A Cup of Coffee

The idiom had been around since Shoeless Joe Jackson: the cup of coffee, the short time a minor league player has to spend in big times before he’s sent back down again. Just enough time for a cup of coffee. Perhaps it was initially meant derisively, but in these more sensitive days the phrase had softened, somewhat. Moonlight Graham was the most famous example, his one-game stint in the big leagues cinematically mythologized by Field of Dreams, but each year saw a handful of prospects were given the opportunity to make their case with a Major League team. Most never made it past a few games, of course, and their September call-up or failed audition would be the only time they’d brush greatness, but these cup-of-coffee appearances were more than many players ever dreamed possible, after all. Even the smallest sip of immortality was better than never tasting it at all.

There were those lucky few, of course, who’d managed to seize their fleeting chance and actually make it. Shoeless Joe himself was one, the patron saint of the Quad-A dreamer, but Caleb Miller had known that his stint would be nothing more than a cup of coffee when he finally got his shot. It was late August when his number was called, and the muggy Midwestern air had hung like a miasma over the diamond, and his coach had had to repeat the words twice before they’d registered for him.

There had been a time, once, when Caleb had wholeheartedly believed that he had what it took. Every red-blooded American boy dreams of coming up in the bottom of the ninth and knocking one out of the park, but he’d had talent, real talent, and a father willing to sacrifice his time and body to pay his son’s way through travel ball. Undersized and unimposing, Caleb was underestimated by nearly everyone but his father, but even the most skeptical of college scouts couldn’t ignore a .3 batting average.

Whatever they’ve got, his father used to say, stabbing his finger at the television, you’ve got. You’re going to be just as good as any one of those guys out there.

Back then, he’d actually believed it. He’d had the audacity—the arrogance—to believe that he could be destined for greatness; that the hallowed field where his heroes played might someday be considered his domain.

As it was, the old man hadn’t lived long enough to see Caleb get signed as an undrafted free agent with the Toledo Mud Hens. At first, this was cause for grief, but when Caleb’s name remained uncalled with each passing September, he began to see it as a relief. How disappointed his father would have been to see that all his hard work had been wasted; how painful it would have been to console his son, secretly aware that the minor leagues were as good as Caleb could hope for.

After his second season in Toledo, Caleb began to ruthlessly temper long-held expectations. With age came the wisdom to understand that his childhood dreams of glory had been unrealistic at best, and his expectations of grandeur presumptuous. He told himself that the disappointment he felt was entitlement; that each one of the boys he’d played with growing up would have killed for a chance to play college ball, let alone the opportunity to make a living (in a manner of speaking) playing in the minors. When the diagnosis came after a standout season that had (despite his best efforts) inspired in him a kind of painful hope, he finally understood that like the majority of men, he was simply not destined for greatness or even distinction. In the quiet and painful weeks that followed, he learned to live with this knowledge.

His comeback following remission—aided by a compassionate hitting coach who’d taken a particular liking to him—would be his moment of glory, he told himself, and he would be content with that, and it was, indeed, a true triumph, more than what might be experienced by most.

But, still, for the briefest of moments on that bright day as he’d stood in the dugout, sweat trickling down his neck, buffeted by the celebratory well-wishes of his teammates, he felt like maybe he just might make it after all.

That same week, he’d been told that the cancer had returned. That, of course, had been much less surprising. You could never really beat adenocarcinoma, he’d learned from his fellows on the oncology ward, and although he hadn’t wanted to believe them (“the risk of recurrence is present, but not guaranteed,” his doctor had assured him repeatedly with equal parts exasperation and boredom), during his five years in remission he’d never stopped looking over his shoulder for it. He’d known all along, with a kind of grim, bone-deep certainty, that he simply wasn’t that lucky.

The cancer had spread aggressively, he was told, and he was to start chemotherapy as soon as possible. The appointment was set for three weeks hence; he was scheduled to fly out for his cup of coffee the very next night. The responsible thing to do, he knew, would be to call the team immediately and let them know.

“It’s only a four-game stretch that they need you for,” the hitting coach told him. “Why do they need to know? What harm is it going to do?”

The harm, of course, would be that Caleb might indeed have his brush with glory, knowing that no matter how well he played, it would be his last. Forget being sent back down to the minors—from the grim look on his doctor’s face, Caleb knew he’d be lucky to keep most of his lung. The pain of understanding exactly what he’d be losing would be so much sharper for the knowing; better to remain in blissful ignorance than to live with that awareness.

“Well, if you’re going to think of it that way, what’s the point of doing anything?” his girlfriend asked reasonably. “Nothing lasts forever, right?”

Depressed and in something like a state of shock, he’d allowed himself to be gently bullied onto the plane and into the clubhouse. The experience felt unreal, depersonalized, as though he were watching it from behind a screen. A small part of him distantly recognized that he was, in fact, living his dream, however briefly, but his cup of coffee tasted unpalatably bitter. What was the point in making a showing, now, when he’d have to give it up? His best-case scenario was to impress a coach enough to want to give him an audition; that coach would then be summarily informed of his cancer and would show him a look of pity that would be so much worse than the affected sympathy that he was used to seeing by that point.

Maybe you could have been somebody, that look would say. You might have had a chance.

Caleb wouldn’t be able to stand it.

And so he’d spent two days in a sullen sort of daze, numbly notching two strike-outs and an uninspired walk, and only as the bottom of the ninth approached in his third and final game did he feel a sudden, overwhelming wave of sadness crest over him.

This would be all he’d get. Perhaps this was all most of them got, in the end—one flash of brilliance, one stand-out moment to distinguish a soul from its fellows before fading away into eternity.

“Miller,” the manager said, suddenly close and looking at him narrowly, “You’re up.”

Whatever they’ve got, you’ve got. You’re going to be just as good as any one of those guys out there.

His father, as far as Caleb knew, had lived a life of quiet resignation, freighting all hopes upon his son. Perhaps he’d once won a schoolyard race or brought the house down in a standout karaoke performance.

“Batter up!”

Perhaps it was true that he was simply never good enough for the major leagues, and that he was always destined to be a promising young talent who had never really panned out. Maybe a cup of coffee was always the best he could have hoped for, and the last of his youth—if not the rest of his life—would be spent in the clinical sterility of an oncology ward, watching the world from behind glass.

If this was really all there was, then at least he could go out swinging.

The manager was mildly surprised at the sudden look of determination on Caleb Miller’s face as he climbed to his feet and strode out to the plate. He’d come highly recommended by Toledo despite his size, but to the manager’s disappointment the promised grit and powerful cut had been absent. Instead, Miller had arrived clouded with a strange air of resignation, as though the opportunity he’d been offered had already passed him by. At least, the manager thought, the boy seemed suddenly resolute now as he crowded low over the plate, gaze narrowed and almost hawklike on the video board.

The crack of the bat was drowned out by the roar of the crowd as the ball soared out over the outer fence.