Russia's Boys of Summer Deserve Winter Hiatus

The Russian World Series will come to an end sometime this weekend, marking the end of a season which began four months ago, in May. My season ended on the playing field last weekend, and I have since moved to St. Petersburg, where barring unforseen circumstances I will lead the usual life of a retired athlete, raising pit bulls and growing out a pot belly.


My season with Russian baseball began hopefully enough. I went on the road with Spartak and for a while lived exactly the life of a Russian baseball player, right down to sleeping in a park in Wiesbaden, Germany when the team was kicked out of the local youth hostel for non-payment. I wore the team uniform, bunted when the coach told me to bunt and drank in the team bus when it was my turn to drink in the team bus. In short, it was a good time; I only left the team because it was bounced out of the Russian regular season in June and seemed to be on the verge of folding, not practicing for five weeks straight in June and July.


Then I made the mistake of joining CSKA, the Red Army team. This was a decision that led to the ignominious end of my Russian baseball career last weekend, when I sat on the bench during the final against the Red Devils, quietly and miserably racking up the ugliest linescore in the sports fanatic's vocabulary -- the "DNP-CD."


"Did Not Play -- Coaches' Decision" turned out to be as far as the army administration would let me go. I had two straight DNPs, and then Tuesday I was told bluntly by the coaches not to suit up for the game.


The reasons for this remain a mystery to me, but I have a feeling that they are rooted in the same army psychology that nearly caused its players to follow the example of their American counterparts and go on strike last week.


Five players were not paid on time this month, but that was nothing unusual; what was unusual was that the coach, Alexander Ardatov, told these players a week after payday that they would be paid not in Moscow (where the team was meeting for its final games) but at the base in Balashikha. To this end these five players took the two-hour trip out to the base and waited in line for an hour while the accountant had his lunch, only to find out that Ardatov inexplicably had called ahead and given instructions not to hand out any money.


Despite a lot of locker-room trash-talking after this incident, the players eventually decided against striking and instead went out on the field Sunday to play the Devils -- who promptly squashed them 15-1 to even the "World Series" at a game apiece.


CSKA lost its next two games and is now down 1-3 and was on the brink of elimination before Friday night's game. The team has played so badly in the last three games that the army, rather than paying its players, might actually be paid by its players next month.


The team committed an amazing 15 errors Sunday, with all 15 resulting in runs scored; under the army system of fines, this means the players owe 120,000 rubles ($54) for errors alone in that one game. The tally for strikeouts and baserunning mistakes is also likely to be high, as is the total for lateness (one player missed both weekend games).


Despite the low mood brought on by the fines; the players are upset that the season is ending. When I left the team last week, some of them approached me and asked me to pass along a message to American baseball fans.


"Tell them we'll play in America," said centerfielder Andrei Starov. "We don't mind a salary cap. We'll play for a lot less -- even $80,000."


"For the whole team," added Vladimir Dubrovsky, the right fielder. "Forever."





This is the final Touching Base column from Matt Taibbi.