Veteran Clubhouse Presence by Pat the Bat: Retirement Package (Parts 2 and Possibly Even 3-Way)
by Wet Luzinski on Feb 2, 2012 2:18 AM EST
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Editor's note: Completely unsolicited this time, TGP received our old familiar digital recorder via FedEx yesterday, along with two pieces of paper: an invoice and a cease-and-desist order on all future installments of Veteran Clubhouse Presence(TM) if said invoice was not paid by the end of February. TGP has since started negotiations with SB Nation as well as Pat's representatives, Mike and The Guy, for serial rights. Not all details are worked out, but they permitted us to transcribe the following, as well as provide The Complete Set of Links to previous episodes of Veteran Clubhouse Presence, below.
The transcript follows.
YO, nerdos and nerditas, and blogarogadingdongs everywhere, it's me, your old pal Pat. First, let me unzip a little here on your website and just note that my wonder boy agentarinos, Mike and the Guy, just pointed out to me a couple of things, and I gotta be honest, they piss me off:
One: I do you little asswipes a favor, try to give you a glimpse, a taste of what life with The Bat is like, and while at least you got the transcript part right, goddamnit, some of your comments are really mean - you really didn't think I'd get a job last year? I'm a machine, true, but I got feelings. Damn. And a dog who's increasingly incontinent. I could send you losers worse than this packet with a recorder in it.
Two: My boys say that they noticed that you've got some ads on that site, real thriving businesses too, like Blockbuster and laptop computer companies and Head & Shoulders and whatever else you dorks need to keep up your sorry appearances and nurse your light beers through the night before you go home alone and take care of your business.
So, Three, and Listen Real Careful Here: They drew up some papers, said sign them Pat, teach these pricks a lesson, plus you gotta start thinking now that your financial picture is changing. Jam them up with a C&D or have them pay you. They said you guys are part of some big consortium or some shit, but they peeked at the financials, said that there's money there, so you wusses have to talk to them and then we'll get into a three-way negotiation and figure some way to get you paid, Pat. I said I liked both of those ideas in concept. Put some numbers on a piece of paper and I'll do my thing on that recorder thingy they sent me, and lay them out. So you're warned before you listen to any more of me, clickheads.
[If I didn't make it perfectly clear, there's more after the jump, blogarogadingdong.]
They are Truly and Well-Hung Up
My guess is you want to know why and how I decided to hang them up. It's my foot, buttwipes, you know that. You really need two of them to play baseball, so don't bother with your queer little statistical analysis any more than that. But you want my personal details, so let me give it to you all flashback-Pat-the-Bat style:
A visit to the podiatrist/ sports med guy/ surgeon - the same old, same old with Kelli, his smoking hot nurse assistant - she knows how I tent up when she gets that paper patient gown on me and takes my vitals. And we've got this little sexy banter - oh, it's all real discreet - about how I hate cold stethoscopes, and then I diagnose her as needing a dose of Pat the Bat, and. whoa. Enough there. Anyways, Dr. Sawbones, who's none the wiser to us over these last few years, comes in 10 minutes after we finish up and shows me the images and the bone spur. The options are limited. I look at the scars on my foot already and think how long it took to rehab, for a spot on a bench to get yanked around like I did in 2010 for the league minimum and for what? I look at my rings. Enough baseball. In a very strange way, somehow I feel relief and like I've outgrown it. I leave the place feeling about ten pounds lighter and with a coupla new scrips for PKs.
Bringing It All Back Home
More flashback: Later that afternoon, I have a long boozy talk with Mike and the Guy Over Drinks at a Strip Club - where we call up the Bouche and the Beaner - some options get discussed and my cell phone gets passed around, meetings get set up for tomorrow. Bouche I think mentioned college coaching. We laugh for a good ten minutes about that one, though the boys have to work on me a while to get me out of the ol' Hurricane Road Trip Memory Chamber and refocused. Beaner and I ping-pong a few concepts, no commitment Pat, but I can put in a good word with the owners. Somethin' like: It Gets Better Ambassador. I counter with "Clubhouse Looseinator." We escalate from there until threats are exchanged and I slip up and tell him the just-about ex-missus doesn't know about the doctor today- and so Beaner trumps with: I'll give you 24 hours to tell the Drill Sergeant, or I'll snitch and do it myself. Then you call me. Goddamnit, I say, you're not hot enough to be all up in my short hairs, gimme a week, just let me get back to Scottsdale this weekend, let me pack up the house, make some arrangements. I'll be in Tampa one week from today. Call you from there. OK, a week, he agrees. Click.
So I hosted a private Sausage Party in Scottsdale - basically a long weekend of strip clubs and ping/beer pong back in the basement with Wilson, Rowand (he actually cooked these awesome sausages), and Huff, during which Pineapple joined the fun from Vegas. When the fluffer got a load of the mess we left by Monday at lunchtime, I had to dig deep, turn on the Brown Eyes(TM), and say I'm sorry, and after some extremely loud negotiations we wound up with a much lovelier horizontal view of the mountains in the late afternoon from the bedroom windows. I'll really miss her, I mean those - mountains. Screw it [laughs]. I peel a coupla grands' worth of c-notes, tell her to find a cleanup crew and keep the rest, my foot is killing me, and I had a flight to catch to Tampa. Buh-bye.
Back In Tampa: Spin Cycle
I hung around most of the day schmoozing and ogling the hot new trainers at the cycling studio Grampy and I paid for before the Drill Sergeant found time in her busy schedule to call me into her office around four. I told her about the decision, then -- on cue -- I get a forty minute lecture about did you talk to this person, did you talk to that person, did you ever get rid of those drunken idiot agents of yours like I told you to, did you read anything about the MLB pension, did you talk to the player reps, Jeezus even Victorino seems to have a grip about money, my lawyer says this, my lawyer says that, you know I could take you for millions Pat, millions, and no jury would convict, and did you sell the condo in Philly - goddamnit Pat you're not a kid anymore, baseball's not writing any more fat checks, you wanna spend the rest of your life with losers like Bowa at memorabilia shows?
She was angry, raging, walking around me like a bad cop in an interrogation as I just sat there. But she was in her workout clothes, having just come from a class. And eventually she stopped. And I started.
It's a rocky detente we have, but we've always been good at that. I left her sleeping on the couch, with a note thanking her for getting me straight, I'll work on those things, I'll call her, Love Pat. l head back to the airport to begin the next phase in my new, buh-bye-coastal married lifestyle. A flight back to San Fran. The place is like an old hemp shirt to me these last two years. I don't think I'll ever leave now. I text Huff to meet up at the Tipsy Pig to unwind and get vodkarific. We rage.
Propers: The Calls Roll In
Word gets out from my little house party that I'm retiring. The cell phone is thong-th-thon-thon-thonging from there the next day. Werth. Glanville (I know, rite?). Michaels. Manuel. Wade. Amaro.
And Utley. Jeez, that guy. If there were a competition for guys that just suck on the phone, Uts would be the WFC - part dead-air cowboy, part scolding, pompous high priest of animals. Swear to God, here's how it goes, goddamn every time too, I'll give you the playback basically word-for-word, no joke:
Uts: Yo Pat, it's Uts.
Me: Yo Uts, what's shakin'?
Uts: Heard you're retiring. Wanna wish you well.
Me: Thanks Chase. Thanks for the call. Means a lot. It was crazy fun. How's Jen?
[pause. I hear him breathe a few times.]
Uts: Good. Say, she and I want to know how Elvis is doing. Last time you called you were bitching about him crapping all over. Did you change his diet like I told you?
[pause]
Uts: Goddammit Pat! Jeezus, listen. Stop pouring booze in his water dish for laughs, and Elvis can't digest chocolate like we can, either. And did you read that article about bulldogs I sent you? Pat, you gotta take good care of dogs like that, they fall apart unless you do, Pat, and if you can't man up and express his anal glands like I showed you, take him to an effing vet for once. He's only gonna get stinkier if you don't, and...
[pause]
Uts: Listen. Eff it Pat, I just wanted to wish you all the best, man. It was an honor. But goddammit.
Me: Thanks for calling, likewise. I'll get the dog.
And like I do every time he calls, I call Elvis over and hold the phone up to his ear, and the big furry goofball comes trotting over all cockeyed, with his tongue all out, which always reminds me of when I saw Cholly jogging around Clearwater that year he was trying to lose weight on SlimFast or uppers or whatever. Anyways, this little routine we have worked out -- at least now there are no surprises when I take Elvis outside, because as soon as he hears Utley's voice he squats and pees like the whiny submissive bitch he's become over these last three years. It used to make me laugh, but now it just creeps me out, it's so pathetic. And I think he does this just to make some kind of point, but Uts always spends more time talking to my goddamn dog than to me. Always. I worry than someone's gonna see me holding my phone up to my dog's ear for more than five minutes.
I hate to admit it, but I'm wondering how many more years of this I gotta put up with.
Pat the Bat: The Dreams Live On
So late yesterday afternoon I went to my undisclosed batting cage out near Las Gatos, and sweated out another session, shirtless and just murdering the ball, with a cooler of ice, some beers and a pocketful of PKs. I took a break, and my eyes just glazed as I stare out at the billboards behind the net as the sun was going down. And bang! Just like that. All of a sudden I'm back there again. And there.
Hey - don't EVER pity me for being retired. You want to pity someone, look at the jackass in your bathroom mirror. All you blogarogadingdongs will ever know at a cage is fantasy. When I close my eyes and remember, it's all real. See, Pat had it both ways: the fantasy and the reality, and I wouldn't have changed a thing. Well, that might be a bit much, [laughs], but I made my point. And maybe it's the half-tabs of Vicodin I took to keep this goddamned foot from barking at me while I swing, I don't really give a crap, but I saw myself taking a good long ride around the dirt track at the 'Zit with the top down - the club mix blaring behind, and everybody's shirtless and beautiful, and I am throwing red and blue beads at all of your skyward-pointing nipples, bronzed and happy to see me again in the hot summer sun.
If you're a good-looking chick, I mean. Whoa! these PKs don't eff around.
Pat definitely outtahere. Lose my number, mmmkay?
***
The Veteran Clubhouse Presence Oeuvre:
Retirement Package (part 1) - Nov. 15, 2011
Word is Bondage - Nov. 1, 2010
Giants-Phillies Pennant Throwdown Pervue - Oct. 13, 2010
Bonus Ginsberg Fanboy Beat Poem Homage: BURL - August 19, 2010
Week 3 Diary: Beating the Bushes - Jun. 7, 2010
Week 2 Diary: Longer, Deeper - May 28, 2010
An Earnest Appeal to Pat the Bat - May 17, 2010
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this blog entry are purely those of the writer, who is now strangely appreciative of the time he thought he wasted about 20 years ago in a postgraduate, cliche-ridden reading binge diet of Charles Bukowski, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and Hunter S Thompson. The content and allegations contained in this piece and all those linked to hereabove are merely inspired by actual events by current or former major league baseball bats or players, one of whom is permanently ensconced in his memory, riding
smiling in your dog-
parade down the Broad Street across Philadelphia with beers
to the core of my being on a baseball night
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Sheer brilliance. The Utley phone call was amazing – and we can only imagine completely true to life.
by David S. Cohen on Feb 2, 2012 9:49 AM EST up reply actions 1 recs
So late yesterday afternoon I went to my undisclosed batting cage out near Las Gatos, and sweated out another session, shirtless and just murdering the ball, with a cooler of ice, some beers and a pocketful of PKs. I took a break, and my eyes just glazed as I stare out at the billboards behind the net as the sun was going down. And bang! Just like that. All of a sudden I’m back there again. And there.
Hey – don’t EVER pity me for being retired. You want to pity someone, look at the jackass in your bathroom mirror. All you blogarogadingdongs will ever know at a cage is fantasy. When I close my eyes and remember, it’s all real. See, Pat had it both ways: the fantasy and the reality, and I wouldn’t have changed a thing. Well, that might be a bit much, [laughs], but I made my point. And maybe it’s the half-tabs of Vicodin I took to keep this goddamned foot from barking at me while I swing, I don’t really give a crap, but I saw myself taking a good long ride around the dirt track at the ‘Zit with the top down – the club mix blaring behind, and everybody’s shirtless and beautiful, and I am throwing red and blue beads at all of your skyward-pointing nipples, bronzed and happy to see me again in the hot summer sun.
The sheer emotional reality of this passage put a slight glint of tear in my eye. reminded me of when I tore my ulner nerve and was done for good…
Hell of a piece man. Hell of a piece.
"Sometimes, the balls that fall in are jam shots"...Hunter Pence, on BABIP
At the risk of over-situating the moment,I feel like, on some level, I ought to try to elaborate on this, if only because I always want to and never find the words. Without trying to feign a kind of guttural connection to the experience of the ballplayer — which would seem trivial after Joecatz’ really touching reaction — or sounding self congratulatory at being a (small-time) part of the kind of community that produces works like this, there’s something in the creative work that’s done at TGP that is kind of remarkable. The “heart as evaluative metric for baseball players’ importance on the field” argument, to me, is particularly galling because it conflates the calculable, statistical aspect of the game with the part-nostalgic, part-neurotic, part-blisteringly-hopeful emotional pull of the game. And that conflation seems to be ultimately wrong-headed not only because it motivates poor financial decisions, but because it limits the very real appeal of the game.
While there are particular players that inspire the latter, emotional feelings more for some than others, it seems to me that we ought to memorialize the gut-check, heart-centric feelings that they inspire not through the kind of analysis that lionizes the emotional over the calculable, but rather through the kind of art that gives the emotional a moment to actually (through humor, nostalgia, philosophy, et al) stand on its own. There is a certain line of thinking that might find something potentially trivial about saying this about a blog post, or hyper-link’d poem, or epic dream screed about Domonic Brown, but it seems to me that we should work against this line of thinking as much as possible. While I value statistical analysis in a very real way, it loses its value and becomes simple economics if we do not balance it — and when I say balance, I don’t mean obscure — with work like this. This stuff is important for a comprehensive appreciation of the game.
In brief, then, thanks — not only to WL, but to the right-brained folks at TGP — from a guy who can only critique but can’t create: a beautiful game deserves beautiful prose and poesis.
by Trev223 on Feb 2, 2012 12:50 PM EST up reply actions 5 recs
heartily rec’d
It’s this type of stuff (combined obviously with the saber inclined stuff of others) that makes this site that much more meaningful to someone like me, for whom baseball is more than just a game. for me its a part of my life both personally, from an athletic point of view, as well as a generational bridge between my dad, my son, etc… When I transitioned back to the real world, I became a writer and actor for a while in my youth, then grew up and got a real job.
In some way, strangely enough, TGP has turned into a huge creative outlet for me, and I thank everyone, especially WL, whose stuff (like this) inspired me to do some of the stuff I’ve done… It’s harrd to explain, really….
Being able to surround myself with other folks who share that passion (even the ones whos sabermetric opinions I disagree with from time to time) is awesome.
"Sometimes, the balls that fall in are jam shots"...Hunter Pence, on BABIP
For those wondering...
When I found out I was “Done” it was like my world was over. I could still hit, still run, just couldn’t throw a ball without my elbow lighting on fire. And it was my arm, and my defense that had always been my strength as a player. I knew it was over for me before that, I was never gonna get much past college, but the dream was always there.
But I always felt like I was gonna go out on my terms, not someone elses. I wasn’t “ready”, if you know what I mean….
So I went out that night when the doctor told me the deal, with some of the guys and got smashed. We shot the shit, talked shop a little and one of the guys asked me if I had any regrets. I told him that I was just pissed I’d never hit a ball out of Doak. Long story short, at 2 am, we broke into the locker room, got dressed in our BP gear, grabbed a bucket of balls, and I hit till my hands blistered. Wasn’t gonna leave till I did it. I must have taken 350 swings, literally, until I watched that last, glorious meatball barely clear the LF wall.
It was, for me, literally the perfect swing. One of those loud, mettalic pings, where you just knew, at contact, that it was as good as you can do it.
we finished 2 cases on natty light before campus security showed up. One of the guys told the dude what was up (he happened to be the coaches son, so that helped a little…. and he basically told us to make sure we cleaned up after ourselves…
We watched the sun come up. then I gave my bat to my best friend, my glove to someone else, and said goodbye. Never really looked back either.
I ran into the guy I gave the mitt to about 3 years ago at a reunion. We got to talking about that night, and he asked if I had any regrets about where I ended up, and I told him I had one. If I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t have given him my damn catchers mitt. I wish I had kept it to give to my kid.
a week later low and behold, I got a package at my office. (I’d given the guy my business card to keep in touch….) there it was. my 1988 wilson A2403. Turns out he’d kept it. sent it with a note saying “Make sure Joey keeps his elbow up”.. Doug.
So theres a little piece of me for you.
"Sometimes, the balls that fall in are jam shots"...Hunter Pence, on BABIP
by Joecatz on Feb 2, 2012 2:42 PM EST up reply actions 8 recs
I’m honored by these comments, not least of which because I never played the game in an organized way – not little league, not high school – though I learned a lot coaching high school softball, can read and write a fair bit. So that I can capture or approximate the emotional reality of not being able to play anymore probably means about the same to me as a well-crafted logical smackdown or statistical post composed by the wildly talented nerdos and nerditas on this blog.
by Wet Luzinski on Feb 2, 2012 10:12 PM EST up reply actions
It stands to some reason (and I’ll let taco pal be the arbiter here) that if it’s true that statistics can reveal some aspect of baseball “truth” that clouds our emotions, our emotional attachments to the game and the players that defy their numerical values must also be true, or at least approach a kind of truth.
Yes, logic is powerful, and I heartily agree with taco pal (and, really, everybody listed at the bottom of the page and many more regular contributors) that sports coverage needs more of it, on column inches and radio waves. But the stock and trade of verse is metaphor, and they are powerful too. In the mainstream logic and metaphor only exist in snatches – for instance, Bill Lyon could write about his toilet paper, and I’d read it.
We can make some hay about the statistical quirk involving all the HRs Burrell hit against the Mets, say – and other blogs might make a nifty little slideshow! – but it doesn’t last, it has no power, unless we have that image of him giving the Mets the middle finger from the dugout. It speaks to the man, the player, his talent, and captures the time, which he lived and played through, when the Phillies went from doormat to team to beat™.
by Wet Luzinski on Feb 2, 2012 10:29 PM EST up reply actions 3 recs
Too true. This speaks to something that I’ve been wanting to write on for a while, but which a professor of mine put a bit more succinctly when he said that “statistics are a kind of synecdoche.”
from a guy who can only critique but can’t create
I thought this way for a long time. First, it’s probably not true, but give your mind time to change.
by Wet Luzinski on Feb 2, 2012 11:00 PM EST up reply actions
Hear, hear, sez I.
Statistics, when used rightly, reveal the truth, just not the whole truth. The same goes for emotions. When you have honestly presented facts and honestly presented art, there can be no contradiction between them. They converge together, like lines on a graph, the more you strive and succeed at getting either one of them right. They just get there from different angles, with different parts of their perspectives obscured on the approach.
But I am very sleepy and probably not expressing this as well as I should.
TP touched on this below, but I’d add one thing. The thing that sets a great actor, or writer, or artist apart, is truth and honesty. Coming from a place of truth in performance, or perspective, or whatever, and letting the audience see that.
Emotions are one thing, but the little pieces of truth are what take good and make it great. connection both between the author and the audience.
Statistics and sabermetrics also are rooted in truth, so it’s wuite natural, honestly, that the two can connect seemlessly.
It’s why those of you who are more rooted in the saber can’t stand a bad movie,
and it’s why those of us who are artisticly inclined gravitate towards the truth of statistical analysis.
You wouldn’t think it but the two go hand in hand.
Which is why for me, TGP gives a perspective to the sport, the team that I love, that other sites don’t.
"Sometimes, the balls that fall in are jam shots"...Hunter Pence, on BABIP
Bravo -- as usual
I still can’t decide whether its the creative pieces like this or Taco Pal’s merciless skewering of the illogical and undisciplined that makes TGP the best sports blog on earth.
Wow.
Why look'st thou so?' -"With my crossbow
I shot the Albatross."
by RememberthePhitans on Feb 2, 2012 6:55 PM EST via mobile reply actions
with teh 
/link SFW and for some the band couldn’t be more obvious
/yo bat, at the lunch everybody’s shirtless and beautiful, and we are shooting apples off each other head like William Tell; faces, pearly china white, glow with the warmth of a bronze patina shining in the golden rays of the Burmese sun.
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