Dead Man's Land Page 3

  He folded the paper and looked up to see Josh Moore, his old college pal who was interning at The Times during his last stint there, settle into the seat next to him. Josh ascended the ranks and was now the lead beat writer for the Seattle Mariners, the city’s long-suffering baseball team.

  “So, what are the odds on the Mariners being mathematically eliminated from playoff contention before Labor Day?” Cal asked.

  Josh shook his head and laughed. “Definitely good if everybody keeps going on the disabled list. I’ve never seen so many pulled hamstrings in my life. I swear I’m going to pull one while I’m walking up the dugout to do interviews during batting practice.”

  Buckman shut the door softly behind him as he took his seat at the head of the table and commenced the meeting. They discussed the mundane stories slated for the next day’s paper, which turned into a session of everyone moaning about how nothing was really happening.

  “Football season can’t get here soon enough,” Buckman said. “It’ll be nice when we can get back to focusing on the Seahawks.”

  “There’s a story idea I have that I can’t write, but I think it would be a fascinating piece if someone else had time for it,” Josh said.

  “Out with it,” Buckman said.

  “Have you guys heard about Vincente Prado, the Cuban player who recently defected and was signed by the Mariners?” Josh asked.

  Most everyone’s heads at the table bobbed.

  “Well, he’s playing with the Yakima Seafarers, the Mariners’ rookie league team this summer, and I thought a great piece would be to send somebody on a trip with the team and capture his coming to America story.”

  Buckman slapped the table. “I love it. Cal, this story has you written all over it.”

  Cal’s jaw dropped. “But—”

  Buckman held up his hand. “Look, I think living the minor league life for a week or so would do you some good, help you get that nasty taste out of your mouth after that gender equality story fell through and made me plenty of enemies.”

  Cal sighed. “So, this is a punishment?”

  “Think of it as an opportunity to grow. Besides, I’ve heard that you are a fan of Latin music. You two may have a lot in common.” Buckman slapped the table again with both hands. “Now, let’s get to work.”

  Cal fell back in his chair and looked at Josh. “Thanks a lot, pal.”

  “I didn’t know he was going to assign it to you. I’d gladly switch places with you. I think it has great potential, uncovering what life is like for Cuban baseball players, getting all the exciting details of his escape from the Communist island.”

  “Well, if you put it like that—” Cal rolled his eyes.

  “Look, I’ll send you over some background notes on Prado that I’ve gathered from my conversations with some of the team’s scouts. They seem to be really high on him, even if they didn’t pay him much.”

  “What’d they sign him for? A couple million?”

  Josh gave the thumbs down signal.

  “One million?”

  Josh continued thumbing down Cal’s guesses. “Lower.”

  “A half a million? Four hundred thousand?”

  “Think really low.”

  “A hundred thousand?”

  “Try fifty thousand.”

  Cal’s mouth fell agape. “He risked everything for fifty thousand dollars?”

  Josh nodded. “Far better than making peanuts in Cuba.”

  “Peanuts there go about as far as that signing bonus will here.”

  “But this is why I think he might be a special kid—or at the least, a special story. Who would do such a thing for a small amount of money and nothing else other than the dream of making it to the big leagues?”

  “Okay, you’ve sold me on it now. Send me what you’ve got and help me get this set up.”

  “We’ll need to hurry. The team is heading out of town for an eight-game road trip on Thursday night.”

  Cal playfully put his hands around Josh’s neck. “After all these years and you still know how to make things difficult for me.”

  A wry smile spread across Josh’s face. “As your friend, that’s my job.”

  They both exited the conference room and were walking down the hall when Buckman called out. “Cal! In my office.”

  “What’d you do this time?” Josh said as he punched Cal in the arm.

  Cal rolled his eyes. “Probably misspelled the publisher’s grandson’s name.”

  He spun and turned in the direction of Buckman’s office. Sliding into the office, he closed the door behind him. “What’s up, Buckman?”

  “I just got an email that I wanted to show you.” Buckman handed Cal a piece of paper with the email printed on it.

  Cal took it. “What’s this?”

  “It’s the real reason I want you on that bus trip.”

  Cal scanned the letter. It alleged that Prado and other Cuban players were being smuggled out of the country by a number of drug cartels. “This isn’t exactly breaking news,” he said as he handed the letter back to Buckman.

  “But I think there’s a bigger story to be told.”

  “So, assigning me to this story wasn’t something random you just pulled out of your hat?”

  “It was—but I would’ve reassigned it to you after seeing that email. This is your kind of story.”

  “So you want me to travel with the team under false pretenses?”

  Buckman shook his head. “If what’s in that email is true, I think you’ve got a tremendous opportunity. The first story is a creative idea—but this story? This is the kind that win you awards.”

  “I don’t write stories to win awards, Buckman. I just write award-winning stories.”

  “Well, how about you do both with this one?”

  “So, what do you want me to drill down on?”

  “With all the talk about trafficking, this story is about the seedy underworld of smuggling players out of Cuba and how clubs must look the other way as to how the players arrive on friendly foreign soil. It’s not pretty, but it’s a story that must be told.”

  “Nobody is going to want to talk about this. You know that, right? Because if anyone had been willing, there would’ve been a major expose by now.”

  “That’s why I want you embedded with the Seafarers for a few days. Cozy up next to Prado, see if he’ll tell you anything.”

  Cal rubbed his forehead and grimaced. “I don’t know. That just feels slimy to me. I’d rather take a more direct approach.”

  “Okay, fine. If you don’t feel comfortable doing it my way, at least go and see what you can find out. If you can’t find out anything, we’ll drop it. But if you do, I want you on this. I think this could be big.”

  “Deal. I’ll get this set up right away.”

  CHAPTER 4

  VICENTE PRADO STARED DOWN the pitcher standing just over sixty feet away on a clay mound. The Seafarers trailed the Tillamook Churners 3-2 in the bottom of the ninth with two outs, yet all they needed was a hit from Prado to win the game. A blooper to left field, a double off the wall, a line drive to the outfield, a seeing-eye single—anything. All Prado had to do was hit it where someone wasn’t.

  He watched the first pitch whiz past him for strike one.

  He’s definitely not El Gordito.

  Prado had only managed one hit in the Seafarers’ opening series. It was a swinging bunt that he beat out in the eighth inning of an 11-3 blowout loss two nights ago.

  But now, they needed him. They needed a hit, the kind of hit they hoped to get out of him when they paid him fifty thousand dollars to sign a contract. If he was ever going to play in the big leagues, he needed to start proving to everyone watching that he was capable of not only playing but succeeding at this level and beyond. No more swinging bunts.

  He stepped out of the batter’s box and looked toward his coach at third base for any signs. There weren’t any, other than “swing away.” Behind him, a sparse Thursday night crowd clapped to the rh
ythm of a digital recording of an organ.

  The pitcher rocked back and fired a fastball that dipped as it neared home plate. Prado swung hard but managed only to foul the ball straight back and into the stands.

  Desperate for a comeback win, the home crowd began chanting “Roque! Roque! Roque! Roque!”

  A faint smile flickered across Prado’s lips as he awaited the next pitch. He hated disappointing fans, especially these fans—the ones who paid far more than twelve cents to see his team play.

  He rocked on his back foot as the pitcher hurled another screaming fastball toward him. Prado uncoiled and smashed a line drive to the gap in left center. He put his head down and ran, pumping his arms and legs. He could see the crowd rising to its feet and then collectively gasp, awaiting the final outcome of the ball. He hit first base hard and looked up in time to see the Churners’ center fielder stretch out to make a diving catch for the out, ending the game.

  Prado stopped and squatted on the base path between first and second, burying his head in his hands. The moan from the crowd was torture enough. He’d let them down. He’d let his team down. He’d let himself down.

  His manager Hal Morgan, nicknamed Mudcat by his first manager in the big leagues and stuck with him ever since, shuffled over to Prado and patted him on the back.

  “Good rip, son,” Mudcat said. “Can’t win ‘em all. There’s always tomorrow.”

  But there wasn’t always tomorrow. His dream felt like it was slowly turning into a nightmare. He didn’t receive enough in his signing bonus to ensure the safe passage of both Isabel and Liliana to the United States using smugglers. Instead he’d have to save—and save as much of his salary as he could. He needed at least twenty thousand. His signing bonus wasn’t much after taxes and all the other things he needed to save for. He resigned himself to the fact that it wasn’t going to happen any time soon. And if he continued to play the way he did during the team’s first seven games, he concluded it might never happen.

  Even if he wanted to, he couldn’t return home—that much he made sure of when he stole his uncle’s money with Yunel. He didn’t even know where Yunel was or what happened to him. The last time he saw Yunel, his cousin was standing on a desolate Mexican airstrip as he soared skyward in his agent’s plane.

  Prado trudged back toward the team’s dugout and stopped to sign a few autographs from admiring fans who still didn’t seem bothered by the fact that he’d been unable to produce with the game’s outcome hanging in the balance.

  He dipped into the dugout and grabbed his glove. He retreated to the locker room and started to stuff all his equipment into the bag his team had given him.

  As he was putting his cleats into his bag, he noticed the picture of Isabel at the bottom. He picked it up and stared at it a few minutes before kissing it.

  “Miss your family?” asked Hector Suarez, the fleet-footed center fielder from Venezuela.

  Prado nodded.

  Suarez patted him on the back. “We all do. It doesn’t get any easier, but you learn to cope. You’ll be all right.”

  Prado forced a smile and put the picture in his pocket before he finished packing.

  Mudcat sauntered up to Prado and put his arm around him.

  “Kid, there’s no use stayin’ in the mully grubs.”

  Prado looked at him and smiled. He had no idea what his manager meant, but it sounded funny to him.

  “That’s the spirit,” Mudcat said, slapping Prado on the chest. “Just put a smile on your face and move on. This is baseball, the greatest game on God’s green earth. It’s like life: You get up each day and determine that you’re going to play better than the day before. And sometimes you do—and sometimes you don’t. And when everything comes together, it’s just so sweet.”

  Prado nodded knowingly, though he struggled to understand half of what Mudcat said, much less what he meant. Despite a decent command of the English language, Prado felt it more difficult to grasp the meaning of Mudcat’s soliloquies than it was to hit a 90-mile-an-hour breaking ball.

  Mudcat waddled away, leaving Prado to wallow in his own misery, his own loneliness. Nothing his manager could say would help fill the emptiness Prado felt when he went to bed at night, wondering if he’d ever see Isabel again, wondering if he had what it took to make his dream come true. After a week of playing baseball in the United States, he felt lost.

  Prado grabbed a to-go box of food in the clubhouse and headed for the bus. He dropped his equipment bag outside the bus along with his suitcase that he’d prepared ahead of time.

  “Prado, Alvarez isn’t making the trip, so you’ve got both seats to yourself,” Fred Fuller, the team’s head of operations said before Prado climbed aboard. He patted Prado on the back. “Enjoy because it’ll probably never happen again.”

  Another week, another town. It was a rhythm he’d become accustomed to by now. Bouncing around from city to city no longer bothered him, especially since nowhere felt like home to him—not like Cuba. Even as badly as he wanted to escape the island and chase his dreams here, he still missed certain things about it. He especially missed the people. His friends and teammates. His daughter.

  He settled into a seat near the back near the Latin contingent. The Seafarers had made a few team trips locally and the bus seating was already established—coaches and personnel up front, American players in the middle, Latin players in the back. Or as Suarez explained the bus seating zones—quiet, contemplative, loud.

  Prado slumped into his seat and pulled the picture of Isabel out of his pocket, rubbing his finger over her face. It wasn’t the same as doing it in real life, but it would have to suffice for now. He closed his eyes and recalled her dancing around the living room of Liliana’s house. Even though he felt like he’d made the worst decision of his life and he might never see her again, the mere thought of her shaking her little bottom to Timba rhythms made him smile.

  His happy thoughts were interrupted by an unfamiliar voice.

  “Excuse me,” said the man. “Is this seat taken?”

  Prado shook his head and gestured toward the seat. “Please.”

  The man stuck his hand out. “Cal Murphy, sports writer for The Times in Seattle.”

  “Vicente Prado,” he answered. “Mucho gusto.”

  Cal smiled back at him. “Mucho gusto.”

  Mudcat stomped up the steps of the bus and grabbed the microphone. “Okay, gentlemen. It’s off to Boise. Get some good sleep. Tomorrow’s gonna be a long day if you don’t.”

  The bus driver dimmed the cabin lights as the vehicle lurched forward.

  Suarez cranked up the volume on his phone and several of the Latin players near Prado broke out into dancing. Prado didn’t feel like dancing—not tonight anyway. He didn’t feel like much of anything, especially talking to a reporter.

  “So, where are you from?” Cal asked.

  Prado slowly turned and looked at him. “Cuba.”

  “Well, I have quite a few questions for you. Are you willing to talk about it?”

  Prado nodded. “It’s a long trip.”

  CHAPTER 5

  CAL SPENT HIS DAYS talking with people who possessed incredible athletic talent, made far more money than him, and viewed their conversations as part of an athlete’s job. A handful of the players treated talking to the media as if it were sheer drudgery. And Cal couldn’t really blame them. Most of the press corps lacked imagination, not to mention tact, acting as if the superstar athlete’s most important moment of the day was their conversation. He wouldn’t want to talk to them either if they treated him the same way.

  Instead, he learned a long time ago that the key to getting stories that no other reporter got was to build a rapport with the person. “After all,” his mentor and former editor Thurston Fink used to say, “athletes are people, too. If you treat them like people, they’ll treat you like people too—with a few exceptions.” Cal had met several of those exceptions, but he didn’t take it personally. They treated everyone like dirt.


  As the streetlights flickered past, Cal noticed the small picture Prado clutched in his hand.

  “Is that your daughter?” Cal asked.

  Prado nodded. “The pride of my life.”

  “How old is she?”

  “Two. Her name is Isabel.”

  Cal smiled. “That’s a pretty name. I’ve got a daughter not much older than her, too.”

  Prado sighed and shook his head. “Are you gone from your family much?”

  “More than I’d like to be. Is this the first time you’ve been away from her?”

  Prado nodded. “I saw her almost every day back home except when we were on a road trip, which usually wasn’t that long.”

  “Is she coming over here?”

  “Maybe, but I need to make the team—and make a lot more money, too.”

  Cal playfully punched him in the arm. “You and me both.”

  After a brief period of silence, Cal asked Prado about his host home. For several years, the Seafarers had asked local residents who wanted to host a player for a couple of months in the summer to open their homes and let the players live with them for free.

  Prado’s face lit up for a moment. “It’s nice to live with people who care about you. It makes it easier than living by yourself.”

  “What’s your host family like?”