Who knew that Long Beach would become Southern California's last refuge for baseball dreamers, a place where hope and reality and off-kilter fastballs collide?
Consider this week's action at the port city's historic little Blair Field, max capacity 3,238. There, two enigmatic pitchers who once drank deeply the major league good life were the main attractions for the Long Beach Armada, a 5-year-old team in the independent Golden Baseball League.
On Friday, pitching in front of bleachers that were one-third empty, we found Jose Lima, the former All-Star known for creating wherever he goes a jocular, peppery, occasionally flaky and, to some, patently offensive way of being: Lima Time.
It has been 10 years since his best season, five since his memorable last playoff win with the Dodgers, three since he last pitched in the major leagues. But Lima, 36, hasn't changed. Hoping against hope to make it back to the big leagues, he walks, talks and salsa-steps with the same ecstatic frenzy he's always had.
He can also still hit the high notes. Before Saturday's game, reprising a role he once had at Dodger Stadium, he sang the national anthem.
And Saturday's pitcher? Yes, that was 40-year-old Hideki Irabu. In 1997, Irabu famously came to America from Japan, signing with the Yankees for $12.8 million. He was supposed to be the next big thing. But by 2002, after years of appearing unfazed by failure, the doughy Irabu and his 34-35 record were gone, never to be heard from by American baseball fans again. Until Saturday night.
How time changes things. Both men now make the league standard: roughly $2,000 a month. Instead of flying first-class charters and staying in five-star hotels, it's now all about sitting cheek-to-jowl in coach, sleeping in Quality Inns and enduring five-hour bus rides to play rival Yuma.
Instead of throwing to the likes of catcher Jorge Posada, they throw to a guy whose best baseball days may well have come at Riverside Community College.
"We're all here for the same thing," Lima told me this week. "If you work hard and stay focused, no reason you can't get picked up by some major league team."
But you don't need baseball, I countered, not after making millions playing in the pros since 1990.
