She unlocked it and handed it to me. I sent Scarlet a text telling her to pay Mr. O’Malley.
◊◊◊
I had just finished stretching when a jeep pulled up, and a crusty-looking old man wearing a Cardinals jacket got out. Coach Haskins walked out to greet him. It was apparent they knew each other.
Coach Haskins led him to me as they talked. When we met, my teammates somehow found they had nothing to do and gathered behind me.
“David, I would like you to meet Joseph Riggs, a longtime scout, and most recently with the Cardinals’ organization.”
“Shall we get started?” Joe asked.
“Can we hang on just a moment? Lucas Kite, from the Cubs, is joining us,” I said.
“I didn’t realize that anyone else would be here,” Joe said, acting peeved.
“Did you expect him to put all his eggs in one basket?” Moose asked. “He wants to find out if baseball is in the cards. I think you would agree that David should do what’s best for him and his family, not what’s best for you and the Cardinals.”
Joe had the good grace to look a little embarrassed. He mumbled something about being caught off guard. It wasn’t as if I would be a hidden gem that he could take credit for uncovering. After all, I had made the USA’s Under-18 team and won the MVP honors at the Pan American Games last summer.
I was impressed when the Cubs contingent rolled up in a stretch limo. I shook my head when five men got out of the car. Lucas led the way and made the introductions.
“Joe,” Lucas said to acknowledge his competitor. Then he turned to me. “David Dawson, I would like you to meet Theodore Rosenstein, President of Baseball Operations. Next is Jace MacCallum, Senior Vice President of Player Development and Amateur Scouting.
“Finally, this is Nevaeh Jefferson, a pitching prospect, and Kaptain Samuel, his catcher. They play for our Triple-A affiliate and have volunteered to throw some batting practice. Could you point them to where they can get changed?”
The Cubs had pulled out the big guns for this tryout. It made me a little nervous to be in the presence of Mr. Rosenstein. He was the architect who pulled together the first Cubs World Series in way too many seasons. When it came to baseball management, he was the equivalent of Babe Ruth for Chicago Cubs fans.
I began to relax when Joe and Lucas started by checking my measurables; this was familiar, the same old drill. I was six-four and a quarter and weighed 209 pounds. I’d lost nearly fifteen pounds due to the training regimen Joey had me on.
Baseball measurements were similar to those they made for football, with slight variations.
The first drill they had me do was the sixty-yard dash. In football, it was forty yards. Before it started, Jeff asked Lucas and Joe to explain what each drill measured.
“David will get into an athletic base-running stance. Timing will start on his first movement,” Lucas explained.
“What are you looking for? And what’s considered good?” Jeff asked.
“We want to see how fast he is and find out if he’s quicker at the start or finish of the run. That knowledge will help us train a player so they can lower their time. We’re looking for a time of seven seconds or better. An average player in the league will run between 6.7 and 6.9 seconds,” Joe explained.
I stepped up to the line as my teammates began to yell encouragement. I glanced around and spotted Joey looking nervous. During Team USA tryouts, I’d clocked a time of 6.37, second best among the players. One of the kids had run a 6.28.
I relaxed and remembered what my speed coach had taught me about running fast. I took a couple of deep breaths as I dug my cleats into the turf so I would get a good start.
“When you’re ready,” Lucas said.
I noticed that not only the scouts had stopwatches out. It seemed the Cubs’ brass wanted to time this themselves. No pressure, right? I shook my hands out to help release some of my nervous energy and focused on the task at hand. I blocked everything out as I dropped into the zone. Once I was ready, I exploded into the run and concentrated on my form. In a blink of an eye, it was over.
“I have 6.32,” Joe announced.
“6.33,” Lucas said.
“That’s fast, right?” Jeff asked.
The scouts and back-office people laughed.
“That’s more than fast,” Mr. MacCallum confirmed.
They ran me through two other timed drills that included the shuttle run to time how quickly I could change direction, and my home-to-first-base time. That was where I hit a pitch and then ran to first. They were looking for fast times because speed put pressure on the defense.
They asked me to do the broad jump to test my lower body strength and explosiveness. Other activities included grip strength, exit velocity—clocking a baseball that I hit off a batting tee—and arm velocity. They then got serious and sent me to the outfield and hit balls to me to see how I moved in the field.
Finally, it was time for the Cubs’ pitcher to come in so they could see how I fared against him. Once he had warmed up, Lucas called me to the batter’s box.
