Josh Bard Confession
Hi, my name is Josh Bard. I’m a Major League Baseball player and I hate my life. The odds are that you had never heard of me until this year and frankly that’s how I liked it. I spent the first 4 years of my career toiling away in obscurity as a back up catcher for the Cleveland Indians and I was happy as a clam. You see I’ve known for a long time that I was never going to sign a huge multi million dollar contract and I came to grips with this fact a long time ago. I was still living every little boy’s dream of playing professional baseball and that was good enough for me. And let’s not forget that the league minimum is nothing to sneeze at. It’s $326,000 this year. How many of you working stiffs out there make that type of bank? Plus, there are some real benefits to being a scrub. I never had to worry about the media or pressure or anything like that. I could still go out in public without being recognized and have a quiet dinner with my friends and family. Also, being a scrub offers some real advantages when chasing tail. Do you know what I did in the dugout every night while everybody else was playing? I planned my night and figured out where I was going and what places offered me the best chances of getting laid. And once the game ended I was at a club within 20 minutes. I didn’t have to worry about showering or getting ready. I actually own the only breakaway baseball uniform ever produced. I had it custom made. Once the final out was recorded I just ripped off my uniform and I was ready to roll. Also, the beauty of only playing once out of every five games is that I could get shitfaced virtually every night of the week. I could stay up until noon the next day without having to worry about being ready to play that night. So when all the starters were worrying about getting enough sleep I just ordered another round of shots for the group of college chicks in the corner. And how many chicks, especially on the road, can recognize me from a superstar like Chipper Jones to begin with? The answer is almost none and if they can tell the difference they’re probably fat and not worth sleeping with anyway. Yup, I had it good. I was making decent money, getting laid almost every night and didn’t have a care in the world. And then it all suddenly changed. I made the worst decision I’ve ever made in my life. I signed with the Boston Red Sox.
At the time the decision seemed like a no brainer. The Red Sox were offering me $25,000 more than the league minimum. Plus I was getting to move from Cleveland, Ohio to Boston, MA. The two cities are like comparing apples and oranges. Boston has more college chicks per capita than any place in the world. Cleveland has more ugly chicks than any place in the world. On the outside, Boston seemed like a back-up catchers dream. My role was going to be to replace Doug Mirabelli as Tim Wakefield’s personal catcher. Before I signed with the Sox, Jed Hoyer did ask me if I had ever caught a knuckleball pitcher before and I did what everybody does on a job interview. I lied and said I had caught one in minors. I wasn’t going to let this opportunity pass me by because I had no experience with the knuckleball. I mean how hard could it be? In hindsight I wished the Sox brass did some research on me or had at least asked me to catch Wakefield a couple times before signing me.
Anyway, my first inclination that maybe I should have thought about this move a little bit longer is when I got a FedEx package in late February from Tim Wakefield. It was a humongous catcher’s mitt. The thing looked like you could catch a basketball in it. I thought it was a practical joke and didn’t even bring it to spring training. So I showed up in Fort Myers with my normal catcher’s mitt for the first day of workouts. After all the introductions were made I got ready for my first side session with Wake. I’m not lying when I say I didn’t even get my glove on the first 20 pitches he threw. I’d never tried to catch anything remotely similar to what he was throwing. I felt like an NHL goalie just trying to knock the thing down. And as if this experience wasn’t bad enough there was a crowd of fans standing around the fence freaking out that I wasn’t doing a good job. I remember wondering who were these people? What were they doing there and why were they so freaking intense? I’d never felt as much pressure in my entire career in Cleveland as I did in my first day of spring training in Boston.
Things just proceeded to go downhill from there. I kept telling myself that I’d get better at catching Wakefield. But as spring training rolled along it wasn’t getting any better. I kept buying bigger and bigger gloves, but it didn’t help. The most disturbing part of the whole situation is that suddenly I was being mentioned on sports talk radio and in the newspaper. For the first time in my career people were saying my name and it wasn’t for good reasons. I kept hearing that I was going to cost the Red Sox the division because I couldn’t catch the knuckleball. Everything I had grown accustomed to in Cleveland was thrown out the window. I had become a spark plug for discussion. I started having nightmares about knuckleballs. Everywhere I went I saw knuckleballs. I couldn’t avoid it. I was absolutely dreading Opening Day and coming back to Boston. I just wanted to go home. I wanted to go back to Cleveland and be a nobody again.
It’s now May 3rd. We are a full month into the season and like I said at the beginning I hate my life. Last game I had four passed balls. I feel like crying every time it is Wakefield’s turn to pitch. There is nothing worse than running to the backstop after another passed ball and hearing the collective groan throughout Fenway Park with all of Red Sox Nation glaring at me. I want to hide in my locker after the game is over so I don’t have to deal with the million microphones that are shoved in my face asking why I suck. Someone told me that Tim Wakefield actually called the Weiner Winer line the other day to complain about me. I don’t know if that is true, but I can’t even look him in the eye anymore. I don’t go out at night for fear of being recognized. I’ve become a hermit. I don’t know what to say or do. If I could freaking catch the knuckleball I would, but I can’t. The good news is that the Red Sox have finally put me out of my misery. They traded me to San Diego for Doug Mirabelli. All I can say is thank god. This has been the worst year of my life. I can’t wait to get on the first plane out of Boston and never see a knuckleball again. I want my old life back. My name is Josh Bard and I want to go home.