SYDNEY – Try to get your mind around 1,272 games. Try to understand how many bus trips that means, especially that 14-hour monstrosity from Wichita to Shreveport in the Texas League. Try to comprehend the number of bleary-eyed wake-up calls in third-rate motels in fourth-rate cities. Try to gauge the pain every time the promotions come and, again, it is someone else.
Through six organizations, 13 minor-league stops and 12 seasons, John Cotton has built up 1,272 games played without ever once stepping foot in the major leagues. No man has ever played more minor-league games without even a sip of major-league coffee. Without once finding out what it is like to have one clubhouse man assigned to launder your soiled uniform and another to put out a post-game spread and another to make sure your spikes shine.
How quirky it is then that Cotton has gotten this call. That Cotton will get the chance to do what Ken Griffey and Derek Jeter and Greg Maddux never could. After all these years, this Cotton was finally picked, earning one of the last berths on the U.S. Olympic baseball team because the committee liked his lefty bat.
“Right now, it is the highlight of my career,” said Cotton, who served as the DH in the Americans’ important, opening-game 4-2, 13-inning victory yesterday over Japan. “To me it is better than going to the big leagues.”
This is like a gift from a higher baseball authority to a man who certainly has done his penance. A gift from nowhere. Cotton never saw it coming. It was never on his radar. He was not even among the first group of players to get packages in mid-season that they were being considered for this American team, the first to feature U.S. professionals.
And that is why regardless of what is going on at the basketball venue, this is a dream team for Cotton. His Bull Durham life taking a detour. He continues to have aspirations of making The Show. If you have been around baseball for any time you are familiar with his minor-league delusion, that his problem has been about being at the wrong place at the wrong time rather than being short on talent. But what about this new minor-league illusion? Where suddenly you are a chosen one.
“I hope this is a turnaround to bigger things, even if it is showing people who are watching at this tournament that I can play in Japan or Korea,” said Cotton, who was playing this year for the Rockies’ Triple-A affiliate.
The current American team is made up of basically two types: top prospects (mostly in the rotation) who have big major-league dreams ahead. And players who define journeyman, good enough to excel at Triple-A, but not good enough for the majors. One of those, Mike Neill, hit a two-run, walk-off homer in the 13th inning yesterday to lift the Americans to their victory over Japan, a team that had been expected to outdo the United States in this tournament.
“I jumped in the air when [Kirk] Gibson hit his homer [off Dennis Eckersley to win Game 1 of the 1988 World Series] and I jumped in the air the same way for this one,” said former Dodger manager Tommy Lasorda, who is the skipper of this American team.
Neill, who is 30, has 31 days and six games played of major-league service from 1998 for Oakland. He is currently a member of the Mariners’ Triple-A team.
Cotton, who will turn 30 next month, was a 10th-round pick of the Indians in 1989. He also has played in the systems of the Padres, Tigers, White Sox, Cubs and Rockies. He first reached Triple-A in 1996, but has been unable to take the next step. He says he can play a bunch of positions. But the word on him is his glove is suspect. Over the last few years, though, he has turned into a good Triple-A hitter for average. He was batting .323 at that level-A this year.
“Hey, don’t feel bad for me,” Cotton said. “I would rather be doing this than going to work nine-to-five.”
Cotton said the life has never really gotten him down, never really pushed him to the brink of giving it all up. He admits “frustration” when others get the call. But he got this one. He tripled to start a two-run U.S. seventh against Japan, continuing the strong hitting that got him selected in the first place.
“If I never make it to the major leagues, my career would be complete if I got a gold medal,” he said.
