Red, White and CSU

Crack. Click. Stop. Rewind. Play.

R.J. Swindle sat in a recliner in front of his parents television set, remote in hand, watching a videotape replay of his major league debut with the Philadelphia Phillies. The last time he’d seen it was in real time, on July 7, 2008.

Crack. Click. Stop. Rewind. Play.

Swindle replays the fateful seventh pitch, a 55-mile per hour Bugs Bunny curveball, a second time. Each time it has the same unhappy ending: the 3-2 pitch to New York Mets All-Star third baseman David Wright lands in the left bleachers at Citizens Bank Park for a home run.

Swindle smirks, then rewinds the videotape one more time.

By this point it would be easy to start slapping labels on him: sadist, masochist. Have mercy on thy self son.

But Swindle’s not intentionally trying to punish himself. He’s trying to read his lips as Wright rounds the bases. “You can see me say something,” said Swindle. “Right after the home run you can see me saying, ‘Welcome to the big leagues!’”

Three pitches later: Crack. Another hit. Seven more pitches. Crack. A third consecutive hit. 17 big league pitches, three hits, no outs. OK, this isn’t fun anymore.

But Swindle was not about to sweat 45,000 restless, what-have-you-done-for-me-lately Philly fans and one mocking, shaggy, 300-pound, green mascot (Phillie Phanatic). Why should he, he’s dug himself out of deeper holes personally and professionally.

Swindle signed his first professional contract after being selected by the Boston Red Sox in the 14th round of the June 2004 major league draft. But before he could step on the field for Spring Training in 2005, he was released. Swindle had pitched the previous season with a herniated disc in his back.

When Boston heard the news, it nearly ended his baseball career before it had a chance to get started. The injury was a red flag to major league teams. In less than six months after signing his first professional contract, at age 21, Swindle was labeled “damaged goods.”

Swindle sat down with his wife Lindsey, their family and agent and decided if he wanted to clear his medical record he would have to have surgery to repair the herniated disc. He underwent surgery and tried to start over, but no one was interested. For the next two years Swindle bounced between Independent League baseball and the minor leagues, pitching for pennies.

“I had been going through the denial from all these teams and scouts, ‘you don’t throw hard enough, you won’t work at this level,’ being told all this stuff I couldn’t do,” said Swindle. “I’m never gonna play again. All those thoughts raced through my head.”

Friend and Foe

Former Charleston Southern teammate and 2005 ninth-round draft pick of the New York Mets Bobby Parnell is peddling furiously on a stationery bike in the middle of the team clubhouse at Turner Field in Atlanta.

Lounging across a black leather sectional in front of him is All-Star shortstop Jose Reyes, nibbling on a Nutty Buddy ice cream cone, eyes fixed on plasma TV showing Dumb and Dumber, giggling like awkward teenager. Reyes, 25, who grew up in Villa Gonzalez in the Dominican Republic, may be seeing the slapstick comedy for the first time.

Parnell isn’t laughing. The entire Jim Carrey comedy catalog was exhausted in the minor leagues.

Three years earlier Parnell was pitching for Charleston Southern University Bucs. His rise through New York’s organization has been surgical in comparison to Swindle’s journey. It’s happened so quickly as a matter of fact, that the former CSU pitcher is still trying to separate reality from fantasy.

“I don’t think it’s sunk it yet,” said Parnell. “I don’t think I’m going to realize it until I get home and sit down in that recliner at the house. Right now I’m still enjoying it, taking it all in.”

Since arriving in New York on September 1, Parnell says, “I definitely kept my eyes down and my mouth shut, but it’s definitely any adjustment to get to a point where you’re comfortable. You’ve gotta know you’re low man on the totem pole, you keep your mouth shut and you do what you’re asked to do.”

It’s that attitude that makes Parnell an enabler for the bizarro subculture that governs major league baseball clubhouses.

It didn’t take long, maybe a few minutes actually, for Parnell to get his marching orders from his mates. Mets reliever Joe Smith dumped backpack duties on Parnell. According to Parnell, “the guy in the bullpen with the least amount of experience, the low man on the totem pole,” carries the backpack to the bullpen before each game.

No big deal, right?

This isn’t just any backpack. That would be too easy. Rookies must be humbled.

For the final month of the season Parnell carried a bright pink Sleeping Beauty backpack filled with gum, candy, Band Aids — “whatever you need down in the bullpen so you don’t have to go back to the clubhouse” — across the diamond, through the outfield, by the wise-cracking fans and into the bullpen.

The backpack sits squarely in front of Parnell’s locker. He smiles, shakes his head and puts his new duties in perfect perspective.

“I’d rather be carrying a pink backpack in the major leagues than be in the minor leagues,” said Parnell. “If they told me this is the only way I could be in the major leagues, I’d do it every day.”

Both Swindle and Parnell, both former Buccaneers, are living their dreams. Drafted in 2004 and 2005 respectively, Swindle and Parnell account for two of the three players on the University short list of student-athletes drafted by major league teams. For the record, the third was former Charleston Southern pitcher Matt Coenen, who was drafted by the Detroit Tigers in 2001. Coenen retired after five seasons, reaching his peak with Double-A Mississippi Braves.

As Coenen’s career quietly ended in 2005, and while Parnell was still trying to come to grips with his status, Swindle had the same experience.

Draft Day

In June 2004, Swindle sat with family and friends in his parent’s living room, listening to the annual draft selections streaming off the Internet. As the rounds passed … seven, eight, nine … Swindle started getting anxious … 10, 11, 12, 13 … “They kept picking left-handed pitchers before me,” remembers Swindle. Then, in the 14th round, the Boston Red Sox number came up again and the room fell silent.

“It’s mind-numbing,” said Swindle. “Everyone was jumping up around me. I was just sitting there, shocked. I was hopeful it would happen, but until I actually heard my name … it was unbelievable.”

It’s July 7, 2008. Four years and change later, and less than a week after being promoted to the major leagues, Swindle is celebrating his 25th birthday from a major league bullpen in Philadelphia. You couldn’t buy a better birthday gift. Long summer days on the playground, childhood dreams of playing in the majors and one day, this day, it comes true.

The previous week had been a blur. Swindle had been promoted (for two days), sent back to the minors and promoted again. “The trainer came and got me,” remembered Swindle. “I walked in the office and coach smiled and said, ‘Congratulations, you’re going up!’ It was crazy. Everything was like in slow-mo. The dream comes true, right there.”

Swindle grabbed his mobile phone and started dialing. First call: His wife, Lindsey.

“It was late at night and I couldn’t reach her. She was at work. So I left her a message and waited,” said Swindle. “Because I didn’t want to tell anyone until I told her.”

Ten minutes … 20 minutes … 30 minutes pass. Swindle called again. No answer. “I left another message,” he said, then waited some more. He squirmed in his seat for about 15 minutes before he started calling his family, friends and agent.

Between calls he had an incoming call. It was Lindsey. When Swindle told her the news, she started screaming and telling every co-worker within earshot, and some not. His ears were still ringing, or at least he thought they were.

The phone in the bullpen is ringing. Phillies coach Roly deArmas picked it up.

“Alright R.J. get going,” said deArmas.

“I didn’t even warm up in Atlanta, so this was the first time,” said Swindle. “Your heart skips a beat.”

The warm-up lasted about a second, at least in the excitement of Swindle’s memory. Then, it was game on. Swindle jogged from the outfield bullpen to the mound. “There were 45,000 people all around me,” he said. “When you step on that mound and throw that first warm up pitch, it’s surreal.”

That’s about the time the legs give way. Butterflies have a funny way of doing that to you.

Two months later it was Parnell’s turn. “The first thought was, just relax and here we go,” added Parnell, who made his debut on September 15 against the Washington Nationals. “I didn’t really get nervous until I walked through that tunnel to the outfield door to run in.”

Sure, playing in front of thousands of screaming fans, pitching to the best hitters in the world, that’s why Parnell suddenly had a case of the jitters, right? “Ah shoot man, I was thinking, just don’t trip. Don’t fall,” remembers the Salisbury, North Carolina native in a thick Southern drawl.

Going for the Gold

Swindle reached new heights this past summer when he was selected to pitch for Team Canada at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.

“It was unbelievable,” said Swindle. “China, the money they poured into it, they pretty much shut down the whole city (Beijing) to host the Olympics. Then getting to pitch for your country was amazing. I wouldn’t have passed up that experience for anything.”

In China, Swindle was exposed to baseball fandom at a whole new level. “Every Asian team, they have drums and banners and whistles and bells, every game, every inning, every out, every pitch they are chanting and singing,” he remembered. “It’s was like a festival, like a circus. It was loud and non-stop.”

But it’s Parnell who deserves the Olympic gold medal for surviving the annual rookie hazing ritual. In mid-September, Parnell was one of a handful of New York Met rookies who traveled from New York to Washington in “a Michael Phelps bathing suit, swim cap and goggles,” said Parnell. “That goes up there with that pink book bag. They were going to make us wear flippers, but they didn’t do that. I left the clubhouse in it, on the airplane, then the hotel. That was a cold trip man.”

(as published in CSU Magazine)