Life in the Minors
funny thing happened on the way to dinner this past week. Pitching no longer at
bottom of bathroomOn the road, post-game dinners are a ritual for the Dubois County Dragons coaching staff. It's amazing how dinner and conversation at a local restaurant can set the mind straight after one of our 42 road games throughout the Frontier League schedule.
This particular evening our manager, Greg Tagert, had his sights set on dining at Thirsty Dog, a micro-brewery/restaurant in Canton, Ohio, that had become one of his favorite stops during his eight years as a minor-league skipper.
Soon after arriving there, we discovered that the kitchen had closed for the evening. A slow night brought an early shutdown for the grill portion of the bar and grill.
So we were off again, packed into the Tagert family's Honda Odyssey mini-van, fresh off a cross-country trip from Northern California, searching for a decent place to eat in Canton.
After a few minutes of wandering aimlessly through the home of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, we settled on TGI Fridays. The plan was to dash in and out. Order, eat, of course pay, and head back to Thirsty Dog, where Tagert could get a drink of one of the home brews. That in itself was surreal in its own right, since our fearless leader drinks about once a year.
Once inside "Fridays," we were quickly seated at a circular table near the kitchen. Seeing that it was about 10:45 at night and near closing time, we kinda figured service would be quick. We just kind of hoped that they would at least defrost the food before they slapped it on our plates.
So as we found humor in the fact that half of the dishes we were trying to order were out for the day, as each member of the kitchen staff kinda gave us the stink eye for dropping in so close to quitting time, we made our way through our orders -- all the while checking our watches to make sure we had time to return to Thirsty Dog.
After getting my order for seafood pasta in, I made my way to the restroom to wash up a bit ... and use the facilities. Cleaning my work area a bit before I went ahead and sat down in my office, I went ahead and checked my phone for messages, thought out the availability of our relief pitchers for the next day and just contemplated life in general. You know, I had the time, so why not?
Right about when I wrapped-up my little "work" session, as I tried to unlock the bathroom stall door, I realized that the pin on the slide had busted off. I was locked in.
So I laughed. Hey what else could I do? There I was, stuck in the men's restroom in an empty TGI Fridays. A few men walked in to answer nature's call as I continued to laugh. I'm sure they were wondering what in the heck some guy was laughing at on the other side of the stall door. Too embarrassed to ask for help, I tried to solve my problem on my own.
First I tried to shake the door to get the bolt to slide open. Bad idea. Then I tried to use a variety of items to fit into the hole left by the broken slide handle to push the lock open. First it was my cell phone antenna ... no luck. Then it was a rolled-up stick of toilet paper ... it ripped. Then it was a wet rolled-up stick of toilet paper -- which I wet with my saliva ... not even close. Next up was, well, my finger ... no dice.
So after exhausting my limited mechanical skills, I decided I had two choices. Over or under. Well, of course, the over was a lot more attractive alternative. It was, well, cleaner than sliding on my chest under the door, which was located about four inches from a urinal. Once I figured that the over consisted of a six-inch opening, I had to rule it out. I hadn't eaten yet, but there was no way my behind was going to fit.
So under became the only viable choice. With about 12 inches of crawl space, I figured I could squeeze through. But with the "urinal misfires and rebounds" taking up a lot of the floor space, I knew my work was cut out for me.
Right about then I laughed again, as I wiped the perspiration from my forehead from all the thinking I had to do after a game, and I leaned up against the stall door and reflected upon our season thus far.
Our recent run of wins had me in a pleasant mood of late. After getting off to a 5-11 mark, good for the basement of the West Division, we had finally put things together. We had won eight of our last 10 contests to bolt back into the race, three games back of the River City Rascals.
Our pitching, which caused many sleepless nights for the team's pitching coach early in the season, had come together as well. Over the 10-game stretch, which included six road games against East Division squads, Dragon pitchers lowered our team ERA about two points, and made the jump from 11th to third-best among league teams.
Getting back to the matter at hand, I briefly considered the last-gasp, desperation solution of just kinda banging the door down -- movie style. But after figuring that my feeble coach's salary would not be able to pay the bill for a new door, I started to plan my final escape.
So I laid out a trail of toilet paper on the ground that would lead me out of my prison. A great idea until I realized that all the paper was doing was attracting all the "urinal misfires" to my path, as the TP soaked up all of the liquid on the floor. Hoping and praying that no one would walk in on me in my moment of desperation, I made my move. With my hands supporting my weight and keeping my clothes clean all at once, I shimmied out looking like one of the extras from those movies in which the trainees are crawling under the barbed wire through the mud.
Well, I made it. And after about 10 minutes of scrubbing my hands with about a gallon of hand soap and scorching water, I finally returned to dinner.
Those in the restaurant -- our manager, hitting coach Andy Haines, radio broadcaster Keith Gerhart and even the couple sitting at the table behind us -- got a huge kick out of the story.
I hope they fixed that door.