Playing Through the Pain , livre ebook

Copyright 2022 Dan Good
Cover 2022 Abrams
Published in 2022 by Abrams Press, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2021949393
ISBN: 978-1-4197-5363-3
eISBN: 978-1-64700-256-5
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CONTENTS
Introduction
Chapter 1: Batman
Chapter 2: The Valley of Heart s Delight
Chapter 3: (Not So) Big Man on Campus
Chapter 4: College Try
Chapter 5: Red, White, and Blue
Chapter 6: Bus Rides and Empty Ballparks
Chapter 7: Houston, We Have Liftoff
Chapter 8: Down
Chapter 9: Winter Ball
Chapter 10: Job Security
Chapter 11: Feel the Heat
Chapter 12: Fresh Faces
Chapter 13: Long Road
Chapter 14: Earthquake
Chapter 15: Strike, You re Out
Chapter 16: New Beginnings
Chapter 17: Getting a Boost
Chapter 18: Legend
Chapter 19: Planes, Sprains, and Automobiles
Chapter 20: TG
Chapter 21: Capture the Flag
Chapter 22: Falling Down
Chapter 23: Moving On
Chapter 24: Warning Signs
Chapter 25: Old Dog
Chapter 26: Lost and Found
Chapter 27: The Truth Will Set You Free
Chapter 28: Relapse
Chapter 29: Greatest Day
Chapter 30: The End
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Note on Sources
Index of Searchable Terms
INTRODUCTION
Ken Caminiti s world was falling apart, again, but he was in New York City trying to make things right.
The veteran third baseman spent his career waiting for this moment-he d endured so many lost years on bad teams in worse uniforms. He was finally playing for a winner, the 1998 National League champion San Diego Padres. Going into the World Series. Four wins away from baseball glory.
But there was a problem. Those four wins would have to come against baseball s most successful franchise-the New York Yankees-in its most successful year. The Yankees steamrolled the American League in 1998, winning 121 games during the regular season and playoffs. No team had ever won that many games in a season.
But minutes before the start of Game 1, Ken s mind wasn t on the Yankees, or the lost seasons, or that night s pitcher, or his hitting approach. He was dealing with other problems. Ken was back to using drugs and surrounding himself with the wrong people, leaving his marriage frayed and fueling an endless cycle of disappointment and frustration and shame.
* * *
Ken shouldn t have been playing.
His legs were failing him but that never stopped him before, and this was the World Series, dammit. Bruce Bochy-the legendary skipper managing in his first World Series, who adored Ken like a son-wrote his name on the lineup card, as usual. What other options did he have? A hobbled Ken Caminiti meant more to the Padres at third base in reputation alone than a healthy George Arias or Andy Sheets (no offense meant to either, but they weren t badass former MVPs whose scowls intimidated fellow players). There was always the hope that Ken would rise to the occasion, just like he had in Monterrey, Mexico, two years earlier when he got food poisoning and took IV fluid and ate a Snickers bar and, barely able to stand upright, still smacked two home runs. He wobbled as he rounded the bases that day, his accomplishments burnished into legend. Or weeks before the World Series, in the playoffs against the Atlanta Braves, when he slugged a tenth-inning home run to put the Padres one step closer to the Fall Classic.
History was not on San Diego s side. The Padres had reached the World Series once before but lost. The Yankees, meanwhile, had won twenty-three world championships on the strength of players like Ruth and Gehrig and DiMaggio and Mantle and Berra. One more title would tie the Yankees for the most championships in North American professional sports.
On paper, Yankees versus Padres in 1998 made David versus Goliath look like an even matchup. As if the challenge wasn t difficult enough for San Diego, the World Series was opening in Yankee Stadium, a concrete-and-steel cathedral that had experienced more winning than a two-headed coin.
The night of Game 1, October 17, 1998, was crisp and clear, 56 degrees-fans brought long-sleeve shirts and 60-grit-sandpaper personalities. The 4 and D subway lines shuttled the sardines decked in navy and white to 161st Street. The unfortunate souls who chose to wear San Diego gear could expect to face death threats and Fuck-the-Pad-res chants. It wasn t personal. It was the Yankees.
Red, white, and blue bunting covered the stadium s edges, a patriotic touch for the extra-special occasions such as the 1998 World Series-the capstone to one of major league baseball s magical seasons, when a home run chase between sluggers Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa enthralled the nation. The two men went on a summer-long testosterone tour, smacking dingers at a prodigious rate. Few questioned the home run display, and those who did were brushed aside. We were blinded by power. We were back in love with baseball.
* * *
The drive from Yankee Stadium to the Bronx s Hunts Point section takes less than fifteen minutes if traffic is thin.
The direct route takes you east on 161st Street, underneath the elevated subway platforms, swerving around pesky double-parkers. The route twists and turns, and you follow it. Along the way, the rust and graffiti and decay become more prevalent. Duck under a highway overpass, and then you reach the 1200 block of Seneca Avenue.
If heroes are made at Yankee Stadium, people are overlooked on Seneca Avenue. A man sits on a stoop, scanning the passing cars. Children play in the shadows of surveillance cameras, throwing matchbox cars at birds. An apartment building is wedged in the middle of the block, identified by a stucco sign on the front: the ruth ap t.
On a different October day not far removed from his World Series appearance playing in the House That Ruth Built, Ken Caminiti spent his final moments here.
He could have been anywhere else.
CHAPTER 1
BATMAN
Kenny was always trying to fly.
That s what he was doing on the stairs at two and a half years old-he thought he was Batman, the caped crime-fighting crusader played on TV by Adam West. Instead of flying, Kenny tumbled down the stairs, 30 pounds of energy and dreams and rug burns. Come to think of it, Batman never actually could fly.
Given Kenny s aerial and athletic pursuits, Cordoy Lane was just about the perfect place for him to grow up. The street-part of the Cambrian Park neighborhood in southern San Jose, California-was developed in phases, starting with Kenny s section in the 1960s, then growing to include a perpendicular addition so it resembled a curved L shape. The curve at the intersection of those two ends made an ideal spot for pickup games.
The neighborhood was surrounded by plum orchards and open fields and rock quarries, and given the proximity of schools-more than a dozen within two miles-you could usually find a baseball, football, or basketball game in progress by hopping on your bike and riding around for a few minutes. With so many young families, kids voices served as a neighborhood soundtrack. The neighborhood and houses and street and schools and sports fields were all new, a reflection of San Jose s growth. It was a nice middle-class upbringing, in contrast to the city s overlooked minority and lower-income neighborhoods and the ritzy town of Los Gatos a few blocks south.
Kenny s family lived at 5129 Cordoy Lane, a split-level home with a garage and four bedrooms. Their house had a swimming pool in the backyard. Families living nearby would become the Caminitis friends. The Rosses. The Weedens. The Costantinis and Noriegas. Steve Rienhart lived across the street from the Caminitis and was Kenny s age. It was a dead-end street for a lot of years, so out in front of the houses, out in the orchard next to us or the field a few blocks away or the quarry, there was plenty of open dirt to go play in, Rienhart said.
Peggy Weeden recalled Kenny being a sweet, innocent, inquisitive boy. When he was five or six years old, before the neighborhood was fully developed, the Weedens had the last house, and beyond their house was a large field that filled up with water whenever it rained. There were frogs there. Kenny was fascinated with the frogs, and kept pointing out, Look, there s a double-decker and another, and another , not realizing they were mating, Peggy Weeden said.
Chris Camilli s family lived one street over on Elrose Avenue. If I went outside my front door and I threw a tennis ball over two houses and bounced it on the street, I could probably one-hop it to his house, Camilli said.
Chris and Ken normally got grouped together because of their names-strong, powerful Italian surnames starting with Cami-. The curly-haired, soft-spoken Chris came from a sports family. His grandfather Dolph played twelve seasons of major league baseball during the 1930s and 40s, hitting 239 career home runs and winning a Most Valuable Player award, while his uncle Doug caught one of Sandy Koufax s no-hitters for the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Chris and Ken would spend hours playing traditional sports and inventing their own games, like seeing who could hit a rock with a bat the farthest. Ping! Ping! They d play until someone hit a house- Ping! -or they got into trouble, and that would be the end of it, until they came up with something else to do. Kenny wasn t one to stay indoors. He was a restless kid, Camilli