By Cassidy Dover: "The Trade"

Cassidy Dover is a real baseball wife.  In fact, she's the wife of The Greatest Minor League Pitcher You've Never Heard Of.  She's experienced the ups and downs of a minor league & Major League marriage for more than 10 years.  She and her husband, Ray Dover, have a young child, a small home and are not millionaires.  But they live The Baseball Life and can't imagine any other way of living.

So far.

I say "So far" because one day it will end - the career, not the marriage.  Then what?  There's no multi-million dollar nest egg to fall back on, so Ray is doing everything he can these last couple of years before time and all of its perceptions see him not get that offer to pitch one winter.  Or middle of summer.  Or post-spring training.  You see, Cassidy and Ray live on a tightrope.  They could fall to their left into The End.  Or they could fall to their right into Incredible Opportunities.  They're doing their best to lean to the right.

Cassidy is writing a weekly column for Jimmy Scott's High & Tight that you'll see here every Thursday morning.  She's a great writer and you're going to love her.  Almost as much as me.  Almost as much as Ray.

Here's "The Trade."

______________________________________________________________________

"The Trade"

By Cassidy Dover

I realize that in my introduction I misspoke.  Ray wasn’t with the Twins for 6 years.  He laughed that I said he was.

This particular season we returned to the same city as Ray had finished the season before.
We found an adorable apartment.  It was half of a house.  It had nice hardwood floors, a sitting room and a dining area.  We had one bath and a room and one half (big enough to have a closet but not big enough for a bed and a dresser).  We were getting really comfortable.  We knew the town, liked it, had a home.  I found work there and we were really settling in.  We even talked about maybe staying in the off season because I loved my job and the apartment.

There should be a rule in baseball life.  Don’t get too comfortable.  If you do, everything is about to change.

Ray was on a road trip.  It was July.  I was out golfing at a beginner’s course with a friend from work.  She had convinced me to take up golf. Ray played golf as did her husband.  We could learn, too, and then instead of being golf widows, we could do this as a “couples” thing.  Back to that day.  I was playing golf with my friend.  I’ll call her Georgia.  We were playing at a nine hole par three course.  We had turned off our cell phones.  We came off the course and headed out to dinner.  I turned on my phone and I had something like 10 messages.

“Wow, that’s strange!” I said.

I started to listen and the first one said, “I just heard about Ray.  How are you doing?  How’s he?  Call and let me know”.

No idea.  If anything I thought he had been hurt.

Message 2: “Hi Cass, it’s me, Ray.  Call me when you get this.  I’m going to be in the stands tonight”.

This was odd because even if Ray was “doing the chart” he wasn’t allowed to talk on his cell phone without being fined. 

Message 3: “Hi Cass, it’s me again.  They are actually sending me back to the hotel.  Call as soon as you get this, K?”

Now I was worried.  There had been an older (I laugh now, I think he was 28) guy released earlier in the season.  But that wouldn’t happen to Ray.  He was doing too well.  I was about to call Ray when I received another call.  It was my dad.  “Hi Cassidy.  Have you talked to Ray yet?” was what he said. 

“No.  What’s going on?” I asked him.

Then I noticed Ray trying to call me.  “Hold on, Dad. It’s Ray."  

“I’ve been traded.  I’ll be back in town tomorrow and then I fly out the next morning to meet my new team.  I’m getting moved up to AAA with the trade!” he said both excited and a bit apprehensive.

“Congratulations Ray, I think!” I laughed.  I had no idea if this was good or not but the fact he was being moved up to AAA was great. 

“I’ll call you with my flight later”.

The next morning I went and picked Ray up at the airport.  He looked horrible.  We were in a small town.  The planes that flew in were small ones with props.  “Wow, you look like s**t,” I told him.

“Yeah.  The guys took me out.  I had to drink a shot of tequila every time my name came across the bottom on Sports Center.  After I got sick from the tequila they switched me to Jack and Coke.  I’m a bit hung over and my tongue actually has grown both hair on it and a size too big for my mouth” he said.

I had to step back.  Wow, it was bad!  The smell just permeated from him.  We headed back to the apartment. 

Ray went to lay down in bed.  I pulled out our suitcases.  I was starting to get overwhelmed.
I began to pack our things.  If I could stay organized it would all help.  Then I realized, I didn’t know if I was going, too.

“Ray, am I flying out tomorrow, too?” I asked him.

“I don’t know,” he mumbled from bed.

I sat there thinking about it. I couldn’t go.  We had an apartment, cable, electric, furniture, telephone, etc that all needed to be turned off, cleaned out, returned.  I had a job to give notice at.  We had a kitten that had to go to the vet and a car that needed to get across the country.  While we had some money saved, not enough for all that!   So I took out the clothes I had packed.  I literally threw then across the room.  My stuff would have to be left behind.  I would have to be left behind.

I quickly stuffed Ray’s things into the bag.   Somehow the fact that I was being left cleaning up our life in this town while he was going off on a new adventure seemed incredibly unfair.  I wanted to be at his first AAA game.  I wanted to meet my new teammates - the new set of girlfriends and wives on his new team.  I wanted to experience the excitement that he was experiencing.  Instead, I would be left behind in this city that just a day before I was excited to spend a year or more living in.  Now I was trying to find a way to escape as quickly as possible so I could go with Ray.

I don’t know, I guess before that I figured that when a player was traded, the apartment and all that stuff was just taken care of.  If you’re in the big leagues or on the roster when you are traded the team moves your physical belongings for you, but they don’t take care of the little things.  That’s the wife’s job.

So after we had gone to the clubhouse to get all of Ray’s things he had there, finished packing up his things, had dinner with the team’s GM, and had a good night’s sleep, morning came.  We got up and packed the car with Ray’s two suitcases and baseball bag.  I drove to the airport.  He gave me a huge hug and kiss.   “I’ll call you when I get there” he said.

“Make sure you do!”

“I love you Cassidy Dover.  I couldn’t do this without you.  I only wish you could be by my side all the time,” he spoke into the top of my head as he held me. 

Ray has always known me so well.  I needed those words as much as he needed this opportunity.  He needed me to be his cheerleader, not to feel sorry for myself that I wasn’t going right now.  In order to get outside of my own self pity, I needed to know we were a team and he needed me too.

“I love you, too Ray Dover!” I half laughed, half cried.

They called his flight.  I watched him board the plane.  Then I walked outside and stood outside the chain fence.  I watched them close the door to the plane and watched it start down the runway.  I even waved good-bye as it took off and flew away.  Then I turned and went back to the car.  I headed back to our half empty apartment and started making lists of all the things that needed to be taken care of before I could go and join Ray with our new team, in our new city.

In hindsight, I wish I had thought to keep that list of all that I really did take care of in those weeks.  It would have come in handy in the next eight years when we would move another four times during the season. 

As I said at the beginning, if only Ray’s career had been as straightforward and easy as our love for one another.

Thanks for Reading,
Cassidy