruin my blogdom (instead of kingdom, which he thinks I want by blogging). Try to make me in your image by talking to the press and doing all the things every other baseball player since Jesus (I hear He had an awesome splitter) has done. Try not to let me be an individual. I don't care. I am who I am. It has nothing to do with you. And it probably never will.

My Broiling Self-Inflicted Anger

Let me restate for the record (or CD, or mp3 if we're going to stay current and I'm going to feel "cool" amongst the younger crowd), I am not speaking to the press. The "press" in my case is defined as:

1. Print media
2. Online media
3. Television media
4. Radio media
5. Telepathic media

"Media" is defined as the stuff you read, watch, see, hear or sense, respectively.

In other words, if you're in the media and you want a quote from Jimmy Scott (that's me), you need to come here.

You know where you don't go? You don't go to my father, "Red" Scott, currently a TV analyst for the Vets' network, NYS (New York Sports). He's not my spokesman. Yes, he's the male reason for my birth, but since an incident in spring training, we haven't spoken.

The incident? I've purposely not alluded to it over the last month out of respect for the elder Scott's new position at NYS. I didn't want him to get off to a bad start, even though he did something to me in March that made me look foolish for a news cycle and bloggers in general look irresponsible for two to three news cycles. It also showed this man's true colors, which are self-promotion first, family second.

Back in March, "Red" told me that management was going to appoint Felipe Castro as team captain. I wrote about it, questioning the thinking on management's part while trying to support the decision, as Felipe is a great teammate who's currently going through the hell of wondering about the fate of his kidnapped mother in Venezuela every day.

For my comments, I was broiled under a hot, fiery furnace. I was criticized as someone looking to promote one's self. Hey, I never denied the fact that a scoop would be cool. I thought I had a scoop because I trusted the then unidentified source. Instead, I was lied to and caused unnecessary friction within my clubhouse for a short time.

Fast forward to today. Headlines in the NY Post and Daily News (just a note in Newsday) and North Jersey's Bergen Record state how my injury last year was self-inflicted. In a nutshell, the report states I caused the UCL in my pitching elbow to snap and ruin my 2007 season 2 pitches in on my own. Little did they realize my season was ruined 1 pitch in when Lyman Gaye hit it for a Home Run (that I believe is still traveling).

The source of this new story? "Red" Scott, my father. He says I told him in the spring that, because I was out of shape at the start of the season last year, and my overweightness (that's not a word, is it?) added undue stress to my UCL. Pop! Out for the year because I'm fat. He says I said this to him. Read the articles. He's quoting me.

Of course, my mailbox fills up in seconds on my cellphone with calls from local and national media from the 5 categories above (which is weird; the telepathic media shouldn't have to call if I can read their minds). I deleted each voicemail. My email in box filled quickly. All deleted (including, accidentally, an email with a great offer from a Nashville porn shoppe selling the best in Southern pornography [note: if you're from Nashville, you don't spell shop with two P's and an e]). Being in Albuquerque for our series against Albuquerque Sunshine, I'm a half-step further out of the loop than had I been in New York. Thus, this all came rather quickly and was a complete surprise.

So, I'm due a rebuttal and some other remarks.

JIMMY'S OFFICIAL REBUTTAL

I didn't arrive into 2007 camp out of shape. I didn't hurt myself in the first game of the year last year. By no means was my UCL damage "self-inflicted." It hurt too much to be something I'd do to myself.

What I think happened here is I told my father in the off season, while I was going through some contract issues with the team, that I was out of shape then. In November. I was fat and going bald. The baldness couldn't be helped (I'm told). The fatness could. Once our contract issues were ironed out, I worked my tuckuss off to get to spring training in good shape. I wasn't perfect, but I was damn close. Currently, I'd say I'm in the best physical shape I've been in for years. (Mentally I'm a mess, but that's neither here or there nor somewhere less fun than the aforementioned two.)

In essence, my father either misheard comments I made (that gives him an easy out) or he twisted them to make this story (I was going to describe the word "story" as "cockamamied," but I don't know how to spell "cockamamied." [spell check helped, never mind]). Either way, they are false, untrue, and not something I ever said.

END REBUTTAL HERE

"Red" and I have had our missteps over the years, but this is the first time that he's thrown me under a bus so publicly. He hurt me last month and he hurt me this weekend. I guess I'll be due again in May.

Nevertheless, I put in a call to my super agent, Jack Perry, who put in a call to ownership. "Red" is out of control and needs to put a damper on his mouth. I can't imagine a father doing somethings like these to his son, then again, it's happened to me twice now so I should get a little more creative quickly.

What does my mother think? Good question. I asked and here was her official response (media, please don't bug her, she has a good right hook):

Dear Jimmy,

I'm sorry your father behaved irrationally again. Next time you're together, I'll let you give him his medication, as much of it as you like.

Love you,
Mom

I think that about sums it up. My plan is to overdose my father into pulling a Jimi Hendrix.

So now you have all of the official statements:

1. From my dad, which was false.
2. From my mom, which gave me permission to medicate my father against his will.
3. From me, who is angry but feeling better now.

If you have any questions, don't call. I'll just delete your voicemail. That goes for you too, "Red." Don't dial the number. It won't work for you.

The Home Team

Seems like none of us can read a schedule. Vanessa came to visit Wednesday and was going to stay until Sunday. Now she's going to fly home Saturday morning because my Nashville Hounds have to fly to Albuquerque after Friday night's game. You could blame me for this scheduling screwup, since I don't really look at the schedule until the last minute, at least down here. In fact, I was in the act of being blamed when something happened.

We got a knock on the door of my trailer Thursday night after the game. It was about 11:30 and we were just about to go to bed (I like games that end in less than 3 hours, especially games in which I don't pitch). Andy, my personal trainer turned security "detail," has a special knock that he uses. I thought this was one of them. I say "thought" because I can never remember which special knock he's using. He tells me, I look him straight in the eye and tell him I'm listening, then space out thinking about chunky tomato sauce or something.

So...uh, oh yeah. Thursday night. A knock. "Maybe it's Andy," I said to Vanessa. She tells me to look out the window. I tell her I don't need to. I know his knock (even though I was extremely unsure). Thus, I open the door and...it's our (Vanessa's and mine, not Andy's and mine) two daughters, Alyssa and Grace, standing outside, shivering. I look around and don't see Andy anywhere. So much for security.

Hugs are exchanged. Squeals of delight spew out of Vanessa. I smile because I haven't seen my girls since March 30th, almost 3 weeks. We sit down and I grill them:

Me: How did you get here?
Alyssa: Plane.
Me: I mean, who arranged this trip?
Grace: Me. There's this think called the Internet.
Me: I've heard of it. Free porn, right?
Vanessa: Jimmy!
Me: How did you pay for your tickets?
Alyssa: We didn't.
Grace: You did.

Instantly, I'm lost. I did? Just as I had forgotten Vanessa was going to come by the day before, had I forgotten my two spawn were going to come by tonight? Surely, Vanessa would have told me, or reminded me.

Me: Surely, Vanessa, you would have told me or reminded me they were going to visit.
Vanessa: Yes, I would have.
Me: But you didn't.
Vanessa: Correct.
Me: (wrinkling my brow, desperately trying to figure this out)
Alyssa: It's not math, Dad. Surprise.
Me: That doesn't answer my question. How did you pay for this trip?
Grace: Ever heard of credit cards?
Me: Yes. (but said like a dufus)

Silence. Nobody finished Grace's thought. It just floated in the air above us.

Grace: What are you looking at?
Me: (looking down) Huh?
Alyssa: You gave us credit cards for Christmas. We used them to pay for our flight.
Me: (nodding and happy that the world was no longer shaped like an octagon)
Vanessa: Your father is tired and just misses you.
Me: Missed. They're right here. The missing is over.

We talked for a while. They're doing well back in their own school. I didn't like the fact that they flew by themselves from Newark to Nashville. But it was still good to be together, the whole family, the four of us, in my trailer built for two - maximum.

Me: (yawning) So where are you staying tonight?
Vanessa/Alyssa/Grace: Here.

"Here." Another word that floated in the air above us.

Grace: What are you looking at?
Me: (looking down) Here?
Vanessa: Where else?
Me: Has anybody seen how small this trailer is? Do you know who I am? I'm Jimmy Scott. Baseball star? You expect me to -
Vanessa: You can sleep in Andy's trailer.

Knock knock. "What?" I said it was me. "Who?" I said it was me. Baseball star? Andy opened his door. "You didn't use the knock." I apologized. He looked at my blanket, my toothbrush and toothpaste, the pajamas draped over my frame. "What? Did Vanessa kick you out?" I told him about my visitors. "And?" I told him about the suggested sleeping arrangements. "Fine."

Andy is a big man. He's not fat. Personal trainers aren't allowed to be fat, just like defensive ends in football aren't allowed to be skinny. Andy is just a big-boned, huge African-American man. "You ever play football back in the day?" I asked. He said no. Got in the way of his violin lessons.

His trailer, about as nice as mine, which isn't exactly paradise on wheels, shook with every step he took. He showed me a couch where I could sleep, then turned off the lights and began to sing. (Andy's a great blues singer.)

Andy: Take me, woman, to that place -
Me: Andy, you're singing.
Andy: - where you want to be. Take me, woman to-
Me: It's going on 1AM. We should probably sleep.
Andy: -that place where we're going. Oh, oh oh, oh...
Me: Do you sing yourself to sleep every night?

Silence. At least this night, he did.

The Pleasant Surprise That I Should Have Remembered

We won yesterday! My Nashville Hounds are now 3 and 11, but still only 5.5 games out of first place. While I won't be here for any championship run in August, they're still my team. These are my guys. It's like "Survivor" down here. You're constantly competing with each other to be the next winner (who gets called up to New York), yet each time somebody leaves (occasionally one of us gets cut or demoted), it's sad. We don't cry on camera, gently wiping the tears from our eyes so we don't mess our makeup. But we do feel a loss. I felt that way when Felipe Castro was called up last week, and he was only here for just under half a dozen games. I'll feel that way when I head north for good. These are my Hounds, my boys. Every one is a winner.

I sound like the host of some children's TV show. "Every one of you won today, whether you have a trophy or disgraced your family name. Good luck in life. You're going to need it."

Not sure if you sense it, but I'm a little giddy today. Not due to my performance on Wednesday. To get some good work in, I pitched both the 8th and 9th. The 8th was great. 1-2-3 inning. I needed that. The 9th, not as good. Leadoff HR and two more hits before getting out of it. 2 innings, 3 hits, 1 run. That's not good enough yet. However, the 8th is what I'll remember. I felt good and pitched well. Remember the good, forget the bad, but try to learn from it too. Complicated.

The giddiness - don't worry, I remember - was brought on by... Oh, I won't spoil it for you. But this will help you know why I'll remember the 8th more than the 9th.

I was sitting in the bullpen beginning in the 6th inning and saw somebody familiar behind home plate. I squinted and thought, "Damn, she looks familiar." Then I shook my head and tried to forget about it by spitting pistachio shells all over the place.

Just before the 8th, I was throwing warmup pitches when the familiar woman caught my eye again. I froze, just as my catcher, Einer Rosario, threw the ball back to me, hitting me square in the chest. I dropped to the ground, everyone - I mean EVERYONE - came running. But I never took my eye off the familiar woman. Because I finally realized she was my wife, Vanessa. And I was supposed to meet her before the game. Hell, I was supposed to arrange to have somebody pick her up at the airport.

Um, I forgot.

Now you know why I froze.

My chest will be fine. There's a bruise. It's sore, but only when I breathe. "Serves you right," my lovely spouse said to me after the game as I gave her a tour of the stadium (took about 3 minutes). I just smiled (without breathing). It was so great to be surprised by my wife's visit, even though it technically wasn't a surprise since she told me she was coming. I mean, she gave me all of her flight information, including arrival time. This wasn't supposed to be a surprise.

But I forgot, so, uh, SURPRISE!!

When I said, "What a fantastic surprise," to her, she wasn't sure what I was talking about for almost a full second. Then she shook her head in that You May Be 40 But You Still Need A Nanny To Look After You kind of way.

She came down because she had missed my birthday over the weekend and also wanted to see the trailer that I'm living in in the Pepsi Field parking lot. Not sure if you've seen it. Here you go:




Vanessa slept here last night. Did I mention (yes) a while back that it had two sinks? It does. And let me tell you: Two sinks in a bathroom saves a marriage.





Vanessa got to meet my protege, Rey Marcos, who is 17 but looks 16. She asked me, around 10:30 last night, if Rey was ever going to leave. I told her yes. Around 11:15, she asked me again. I understood this time and asked Rey to leave by 11:45, after Vanessa said she was going to bed. Unfortunately, my trailer only has one room.

So in order for my spousal equivalent to sleep, I had to help Rey leave through the throng of groupies outside wearing thongs.

I assume he made it home to his hotel room since I didn't get a call from his parents (who call me if they haven't heard from him in more than 5 hours) or the police.

I went to bed happy, still giddy about the surprise visit from my wife. She's flying back to Newark Airport on Sunday morning, which will give us some much needed time together and also give her a break from her stalker "friend" Connie, who is as bad as ever. More on Connie tomorrow.

But today, I'm giddy all over. It's nice to be loved, even if you can't remember that you are sometimes.

Throwing Up

I am so sick. Not the doctor's note, all day TV watching, toilet-hugging, people feeling sorry for me, oh my God he's passed out on the floor call 9-11, somebody get a lone scientist to research and find a cure before it's too late kind of sick. No, I can breathe through my nose, eat a horse and sleep all night without getting up to pee once. My problem is I'm sick of me. Here, in my trailer overlooking the Pepsi Field parking lot (and my security agent Andy's trailer), after my protege, 17 year old wunderkind Rey Marcos has left to return to his hotel room - alone - so he doesn't catch a venereal disease from some Nashville Hounds groupie, I reflect on my stay here in Nashville and feel sick.

I keep throwing up. That's my biggest problem. I keep throwing up.

The ball, that is.

The reason I'm here with the Hounds is to gain arm strength so I can pitch one inning a game 4 times a week. Oh, it would also be a help if, when I pitched, I could get batters out. My arm strength is good. I pitched three times last week and pitched Sunday and Tuesday so far this week. I'll pitch tonight, Wednesday, to satisfy the back-to-back days criteria, then pitch Friday or Saturday. There. I'm plenty strong. Take me back New York. I want to eat a horse and sleep in my own bed again.

Only...

I'm throwing up all the time. I stand on the mound, go into my windup (or motion, you choose your own word for it), and release the ball from my pitching hand. The ball should slither around in the air before landing at or below the knees of the batter.

The ball is landing in the parking lot, denting my trailer.

Because I keep throwing up.

For a pitcher, the "release point" is hugely important. Where the ball leaves the fingers makes all the difference between its dropping low or rising high. My ball keeps rising. It rises twice lately: Once when I release it and a second time when the batter hits it to Kingdom Come.

My record so far down here:

Games: 6
Innings Pitched: 4.2
Strikeouts: 1
Walks: 4
Hits: 11
Home Runs Allowed: 5
ERA: 19.28
Saves: 1
Won/Loss: 0/3

My ERA is actually 19.29 because the math equates to 19.2857142857. But I didn't want to round up after the .28. It's too depressing.

My health is fine. Really. There is no pain. I feel good in the locker room before the game. I feel good on the field before the game. I feel good sitting in the bullpen during the game. I feel even better warming up during the game. I feel good jogging out to the mound. Physically, I mean. Mentally, I feel horrible jogging out to the mound because the whole time I'm getting booed. That's stinky, to get booed. Yes, it's the minors but, man, who wants to get booed? But the jog keeps me loose and I feel great on the mound throwing my last warmup pitches.

As soon as the batter jumps into that box, I feel awful. I feel like throwing up (the puking kind here). Nerves, I tell myself. Just nerves. "You want it so badly, but just relax," a little voice says in my mind. I'm unsure whose voice it is, because mine is kind of high and whiny. This one is low and mature with a hint of debonair. I think it's George Clooney's voice. It's deep and sounds like the speaker has gray hair. Yeah, it's got to be Clooney. We've never met, but I hear he used to be a big fan. Of something. Probably not me. Because the voice doesn't relax me, I still want to throw up (the puking kind), and then I go into my motion (or windup, your choice) and let the ball leave my fingers.

BAM!!!

There it goes. Don't break a window in my trailer.

Bobby Spencer is the New York pitching coach. He called me this morning and told me he's been watching film of me. "Everything's perfect," he said. "Your windup, or motion, depending upon how you want to describe it, is a-ok. Release point is fine. I think it's your arm slot that's giving you problems."

Oh, it's my arm slot.

An arm slot is the angle your arm flies through the air to help propel a baseball out of your fingers. He thinks my arm slot is too close to overhand. "You're at about 86 degrees," Bobby said. (He's a pure techno-geek.) "You want 77."

So tonight - whoa, wait a minute. Our game today is at noon!!! Let me rephrase. Today, sometime between noon and 3:00, I will try for a 77 degree arm slot. Maybe that will keep me from throwing up (the baseball kind).

Because if I don't fix this soon, I'm going to need to hug a toilet and throw up for real. This whole rehab process is starting to make me sick.

The Union Army

If you listen closely, you can hear the drum beats coming from both sides, union and management, as our Basic Agreement comes to a close very soon. Too soon for fans. You know the story: management wants a salary cap, knows they'll never get it, so they don't ask for it anymore. But they have to ask for something. Thus, they speak of removing teams or arbitration or free agency. Maybe updating the drug policy again so the players don't get aspirin budgets anymore. Their strategy is this: The more they ask for, the better chance they'll get something. Anything, really, is what they want.


The game is going through a renaissance. Revenues are through the retractable roof. More fans came to games in 2007 than ever before, and the projection for 2008 is even better. TV revenues and ratings have grown. Money from the Internet is busting owners' pockets. Finally, the value of teams grows greater with each fan who passes through a metal detector on their way into stadiums. Yes, it's a great time to be an owner.


Yet, the union is wary of all this good news. We're like old farm animals, poked and prodded and screwed over so many times (not sure anymore if the farm animals reference is a good one anymore). There's got to be something coming, something not good (meaning bad).



Pigs


One, or you, could say that the union is just being paranoid. Maybe. But I don't think there will ever be complete trust between ownership and the union. I mentioned how we've been screwed so many times, right? It's like if a spouse cheats on another and gets caught. If the one who didn't cheat takes the cheater back, the marriage is still marred, scarred, and two steps closer to over than ever before. The trust can never completely return, no matter how long you (or one) stay together.

In the ownership/union relationship, we'll be married forever. There's no option for divorce here. They've colluded, they've made cuts in people, salaries, they've supported us as we did performance enhancing drugs, then publicly scorned us for doing so. If this were a church, they'd spend most of their time in confession.

Not that the players are exactly angels. We are the ones, after all, who actually took the performance enhancers. We are the ones who've gotten hurt so many times that certain owners have lost enough money to get out of the game entirely. A greater percentage of players have been arrested than owners. And it's not like we're exactly loyal to the people who pay us either. As soon as a guy can be a free agent, 8 times out of 10 he leaves for more money. We're not saints by any means.

Still, we know to be prepared. Howard Phillips, our esteemed head of the union for the last 25 years, has sent to us a memo stating they're going to begin keeping a portion of every paycheck we receive in an escrow fund so that, in case of lockout or strike, we'll have money to live off of. You're thinking, probably out loud, how can millionaires be afraid of not having enough money for a few months? The answer is this: We're not smart. The owners are smart. Howard Phillips is smart. Players? Bowling balls are sharper than the majority of us. We're great at throwing and hitting baseballs, but we're terrible at money management. We're terrible at self-control. We're even worse at finding someone to control us or our money. Either we don't listen to a solid money pro and screw ourselves or we trust the wrong money pro and get screwed. In other words (heads up cat burglars), there are lots of pillow cases in the homes of big league ballplayers stuffed with wads of cash.

My side on all this is a little more complicated. I am a player, obviously. Always have been. But since billionaire Charlie Walker gifted the Nashville Hounds, the Vets' AAA affiliate, to my charity, I'm technically an owner. Even more technically, I'm not an owner because the charity runs the team since I'm not allowed to play and also own a team, be it big league or minor league. However, let's put all technicalities aside. It's in my, and the charity's, best interests for the team revenues and value to rise in an inverse ratio to player salaries and costs. Thus, I'm on the player's side when it comes to the National Baseball League and the owners' side when it comes to the National Baseball Minor League. See what I mean? It's complicated.

Lots of you would prefer that I keep these problems to myself and just play some friggin' baseball. The Veterans are playing under .500 ball and the Hounds are 2 and 7. I'm no good luck charm, certainly, at this point in the season. But this is how baseball works. It's a terrible, awful cliche that 8 out of 10 free agents like to say, but here I go: Baseball is a business.

Thanks for letting me use my daily cliche. I feel liberated.

Continuing...

I'm a flag flying carrier of my union membership card. I flash it whenever I get into trouble. The union army has always been there to save my buttocks from whatever jam I got myself into. I want the army to know that I stand by them. My allegiance is to the union first, the game second - which is dumb because if there is no game, there's no point in a union. But, as I mentioned, whoever said ballplayers were smart?

I can't imagine there will be a strike or a lockout this year. Which means there will probably be a strike or a lockout this year. I hope not. But you never know. That's why it's good to be prepared. My union is going to be prepared. What about yours?

My Protege

I'm not sure if I ever gave you my line about how stalking is really just an intense form of goal-setting. But I figured out a little more. Many times the goal-setting stalker is really an opportunity for the stalkee to develop your own personal protege. I've rarely had them on the big club. The older you get as a player, the more the press makes of the fact that this player or that player has been taken under some older veteran's wing. Maybe sometimes, but in general, there is not too much wing undertaking.

A lot of younger players come up and either 1) Think their hot sh*t and don't want to listen to coaches, much less their teammates, or 2) Are so scared they don't want to ask too many questions for fear of rousing suspicion that maybe, just maybe, they don't belong in the big leagues.

Meanwhile, most older veterans are desperate to hang onto their careers. The few who want to seriously go into coaching eventually realize that, to coach, you have to be able to speak with players other than the ones who look back at you in a mirror. But otherwise, the generations stick together in the clubhouse, just like the Spanish-speaking guys stick together and the religious right guys stick together.

Down here in the minor leagues, it's not much different. The veterans down here on rehab assignments don't want to forge too many relationships because 1) They don't want to jinx themselves into thinking they'll be spending more time in the minors than they need, and 2) They're pissed off that they're in the minor leagues and can't get over themselves.

Meanwhile, the young guys are usually too shy to walk up to the veteran guys down here for a cup of coffee and ask questions. It's just like high school. The career minor leaguers are the dorks, the geeks are the guys in the minors dying to make it all the way to the top and the most popular guys are the ones who are down for a week or two rehabbing a hamstring or rotator cuff.

Since we all knew I'd be down in Nashville for up to four weeks (it's already been two, but who's counting) and then, by weirdness and unfortunate illness, I ended up indirectly owning the Nashville Hounds, I've gotten more attention from the players on this team than most guys down here temporarily do. For example, Felipe Lopez was here for 6 days and 5 games. He was called up to New York after yesterday's game (we won and are now 2 and 9, not a good way to start the season). We all knew Felipe was going to be here for a week at most. He's a shy guy anyway, plus his mother still being held against her will somewhere in Venezuela made it hard for guys to go up to him and ask if they should stand in a batters box with their feet 18 inches apart or 19.

A number of players have spoken to me and tried to ask questions, but most kind of fade away out of fear that my Hall of Fame pedigree (you know how great I am, right?) will force me to appear surly and nasty. Then there's Rey Marcose.

Rey Marcos is not the protege I expected to have stalk, I mean, follow me around constantly. For starters, he's not a pitcher. He a shortstop. Second, he's 17 years old. I turned 40 on Saturday (virtually unrecognized beyond a Happy Birthday wish on the scoreboard - I guess even the coaching staff didn't want to pull a prank on me, like leave 40 turds in my new underwear or something [disgusting, but you weren't there for my 30th]). Let me re-read. I got lost in all my () and []... Uh...okay. So, we're talking about Rey Marcos, the 17 year old wonderboy shortstop who's now my protege. Another weird thing about our relationship. He doesn't speak one word of English. Totally serious. The team has an academy and a whole bunch of systems set up so young Latino guys coming up through the minors can learn English and basic life skills, like not to spend all their money at McDonald's (that's true - some Latino American guys make it to America and only eat McDonald's for their first six months, thus they gain 15 pounds that sure as hell ain't muscle). Rey Marcos has passed through the system so fast, he hasn't had a chance to learn how to speak English. When he sits down with me, it's like I'm Robinson Crusoe and he's Friday. I'm stranded down here, he's my only friend, so it's up to me to teach him English.

There are more parallels to the Robinson Crusoe metaphor. Like how I made my home in the jungle, only the jungle in my sense is the parking lot of Pepsi Field, where the Hounds play. My trailer is like my treehouse, only there are only three steps from asphalt to entrance (I have a fear of heights, except when I'm on airplanes - go figure). Rey hangs out all the time, then leaves for his hotel room somewhere nearby. There are people we need to be afraid of, generally groupies who want to find their way into the trailer and are thwarted off by Andy, my personal trainer turned security guard who now has his own trailer right next to mine (the team made Andy pay $750 to park for the month, which, of course, I'm paying since I'm the one who asked Andy to provide security for me. And, of course, I'm not really paying the $750, since New York is paying it, knowing I needed security (and knowing they're saving $$$$ since I bought my own trailer and didn't rent a house or suite at the Hilton for the month on their dime). Thus, New York is, in effect, paying Nashville for Andy to park in the parking lot. And since I, in effect, own the Hounds, New York is, in effect, paying me. Here's how the structure of payment looks:

I got lost again using () and []. I didn't use any {} and refuse to use <>. One day, maybe I'll use a full blog of . But that's way in the future, probably when Rey Marcos is playing in New York full time.

See how I got back on track? I'm a smarty pants.

Jimmy Scott continues...

Rey hangs with me and watches me eat. He watches me not talk to the press after games (some here think I'm a bad influence on him in that capacity). He watches me blog. No, his head doesn't rest on my shoulder as I type, but he's there, lurking, eyes always watching... Spooky, huh?

But he's a good kid. I've heard him speak on the phone with his parents in the Dominican. They allegedly invited me down for dinner sometime. Funny how I've played with so many guys from other countries and never, ever been invited to their homes. Maybe it's because I never invited them to mine. I'll ask Vanessa tonight when we talk on the phone, after Rey has left and headed back through the throng of groupies to his room, alone, the way I explained in my broken Spanish he should sleep. Hey, at 17 I would have done anything to have groupies want a piece of me. But I was a junior in high school with zits on my face and a fastball that was just being found. I didn't date (any relationship I had with a girl lasted no more than 2 weeks before she/they broke up with me on account of them not liking me anymore and, possibly, never liking me in the first place). Rey could have a "date" every night if he wanted. I'm teaching him not to. I was a father at 24 (while married, I was still a little young). I don't want Rey, with his lack of English and American life skills, to be a father at 17.

So now you know about my protege. He's hitting .419 with 2 HRs and 5 stolen bases. No errors. The plan is for him to play here and get called up in September. He'll probably be up sooner. So after I'm back in New York by May 1, I may have my protege with me before the summer is over. Maybe I'll have a chance to invite my first Dominican teammate over to my house for a nice dinner.

Saved!

It finally happened. Last night, I recorded my first save in a Nashville Hounds uniform. I looked online and also saw that in my 20 years of professional baseball, this was my first save ever. I looked harder and saw that, in my 20 years of professional baseball, I have pitched out of the bullpen (regular season) a grand total of 6 times, none since 1994.

Fans will say, "Oh, he's certainly a great looking guy, maybe going bald, but he'll still be a real hottie when all we'll see on his head is skin."

You, as readers, will say, "What's the previous quote have to do with anything?"

I, as me, will say, "Helps my ego."

Back on point: Fans will also say, "He gets paid millions of dollars ($9 million guaranteed this year - I can't forget that), he should be able to do whatever they tell him."

Here's where you're right and wrong at the same time (I feel like I'm talking to my wife, the lovely Vanessa Scott). Yes, for the money they pay me, I should jump when they say "How high?" without asking any questions. Did that make sense? Let me rephrase for those of you playing the board game at home. For the wads of cash the team gives me to line my pockets made of gold, I should have the ability to pitch in the first, fifth or thirteenth innings, bunt a runner over to second base with less than two outs, or spit a macadamia nut casing up to six feet out of my mouth if they tell me to. Yes, fans, I should be able to do that.

But I can't. I'm a baseball player, and baseball players are screwy. A leadoff hitter has trouble hitting down at seventh in the order. The situations as a seventh place hitter are completely different from the situations leading off a game. Thus, the leadoff hitter freaks out and can't do it. The starting pitcher must pitch every fifth day. If you put him out there with three days rest, or six days, his mind is mud. He can't do it. The closer must come into a game with a small enough lead that he still gets the save, or the score tied. He can't come in with a 5-run lead and not give up 2 or 3. Likewise, he can't come into a game down by 10 and be expected to pitch a 1-2-3 inning. Our heads may be handsome, although in the intermediate stages of balding, but our minds are fragile, vulnerable, sensitive globs of goo. Don't ask us to do what we're not accustomed to doing. We'll fail 9 times out of 10.

So how am I adjusting to my new role as closer for a AAA minor league team when I've been a big league starting pitcher for the last 19 years? On the outside, I appear fully confident. I've said to friends (my mother's dog, Lando), family (my mother) and anyone else who's not a member of the press that "I'll do whatever it takes to help the team." I'm happy to have had the opportunity to spew the cliche out of my mouth. We all say it. We also say, "That's what we're paid to do," even though our minds are the aforementioned globs of goo when you ask us to do what we don't expect to be told to do. Like close games in AAA when you thought you'd be starting games in New York.

In other words, I'm trying to get my head around the fact that I'm being told (nobody ever asked, by the way) to pitch out of the bullpen this year. Yes, it's been almost a month since this stunning pronouncement by my favorite manager, Rick Churches. But you can't put a free man in solitary confinement and ask him to feel good about it after only 3 weeks.

I have needed help. My former shrink, Dr. Henry Cohegans, won't be my current shrink (hence the "former" attribute) because of the lawsuit he filed against me for breaking our confidentiality agreement. While we settled, he won't pick us up where we left off. So I've been searching for a replacement shrink. The big club gave me a list of local people (local to Nashville), but I need someone who can do it over the phone. I won't be in Nashville very long and don't want to develop a relationship with a new psychiatrist only to break it off after a short time. I'd think he or she would feel used.

Enter Dr. Carol Lindstrom-Oates. She's New Jersey-based and let me call her Dr. Lindstrom-Oates. A fine doctor of the mind, we had our first call yesterday:

Shrink - Tell me about yourself.
Me - I feel bad about the recession.
Shrink - It's a tough time in this economy.
Me - No, I mean my hair. It's receding.

She's a very serious doctor who's serious of doctoring. I told her of my problem dealing with my new "role" as a baseball player. Here's what she said:

Shrink - You mean they pay you all that money and you can't do it? What, are you nuts?

Dr. Carol Lindstrom-Oates is not my shrink anymore.

Meanwhile, I pitched a 1-2-3 9th last night. Maybe I simply cured myself.

Learning To Brawl

"My" team, the Nashville Hounds (mine since my charity is part-owner now and also because I'm playing for them for the time being), has gotten off to a 1 and 6 start. We're not (including me) pitching well. We're not hitting well. We're not catching the ball well. It rained on Wednesday, which let us lose in 6 innings instead of the usual nine. That gave us more time to reflect on how to get better in all facets of the game of baseball.

My job here is to build up arm strength after last season's injury so that I can - to my surprise - be a relief pitcher with the big club in New York. In this role, which I've never done before, I need to be able to pitch two days in a row and at least 4 times a week. I've already pitched on the back-to-back timeframe, only I've pitched poorly overall. It's either my body that's still learning or my head.

For my teammates, the great majority are learning how to play the game. How to recognize a pitch as it pours out of a pitcher's hand. How to position one's self with runners on base. How to shorten a swing and protect the plate with two strikes. How to properly fight if a guy on the other team deserves to have his head pounded in.

That's right. Guys in the minor leagues also need to learn how to properly involve themselves in a baseball fight. I've put together a tutorial that I'll share with you that should properly show etiquette, style and strategy when fighting in baseball.

You've seen baseball fights before. Here's a boring one from a college game:



Not much happened here. This is, actually, the proper way for a baseball brawl to work. There's an inciting incident causing two opposing players "jaw" at each other, then both benches need to "empty" so that the two players don't end up alone in a steel cage death match.

The key to a baseball brawl is to not get hurt. Another important lesson is this: Don't make a fool of yourself, like this guy:



No, the one who should be embarrassed is not the pursuer. It's the one being pursued. Always remember: Both Benches Will Empty. Reinforcements are always - ALWAYS - on the way in a baseball brawl. There's no need to run away.

But what could the pitcher have done here? There's always the drop kick. Scroll up to 2:25 in the following example to see exactly how it's done:



For the kids reading this, until you get out of Little League, the proper way to battle on the field is on one leg:



As the aggressor in a fight, you can take a few lessons from the following video. Note the foresight on the batter as he takes care of the pitcher's first line of defense before going after the pitcher.



Unfortunately, his one error in judgement here was, for a brief moment, he was surrounded without the reinforcements, most probably because his teammates were so thrown off guard by the nontraditional attack on the catcher.

I hope this lesson brings joy into your homes and properly explained how to brawl on a baseball diamond. We return home tomorrow to play Iowa, not the entire state, just the Chicago AAA affiliate. We're hoping for a peaceful game.

The Ultimate Groupie

I've only been married once. This doesn't mean I'm not married anymore. I got married on January 10, 1993 and remain wedded via holy matrimony to my spousal equivalent, Vanessa. We have the rings to prove it (not as big as my World Championship Series rings, but probably more valuable). There are lots of guys I have played with in the past, and on the current big league club, who have been divorced. Some guys have been divorced more than once; Jon Benson, for example, who's married to his third wife. I'm not judging him for being married three times. Nor am I making fun of him. I'm into the whole "people got to be free" thing, as long as nobody gets hurt. That's why I feel I have to say something about the woman who's apparently crawled out of a hole somewhere to say she has been Jon's mistress through all three marriages.

The woman is Nicole Verdetta. She's 40 and lonely and an example of the ultimate groupie. Many groupies are the one-night stand kind. They do it to say they did it. No strings attached. But there are other groupies, some like Nicole, who do it, I don't want to say to "entrap" a player, but as an investment. They'll do what the player wants in exchange for money, or material things like cars and apartments. Ms. Verdetta is this, plus more. You saw Fatal Attraction, right? That comes to mind about now.

Yes, I know her. Not well. Jon's been on the team since 2004 and I've seen her on the road, sometimes in our hotel lobby, sometimes at a restaurant with Jon. Yes, I've known Jon has been married to his current wife, Kathryn, since 2003. Like I said, I don't judge.

This is going to sound wrong of me, but I'm on Jon's side here. If Nicole has been his "girlfriend" since the 1990s, through his first, very brief marriage through his second marriage of a few years and through his current marriage of almost 5 years, she's known the deal. Jon marries, lives with his wife during the off season and with her halftime during the baseball season, and Nicole gets the occasional off season long weekend and most in-season road trips. Why she's decided to go public and, from what I heard, pose for Playboy just doesn't make sense. Maybe Jon tried to break up. Maybe she's crazy. Either way, it's not just Jon she's hurting.

We, Jon's teammates, know our deal in this: Keep our mouths shut. Maybe that's not what we should do in these cases (and Jon isn't the only guy we have to turn the other cheek toward who escorts a woman other than his wife to the hotel elevator). Maybe we should put a napkin over the phone and anonymously call the wife, "I saw your husband with another woman," then hang up. Maybe we should open an anonymous email account and send something to the wife. "Keep an eye on your husband." Maybe we should tell our wives, nudge nudge, wink wink, and let them do the dirty work. But who does that help? Us by removing our guilt?

I know of some marriages that were considered "open marriages." In these, both members of the couple were free to "date" others while the ballplayer was on the road. Suppose Jon had a deal with his wives: I marry you because I love you, but I see Nicole because she does something for me nobody else could ever do; only she's nuts so I won't marry her." (To avoid a lawsuit, let me state now Nicole Verdetta has never been accused by anyone of being "nuts." I'm sure she's a very nice, misunderstood lady.) If I had said something to his wife, it would just come back to me and Jon, very pissed, would explain how it was a) none of my business, and b) he has an arrangement so screw you!

It always comes back to the player. I've seen fights, been in arguments, when a wife or a player snitches on another player's off field recreation schedule. Vanessa once tattled on a former teammate and, man, I almost had my head beaten to a bloody pulp by the guy who she tattled on. I know better. Vanessa knows better. It's none of our business. It can't be.

Ms. Verdetta has come out and made these allegations. To Jon's credit, he hasn't denied anything. But think of the pressure he's under now. Reporters are on his back. His wife (and not just his first) must be pressuring him. Jon also has three kids. They can't be happy about this. Then there's the team. We've penciled Jon in for 12-14 wins this year. Will the stress of this public problem seep into his mind and ruin him? Will he freak out if he sees a teammate with a copy of Playboy in his locker or on the team plane?

From what I understand, Ms. Verdetta doesn't have a job. She says Jon's been paying her, basically, to be his "friend" for years. That means she has time to do publicity, promoting her Playboy layout and article, maybe get a reality show or a book deal. She wants something from Jon, didn't get it, and is now on the warpath. Most groupies aren't this vindictive. We don't know the whole story and maybe we never will. Like I said, it's none of our business.

But when it all goes public, I guess it becomes our business. Let's hope this story doesn't ruin Jon's business, in baseball, and he wins his games and the public relations battle that lies before him.

Explosions, Ejections & Majick

I had some time today before having to make it to Brickyard Park here in Oklahoma City. So I took a cab to where the "Oklahoma City Bomber" did his thing on April 19, 1995, almost exactly 13 years ago. I saw all of the footage on TV when it happened, but since this is my first time to Oklahoma City, I wanted to see for myself what's there.

The Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum is beautiful and terrible and heartbreaking and spectacular all at the same time. If you ever get down this way, or even if you don't, I recommend taking the tour and seeing for yourself what can happen when people go too far.

Which brings us to Monday night's game. Ninth inning, two men on, two men out and I'm pitching with a one-run lead. Then the crazy thing happened. I throw a 2-2 pitch and the batter makes contact (It was Marvin Majick, a pinch hitter). Before you know it, there are explosions. But it wasn't the war kind. It was fireworks. Somebody got a little switch happy and set off a full load of fireworks at the moment the ball met the bat. Needless to say, just about every soul in the ballpark was distracted. Our left fielder, Miguel Ramirez, would normally have caught what my dad, "Red" Scott, would call a "can of corn." Simple fly to left. The game should have been over.

But he missed the ball. You see, the sky was suddenly on fire.

Two runners scored by the time Miguel realized he'd missed the ball, the ball was in play, and he needed to throw the ball back to the infield. Well, his throw was far too late and we lost the game and I "blew" another save. Marvin Majick was a hero.

The story doesn't end there.

Our manager, Dusty Graves, went ballistic. You thought there were fireworks behind the outfield wall. You should have seen this. Dusty yelled and screamed. He pounded his fists. He got into the faces of ever umpire present. He kicked dirt. He lifted bases off the ground and threw them. It was a complete rampage.

We stood on the field, unsure if the game was over or not. Turns out it was. The umpires decided not to replay the final pitch, my final pitch; their decision made easier by Dusty's continuing craziness. Dusty was ejected, and a few of us wondered if it could be technically called an ejection since the game was already over.

When Dusty was "escorted" off the field by security, we followed him into the dugout and clubhouse. But just as I stepped into the on deck circle, one lone firework shot into the air. I turned to look. It was beautiful. I'd pitched poorly, our manager had humiliated himself, but looking at that one momentary glow in the air, I realized how unimportant this game can be sometimes. I thought for a moment of the victims of that terrible tragedy from 13 years ago in this city and promised myself I'd spread the word about the museum. Don't forget about the past. Those who died there deserve better.

Sock Puppet Night

Sunday was Sock Puppet Night at Pepsi Field for my Nashville Hounds. Don't ask me who thought it up, just like don't ask me why we had a Sunday night game when we had to leave right after to get to Oklahoma City for a Monday night game. Thank God we could fly since it would have taken us 10 hours by bus. The AAA level isn't as bad as it used to be - better stadiums and clubhouses, slightly better pay (although I'm on my big league contract, so I'm fine), somewhat nicer hotels. But still, we arrived at our hotel outside of Oklahoma City a little after 4:30 AM on Monday. I can't sleep on planes. I try and try, but the pressure is too much for me. Ask me to throw a strike with 2 men on and 2 men out in the bottom of the 9th in front of 55,000 fans and I can do it without sweating. Ask me to fall asleep on an airplane at two in the morning and I suffer performance anxiety. I become more wired than a an old telephone company. Plus, the excitement from attending a Sock Puppet Night kind of carries over for a few days, don't you think?

Sock Puppet Night was sponsored by Champion, which makes tube socks. In an effort to get the city of Nashville to by more socks, I guess, Champion sponsored Secret Puppet Night for fans to come out, in the seventh inning stretch, onto the field and show off their sock puppets. Some people got pretty elaborate with their designs. The winner, a woman named Pam who turned her two hands into soft, cottony replicas of Byrne Cassa, who holds the team record for home runs in a season with 39, and Jose Tomas, who once struck out five men in one inning here (true story - happened in 1969). I thought it was a little unfair that Pan won, since in her day job she has her own business hot-gluing sparkly beads onto clothes. Sock puppets are in this woman's blood. I believe her prize was a year's supply of Champion tube socks. Lucky lady.

I did not pitch over the weekend. After throwing Thursday and Friday in my first relief back-to-back days, we decided to give me two days off. My ERA is a solid 36.00, which means I've gotten off to a slow start. Still, it's only two games for me. The team is 1 and 3. We're only 1 game out of first place, so I'm not going to lambaste myself for blowing my first save opportunity which, if I had been successful, would have put us in a three-way tie for first. If a player is suicidal 4 games into the season, he's in store for a very long year.

The pleasant surprise we had on Sunday was the arrival of Felipe Castro. He missed all of spring training because of his mother's being kidnapped and held for ransom in the jungles of Venezuela. She's still there. And Felipe's here on minor league assignment in the hopes he can use baseball as a diversion. There's nothing he can do to help his mom, he was told, so someone somewhere convinced him to come to the States and try to hit a ball really far. The plan is for him to play with us for a few games (as few as possible, the big club is 2 and 3 with little offense) to get the timing on his swing back. He pinch hit on Sunday night and struck out. His face was twisted in pain when he came back to the dugout. It was obvious that his body was in Nashville but his heart and mind are in Caracas.

Most of the guys here tried to keep their distance from Felipe. Not because they didn't like him, but they didn't know what to say. Felipe is a big star here in America and an even bigger star in Latin America. I'm sure some of the Spanish-speaking players didn't want their image of Felipe tarnished by getting to know him at this time in his life.

So, since I was in the dugout and not the bullpen, I made it my job to try to infuse Felipe with a love for sock puppets. I asked him about his childhood sock puppet collection. He just looked at me. I told him the story of Juanes, the Sock King, who used to bring all the little Latino boys and girls sock puppets if they did all of the chores for madre and padre. Did Juanes the Sock King ever pay a visit to Felipe's house? He just looked at me.

A clubhouse boy, for fifty bucks, was able to get his hands on Pam's prize winning sock puppets (literally - get it? since these are sock puppets?), brought them over to me. I slipped my calloused mitts into the Cassa and Tomas replicas (quite lifelike) and put on a sock puppet show for Felipe. No performance anxiety here. It was quite graphic, in a number of different ways. I especially liked the part where Cassa and Tomas got married in a Venezuelan oil factory.

Felipe got a kick out of my show and gave me $5. I thanked him and told him I'd give the money to Pam, who did such a good job with set design.

He sat by himself, eyes closed, on the flight to Oklahoma City. I can only hope he did so with a little bit of hope in his heart, hope that he'll be okay and his mother will be found. That's all any of us can ask for.

Rowdy Rally In Nashville

I'm starting to really like my 2007 Rockwood Signature Ultra Lite 8293SS trailer(http://www.alsmotorhomes.com/show.php?id=186). It's white, 29 feet long, has two sinks in the bathroom, and in the perfect setting for me, the Pepsi Field parking lot. My commute to the stadium is about 5 minutes by foot. They say most car accidents occur within 2 miles of somebody's home. I can avoid all of that as long as I don't trip.

Our Thursday game was a bummer, since we got pounded, but the fans apparently had a great time. After the game, I showered and dressed and hung out for a few minutes talking to Mario Gutierrez, a Venezuelan who, at 26, is just about too old to get a chance to make it into the big leagues. At least that's what conventional wisdom, and he, said. I told him I was almost 40 and I was in the minors. Stop complaining. My point was to keep trying and throw conventional wisdom out the window. If you can pitch, you can pitch. Age shouldn't matter.

I left the locker room hoping I'd given him hope, although I know the baseball business. What I gave him was probably false hope.

Leaving the stadium, I saw a handful of fans who were looking at me. These weren't young kids. The most youthful was probably in his fifties. They approached me and starting giving me a Nashville Hounds history lesson. They'd been in Nashville all their lives and had followed the team, and its players, the entire time. They wanted to make sure that I understood their passion and didn't quickly turn around and sell the team to the wrong person as soon as Charlie Walker died. I told them not to worry. The plan was to hold onto it for a while. Or they could buy it on the spot for $20 million. They laughed and said Social Security doesn't pay enough.

I thought we were done, so I said goodbye and began the long 5-minute trek "home." The parking lot was full. Not with cars, but with other people who had brought their trailers. There were some like mine. There were RVs. There were station wagons with hitches and pop-up tent houses built into their trailers. There were pickup trucks with little houses in the beds. Then it hit me. This was a rally. A rally, not for the Hounds, but for me.

This was pretty cool. Somebody counted and said there were forty some-odd trailer type vehicles in the parking lots. There were about 200 people participating, everyone cooking tailgate style. There was a guy who played banjo, another the fiddle (Nashville is the country music capital of the world in case you didn't know [I didn't]). After an hour or so, they joined forces, met up with a harmonica player, and did some bluegrass standards (I'd never heard the songs, so they were new releases to me).

When I thought they'd be done, it got rowdier. People were drinking, more trailers drove in, smoke rose from grills... By 9:00, I'd be given 27 chocolate cakes. I like chocolate cake, but that's a lot for me to eat in sitting. The freezer in my Ultra Lite's kitchen is about as big as a catcher's mitt, so I had to start giving the cakes away.

I wanted to go to bed by 9:30. The party seemed to be just starting. It got a little louder, a little rowdier. It got a little younger. The mix started to turn a little sour.

At around 10:15, the first gunshot went off. By the time the police arrived 5 minutes later, about 10 shots had been fired. Whoever had the gun, or guns, was hidden well. Most people were either under their vehicles, hugging the blacktop of the parking lot, or in their trailers under the covers. It's eerie when the sounds you hear go so quickly from music and laughter to gunshots to police radios breaking through the silence.

No arrests were made, although it took the cops about 90 minutes to have every trailer, but mine, vacate the parking lot. Then they asked me for my permit to park where I was. I lied and said the team had it in their office. They told me I'd need to show it to them the next day or have to find another place to park.

By around 1AM I was in bed. To my calculations, I'd lost out on 3 1/2 hours of sleep. Not good because I had to be in the locker room this morning at 8 AM for a rehab session with the team's trainer, Russell Katz.

Woke up this morning and my head was numb; hangover numb, and I hadn't even had anything alcoholic to drink. I made it in to see Russell and thought through my haze if it was worth staying in a trailer anymore. I was getting visitors all the time, problems were arising, my sleep pattern was off. Before I knew it, it was 10:30. I'd been asleep on the trainer's table for over 2 hours. Yes, I thought, something had to be done. I had to stop this before it ruined my focus.

You could tell my focus was off when I came into the game today in the 9th, trying to protect a 2-run lead. By giving up 5 runs in my second appearance of the season, I helped us lose by three.

There was no party after the game. Just a police escort to my trailer. They'd seen the permit (it really was in the team's office) and told me it was okay to stay in the parking lot, but I needed security. It flew in late Friday night in the shape of a 300 pound African-American blues singer who can also put you through the hardest workout of your life: Andy Gambell, my former personal trainer, who would now be my personal security guard.

Don't worry. He's got his own trailer. Mine may have two sinks, but he needs four to be happy. And now I'm happy too. It's hard to be homesick when your security guard is singing the blues all night long.

Fallout On Opening Day

My post yesterday caused quite a stir, just like billionaire Charlie Walker expected. What's interesting to me is how so many news outlets came to the Pepsi Field parking lot to interview me here at my trailer. Don't they know I'm not talking to them? It's kind of hard to say, "No comment" when you're not speaking, so my shoulder-shrugging probably looks pretty stupid on camera.

Even more important is Charlie was there today to throw out the first pitch. Of course, the stadium was sold out, including standing room areas, and was packed for Charlie's arrival on the field. I didn't know 13,000 fans could make so much noise. I could tell Charlie appreciated the long ovations. I've only met him twice (yesterday and today when I caught his pitch, which was a little High & Tight), but he seems like a good man who just happened to be able to turn himself into a multi-billionaire. I wish him well and pray he feels comfortable during these last few months he's got. I told him that, when we do end up selling the team, all of the proceeds will go toward pancreatic cancer research. The twinkle in his eye made me believe that had been his hope all along.

Which brings me to the Jimmy & Vanessa Scott Foundation's sudden ownership of the AAA Nashville Hounds. I received calls from my super agent Jack Perry, Howard Phillips, the head of the players' union, Elliott Pollock, the commissioner, and my mother, three of the four telling me that there are rules forbidding active National Baseball League players from owning a franchise (Mom wants to make sure the pillow she sent was firm enough. It is.). I asked them each to look further into whether or not those rules count if the franchise is a minor league one. I can tell teams of lawyers are currently going through the basic agreement now, searching for definitive ways to halt this sale. It's all in a good cause and Jack says a lawyer told him that the sale will probably go through in the end because Charlie didn't sell the team to us, it was a gift, and also he gave it to a charitable organization, not me as an individual. As long as I'll be able to prove that I'm not on the team's payroll and not active in its management structure (I already resigned as Chairman), we should be fine. The point is to use the team as an investment to raise money for charity and one day in the future (Charlie said to wait five years; he'd know) sell it to someone or some organization that will keep it in Nashville as an asset to the local community.

I'm taking a long breath. Bear with me.

Jimmy Scott continues...

All of this brings me to the reason I'm in Nashville and not visiting Atlanta with the big club: The Hounds had its opening day game today. We got clobbered 10 to 1. I pitched a scoreless 7th inning (our manager, Dusty Graves, used 8 pitchers). There was some life in my arm, which, as I mentioned the other day, had been feeling "dead." My pitches were a little flat. My breaking ball didn't really break. A couple foul balls traveled about 500 feet as a result. But, since they were foul, I'm not supposed to be worried. Right?

Dusty told me he'll get me in tomorrow's game too, which will be my first back-to-back days of game action. I'm a little surprised because I thought they'd wait another 10 days or so before trying it out, especially after my dead arm. But since I'm pretty much completely healthy (a little head cold, thus the "pretty much" line), they want to push me a little. That and I hear our closer in NY, Billy Weston, has got some soreness again in a couple of his pitching fingers. I think they'd like me up in New York sooner rather than later, just in case.

Just in case. Sounds ominous, doesn't it?

Charlie And The Baseball Factory

Joan Delaney and the NY Veterans franchise do not own the Nashville Hounds. Their relationship is one of affiliation. The Vets signed a deal to have the Hounds be their AAA minor league affiliate through 2010. At that point, both parties may sign a new deal with each other or move along to greener pastures.

The owner of the Hounds is billionaire Charles Walker, CEO of 3D Corp., which manages the wealth of investors and the assets of a slew of other companies. "Charlie" is 77 years old and considered by Forbes to be the richest man in the world.

The richest man in the world knocked on the door of my trailer this morning.

It was early for most people, around 7:15 AM. I'd been playing National Baseball League 2008 on my X-Box (Some people listen to NPR first thing, or the Morning Zoo. I play X-Box.) when I heard the knock. My first inclination was to ignore it. Since I've parked this trailer in the parking lot of the Hounds' Pepsi Field, I've had an incredible number of visitors. I don't mind. Without Vanessa or the girls and with my homesickness, these visitations help keep my mind busy. I don't let anyone inside, however, just in case (plus, I'm a pig). I set up some lawn chairs and sit and talk. Nashville "folk" have good manners and seem to know when it's time to go, so stalkers have not been a problem so far. But a couple times, I'll admit, I've let the knocks go unheeded. Sometimes I just need a break. I think I'm a loner deep down too, something I don't realize until I'm alone, which hasn't been often since my injury one year ago yesterday (Yes, somebody brought over a cake to celebrate. Chocolate.). When I heard this morning's knock, I considered the early hour and my X-Box abilities. The knock came a second time and I felt it was one that should be answered.

There was Charlie. I can call him Charlie because that's what he asked me to call him. He can call me whatever he wants because he's a billionaire and, quite frankly, those people can do whatever they want. He called me Jimmy.

The door of my trailer faces Pepsi Field. I like that view better than of the parking lot, which is just a big slab of blacktop. Charlie and I sat in two lawn chairs and began to chat. He was drinking a cup of Dunkin' Donuts coffee. I declined his offer since I don't drink coffee and try to watch my caffeine intake (besides four small pieces of that chocolate cake yesterday). We looked out at the $128 million stadium he'd had built two years before.

Charlie - You like it?
Me - Yes.
Charlie - You want it?
Me - To have?
Charlie - I'm selling all of my worldly possessions.

This was immediately strange. Charlie looked like a 77 year old businessman, dressed in a very nice, but not overpriced, dark blue suit and red tie with swirly baseballs on it. His shoes were very shiny and looked overpriced, but I don't know shoes well and didn't think asking would be appropriate. His hair, what's left of it, was gray and combed; his teeth close to white. No, he didn't seem crazy and he didn't appear to be a Maharishi dressed for a costume party.

Me - Why are you selling everything? And what makes you think I can afford this baseball stadium?
Charlie - I've got pancreatic cancer. They gave me between two and six months to live. I don't want to die owning anything except the clothes on my back.

I was immediately shaken up. He looked as healthy as one can look who's 77 with only a little bit of gray hair. And I hadn't heard about his cancer. He told me only a handful of people knew. And he said he knew the world would find out after he came to me.

Charlie - You're getting a scoop.
Me - I'm not really happy about it.
Charlie - Neither am I.

He knew I was only going to be on his Hounds for a month at the most. I'm the most well known "Hound" he'd ever had play for him. Because he's owned the team for 40 years (The Vets have been an affiliate for two), he thought this last month would be the most special of his tenure with the club.

Charlie - The Hounds were my first big investment.
Me - What did you pay?
Charlie - $16,000. They're worth about $16 million today.
Me - I'm no math major, but you've at least doubled your investment.
Charlie - I think I've tripled it.

I laughed. Imagine the richest man in the world sitting on one of your lawn chairs, sipping coffee and shooting the breeze with you, unannounced, at 25 minutes after 7 in the morning. It was pretty cool.

He told me he has trusts and investments and properties worth something like $62 billion. "It fluctuates from time to time," he said. My next question was based upon me, since in my world, everything must revolve around me.

Me - Why are you giving me this scoop?
Charlie - I'm giving you my team.
Me - (jaw dropping open, thousands of thoughts running through my head, most cancelling each other out except the small craving for chocolate cake)
Charlie - I'm giving it to your charity. You can sell it or run it. It's up to you.
Me - (physically pushing my jaw closed and swallowing)
Charlie - How much money have you and your wife raised in your career?
Me - (after some stammering) Around $21 million.
Charlie - Where does it go?
Me - A handful of places, but mostly for cancer, autism and Alzheimer's research. We started allocating proceeds to Lyme disease research two years ago after Vanessa got it.
Charlie - What's the biggest single donation you've ever received?
Me - Adidas gave us $1 million after we won the Series in 2000.
Charlie - I'm going to at least triple it.

I'm no math whiz, but giving the Jimmy & Vanessa Scott Foundation a minor league baseball team worth at least $16 million is practically quadrupling the biggest donation we'd ever received.

Me - What do we do with it?
Charlie - Keep it. That's my recommendation. Just you playing here for a month has increased the value of it by about a million dollars. It's a brand new stadium. You've got some good people running the organization. Keep it for five years and I can almost guarantee you'll sell it for $35 million.
Me - Pretty cool.
Charlie - I know.
Me - What happens now? Do we get into your glass elevator and fly into the sky. "Look Grandpa, I can see my trailer!"

Charlie Walker has one of the greatest laughs I'll ever remember. Even knowing he's going to be dead before the summer ends, before his Hounds complete their season, he still laughed loud and strong.

He stood up, finished his coffee and handed me a folder full of papers. "This is the key to the car," he said metaphorically. I suggested he mail them to Vanessa. Knowing me, I'd spill chocolate cake crumbs all over them. Then we shook hands. "It's your team now, Jimmy." He looked at me, a deep, longing type of look. I could sense, just for that moment, a bit of remorse. Not because he didn't like me or was unhappy with his actions - I could tell he'd planned this out and thought this through completely - but because he wished he had his youth again. He wished he could have a catch with his dad again. He wished he could hold his sons one more time (they died together in a plane crash in the 1970s). He wished it all wasn't going to end in two to five months.

Then it hit me. Tomorrow's opening day.

Me - Charlie. It's my team? I own it?
Charlie - Your foundation owns it, but you're listed as Chairman, which means you run it.
Me - Then I can make decisions for it.
Charlie - Certainly.
Me - I want you to throw out the first pitch.

He smiled. I know he's not a sentimental guy; could tell just by sitting with him for twenty minutes. You don't become a billionaire 62 times over by crying every time you make a deal. He nodded and got into his limo. "Sure thing, Jimmy." And then they drove away.

Tomorrow's opening day for my Nashville Hounds. Charlie Walker is throwing out the first pitch. I'll catch it. This will be Charlie's last pitch. I'm happy to say I met the man. He's made me feel like a better one.