Luis Castillo - Clubhouse Confidential: A Yankee Bat Boys Insider Tale of Wild Nights, Gambling, and Good Times with Modern Baseballs Grea

For Tina Lewis and the Bleacher Creatures

At old Yankee Stadium,

Where it all started

One summer day

Not so long ago.

And for my family

My mother, Milagros Reyes,

My father, Luis A. Castillo,

And my wife, Margarita Pacheco.

Without their love and support,

This book would not have been possible.

And for my children, Luis A. Castillo III, and George Santiago,

So that they can share firsthand in my experience as a Yankee bat boy.

Contents

ROGER CLEMENS

HOW I BECAME A BAT BOY

ANDY PETTITTE

DEREK JETER

ALEX RODRIGUEZ

DAVID WELLS

DAVID CONE

JOE TORRE

BERNIE WILLIAMS

JORGE POSADA

PAUL ONEILL

RAMIRO MENDOZA

RUBEN SIERRA

CHUCK KNOBLAUCH

ORLANDO EL DUQUE HERNANDEZ

HIDEKI MATSUI

ALFONSO SORIANO

JOE GIRARDI

JASON GIAMBI

GEORGE STEINBRENNER

MARIANO RIVERA

Clash of the Titans
Roger Clemens

What is wrong with this guy! A giant of a man stands pressing his face up against the New York Yankees clubhouse mirror, cheeks puffed out until they look like theyre about to explode. When he leans back theres a smudge of oil where his nose touched the glass. Baseball cap in hand, hes breathing like he just walked up a flight of stairs, but the game hasnt even started.

He steps back and I see its Roger Clemens. Hes pitching today. He screws his cap tight onto his head. His eyes rake over the clubhouse and he begins pacing back and forth. Roger is massive through the chest, nearly the size of two average men, his legs cut and muscular as he turns and exits through the tunnel leading up to the field. I can hear him breathing, the echo of each breath magnified in the runway.

At first I was worried about him, but then I started worrying about them the batters going up against him. For it dawned on me that this was a new side of Clemens, one I hadnt seen yet. This was a side of Clemens that you see only if you happen to be in the clubhouse during the minutes before he goes out to take the mound. He had been getting ready, in his own unique way, going through a personal ritual in preparation for the ordeal of pitching. He had been working himself up into a state and I felt sorry for the batters who would face him.

Part of my job at Yankee Stadium included picking up bats and balls for players. During games I was responsible for patrolling the area between home plate and first base. Even now I remember how I hustled to get upstairs, eager to see what Clemens would do after that warm-up.

By the time he took the mound on July 8, 2000, the fans were buzzing and the air was tense with anticipation. It was over eighty degrees in the sun, but the sweat drizzling down Clemenss face didnt seem to bother him. Longtime interleague rivals were facing one another: Yankees vs. Mets. The fans roared with each pitch and each swing of the bat. Still, Clemens never let the roar of the crowd distract him. No, he had that focus going, and I knew why. He had psyched himself up for it. His fastballs popped into the catchers mitt with a sound like gunshots. Bang! Bang! Bang! He was pacing himself, breathing hard, but pacing himself for the big confrontation to come.

Everyone was looking forward to it, too. Because Mets catcher Mike Piazza had racked up an impressive record against Clemens. In fact, he came to the plate that night with an intimidating score of .583 against the Rocketincluding three home runs and a double. People in the know said Clemens resented Piazzas success against him.

When Piazza approached home plate, he swung the bat a few times and the crowd came alive. Then there was the windup and the pitch a high fastball headed directly at the batters face! You could hear a sharp gasp from the crowd. Piazza had no more than a fraction of a second to react. His right foot was already off the ground because he had launched into the swing, preventing him from getting enough twisting force to turn his body away. He only had time to move his head a few inches to avoid a direct blow between the eyes. The baseballunleashed, some said, with an intention to hit himsmashed into the upper crown of Piazzas blue helmet, directly above his left ear.

For a moment the massive body of the Mets catcher shook, as if uncertain what to do. The echo of the Craaaaaackkkkkkkkkkkkk! that the ball made upon impact with his batting helmet could be heard all the way down in the Yankees dugout. The Yankees players and coaches leaped to their feet to see what had happened. A few seconds later, the powerhouse who had faced Clemens with such confidence and dignity crumpled and fell, collapsing over home plate.

A hush fell over the crowd and for a few scary minutes all 50,000 spectators seemed to be thinking the same thing: this is a hell of a dangerous sport. Then, as the fallen player was helped off the field, the mood changed. The buzz of conversation spread in waves. Everybody was talking about it! The legendary Mets catcher had suffered a concussion and had to be taken out of the game.

The Mets players were on top of the dugout yelling at Clemens.

Youre an asshole!

Youre fucked up!

Players were upset and reacting. The Yankees were jabbering back at the Mets, too. It was a free-for-all where everybody wanted to put in his two cents.

Roger Clemens was saying, I didnt mean to do it, and backing away from the Mets players. Before you knew what had happened, the inning was over and he disappeared back into the shelter of the clubhouse. A few minutes later, he sent over Brian McNamee to tell the Mets and Mike Piazza I didnt mean to do it. Brian McNamee was the Yankees personal trainer who later submitted sworn testimony that he injected Clemens with steroids over a dozen times. That may seem like an odd choice for a personal messenger from Clemens to Piazza, but it shows how close Clemens and McNamee were in 2000.

The response from the Mets was predictable: Tell that asshole that hes a complete jerk. He meant to do that. Hes a headhunter.

But in reality I thought that Clemens felt bad, and I was convinced that he knew that he had made a mistake. I was in the players lounge and I saw how upset he was when he came inside. The media wasnt there to cover this behind-the-scenes part of the story. He was walking around in the clubhouse and talking to himself out loud, cursing at himself, telling Mel Stottlemyre what had happened, wringing his hands, acting moody, and looking like a man who had just made a major error. The Yankees used to feel the same way the Mets felt when Clemens was pitching against us and hitting our players. We were annoyed because he seemed to be running away from his responsibility by going into hiding in the clubhouse after his inning of pitching. When hes out of sight you dont know what hes thinking because you cant observe how hes reacting, and naturally the Yankees had been upset when he hit one of our guys. But when we saw his reactionin the Yankees clubhouse, when he was finally on our sidewe realized that he was acting like a nervous man. He was muttering sorry comments like, I didnt mean to do it!

Three months later things got even worse. It was Game 2 of the World Series between the Yankees and the Mets. More than anything else, what fans had come to see that October night was the rematch between Clemens and Piazza. By now these two had a history between them that went deeper than statistics and numbers. It was a history of blood and violence, and fans came to the arena to see how it would unfold.