Bruce Dostal and Craig Faulkner are career minor-leaguers. They never ask anything of anyone. But suddenly, they're pawns on baseball's chessboard, threatened by bishops and kings.
The union ignores them.
Management lies to them.
And regardless of whether they get the Triple-A jobs they want, or the replacement jobs they fear, they won't attain riches playing this game.
All they ask is to make a living -- an honest living, without retribution from either side. They're baseball's last innocents, and maybe, just maybe, its salvation.
They illuminate the horror of Scab Ball, and the importance of reaching a labor agreement before this nasty dispute turns even uglier.
"If I have a choice, I'd like to stay out of it," Dostal said Sunday night from his home in Montville, N.J. "But I don't think I'm going to have a choice."
Dostal, an outfielder, turns 30 on March 10. He reached the majors for the first time last June with the Orioles -- and lasted exactly four days.
This winter, he signed a Triple-A contract with the Texas Rangers, where general manager Doug Melvin and farm director Reid Nichols remembered him from Rochester.
So, will he be a scab?
The Rangers have yet to ask, but Dostal expects they will.
"I'm minor-league player," he said. "I'm basically at their mercy."
Still, Dostal believes he's in the strongest possible position, and so does Faulkner. Both signed Triple-A contracts, rather than replacement-player deals that are less secure.
Faulkner, a 29-year-old catcher, spent last season at Triple-A Rochester, backing up Greg Zaun. It was his eighth minor-league season. He batted all of 106 times.
Last winter, as a minor-league free agent, he received only three offers, and returned to the Orioles, the team that signed him as a nondrafted free agent in 1987.
This winter, you would have thought he were Johnny Bench.
A dozen teams called.
"There were some clubs that weren't honest. You could really see that," Faulkner said. "A lot of clubs would tell you they needed a Triple-A player, and you knew they didn't.
"Guys like me were in a tough situation. If one of these teams called, and you'd tell them you're not going to be a replacement player, you wouldn't get an offer a lot of times."
Bud Selig and Co., engaging in deceit?
Perish the thought.
Faulkner wound up signing with the Chicago Cubs, believing he would get the chance to compete for a Triple-A job. Maybe he will. Maybe he won't. Like Dostal, he has no idea.
He isn't worried about becoming a replacement player. He's worried that the strike won't end until mid-March, and the catchers on the Cubs' 40-man roster will simply inherit their old jobs.
"That's my biggest concern -- I'll go to camp and none of the guys I need to compete against will be there. Then, all of a sudden, they'll come back, and I won't have a chance to compete fairly," Faulkner said.
Would he cross the picket line? Well, he became a father for the first time eight days ago. And he spent the off-season working as a substitute high-school teacher in his hometown of Venice, Fla.
Faulkner was a teammate of Ben McDonald's and Jack Voigt's at LSU, but he has played 708 games in the minors, and none in the majors. His salary last season was $6,000 per month, $36,000 for the season -- and that was big money.
Two years ago, before becoming a minor-league free agent, Faulkner needed to borrow money to get through the season. "When you're in a job six years, and your expenses aren't very high, you shouldn't have to do that," he said.
So, would he cross?
"That's a decision I'd have to make," Faulkner said. "I really think they're going to settle this thing pretty soon."
Dostal was more expansive.
"The union has not done a thing for me. How do they expect me to honor them?" he said. "I'm not saying I wouldn't. It would be in the best interest of the players. But they've done a very poor job of advising players like myself."
Donald Fehr and Co. snubbing the working man?
Bite your tongue.
"Where do we stand? How are we supposed to put food on the table?" Dostal asked. "The owners are the ones writing the paychecks. And if they say, 'Play!' I don't see where we are going to have much of a choice."
"I don't want to cross a picket line. [Management] can't force anyone to cross a picket line. But they can tell you, this might be in your best interests. What choice do I have? You go, or you go home. I want that paycheck. This is what I do for a living."
Dostal earned $3,700 per month last season at Rochester. He, too, works every off-season, most recently in the mortgage business. His wife, Lu Ann, is a beautician.
Last season, he was stuck behind four outfielders on the Orioles' 40-man roster at Rochester -- Mark Smith, Damon Buford, Sherman Obando and Jim Wawruck.
He considered retiring this winter, but decided against it.
"I've got the rest of my life to work," Dostal said. "Once you're out of the game, you never get another chance."
That is, in years when the game isn't on the verge of apocalypse, and names like Ken Dixon (Philadelphia) and Kelly Paris (Minnesota) don't surface on replacement rosters.
Dostal's goal is the same as every player's -- to get to The Show, to play in the big leagues. He never made it into a game with the Orioles, although several times he prepared to pinch-hit or pinch-run.
Sometime in March, he expects the Rangers to pop the question.
He doesn't want to be a scab.
He hates the whole idea.
"Last year, that was the big leagues for me. It was a dream come true," Dostal said. "If I went up with the replacement players, I don't think it would have the same meaning.
"Sure, I think it would be tarnished. I'm not going to lie to you. There would be an asterisk in the record books next to the name of anybody who was called up."
The pawns see it all so clearly.
0$ Why can't the bishops and kings?