In the Rack

Bats distributed to date: six. Equipment managers contacted: eight. Status of the field correspondent: still not entirely sure how it happened.

Pip's Original Doughnuts is a small storefront on NE Fremont. I had blown through Portland in March on the way to Arizona. This time, on the way back to Knockwood, WA, we stopped.

The chai lattes on the menu read like a jukebox — Smokey Robinson, the Emmylou, the Ginger Rogers. I picked a half-dozen doughnuts and the Ginger Rogers — ginger, Thai chili, Assam. Above the counter a sign read A DOZEN FREE BIRTHDAY DOUGHNUTS.

"Missed mine by a week," Tate said.

We sat at a small table in the adjoining room. Tate had not, in five weeks, expressed a preference for any setting I had chosen, and he did not now.

I took a sip. Lavender. Chamomile. Honey. Not the Ginger Rogers.

"Did you get what you ordered?" I asked.

"I got the black coffee I ordered."

I did not say anything about mine. I drank it.

"We've got an open day in Portland," I said. "Don't have to be to Knockwood until tomorrow."

"I might head over to the Hops while you do whatever you're doing this afternoon," Tate said. "They're in their new building."

"That's the minor league club?"

"High-A. Arizona affiliate."

"What the hell," I said. "Why don't we pitch them?"

Tate raised his eyebrows. Worked his hands. Opened his palms in a small shrug.

---

"Coach Tate," someone called out behind us as we walked the pristine grounds of the new stadium in Hillsboro, west of Portland.

Tate turned. "Tony." The man was in his mid-forties, lanyard, ballcap. They went into a handshake I cannot describe — too fast — something with the heels of the hands and then the thumbs and then a pull-back I did not catch. I logged it without understanding it.

"Tucson. '08," Tony said.

"Sounds about right."

Tony turned to me. "I'd never have made it to the Show — such as it was — without him. He turned me into a hitting pitcher."

"Easy," Tate said.

"Come on inside," Tony said, smiling. "I want to get you in front of a couple guys."

Tate, to me: "Wait here a minute."

They went through a door I couldn't see past.

The Sidewinders had been a Triple-A team in Tucson — the Arizona Copper Works affiliate — until '08, when they moved north to Reno, Nevada. Tate and Tony had both been there for the end.

I sat on a folding chair against the wall with the bats.

I had been calling Tate, in my head, by his last name for thirty-three days. Coach Tate. I had been unaware of that qualifier.

I checked my phone. My team was dead last in our Wallop league. Juan Soto — drafted second, fresh off the biggest contract in the game, supposed to carry me — was projected for thirty-four home runs in 2026. He had one so far.

I pulled up the Hops out of professional curiosity. They were 6-14, dead last in the Northwest League. Five straight losses to Eugene this week, all by at least two runs. That probably mattered to whatever was happening on the other side of the door.

Twelve minutes, according to my phone. Then the door opened and Tony came out alone.

He motioned, "Bring the bats."

We came up through the dugout onto the field. The grass had been cut into the pattern they'd cut it into for the season's home opener, and a dozen home games had been played on it.

Tate was talking to a man in a Hops windbreaker — the equipment manager — at the edge of the cut grass between the dugout and home. The hitting coach stood a few feet off, arms folded.

"Marshall Freely," Tate said. "Writes the trip up. Marshall, Dave."

Dave nodded. I nodded back.

Tate held out his hand without breaking what he'd been saying. I gave him a bat. He passed it to Dave without examining it himself. He was that sure of the wood.

Dave took it. Took a stance at the plate. Let the bat settle.

Tony was already at the pitching screen with a bucket. He came set, kicked, threw a pitch that fluttered and dropped.

Dave didn't swing. "Hey, we're testing wood, T-Bone. Not whatever that was."

Tony grinned, chuckled. Threw a straight one — batting-practice speed, belt-high, middle.

Dave drove it on a rope to right.

Tony fed him a few more. A grounder up the middle. A drive that hooked foul. A fly ball to center.

Then Tony left one up and Dave got all of it.

The sound — the one I hadn't heard since San Diego — moved across the empty seats and back. The ball cleared the left-field wall by a comfortable margin and landed somewhere behind the bullpen.

Nobody said anything for a moment.

Dave looked at the bat. Then he looked at Tate. They exchanged something I couldn't read.

"Sweet."

He handed it to the equipment manager. The EM turned it over, weighed it. "Thirty-three-and-a-half, thirty-one. We can take a couple."

"Take the lot," Tate said. "You've dropped five straight to Eugene."

Tate turned to me: "What have we got?"

"Six. Two of that size. A couple thirty-fours. A couple thirty-threes."

Dave thought about it. "Worth a try."

"We'll get them in the rack tonight," the equipment manager said.

Tony shuffled back from the mound and clapped Tate on the shoulder. "Come on, Coach, let me walk you back."

---

Tony walked us back to the gate. He embraced Tate with two sturdy pats on the back. "Got you a couple seats for today's game."

He shook my hand, "Good luck with… your stuff," and headed back inside.

I turned toward the parking lot.

"Where are you going?"

I stopped. I had been walking, without thinking, toward the wagon. After every stop, the bats came back to the wagon. I looked at my hands. There were no bats.

"First time we haven't had to put them back."

"First time," Tate said. "Game's at one-oh-five."

---

Six rows up behind the Hops dugout. The Hops took the field. National anthem, lineups, the small ceremony of a small Sunday game.

I leaned over the railing to get a look into the dugout. I could see two of ours in the rack — the grain on a Wallop bat is paler than what most teams use. Third and fourth handles in.

Tate was watching the game.

"Kid's looking for a fastball," he said, about Eugene's leadoff.

I wrote it down. The Hops won 3-1. Monday in Washington still felt a world away — but this time we had a story.

— Freely