Chapter 6: Baseball ladder

Lorimax, day break. As the players and personnel awaken to the sound of roosters, the baseball complex with scores of baseball diamonds crackles with life. The hundreds of baseball trainees, mostly teenagers, warm up and eat their meals when an exhausted Katzpah tries to finish the scouting report alongside the man who administered the Combine, who is equally exhausted, both having spent an all-nighter administering it and drafting up a report based on it. Once they recover a little bit, most of their coworkers already began their working shifts.

"Now for the reports I have to hand out to the director of the facility in his internal mailbox before the next game, actually before day breaks, about these players" the punished security guard told himself before turning to Katzpah. "Katzpah, wake up! I need your help describing the offensive skills of those players; you were hit by home runs from these people twice!"

"I believe that they can have a 0.500 slugging average, perhaps even 0.600-0.700 in the case of Charzon, in their first few games as callups, or 0.30-0.40 on-base average, but I believe what Yodel says is correct. He himself is a better pitcher than he is a batter, and Charzon is a better outfielder than infielder, let alone pitcher"

"Without question, they should be admitted. The Combine we administer here is there to gauge whether a player can play at the level of a first callup at the bottommost level of the professional baseball ladder, coming in. And also to determine how much training they need at camp before said callup happens. I just found them to be a little impatient, that's all"

"As for when the callups come?"

"Injuries work in mysterious ways and we cannot say for sure. Katzpah, I have to warn you. You have one chance to make it as a pitcher. You have already accumulated two strikes under the punishment system in use, and either you leave the camp to embark on your career or you leave this camp in disgrace, without having played a single inning in the pro leagues!"

"Then, why was my punishment deferred to last night?"

"Post-Praesitlyn, under the new code of conduct, we have no choice but to defer all-night punishments until more than one person in a facility has to serve one"

"Is there a reason for why all people so punished have to serve the punishment in groups?"

"Since I told you that the Declaration of Praesitlyn was the reason for the new code of conduct, it has to do with the Geonosians. The Geonosians basically declared war on us, as well as, more indirectly, the One Sith; the Geonosians may attack us at any time"

Clearly the Neimoidians expect that Geonosians would use guerilla tactics as far as night combat is concerned. But once Katzpah returns to the bullpen for pitching training, Charzon and Ugohr are brought to the clubhouse from the security station. The two newly admitted players are greeted by more experienced players at their favored positions, and presumably the players whose playing style are closest to theirs, at least in the opinion of the security guard.

We therefore see a pitcher and a left fielder, both having spent at least an entire season at the camp. While Ugohr recognizes one of the faces, Jusell, neither of the new players recognizes the other. Clearly the left fielder is neither Mirialan, Chiss, human, Neimoidian, Geonosian, nor Gungan or Gria, much less Togruta, for that matter. With so many different races represented among the roster of baseball players in Neimoidian service, baseball fans can expect just about anything to come up on any given team's roster. Jusell is going first.

"We've already met, Yodel" Jusell says in Ugohr's face, before turning to Charzon. "As for you… what is your name?"

"Charzon. I'm a left fielder"

"My name is Jusell. I am a pitcher, a long reliever to be exact"

The Keldorian left fielder then comes out to introduce himself. "My name is Attis Kataro"

"And mesa thought long relievers were trained and used by Geonosians; theysa use long relievers a lot more often than usen."

"Actually that is only true at the topmost two levels. At lower levels long relievers are more common, and many teams at the bottom of the baseball food chain rely on two pitchers in a game most of the time" Jusell explained.

"I used to be a ball girl on Cato Neimoidia. I never needed to care about the levels of the baseball… food chain other than where Cato Neimoidia was"

"If you want to play baseball as a job, know that there are different levels of play and, with them, salaries. Play well and you'll be playing baseball for decades. Play poorly and you may not even have a future in the working world" Attis warned.

"If wesa use long relievers less often at the topmost two levels, how many levels are there in the professional leagues?"

"There are eight levels. Although I do not wish it on anyone, if you play your entire career at the bottommost two levels, you will be paid just a little more than minimum salary for the entire time, with measly raises every year, even though room and board is provided" Attis explained.

Attis hands out a chart about how the levels interact between one another, as well as the salary ranges. At the topmost level there were sixty-four teams, that is, before Cato Neimoidia folded in the wake of the attack led by Ugohr and Garam (mostly Ugohr because he was the one who planted the charges). To baseball fans, the levels are usually known, from top to bottom, as the Major League, AAA, AA, A, B, C, D and Rookie. But for regulatory purposes, said levels are denoted by Roman numerals, I to VIII respectively.

"Are the odds different for a pitcher than for a batter?" Charzon asked.

"That is a little peculiar. Although at all levels, there is a grand total of twenty-five players on the active roster at any time, low-level teams tend to carry more batters and less pitchers, and at the top level, the one called the major league by baseball fans of the galaxy, the standard is twelve pitchers for thirteen batters" Jusell explains, before Attis takes over.

"In other words, it's statistically easier for a pitcher to make it to the top once they go pro, and not the least because a starter in a lower-level league can be a long reliever, set-up man or closer in the higher-level league. For a batter, luck plays a greater role and it becomes increasingly difficult to move up because teams want to move around players while taking into account their positional needs. It is entirely possible that your first callup be at right field, Charzon, and at the D and Rookie levels, right fielders are often outfielders that may be struggling defensively, but who excel offensively"

"Be lucky that you are playing for the Neimoidians, Charzon; the Geonosians are simply L-O-A-D-E-D in the outfield"

"Why issa, on oursa first day in the camp, wesa forced to be lectured about the hierarchy of the leagues and what issa take to move up?"

"For everyone here that makes it to the pros, their first stop will always be a D or a Rookie-level team. No one I knew here played at the C-level or above right out of camp"

"But even the information provided by the two players is far from the end of the story. Post-Praesitlyn, the numbers in the chart I just gave you are subject to change, and will most likely go down, so you have to work that much harder to climb the ladder of professional baseball"

"How many camps supply the talent for the D and Rookie-level teams?"

"About a hundred fifty camps or so"

"Do not plan on staying in camp for more than a standard year" Jusell warned.

"There is an operational reason why the Combine administrators set the simulated pitching and exit speeds to be similar to that of D and Rookie-level players. This camp supplies players to four to six Rookie-level teams and equally many D-level squads" Attis added.

According to the chart given out by Attis, there are over five hundred teams each at the D and Rookie levels, 350 at the C level, 280 at the B level, 230 at the A level, 180 at the AA level and 128 at the AAA level with, of course, 63 teams at the major league level. But even the explanations given by Attis about the odds of making it to the top level are, let's face it, incomplete. True, a pitcher is more versatile, but it's also a question of who gets injured more often and when. To that Ugohr is trying to get that addressed:

"Mesa like to add on something said earlier. When yousa said that it may be easier for a pitcher, yousa not take into account the injuries at each position"

"Oh that. Other than at the major-league level, where they are more lenient about injuries, so long as you are good enough, the seven levels known as the minor leagues will usually force a player to retire in this capacity after three severe injuries necessitating more than thirty days of rehabilitation at the same level, pitching is more injury-prone than batting."

"I have another question: are there teams that prefer to recruit, or recruit exclusively, from here?"

"The answer depends on the position. But as Attis told you earlier, Charzon, since you play outfield, roughly half the teams will be de facto off-limits to you if you only want that"

"Because the Geonosians run these teams, and Geonosians tend to severely constrain outfield positions to non-Geonosians, except perhaps at the major league level. It seems that speciesism is most acute for outfielders on the Geonosians' part than anywhere else in baseball"

"Off the top of my head for pitchers, one would say that, although four to six teams each at the D and Rookie levels seem, in any given year, to ask for players regularly at all positions, pitchers can go as far as Ipelrilla or Aargau…"

At this time, the director of the facility enters the clubhouse where Jusell and Attis seem to be endlessly lecturing the new players about the baseball hierarchy, as well as what will influence their lot from the here on out, beyond just their own play. The Neimoidians seem to think that neither talent nor luck is, in itself, sufficient. He seems to be pointing fingers at Jusell; the Chiss lady was to be taken out of the clubhouse. Jusell moves towards the Neimoidian director when the latter explains the situation after bringing in Katzpah into the room.

"Now, if you may excuse me, Jusell has just received her callup to the next level. She is to play as a pitcher for the Iyuta HVACs. For the next segment of the introductory training, Katzpah will be right there"

"It seems that I'm getting passed over once again" Katzpah commented, while being outraged, before turning towards the newcomers he dealt with all night. "If I may continue from where Jusell left off, for outfielders like you, you may find that left or center fielders produced here are favorites of Vakkar or Tharin-based teams"

"Play ball!"

"The ten commandments of the Neimoidian Baseball League…"

"Neimoidian Baseball League? Issa how the Neimoidians call theirsa part of the Galactic Baseball Cartel post-Praesitlyn?"

"The Ten Commandments of the Neimoidian Baseball League are the first ten articles of the code of conduct that applies to you from the time you were first accepted here" Katzpah lectures them while they hand out the first ten articles of the Code of Conduct.

Neimoidian Baseball League Player Code of Conduct

Approved 842 ABY for official use

Players shall obey all lawful orders from officials, coaches and management.

Players shall respect curfew except in circumstances where it's otherwise impossible to respect curfew

Players shall behave in sportsmanlike fashion at all times

Players shall be respectful of fans, other players, coaches and management at all times

Players shall keep track of their equipment and their belongings. The Neimoidian Baseball League IS NOT responsible for lost items.

Players found in violation of any article of the present Code shall be punished at the first possible occasion. The first two violations at a given level of play shall be punished in accordance to the violation committed as well as its gravity. On the third violation, the player is barred from play at the level at which the violations were committed for life.

Punishments that require the violator to spend a sleepless night shall not be meted out until two or more people in the same facility or team have to serve such a punishment

Players have three standard days after a disciplinary decision is made to file an appeal

Players shall report any violations of the Code as soon as possible

Players shall report any problems to the appropriate authority as soon as possible

After wading through these tedious documents, the new players are shown their new rooms as well as their lockers and their respective combinations. Katzpah and Ugohr are led into one of the peripheral bullpens with one of the pitching coaches, whereas Charzon is led into a batting cage on the left-hand side of the main stadium. Of course, since so much of the activities of the baseball camp depend on the weather, they are left wondering about what happens when it rains outside, other than just wait on the batting cages because the batting cages are weather-proof.