A Round of Applause
My first experience playing overseas was in Barcelona. I was a young buck at the time. 22 years old, fresh out of college. I was never able to study abroad (baseball made that impossible) so this was also my first time living in another country. Though I was nervous, I found comfort in that I was going to be greeted by the club and its community, and they would help me throughout this ‘big’ transition. The club had set me up with a relatively inexpensive living situation. I would rent a room in an apartment walking distance to the baseball field. This apartment belonged to a mother of two young teenagers, one of which played for the club’s cadets (kids team). Another american player had previously lived there as well. Needless to say, the family was involved within the baseball community (you meet a lot of these, they’re everywhere).
Now, I don’t know how important it is to describe the mom, whom we will call Maria, but I am going to do it anyways just in case. Maria was a Catalan woman who was going into her middle ages, but not quite. She still took care of herself and was clearly conscious of keeping a nice appearance. She very much had that european mother body. In addition, Maria also possessed a certain level of sex appeal which radiated from some thickness in just the right areas. I think you understand, so I will move on.
I wish that I could tell you that I spent my time living in that apartment fucking my milf host mother, but I am definitely not that cool. There is however someone else who was pretty cool, Maria’s boyfriend at the time, Javier. I don’t remember if I was told before moving in that he was also living in the apartment, but I honestly didn’t care. Javier was a Spanish baseball legend. Though he was now mid-aged, you didn’t doubt that he was the first Spanish player to sign an MLB affiliated contract by looking at him. He had that grey haired athletic look that I pray to have two decades from now. It almost felt like an honor to sleep in the room that shared walls with him.
I don’t have very many memories of Javier (I ultimately only lived in that apartment for two months), but I will share two of the few. The first is more a compilation of events, but all very similar, almost identical even. Oftentimes at night when it was time for bed I would begin to hear some activity in the room next to mine where the grown-ups slept. It sounded like some high heart rate type of activity. Now Javier was a pitcher, so we can say he was trying to close out a ball game. Okay, so bottom of the ninth, here we go. Our man gets through the first two hitters handily. It was probably one off of the hands to shortstop, and a strike-out deep in the count. Honestly, I don’t know, but I could hear the hitters moaning as they made their way back to the dugout. With two outs now Javier is really starting to ramp it up as he feels victory in sight. I can hear him start to grunt. Strike one! He’s a veteran so he steps off the mound and takes a deep breath before firing the next pitch. Wouldn’t you know it, change-up, swinging. Strike two! At this point the crowd can feel it, you can definitely hear them. Javier passionately fires a heater in there. Strike 3, ball game! Time to hit the showers.
It wasn’t long that our sleeping quarters were separated by thin walls, but I swear this man had a 60 save season throughout that time. Eventually while stretching at practice I told a few of the guys about Javier’s late game performances and how loud it got. Everyone knew who Maria was and the qualities she possessed so they chuckled, some making jokes about it. As I continued to try and describe my regularly scheduled nightly program our team captain looked at me and said, “So you could hear the round of applause?” Like a confused 12 year old I looked at my hands and then began to applause…
Clap, clap, clap, clap, clap! (Javier wins another one!)
I look back at our captain with a genuine “ahhhh” after his poetic description. The captain then looks at Max, the American who lived there the previous year, who immediately spits out “pshh, man, that’s absolutely nothing…”
I understand that two adults have to do their thing. After all, I can only hope that I will as well in my middle age. I actually give them credit for blatantly not giving a fuck and getting after it. Throwing some headphones on didn’t bother me.
As for the second memory of my boy Javier, it was this. Towards the end of my stay with this family I came back to the apartment to find Javier a little flustered. He happened to be packing his bags to move out as well. Javier looked at me and said something along the lines of ‘I can’t with this woman anymore’. He then offered to give me a ride to the baseball field, which I quickly accepted. He dropped me off and we said our goodbyes. What did I learn from Javier?
No roar of the crowd is worth a bad contract.