An Insignificant Plate Appearance, August 11, 1994

The top of the seventh, and the Cardinals lead the Marlins7-6. Hard-earned, after getting out ahead early, 3-0, before ceding six runs, unable to muster a response; they were saving it all for the top of the sixth, when they got them all back — and another for insurance. Not enough insurance, though, not when you’re still trying to win — still, even though there is nothing tomorrow. Nothing the day after that, and nothing the day after that, either.

They’ve been holding up the signs: SAVE OUR SPORT. OWNER$ WIN, PLAYER$ WIN, FANS LOSE. The Cards send a pinch-hitter to the plate to lead it off: Gerald Young, in his 16th game with the big-league club. He is 29 years old. This will be the final game of his major league career.

***

Gerald Young — born in Honduras, raised in California — was signed by the Mets the same day as Doc Gooden. Gooden was the fifth pick overall in the 1982 draft; Young was drafted in the fifth round. Both were selected out of high school. Unlike Gooden, though, Young never ended up playing a single game for the Mets. His three-year career in their system was distinguished only by its anonymity. After the 1984 season, the Mets sent him and two Players to be Named Later to the Astros in exchange for Ray Knight, who had requested a trade.

In the Astros’ minor-league system, no longer a teenager, Young improved steadily. Every year, he advanced a level. His OPS climbed. He stole 54 bases in Double-A. His work in the outfield began to draw notice, too.

Young began the 1987 season in Tucson with the Triple-A Toros, the youngest player on the team’s roster, “scared and nervous” to make the jump to Triple-A. He quickly became the PCL’s stolen-base leader while hitting better than he ever had before. He thrived under the mentorship of Eric Bullock, then a veteran of the Houston farm, five years his senior. An “ooh-and-aah” player, the Arizona Daily Star called him: a thrill-seeker who loved the tension of the chase more than anything else, a dazzling young man with a bright smile and a twinkle in his eye.

Manager Bob Didier called him “one of the four or five best center fielders [he’d] seen in a long time,” predicting a soon-forthcoming call to the major leagues. Young wasn’t convinced — until, midway through the season, the call came. It was meant to be temporary, a bandaid over Billy Hatcher’s sprained ankle. Young made too compelling a case for himself to be sent back down. The flaws were still there: the over-aggression on the basepaths, the lack of power. But this was a disappointing Astros lineup after the 1986 division champion team — one that finished the year 76-86, with the 40-year-old Nolan Ryan still their biggest draw. Young was a new, fresh, exciting face, someone who could steal four bases in a game. He represented growth, a franchise looking to the future. In Honduras, despite the fact that Young had moved to the United States at the age of four, kids knew his name, followed his career. They wanted to be like him.

Two months into 1988, Young had more stolen bases than the Cubs had as a team. “We have utmost confidence in his future,” Astros GM Bill Wood said that June. “We think he is probably going to be the premier center fielder in the game.”

***

In May 1989, ahead of an exhibition game between the Astros and the Toros, Young said of the rapid rise of his stock in baseball: “I wasn’t surprised to get the call, but I’m still in shock that I stuck.” He was still just 24, in a season that marked another step back for him. He had suffered several wrist injuries, playing through most of them.

Later, Young would describe how the absence of Hal Lanier, fired as manager after 1988, left him feeling alone in the organization — feeling like no one had faith in him. Heading into the 1989 season, Astros assistant GM Bob Watson publicly named Young as one of the players in the organization whose performance had disappointed him the previous year.

By the middle of that season, Young was back in Tucson. Reports claimed bad work habits as the cause of his decline. To the man he’d had “utmost confidence” in so recently, Bill Wood offered this warning: “In baseball, you’ve got to do the job day in, day out. If you don’t, there’s a price to be paid.”

***

Young paid it. The more time he spent in the minors, the pressure of expectation weighing on him, the worse his performance got. His frustration became well-known: He wanted to play. After becoming a free agent, he signed a minor-league deal with the nascent Rockies in the ’92-’93 offseason; he made the team out of spring training, prompting comments about the old Gerald Young being back. “He had never gone anywhere,” Young was quick to clarify. “He just stopped getting the opportunity.” He thanked God, he said, for the chance to play with the Rockies, far from the soured situation in Houston. He was trying to hold up his end of the deal.

After getting one hit in his first 19 plate appearances with the Rockies, Young was released. Said Colorado GM Bob Gebhard: “He just didn’t play as well as we thought he would.”

***

It started in spring training. After running out the 1993 season in Calgary and Indianapolis, Young was with the Cardinals on a minor-league contract. He didn’t light the world on fire in camp, didn’t dazzle his way onto the team. But he did make an impression with the Cardinals players. You can see it in the pictures: Young with Aaron Holbert, racing each other in the outfield — smiling. And he made an impression with his bat in Louisville. When Brian Jordan fractured four ribs in a mid-season field collision, it was Young who got the call. The Cardinals clubhouse welcomed him with hugs and handshakes. “You never give up hope,” Young said. “I kept saying my prayers and I finally got a break.”

It was July 1994. The August 12 deadline had already been set. Bud Selig was already proclaiming a forthcoming tragedy. But Gerald Young had gotten his break, and he was going to make the most of it. He had the best 16 major-league games he’d had in years. It wasn’t without mishap — a 10th-inning inside-the-park home run thanks to an error — but it was something.

“I always think ahead,” Young said. Thinking of a future in the game — not reaching the lofty peak that had been predicted for him all those years ago, but something different. Something sustainable.

***

Young strikes out on four pitches.