Submitted by admin on Sun, 2006-02-26 09:00. ::
EMPE, Ariz. — Barry Armitage asks the waitress for a Brewtus. He knows this is the name of the tall beer at Applebee's because he has played enough baseball games in rinky-dink minor-league towns to memorize the late-night restaurant menus. And because he has experience in such joints, Armitage knows, too, that the ladies have a special kind of affection for baseball players with South African accents.
So on the table rests a pair of baseball caps. They belong to Armitage and his good friend Pat Naudé. Armitage, a pitching prospect in the Royals organization, is game for some harmless flirting, and the hats are bait.
Show that hat to everyone else in the restaurant and the guesses might have been San Antonio, or Salvation Army, or, in this case, Sex Appeal. Anything but South Africa. Because who knew that far below the equator, in the land of Nelson Mandela, they play baseball? And not only do they play, but Major League Baseball deemed them among the 16 most worthy teams for the first version of the World Baseball Classic.
That's why Armitage is here. When he spent the season at Class AA Wichita last year, Armitage became the most successful player in South African baseball history. Now he's the team's model player.
"I wish it was tomorrow," says Armitage, 26. "I'm ready to go. If we lose, we lose. But playing for my country, and seeing the belief players have in me, is going to be the most satisfying thing I could imagine.
"There's no better feeling than being on the rubber and having your team behind you saying that you're it. You're the guy they want pitching this game."
Back in South Africa, a 23-hour flight away, friends and family and maybe some of the country's other 44 million people will watch that game, and the other two against Mexico and the United States, on ESPN. It will be the first time South Africa's baseball team, made up of laborers and businessmen and one pro ballplayer, has made any sort of TV other than one attached to a video camera playing home movies.
Three days later, Armitage's brother, Dean, will be host to 40 friends for a braai — a barbecue in Afrikaan, one of the nation's 11 languages. Armitage will start that day as well, and he'll have 65 pitches to face the U.S. juggernaut.
"Some of the younger guys are like, ‘You know you have to throw to A-Rod and Jeter. Aren't you worried?' " Armitage says. "And I'm like, ‘Worried about what?' If A-Rod hits a home run, big deal. Everyone expects him to. But what if I strike him out? Then they'll be saying some nobody from South Africa struck out the highest-paid player in the world.
"Actually," Magnante now says, "the odds in Vegas are 20,000-1 that we win the tournament. I guess they're better than that for winning a game."
Their biggest victory to date came in the 2000 Olympics against the Netherlands, which beat the powerful Cubans. That came without Armitage, who helped beat China, another WBC team, in an exhibition series last week.
South Africa's best hope this year was born and raised in Durban, the country's second-biggest city. Armitage glommed onto baseball early, watching his stepfather, Richard Pieterse, play fast-pitch softball games. The other kids could play rugby or cricket or soccer. Barry just wanted a bat and a ball.
In high school, with no organized prep baseball teams, he played softball. His teammates nicknamed him Bondzi, an ode to Barry Bonds, because of Armitage's gargantuan home runs.
On weekends Armitage would pitch for his local club team. He grew to 6 feet, 5 inches. Long hair dangled over his ears. He threw hard. On April 24, 2000, Armitage threw a nine-inning no-hitter and struck out 24.
Two days later, selling sneakers at Sports Shoe World, Armitage received a call at 4 p.m. It was his friend and teammate Paul Whitfield. A man named Allard Baird, the assistant general manager for a team called the Royals, was holding a tryout.
"I didn't get off until 5," Armitage says. "You can't take break an hour before you close. It's a rule. Nobody does it. So I put the phone down."
Five minutes later, Whitfield came into the store. Armitage relented. He showed up at the field wearing a T-shirt and cargo shorts. He introduced himself, then said, "How long is this going to take, because I've got 20 minutes."
Armitage ran and stretched and threw. He felt even better than the 24-strikeout game. Baird said he liked what he saw and told him to keep in touch. Luis Silverio, then a scout and now a Royals coach, pulled Baird aside and talked. Baird had another plan for Armitage. Meet him at the Hilton at 8 p.m. And bring your parents, because they're going to have to sign the contract.
Now, this wasn't going to be an easy sell. Armitage's mother, Jenny Pieterse, is not nicknamed "Gunsmoke" because she's nurturing. When she returned home from work, Armitage told her the plan.
Armitage wasn't sure. Even though he watched Wednesday- and Sunday-night baseball on ESPN, he'd never heard of the Royals. But did that really matter? They didn't offer him a signing bonus. Just a plane ticket and a chance.
"At that stage in my life, I was going nowhere," Armitage says. "The job had no future. The timing was almost perfect for it all to happen. I thought to myself, ‘Hey, I have an opportunity to do something so few people get.' And why not?"
Gunsmoke signed the contract. Before he left, Armitage made a bet with his brother: He'd reach the majors before his brother became a scratch golfer. Currently, Dean's handicap is 7.
"They expect us to lose," says Naudé, Armitage's teammate. "But they realize what we're up against. If they know baseball, at least, they know it's like Mount Everest."
"Right," Armitage says, "but what people forget is that baseball is the type of game where we could come in against Canada and they might not be able to hit the ball or they hit line drives at people. And we can hit bloopers right into the gap. Who knows? We can pull it off."
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