CHAPTER FIVE
Previous Next TABLE OF CONTENTS
J. P. Jones was busting ears replaying his win, "Strong arm it took ta set things right." He sashayed down the locker aisle. "Alot mo than you do, uh Free? 0 for month you are now Free, eh?" Free only scowled. The end of the season is like stretched elastic when both the strengths and the weaknesses are pulled to their ends.
He was pointing his voice my way, "Hey, hey, M'sieu Pops got heezself action anight, he duz. Say what's eet like when you dat ol? When ze onliest way you make ze springs creak on za bed is to hope fo nuclear sploshun."
"My teeth ache from laughing, Jones. The only thing funnier is your curve ball. I heard it doesn't break until it's into the left field seats. Big league stuff."
"No complainin I hear fom you anight, me."
"Some luck bound to fall on anyone, even you."
"An lucky you eva night you don hafta stan in an face me cause you wount have no time for gattin dressed up and hittin ze town. Ehf I was pitchin morrow and you was due to hit, you'd stay up all a ze night."
"Sick with worry about your curve ball?"
"Non, you be up awl anight swingin ze bat. Star now, you hafta, to get aroun in time for morrow's game, you ol fart, you."
J.P. wore his self-approval like new clothes taking out the prize girl in town. I shut my locker and casually let my towel leave my hand and travel with some deliberance in his direction, an action I knew to be a mistake even as my arm was still moving. Every towel, every wet putrid towel, was soon flying my way. I had to scurry out fearing I may contact any number of social diseases.
On my way out I brushed Free and he let his eyes bully me out the door. We called him "Mr. Free & Easy" or "Mr. Free" or "Free" depending on how he was swinging the bat. In the first game of the season he had to be restrained from taking off after the opposing pitcher. I heard the guys on the bench say, "That's Mr. Free and Easy." In the second game he got into a shouting match with the plate umpire. He came back to the dugout to cool down. "He'll keep his eyes tuned in next time. I told him a thing or two." By the fifth game he had been in three physical altercations and twice as many arguments. The bench seemed to support him or at least shrug it off, "It's all part of being Mr. Free."
As the season closed he had fallen into a terrible slump. He knew that with the right numbers he'd have a ticket to the bigs but those numbers were getting smaller with each at bat. Since he stayed in the lineup everyday, his failure took plenty of cuts and each thumb from the ump wiggled right in Free's face. Hitters who don't play daily can blame poor performance on inactivity but when your name's on the card everyday, then everyday you read who's missing the ball.
"Good ev-en-ing, Rap, you look dappah tonight. Is it for a fahmal occasion that bedecks you so splendidly."
His words always came dressed in tie and tails. When he first recitated in the clubhouse everyone stepped back a little from him. No ball player anyone had ever known came with a mouthbox like that. He seemed to speak English but a form that hadn't made it onto a ball diamond. Then, in a game that was going down to the last out, he came up for the third time. He was swinging the bat like it was hewed of cotton. He missed a third strike by another dimension, stormed into the dugout, grabbed a handful of bats, and loudly scattered them around the dugout. The team jumped like someone had put a cherry bomb under the bench. This was a guy no one thought dumb enough to care about the game. When he looked and saw us with our mouths catching flies he said, "Sometimes words can not sufficiently express one's rancah." The dugout howled and that saying was rolling around everyone's tongue for the next couple of weeks. After that his speech tweaked the ear no more than the usual baseball slang.
I answered his query, "Just going out for dinner. You're welcome to join us."
He declined because he had a date himself.
"The game tomorrow is of much consequence, a wise man would not be unpunctual retehning tonight."
His had not been the first reminder of the evening. The coach had slammed the locker room door to get our attention. "Okay now listen up. We've got a best of three series with the league leaders starting tomorrow and I expect all of you to be sharp. There's more at stake than the outcome of three games here. I've got calls to answer about who I think deserves to be sent up and these next three games are going to make up my mind as to what I'm going to tell them. I know what they're looking for. They're looking for those who come through when the heats on. And you who are playing a support role better be doing your best because I've got other calls to make, like where the room is coming for the talent that's moving up from the league below us. So let's look sharp." We all knew that the only ring that would set his toes to tapping was the page that was to bring him up to the majors. He had his eyes on the bigs. What's more, he wanted out of the team, out of the minor league, and out of the way of the VP who was constantly over his shoulder with a second opinion.
Even if I could box out the coach's harangue, not much chance existed that I would forget the importance of the games. The upcoming series would dog our dinner like it was waiting for food scraps. As we sat at our table, the player everyone called Bullwinkle, fidgeted. He was the most uncomfortable man I'd ever known. Tonight he was worrying about tomorrow. Tomorrow he'd be worrying about today. "We've got to win that game tomorrow." His eyes had the same plaintive appeal his glove carried. During a game, I'd come up with a ball and be setting towards first when I'd see him there on the bag, beseeching me to make the throw so that I could swear the fate of the universe depended on it. And if my throw was short or too high and he failed to make the out, he'd hang his head as if the stars had slipped between his fingers and the universe had shattered.
The women got up to make sure the restrooms were acceptably clean. Wink leaned forward and put his gargantuan forearms on the table. Again he said, "We've got to win that game tomorrow."
I said nothing but nodded with great ministerial solemness. He was capable of driving a baseball into the next century but off the field, wherever he was, he looked like he was sneaking out without paying.
"Next year is an expansion year and if we make a good showing a number of us stand to move up. Have you ever thought about making the bigs, Rap? That play in the fifth was as good as any shortstop in any league. You had to go deep to your right to stop it, then throw a strike to me."
He knew I loved to go into the hole to pick up the ball. Every player has a move at his position that pumps the adrenalin and fans the soul when it's pulled off. Mine is going deep to grab the ball, dig my feet, and throw. Wink's is going up to reach the high throw, leaving his feet, and then coming down on the bag. As for playing in the real game, the game that counts, I doubt if any kid past the age of six thinks of much else.
"Baseball's all I've got. You know I'm not the smartest guy on the team."
I wasn't going to assent by saying, "Yeh, you're a real dumbbell." On the other hand, disagreeing was like arguing over a called third strike.
"Everytime I go out there I know I'm lucky. I gotta play as hard as I can 'cause if its between me and some smart young kid, they'll take the kid. I'm lucky, 'cause guys like me without a lot of brains don't get to live in nice houses in nice family neighborhoods. But I've got a chance." In a world bobbing with calculations and contemplations, he was treading afloat by his baseball brawn.
It stepped through my mind what silent torment he endured as he played the game looking over his shoulder fearful of seeing some young buck with large pointy antlers. Yet, he outlined clearly the territory to make easy a challenge. He was already a one year veteran with the team during my first spring. In camp that year was a young phenom with no experience but raw talent that carried all the way to the warning track. The scouts had pushed him into our class but the coaches had their clipboard full with drills and lineups for the whole team and couldn't be there with the fungo bat for individualized attention. Brilliance danced in his cleats but its partner, the one who made the musclebrain plays, tripped over the shoelaces. Still, he was just the type of promising prospect managers and front offices congratulate themselves on developing. I was standing on first a beneficiary of his inexpertness. He went high to grab a rushed throw and came down with the ball. If he hadn't come down in right field, he might have been able to make it back to the bag without taking a cab. Wink was coaching first. As I listened, I began to wonder if Wink hadn't been hit in the head with too many pitched balls.
"Good reaction. You got to that ball real good. Most guys wouldn't have even tried for the play. Now remember, where you go up is where you come down. Anticipate the landing as well as the takeoff."
If he continued, he could coach himself onto a team in a lower league or a position on the bench. But continue he did. Making duplicate keys where most people add extra locks.
As he sat across from me at the table, I looked into his big broad face. His eyes weren't cast towards the bigs, they were still looking over his shoulder waiting to see whatever it was that was gaining on him. "I hope I remember to keep my follow-through in line."
"If there is an expansion year, you must be high on the list of first basemen moving up from this league."
"Maybe." He changed direction abruptly, "I've got to focus on tomorrow's game. It's a big game for the team and I shouldn't be thinking of myself. What's right is right. We've got to win together."
As Wink fidgeted and furrowed his brow some more, I hoped we came up with a victory so that he could have a night with sound sleep. I said, "Once the game starts we won't have to worry about anything but playing."
He nodded.
The game, even with all its rules and conventions, was the one place in the whole universe where gravity didn't have the same hold. Where no matter how heavy the weight across the numbers felt in the locker room, on the field we bobbed and rolled like waltzing corks. There were days when I stood on the warm tingling grass letting the sun caress my face and hearing the subtle rush of indistinguishable sounds and not wishing for anything more. Not wanting the game to begin, indignant at the intrusion of the scoreboard because of the venality it proved and fighting off succumbing to the venality as long as I could, if only for several more seconds, because of the mortality it exposed.
I arrived early at the park the next day along with
Sam Yosemite for a bit of foolery. Our teammate, Chips, felt he could beat prophesy. Before a game he'd announce, "Gentlemens, thar only mortal, they put on thar breeches one leg at a time." Then he'd step up on the bench, dangle his pants below him, spread them wide, and jump. I had just finished the stitching by the time the team began to trickle in.
"You're messing with his totem, Yosemite."
"You mean toenails. And why are you pointing at me?"
"You shouldn't be messing with his totem."
Totems were not Chips only uniqueness. He had been plucked off the pasture and there seemed to remain some of it stuck to his shoes. The field where he played bush ball doubled as a grazing area for cows and he annoyed and appalled his teammates by picking up the cow flops with his bare hand and tossing them in a pile. Rumors followed him as he moved up the organization that he kept a cow chip or two in his locker. Maybe it was true, maybe it wasn't, but at least one equipment manager refused to clean out his locker at the end of the year without a hose. For some reason, Sam Yosemite and I had forgotten how he had acquired his nickname until it was too late.
I went back out to my car and practiced my nonchalance then came in just before Chips sprang into action. We watched him jump into his pants and then pull himself onto the floor as his legs met the alterations we had tailored. When Chips looked up searching for the guilty party who had sewn his pant legs together everyone was watching him and Yosemite was holding his mouth laughing.
Several reactions by Chips could have been forthcoming. Since the recall of the derivation of his name, it had occured to me that he could sabotoge our gloves, shoes, or even hats with a remnant from his past.
I could just see myself out in the sun taking my warm-up tosses and then walking feverishly over to the sideline and slowly withdrawing my hand from my glove, looking about to puke as my eyes scanned the disgusting brown stuff soiling my hand and then putting my fingers to my nose for confirmation.
But the scenario that followed was the one we had not envisioned. Chips dialed in on Sam and how he knew besides Sam laughing his fool head off, I don't know, but he picked Yosemite. He lunged and slammed him against the lockers. Yosemite was caught off guard by the unexpected rush and was not braced for the onslaught and his head crashed back against the lockers. The team pulled Chips off before any damage was done to the lockers but the skirmish was enough to put a pallor over what I had conceived to be a good joke.
Unbeknownst to us at the time, Chips had read his press. Worse, he had believed it. A series of stories had been circulating in the local papers and some of the national sports periodicals that reported on the "men of action" who played baseball, players who were somewhat less than cerebral in their approach to the game. Chips had been profiled and because of his rather unique style at the plate, compared to the superhero, The Cowboy Golfer. The Cowboy Golfer was a crime fighting type guy who used his clubs to tee off on evil doers. He rode the range teeing off first and asking questions later. Chips had read and reread the article and then found every serial comic of The Cowboy Golfer and packed them in his suitcase for road trips and stayed up watching late night movies of his hero. He was poised and tensed to be a crime fighting killer. Unfortunately, he was playing baseball and not riding the range. Criminal minds are rampant on the field but actual criminal activities are very few.
As a matter of course Chips wasn't playing at all. He was riding the bench, a difficult place from which to strike out at evil doers. Or even create a history of fielding or hitting that a guy could lean upon while he watched others play in positions he knew he could handle. He had nothing to fill his soul but the stated resemblance to the Cowboy Golfer. So when the time came he teed off on poor Sam. Still, it could have been worse, it could have been me.
The coach had been roused by the clamor to find out what the ruckus was about. I thought I was clear out of it standing on the periphery of the action but I'd left fingerprints that were matched to past transgressions and he grabbed me by the arm. "Listen Gloverman, I know you don't care about this game or about this team but I do, and the rest of the team does. We're tired of carrying guys like you, hanging on year after year, team after team while the rest of us play our hearts out. We want this game so you'd better at least look like you're giving it your guts."
I said nothing that might prolong the encounter and took my place on the quieted bench. I sat there brooding. What did he mean, didn't care? And who's carrying whom, we're the ones out there day after day, not him, he sits in the dugout and doesn't even break a sweat. I was seething, forming words and scenarios where I got the best lines knowing full well I couldn't slam my glove down and voice the challenge that he try and play the position himself. I was locked into playing to prove to everyone, including myself, that I was an integral part of the team and not just tagging along for the ride. I'd always told myself I played baseball because it was better than working and I could play on any team in any class that I wanted to play in and that if the team wasn't good enough for me, I didn't have to take the field. Something turned inside of me when it saw itself cornered and it began to lash out in disgust and defense.
Batman sat next to me on the bench before the game. "That coach, a great motivator, ain't he?"
We threatened in the first inning.
John Wayne popped out.
Nicholas Batman took first after fouling off two pitches with the count full and finally getting a fourth ball. The pitcher was a class act. He didn't give Batman anything to get hold of. Batman, however, had a keen sense of the strike zone and an eye that could wait on eternity.
I came up with one out and a man on first. I looked to our coach for the sign. He did his usual Art Carney, folding and unfolding his arms, scratching and touching all manner of places on his body, and then finally, touching his chin signalling that the sign would follow. He could have opted for several strategies. I could have been asked to lay down a sacrifice bunt advancing the runner into scoring position. But I'd been getting plenty of wood on the ball and one out was already on the board so I didn't expect that sign. They could have called for a long fly hoping it was deep enough to advance the runner. Batman was not particularly fleet but neither did he run like he was slogging in oatmeal. Neither of those options were employed. The coach wanted to find out how serious I was about the game. The sign said I was hitting away.
As I crossed from the on-deck circle to the
batter's box I felt an adrenalin surge. Going to the plate was like a chance encounter with an ex-girlfriend. I moved towards the meeting at the same time I recoiled in aversion. An alertness rushed up the back of my neck and down my central back like a gasped glimpse of naked beauty.
In possesion of the mound was a good control pitcher. He'd keep the ball low, trying to force a double play ball. I felt the sweat gathering between my shoulder blades and under my arms. The warm-up bat was discarded and I took two sharp cuts at the air hitting it both times. I rubbed my hand up the barrel of the bat to feel the sweet smooth tone of the wood grain and to gather focus from its simple singleness of purpose. The label was consulted as much out of habit as out of a desire to protect the instrument. I pawed the ground in the batters box with the toe of my cleat. The dry airy dirt made little explosive puffs under my foot. I could smell the game, the mixture of dust and grass and the polish of the bat and my own sweat on the band of my hat.
My senses had rolled down the window and stuck their head into the onrushing breeze. Someone was yelling something but I only caught a bit of my name, mostly I just heard everything at once and nothing at all. I stood in the box and looked down the pipe at the pitcher. He looked tall and lonesome up on the mound and reminded me of a giraffe in the middle of the veldt. I can't say why, maybe it was his neck. I tanked up on oxygen, then blew it out hard to steady my hands. The ball blurred across the inside of the plate, raced by my knees and blasted into the catcher's glove. Ball one. I stepped out of the box. It was a good inside pitch. I wanted the pitch just away where I could slip it behind the runner. Being one up on the pitcher eased the tightness in my stance. The pitcher let loose with a straight hard strike. My balance was surprised by the placement, high in the strike zone. Had he found a hole in my stance or had the ball gotten away from him? Like most control pitchers, he only sub-leased the plate to the batter and only a small portion of the strike zone. He kept the remainder for himself. Nicholas moved on the bases clapping his hands and cheering me on. The catcher looked Nicholas back to the base before he returned the ball to the pitcher. The count was one and one. The pitcher looked down for a sign, checked the runner, and delivered. I kept the air in my lungs without exhaling to steady my eye. The ball came inside, the same pitch as the first but this time for a strike. He was craftily hoping I'd go for his low inside pitch and top the ball. Topped balls go for grounders and grounders go for double plays. I stepped out of the box beginning to doubt the wisdom of my wait. I wasn't planning on being a bronzed work of art standing at the plate. I let the doubt creep back to its hiding place. I was narrowing the plate I told myself. The next pitch was a great breaking pitch, a brilliant pitch that completely fooled me and I swung late but caught the edge of the ball and fouled it off. He had one to waste. I exhaled slowly again. If he got overanxious, if he got tasting the strikeout and the end of the inning, if he tried to sneak a good pitch by me, I could end up on first kicking the dust off the bag. I told myself it only takes one. I was continuing to gamble on that outside pitch. I wanted him to think I was looking inside. I moved my bat over the inside of the plate and glanced towards third. He took his time with his catcher, making me wait. The ball sizzled towards my section of the plate. I brought my forearms into the ball and moved my hips towards the pitch. I felt the warm soothing electric jolt of the wood, the tingle in my hands. I jumped my right leg across the plate. The ball slapped into right, a clean base hit. I pounded down the line and stood on first.
"Nice shot, Rap," Batman was clapping his hands and spreading his usual germy enthusiasm. His voice was always in a game seeming to come from every position and every base. I never knew if he was working off nervous energy or if it was force of habit but his chatter became as much a part of the game as the crowd.
"Atta-boy, Gloverman," the first base coach was pacing his area. "Another base rap. We got one out now down there, Batman. One out here, Rap."
The pitcher was in trouble and their manager was coming out to the mound. His gait was sure and steady like an old pack mule. I watched him look around to left field, then to right, avoiding eye contact with the pitcher as if that might influence his decisions. I wondered if he was coming out with strategy or coming out with a big hook. The manager was assessing the pitcher's stuff, consulting the catcher to see if the pitcher hadn't dropped some movement off his fastball, making sure the view he had from the dugout wasn't lying to him, making sure the pitches weren't sailing up in the strike zone. The pitcher was left in the game and the manager returned to the dugout. I watched him wheel and bite at one of his players on the bench who had evidently said the wrong something.
The next batter had the pitcher's life in his bat. The first pitch came way inside and Ness had to bail. There was some noise from our bench. The pitcher was reclaiming the strike zone. He wouldn't let anyone have that outside pitch again without properly setting him up. Sure enough, he struck Eliot out by staying inside. With two out and two men on, we still had a chance to get a run across, but the batter got behind by fouling two pitches off and then hit a lazy fly ball out to center that was caught for the third out.
Two innings later we were still scoreless when one of their big guns got a hold of one. The ball sailed over the right center field wall and Wayne belatedly jumped after it sticking his head over the wall. When we got back to the dugout our end of the bench started in on Wayne.
"Whater you tryin a do out there auteegraph it?"
"Whaja mean I coont haf got ta dat."
"I thought maybe he was atryin to kill himself by hanging his head on the fence. Sure you let a home run go but you don't have to kill yourself. At least not on the field."
"Some taste show you, willya John, and keel yourself after ze game on time of your own."
"I'm not laughing."
"You can admit it Wayne. You didn't care about the home run. You parked your car out there, didn't you? C'mon Wayne, fess up."
"Well, it's a new car and I haven't got da ensurance yet and I'd haf kilt someone if any harm had come to it." And indeed he probably would have since we'd all seen him do damage on far less provocation.
We were scoffing at him when we heard from the other end of the bench. "Nice pitch. You did everything but put postage on it."
"That's enough. You speak at the plate and leave the rest of the game to me, understand? Understand!?"
He nodded assent. The coach in turning, fixed his eyes on the pitcher. He said nothing but his stare lingered.
"Lee, you start it off."
"What do you want me to do?"
Someone volunteered assistance, "Why don't you take the strikes and go after the balls, Lighthead."
Lee was supposedly a direct descendant of Robert E. but after getting to know him, it was deemed that his lineage was closer to the revolutionary war hero, Lighthorse Harry. However, somewhere along the line he had lost the horse and much of the load and he was dubbed Lighthead.
"Just don't hit into a double play Lee."
We were behind till Wink hit a home run to tie the game. The ball looked like a frozen icesicle shooting out of the park. It didn't rise over the fence, it trajected. While some of the guys often referred to him as Bullwinkle, and me as Rocky when the two of us were together, the coach called him the Big Man. Wink added to his aura by saying he'd played with bigger men. It was as if he'd come down from some Olympian mountain where his kind was considered plain scrawny. He blushed at any Herculean act of strength. While I calculated on how I could spend the money he could win for me in a wager if I could just get him to take part, he preferred to keep his distance when one of the frequent tests of physical power entered into the hijinx of the clubhouse. I couldn't understand why anyone given his capabilities would refuse to use them. Even his hitting was not designed to pump up his slugging percentage but to cut through the infield for the base hits that steadily add to team victories. I tried to tell him that he might be winning games but he sure wasn't winning the drool of big league managers. He laughed and said that was fine with him, the big league managers could keep their drool to themselves.
It was not until I happened to be playing right field that I noticed he was out on every hit that might go for an extra base to cutoff the throw. Sure I knew he could make the stretch better than any first baseman I'd ever picked up a ball and thrown at, but he was showing me more. He could take much of the burden for holding a runner from the pitcher by moving on and off the bag keeping the runner guessing. But let's face it, no newspaper in the country makes a column in their boxscores for finesse. If it isn't measured by a run or an out, it isn't measured. Yet it was from those nuances he took his silent gleeful esteem.
The teams I knew always had at least one long ball hitter. At the beginning of the year, when he was still in form, Mr. Free and Easy was the other big man. His and Wink's personalities seemed to bat from different sides of the plate. Everyone knew when Free was around 'cause he told you. If it wasn't bolted down and it got near him, he ate it. He never made it through a game without a couple of hot dogs or a frozen malt with peanuts cracked inside it. If you had a good game, he'd be there taking you up under his arm and saying, "My shortstop here, best in the leaque, a genuine all-star." Made a guy feel kind of good whether it was true or not. Naturally, his teammates stayed within the smell of his glove oil and within the sound of his constant bites and digs.
One player he always saw coming was a little utility infielder from Mexico, a guy named Manolito Zorro. Free always seemed to have a line about his extended family or his diet and everybody would laugh. Zorro didn't have a contract. Free said it was because he couldn't write his name in English. Everybody laughed. Manolito played, then he was paid, and if he didn't play, he wasn't paid. The money he took in he sent right out again in an envelope addressed to his family. On one occasion we boarded our bus bound for Poduncsville. As we sat loaded on the bus and ready to go, a car in the parking lot caught fire and began to throw flames and smoke pillars. Someone yelled there's a kid in the car. We all sat there like little wooden men in a kid's wooden toy waiting for someone to pull the string that would make us bob up and down. Everyone but Manolito Zorro. Manolito was flying off the bus and pulling the kid to safety right before our eyes.
Blisters were already raised on his red and swollen hand as he stood in the parking lot clearing his eyes of smoke. The burns would cost him a couple of weeks and his family a couple of envelopes. We drove to the town in hang-dog silence and then played a lackluster game. The only bright spots were Free's homers that took the game for us.
The press stood around Free's locker after the game but all he talked about was Zorro. "Me, I sat there with my finger up my nose while that little Mexican's feet never touched pavement on his way to that kid."
I had a locker across from Manolito. Manolito was dressed and ready to slip out of the clubhouse when Free padded past him on his way to the shower. He wrapped his big forearm around him and said, "You're a big man, Senor Zorro."
The next day's sports page had Free's name spread across the top in heavy letters followed by an account of his magnanimous performance in battling seventeen players for the win. A paragraph was dedicated to the incident in the parking lot written from the angle that the team almost didn't make the occasion at all. As it was explained by one reporter, their job was to print news and cars catch fire every day but Ruthian batting performances that capture the reader's imagination are headlines. "Besides," the reporter said, "we sell baseball, not fire extinquishers."
Free's barbs and insults aimed at Zorro didn't diminish after the incident. Curiously, since his slump, they took on new fierceness.
"Geez Louise, Coach, look who's batting behind me. Of course they're not going to give me anything to hit. They don't have to with the Mexican jumping bean coming up. He lowrides up to the plate with his bat in his hand and a stilleto in his shoe. This just ain't the same game with him in there."
The next time around the batting order Wayne led off with a double and was sacrificed to third. I was up with the game tied, one out, and a man on third. The infield was playing me straight away neither shallow nor deep.
I checked the third base coach and caught the instruction. Take the first pitch. I stepped into the box and tried to look like a menace. I liked not having to swing. The coaches were interrogating the infielder's toes hoping to find a squealer breaking towards the plate. As the pitch was delivered the infielders set their stance and I watched the ball come at me and then heard it hit the catcher's mitt for a strike.
The sweat was wiped from my eyebrows and the sign checked. The coach closed his fist over his nose, the sign for a bunt. The squeeze was on. I hoped Wayne on third hadn't been looking up into the stands at the girls in their summer dresses. I didn't want to flash the bat brilliantly only to find that the light bulbs had all blown and I was standing in the dark. I stayed out of the batter's box ostensibly to adjust my hands over the throat of the bat but looking past my wrists at the manicure of the grass around the plate and the dirt down the line. I told myself he was a low ball pitcher so I didn't have too much to worry about hitting a high pitch for a pop. Contact had to be made at all costs. A missed bunt could be a runner's charge of the Light Brigade. The pitch came in low and across the plate. I sensed John breaking for home, I heard "squeeze" echo between the bases and I felt their infielders moving even before I'd fully come around into a bunt stance. The ball was absorbed with the wood and pushed towards first base. My legs felt like locomotive wheels and the basepath greased rails as I moved out of the box. I burst past the pitcher just as he was squatting over the ball spray-legged and pointing straight at me. I steamed past him but I wasn't going to do him any good anyway. He went home with the ball as I skipped by the bag. I turned to see our dugout dancing and John popping off the ground from beneath the tag that had come too late. One more run showed in our box score and my dugout was screaming my name.
The inning was over two batters later but the damage had been done. Our pitcher held them through the ninth and we retired to the locker.
"Nice job Rapper."
"Geez, did you see Wayne move? I've never seen him run so fast."
"And he still barely beat the tag."
"That catcher sat over the plate like he was hoping to hatch it or something. If Wayne didn't have those little skinny feet, he never would have slipped through."
"Great pitching. Best performance all year," everyone clapped in agreement.
"We're rolling, team. I think we've got 'em. It's downhill from here and guess who's got the momentum."
The general consensus had it that we'd sweep the series and take with it the pennant. I showered and dressed slow to savor the atmosphere. I pulled my shoes from the floor of the locker and I sunk my foot into something foreign and I flinched but I also felt Chip's eyes upon me. I pushed my foot through the goo and into a snug fit. I slowly slipped the second shoe over my foot. At least it was clean. I closed my locker and headed out. "You're a-walking kinda funny, ain't you Rap?" Chips said. I detected no anger in his voice and I knew that even he was lightened by the day's game.
"Yeh, I think I sprained my ankle slightly." I said as I felt the oozing between my toes and exaggerated a limp. I walked out of our locker room with the intention of making it to the parking lot before I uncovered my wounds but my anxiety got the best of me and I stopped to look in my shoe. I breathed in a noseful of peanuts and then exhaled relief. Where he got peanut butter I didn't know but I was somewhat relieved he had managed to avenge himself without further fisticuffs. I knew he was in the locker room showing anyone who'd listen how he'd done me, taking great satisfaction in the application of a good trick. As I knelt down to lace up my shoe I noticed two men at the end of the exit corridor. I kept my eye on them as I walked through the stench of stale beer and piss-smelling odors that lingered in the tunnel.
I should have recognized both men by their silhouettes. The smaller man was the coach, but it was the second man, the large one, who spoke first.
"I've always expected big things from you, kid. I hope you don't let me down." And then he chuckled in a greasy laugh and his fleshy face shook like women's breasts. "Neither of our careers can stand the delay." I had not had much to do with the Executive VP of the team up till then.
I tried to move past them with just a nod but they were there to make their presence felt. "I know, Gloverman, that often times one person can make a difference both on the diamond and in business negotiations. You can be that person. The front offices are looking for promotable talent. You want to see us all get ahead don't you?"
"Sure," I replied in a voice more ingratiating than I felt.
"Then you make sure that everyone's ready to play and you go out there and take the lead."
I moved past them.
And he let out another smile designed to lubricate the air but his teeth only reminded me of the lard scum that coagulates on the top of a pan of grease. I didn't like him. His stink collected in my head and I couldn't outwalk it. The game wasn't his, not to win, not to lose, not to play. He wasn't suppose to take anything from it. His intrusion galled me and the resentment set my molars down hard against each other. I could care less that someone made money off a shrewd bet. But this was different. I was their trained ape. I was going to go out and perform when and where and how they decided.
The next day found me dragging out of bed after an uneasy sleep. I scowled through breakfast feeling as though my eyes were half closed and my head half asleep. It's a feeling I dread on game day and I sometimes bounce up and down to shake the flatness out of me. However, in my numbed brain were the two shadows from the tunnel and I did not feel the need to jostle them awake.
I seldom go to the park early without cause because by the time of the first batter I feel as though I've played three innings. So I fiddled and faddled and was not the first of the team at the park.
In the clubhouse, J.P. Jones was standing between Sam Yosemite, our catcher, and Wink singing.
"Home, Home on firs base.
Where ze beer and za wile gloves play.
Where seldom eez hear a intelligent word.
And ze bunts are awl safely laid."
I found my place in the field. We warmed up confidently, sailing the ball through the infield like wizards with magic light. I nervously smoothed the dirt around my positon, removing pepples and patching irregularities in the surface. "Play ball," the umpire took to his position crouching behind Yosemite.
The first hit off the bat was a hot little grounder peppering the dirt between me and third. I broke to my right sharply digging my cleat into the dirt and spread my glove hand across my stomach and out over my right shoe in a backhand grab. I felt the ball careen off my fingers and then bump against my thumb refusing to settle into the pocket like it was baring its teeth and striking its cage. My right hand was clasping the ball even as it was still biting. I completed the catch with my left shoulder pointed away from first base. I dug my toes into the dirt and let my heels grap me to a stop as I rocked my weight back, brought the ball out of the glove with my right hand and pumped the ball to first. I have watched countless grounders scooped and then shovelled off to first base and as I pondered the aspects of the play, it appeared to me as something unfurled rather than separated by independent movements. But whenever the ball climbed into my glove, I felt as though split-second reactions were replaced by the conscious pulling of every sinew, synapse, and string in my body, that I was letting the ball tease the bones in my hand before it stilled, that its weight shifted in mid-throw like it was liquid-filled, that the first baseman stretched too soon because the ball was so slow.
"Out."
"Nice play Gloveman."
With one out and a man on third, a line drive was hit sharply. Batman was charging from center. The ball shot straight over the infield and sliced down towards the grass in shallow territory. The runner broke for home believing that the hit was a clean shot. Everyone in the park expected Batman to pull up and pick the ball up on the bounce but he kept coming and I was looking for the more difficult short-hop accompanied by a quick throw. Nicholas was bent completely forward reaching out, his legs driving but because of the angle of his body, it looked like more of a controlled stagger. He caught the ball on the fly in the web of his glove and then, instead of leaving his feet and proning out into the grass, he took several steps with his glove sliding along the ground for balance, propping him till he could get his feet centered beneath his torso. He came up with the ball and threw a one bounce hopper to third catching the runner halfway down the basepath. It was a play to behold and I would have liked to let it run past my eyes again by standing and staring but the inning was over.
When we got to the dugout, the compliment went around the bench to Batman. I sat between him and his roommate.
"Not bad considering his condition"
"What condition?" I wanted to know.
"Jes look at hiz eyes."
I leaned over wondering if he had dabbed his eyes with beets or something. "Geez, those are the most bloodshot things I've ever seen. They look like cheap ground round."
He clutched his stomach.
"God, that run makes me want to heave."
"You mean he's hungover."
"Well, he's hungover today and he was hungout last night."
They told me a story of lowering Batman headfirst off the balcony so that he could peer into the room below belonging to some girl he had seen in the bar. "When she finally looked up and saw him she screamed with such intensity that he screamed in reaction to it and the commotion disturbed us to the point where we almost dropped him five floors."
"And you know that dumb girl just stood there shaking."
The next time in the field Wink made a circus catch turning and bringing down a foul pop fly by fielding the ball over his head. That same inning I got a shot over second base that I knocked down, picked up, and threw a .44 magnum for an out. We looked good in the field.
But by the end of the game, we had scattered only a couple of hits and they had landed one big number over the right field fence and we lost a close game, 1-0.
The locker room talk had little zip to it.
"No gloom and doom. All we hafta do is hang on now." I was probably not the only one who recognized the change in the perspective. Their team had somehow escaped from our pocket and were now bouncing the high wire that we were balancing on.
I didn't see them as I hit the runway tunnel and I barely managed to keep my feet from overtaking my shoes as I headed for the car.
They were there.
The man with the buttery smile spoke first. He let his grin slowly engulf me like it was an old friend buying me a drink. "Times about up for you, pal. Oh I don't mean just this season. I mean all the seasons. You're at the end of the line. What have you got to show for it uh, Gloverman? You ain't even had a shot at the bigs. Not that you haven't hung around long enough but what have you got to show for it? You can't even tell your grandkids you made it. They won't even know you played at all. They'll look at you and see another crazy old man. This is your time and when it passes you can't go back and get it. You can't go back and play ball. Yes, my boy, your times about up."
If a smirk had managed to crawl upon my lips, I would have been grateful but I feared that my expression was slowly running across my face and I'd lost the muscle control to call it back. My stomach seemed to go lifeless. I did not want to hear what I could not laugh off.
"Maybe Gloverman doesn't think that being a major league ball player is worthy of his consideration." I could almost see the sweat shaking off the coach's words. The loss hit the coach right in the gut. A player can look good in a loss, good stats, good heart, but a coach eats a loss and much of it dirties his face.
"He may not be thinking about the majors but his teammates certainly are. As a matter of fact, we've got a first baseman who would look real good on a number of big league rosters. It's a shame you're standing in his way because the guys upstairs are only looking for winners. Second best just won't do."
What I didn't perceive was the desperation in the Exec's voice. He was losing his bid to be GM for an expansion team and he was almost panic-stricken watching it slip out of sight. It must have been like watching a rescue ship sail further from sight. Expansion years come once in a lifetime. He still hoped to pull something off by proving he could assemble and keep motivated, talented players capable of winning big games.
I left wondering whether I was the only player they were putting the thumb to. I wanted to know but I wanted away from them more so I didn't turn to look back. I spent the remainder of the evening, the night, and the next morning trying not to look back.
It was the last game of the season and the festivities were designed to have the stadium shaking pom-poms. Our opponents were running fan appreciation day and they were giving a car away before the game. Our catchers were slipped instructions to keep the pitcher from popping the ball for an extra half hour. The delay was not scheduled.
Parked behind second base was a shiny new car to be driven off by some lucky fan. Amidst cheers and clapping the fan came onto the field and was handed the keys. She got in, turned the ignition and let it crank. It didn't start. Again she turned the engine over and again it didn't start. The crowd began to crow loudly. The team's P.R. man slid into the driver's seat and gave it a try, still no response. For the next 45 minutes they cranked and cajoled the car while the crowd chanted and jeered.
During the ensuing pause our team heaped insult onto their injury by stealing the show with clowning routines. But I had none of it. Guys were sticking their faces in mine and asking me what was wrong. I wasn't lending my usual goosing presence to the amusements. I had no answer for them. I normally like to instigate or at least find my share of the foolery but on this day I wasn't putting in my ante. My diligence had its game face on and it believed it was coming up to bat in the ninth with the game on the line. I had wrapped myself in the preparations for the game and the cacoon was meant to keep out anything foreign to those preparations. It was the importance of the game I told myself. But a fear went unacknowledged lest it gain in credence. I sensed that stalking the perimeters of the defenses I had thrown up were threats that could slip in if the barricades were lowered, even if they were lowered for merriment. And I had no intention of letting my mind be subjected to the occupation of greasy smiles and Pavlovian handling techniques. So I spun the bulwark that I thought could hold them.
The amusements that surrounded me were plenty. Besides the ongoing theater being acted out over second base with the car, a revue that P.T. Barnum would have envied was taking infield practice. Several of my teammates were accomplished sleight of hand artists and they could loop the ball across their body, head butt it, hip it, roll it up one leg to their arm and across their neck into their hand, feint the toss, look away, and then slip it into the air in another direction. When the action slowed or just to get things jumping, someone would add another ball and it would bounce off heads and hands. Yosemite grabbed two bats and did a handstand in the batter's box and then like a man upside down on stilts ran the basepaths backwards.
Finally, the automobile had to be pushed off the field. Not surprising since Batman had stolen the rotor out of the distributor before the game when the car was being shown off to the ball players. Compounding the antic scene was his advice. A lowrider who had chopped and channelled many cars, he was able to direct the diagnostic examinations in such a befuddling manner that by the time he was done they probably had to give the poor girl another car altogether.
Their team was tight after the delay. They had warmed up only to cool down and I could almost hear their sticking muscles peeling off each other. For our part, we were like a kid so eager to lick his ice cream that he knocks the dripping scoop out of the cone. It appeared as though the play between the two teams might be very sloppy indeed.
Their third baseman, a guy by the name of Valentine, couldn't pickup two grounders in two chances and Jones was all over him like he was his mama.
"O my dawling, O my dawling, O my cherie Valentine.
He eez lost at playin thir base, bootin grouners,
Valentine.
Hans of concrete, hans of concrete, hans of
concrete, Valentine.
He eez lost at playin thir base, hans like
bricks, theez Valentine."
Valentine didn't say anything but his face flamed under the cap. And in my gut, like kindling stoking a burn, the foolery fueled my earnestness. I shouted encouragement past Jones to the batter. J.P. let the song rest. When the batter went down after hitting a hard line drive at someone, I punched my hand, grabbed my glove and was the first out of the dugout. Waiting for my warm-up throws to first, I kicked the infield dirt and fired pepples into foul territory. I took the slow ambling grounder from Wink with a concentrated hustle of movement and rammed the ball back to him. I followed the umpire's motions waiting for him to grab the back of his mask, throw it over his head, bring it down over his face, squat behind the catcher and yell out, "Let's have a batter."
The game went into the seventh with the teams tied. But I found no refuge in the routine of sudden ground balls and popping gloves and quick biting cleats. I was knotted up like a balled up piece of line. Their man stood on first with two out. Knocking the dirt out of his cleats at the plate, was the batter they wanted in this situation, their money hitter.
My eyes fixed on Jones when he went to the rubber to get the sign, I found where I wanted to be in the infield dirt, straight away, knowing the batter could spray the ball in any direction, I didn't shade to either side. J.P. readied the pitch and I lowered my rear towards the ground, dropped my glove to within inches of the dirt and tried to hang my arms loose. As the pitch was delivered, I felt my heels lift slightly and my toes clamp into my shoes. I've heard many players say that in the tight spots with the game on the line they want the ball hit to them. They relish the chance to make the play. That is not my case. I hexed the ball, cursing it away from my position. If I didn't have the opportunity for the game-saving play that was alright, I couldn't make the game-losing error either.
On the third pitch the white pine blurred and the wood rang. My eyes picked it up early. I saw it going to my right in the hole even before the outfielders had heard the report from the wood and before the ball had travelled far enough to let its intentions be known, but I knew it. Right leg in the pivot, left coming around, the ball was low off the ground, maybe a foot, and tailing to the right. It was my play but I knew it was on the very periphery of my limits. The ball was on green then on dirt. My right leg pushing off and glove hand into the air. The tip of the leather struck the racing hardball like flint on steel, my hip banged the solid ground and the dirt painted my side. The ball careened into the outfield dazed by the blow and leaned towards the foul line in a stupor. I got to my feet as the runner crossed third. I called to the left fielder and watched him throw home. The runner crossed the plate as the catcher got the ball.
Pitchers sometimes say when they're getting bombed they want to run from the field and take cover anywhere but on a pitching mound. I stood there, not running, not moving. My glovehand felt the sting that hadn't come like it had been traumatized by the play into believing what wasn't there. It didn't help to know that the hit was ruled a single, that the scorer supposed I had no chance to make the play. A clean single would not have scored a run. It would have left runners on first and third.
I said nothing to no one as I sat on the bench staring onto the field. Wink put his big hand on my shoulder as he passed. Wayne was looking at me when he said, "Le's go now, it's not ovah. One lil rally and dis game is ours."
We got that rally in the ninth. I reached first on a sharp single to left and was moved around to third by the time Free came up. Free hadn't even made contact in batting practice but the pitcher was rattled, pawing at the dirt around the rubber and looking at me. Our team called him Grouper, after the fish. Word had it that the fish was named after him but that's probably stretching it, at least a little. His first pitch came inside around the knees. Free didn't like that and he all but broke the bat in half and sent the pieces sailing through the pitcher's heart. The next pitch went right for his chin.
Free came off the dirt like a badger out of a box. I moved from third. Ahead of me was Zorro making a straight line from the on-deck circle to second base. I don't know what the other two leading the charge felt. Free was committed because that's what everyone expected of him and that's what he expected of himself. Manolito was a curious number. He crossed the entire length of the diamond to get at the second baseman, a small mole-like looking guy named Rodriquez. Me, I came across that diamond feeling holy. I was going to be redeemed. I expected to be shot down, pummeled, to be strung out, my arms torn between first and third. I could hear the team rallying behind me and I could picture them weeping over my fallen form. Grouper was back-peddling and throwing out his hands like he was shooing flies when I caught him. Free was caught from behind by their catcher while I locked the pitcher's throwing arm with my forearm. He tripped backward over his tangled feet as I was bringing my weight down. I felt the vibration in the bones and ligaments and heard the nauseating wrench. The pain in the pitcher's face screamed that something was wrong. I had dislocated his arm at the shoulder. The fighting ceased and the players circled the pitcher. Though I kept my head down, I felt the recriminating looks.
The dislocation had to be put back in place, the sooner, the less pain for the pitcher. I stood like stagnant water, helpless in front of his dangling arm. Finally, one of the coaches took hold and adjusted the arm. The pitcher floundered on his knees unable to raise himself unassisted. It took Wink to cradle him and raise him to his feet. I watched Wink help the pitcher. Apology was meaningless but as much to Wink as to the pitcher I wanted to declare one. The inability to catch Wink's eyes was one more indication of my botchery.
Wink's powerful shoulders straining to bear the pitcher's weight served to silouette my weakness. I stood still. My head felt ready to combust but no sweat pored forth as relief. The pitcher's glove lay folded in the grass, the ball next to it. The pitcher's fingers should have been clasped around its seams. A man is not placed on base to exact a toll on those who are on the field with him. What's right is right. And what ain't, ain't.
The pitcher was taken off the field. Free was thrown out of the game and the play resumed. Their new pitcher quickly gave up a single and what proved to be the winning run. I didn't shower so I wouldn't be delayed in removing myself from the ballpark. Neither did I join the backslapping and the replaying of Free's great charge. As I made haste out the door I heard a voice raise the toast, "That's our Free."
They were there as I hurried out of the stadium. They came out of the darkness.
They seemed intoxicated but I couldn't tell if it was from beer, the events of the game, or they were flush from the victory.
"I gotta hand it to you, Gloverman, you showed me some real courage going after that pitcher the way you did. I wasn't sure you had it in you. You really got my juices going when you struck out from third towards the mound. I swore I was running stride for stride along side of you." He was pressing in on me as if it was important to him that I saw the strength in his words. "Taking him out was the kind of gamestopper that the big leagues keep their eyes out for. They're looking for the champion caliber of player who has the leadership ability to settle a dispute with swift action. And today you became that kind of player."
The coach could barely contain his enthusiasm. "When that pitcher went down there was no question as to what team was the best in the league. We sure showed 'em. Like we were saying just before you came, you've got to look trouble right in the eye and then beat it down or there's no honor in playing the game."
As my stomach turned I directed my gaze onto the diamond looking for solace in the familiar pattern of the grass and dirt. But all I saw was the field where someone had demanded a baseball game and demanded players who were willing to play and where those players did what was asked without question, without refusal, and without responsibility.
The call came in the middle of the winter. I had spent the off-season working in a garage. Every night I came home with the smell of gas, brake fluid, and oil on my hands. I liked working on my car and my friend's cars. But after my shift at work, eight hours of pushing through one car after another, I was mean and seemed to wear a film of grease wherever I went. I should have been ecstatic. Few who play the game ever get awarded with the chance to try out for a major league team. Perhaps it was the garage but a stench covered me and it wouldn't wash off.