While his old Orioles teammates were 50 miles south of Baltimore playing at pristine Nationals Park, Gibbons was 50 miles the other way in a sleeveless Ducks jersey with only "No. 13" on the back - his number from high school.
He's riding a bus and playing for a few thousand dollars a month in 5,000-seat stadiums that feature such events as fans wrestling in sumo suits and a kids' sack race between innings.
"It's a total time warp taking me back to the minor leagues," he said. "It is just so different than anything I have experienced in the last eight years."
On Friday, Gibbons was the Pizza Hut K-Man of the Game, meaning that if he struck out at least once, all the fans would get a free order of breadsticks the next time they visited Pizza Hut. With the crowd chanting "breadsticks," he fanned on three pitches. It was one of three strikeouts he had that night, giving him 11 in his first 44 at-bats. The 1-for-5 performance dropped him to a .250 batting average as he tries to adjust to the world of slow and slower pitches, inconsistent strike zones and small light standards.
"I'm really having trouble," he said. "I am a spoiled big leaguer. ... It's an adjustment."
Ducks manager Dave LaPoint, a former big league pitcher, said Gibbons' timing is off, but he expects improvement. And he said he thinks Gibbons will eventually get a call from affiliated baseball. In fact, he said he thinks Gibbons should already be there.
LaPoint, who was a temporary victim of MLB's free-agent collusion in 1987, said there's no question that Gibbons has been blackballed because of the hGH incident.
"I am sure he went through hell just sitting home wondering why nobody called him, at least for a tryout or something," LaPoint said. "It's not like he is a bad individual to go along with everything else. He's a great guy and a hard worker. And he's had a pretty good career, and he's still young. So why wouldn't you give him a chance?"
Gibbons, who batted a career-worst .230 last year with the Orioles, exhausted every opportunity before contacting the Ducks. He wrote letters to the other 29 big league organizations saying he would play for free in the minors - the Orioles are paying him a total of $11.9 million for the 2008-09 seasons - but no one bit.
"If the Mitchell Report hadn't come out, I believe I would be playing professional baseball," he said. "I don't know if I'd be playing for the Orioles, because I was in agreement with them with what they did. They were moving on. I had a rough year with them, and no hard feelings. I just find it hard to believe a second chance wouldn't be given to me."
This, he said, might be his last hope.
"If I go out there and hit .100 for the rest of the season, and play winter ball and hit .100, I am not going to hang on. Trust me," Gibbons said. "But if I play well, I would hope somebody would take notice, in this country or another - just because it is so much fun. I really am living the dream, I still am."
dan.connolly@baltsun.com
