The Rookie commentary, part 12: ‘I’m wasting my time down here’

Back on the bus, Jimmy pulls out a crayon drawing, a Morris Children original, and stares at it, no doubt missing home and his family. When the bus arrives at the team’s next destination, Jimmy, still looking rugged and tired, stretches out his pitching arm as he gets up from his bus seat before slowly grabbing his bag from underneath the bus.

His teammate, Brooks, calls Jimmy “Old Man River” and says he’s moving kind of slow. Brooks assures the old man that he has a recipe for him, which means they’re headed to a local dive bar for food and beverages. Of course.

Brooks and Jimmy are joined by another teammate who shortens the nickname to “River” and asks what it was like for Jimmy to watch Babe Ruth play baseball. Hardy-har-har, the jokes about Jimmy being old are getting old. Jimmy’s not slow on the uptick though, firing a zinger right back at the other pitcher. Then the guy starts to say something about Jimmy, essentially alluding to the fact that his whole team is talking crap about him behind his back.

Catching on, Jimmy can see that the guys think he’s there as some kind of PR stunt holding a roster spot hostage. He wants Brooks, a player he clearly trusts to at least some extent, to level with him. Brooks both dodges the question and offers a compliment.

“You’re too fast for me. That’s all I know,” Brooks says about Jimmy’s pitching.

Time in the minors is getting to Jimmy
At another ball game, Brooks hits one into the gap (this establishes that Brooks is a solid hitter and doing well in the minors) and checks in at second base as Jimmy starts to warm up in the ‘pen. Jimmy, wearing No. 15, faces the stands from his bullpen mound. He looks up to see a father helping his young son adjust the ball glove in his hand, and they’re seen talking about the game on the field. Jimmy can look at this from two directions – missing his son, Hunter, and perhaps missing out on the time he would have liked to share with his own father.

Postgame, Jimmy is in the manager’s office saying he knows the call-up to the majors is going to be Brooks. The manager is more optimistic, saying there’s been more than one call-up before. But Jimmy seems to have made up his mind. He lays it all out for skip, mentioning the pile of unpaid bills at home when he’s only making $600 a month pitching, plus the family he hasn’t seen in three months. This gives us some idea of the timeframe, by the way. After the high school baseball season in the spring, Jimmy has pretty much been pitching in the minors all summer, so this is sometime in September when major-league rosters expand for players to call-up from the minors.

To finish off his speech to the skipper, Jimmy offers up that line from his dad, the one that made him seething mad: “It’s OK to think about what you want to do until it was time to start doing what you were meant to do.”

The skipper lets Jimmy know that he’s been his best relief pitcher the past month. If that’s some kind of consolation.

He’s ready to pack it in

Jimmy then calls Lorri, resigned to the fact that he’s given it his second shot. He tells her he’s coming home, and, of course, she’s worried he got hurt again. His pride might be hurt, I suppose, but he tells his wife that it’s just time. He’ll be ready to start that new job in three weeks.

“I’m wasting my time down here,” Jimmy tells Lorri.

In a role reversal from when they discussed Jimmy giving pitching another try, Lorri is the one convincing Jimmy that he should stick it out. Or, at the very least he has to make sure he’s heading home for the right reasons. He’ll be the one that has to live with this decision. Then she poses this question, that I think a lot of us in any profession could ask ourselves when we find ourselves at a crossroads: “Do you still love it?”

Jimmy stays silent as Lorri tells him to think about it.

Thinking it over… with a brew and ball game
What better place to think than one of those local bars? Jimmy is nursing a bottle of Miller suds and eating peanuts while perched on a barstool. He looks up to the TV behind the bar and sees the ABC piece that was done on him (the one that annoyed his teammates), introduced by the real-life Charles Gibson.

Jimmy watches the story, hears the voiceover of his story, about him being too old for the minors but still throwing the ball hard. He says the game has been the true love of his life (other than his wife) since he was a little boy.

Back home in Texas, we see the mouthy Wack watching the story with his family. A random shot to remind us we’re not completely done with the high-school players.

Watching this story is the first part for Jimmy that gets him thinking about his passion for the game. Apparently, this bar was within walking distance of a youth baseball field, because Jimmy steps outside and sees the stadium lights and hears the sounds of a game happening.

He walks over to the outfield side of the field, resting his arms on top of the chain-link fence. A new half inning is about to commence, and the centerfielder, probably 10 or 11 years old, notices Jimmy and gives him a brief wave. Jimmy raises his pointer finger in acknowledgment and cracks a smile.

Yes, I think we’ve answered the question about Jimmy still loving baseball. 

The Rookie commentary, part 1: ‘What kind of baseball do they have? … They don’t.
The Rookie commentary, part 2: ‘There are more important things in life than baseball’

The Rookie commentary, part 3: ‘Yeah dad, bring the heat!’
The Rookie commentary, part 4: ‘You don’t have dreams, you don’t have anything’
The Rookie commentary, part 5: 'You got your shot at baseball. You got hurt.' 
The Rookie commentary, part 6: 'State! State! State!'
The Rookie commentary, part 7: 'It's your turn, coach'
The Rookie commentary, part 8: 'You just threw 98 mph'
The Rookie commentary, part 9: ‘Do you know how many guys can throw the ball 98 mph?’
The Rookie commentary, part 10: 'What are we telling him if you don't try now?'
The Rookie commentary, part 11: 'I'm the old guy'