CHAPTER THREE
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The coach, he'd prop himself up in the doorway of the whirlpool room, belly hanging down to his knees, and solemnly bless the soaking bodies, "You don't make it to the bigs unless you belong there and if you make it, then you belong there." Yeh, them's the coach's words alright and he believed 'em. They were as true for him as "two outs, run on anything." Coach Cal knew that some of us were worthy of being in the bigs and some were not. He wouldn't know for sure who was, but there were plenty of signs as to who wasn't. And those signs were as plain as a called third strike.
The pain was circling the bases in a victory lap and pumping its arms wildly. When he didn't bounce up off the field all humble and shaking it off, our left fielder and I came skipping over to where Addams lay in the center field track. The Americanisms were spitting out of his mouth aimed at the wall as if they could blast it into Jericho's boulders. We listened for a couple of good rounds and then signalled to the dugout. We carried him off the field and none too soon, he'd had his fill of being a public spectacle of agony.
Coming off the field being supported in a wounded- comrade hand-carry and the torment making narrow arcs with each of our steps, we passed Coach Cal and Addams blurted out, "Youz right coach, hit a heap a pain playin for ya."
I looked at Cal's vacant and puffy face and heard again his pregame words goosing us during his pep talk, "Okay Crusaders, we've practiced. And they were good practices. We've developed a game strategy and it's a good strategy. We're going to hustle, hustle, hustle. We're going to take our runs a hit at a time. One run, even one hit, may decide this game. Now, our opponents, and you take a good look at the colors our opponents wear. I don't have to tell you whose colors they are." A murmur of agreement pulsed through the room. It was a familiar theme. The other team wore scarlet, the devil's colors, a team from Hell. "Our opponents believe in the long ball. They believe in big innings. How wrong they are about baseball. But we've got to prove their folly. Only one team will take the pennant." Cal's mission was to make sure the league title didn't fall into the hands of the false prophets. "We're gonna need sacrifice out there. Sacrifice on the field and sacrifice before the game. Those of you who play hurt show me what you're made of. And you can have faith that sacrifice does not go unnoticed. No player ever ascended into the majors without sacrifice and every player up there has proven his character by his faith." It wasn't faith.
It was fear. Fear doesn't buy a season ticket. It doesn't have to. When it comes into the park it sits anywhere it chooses. Addams was carried off and I sensed it out in the stands, hailing the concession man and settling into the best seat in the house.
I'd seen guys hobbled and banged around before and it didn't faze me but this time the seams were unraveling from the hide of the ball. Maybe it was because Addams and I had come to the team at the same time. I tried to shake the image of the wall but the green slab kept taking a bad hop right back into my mind. It was as if it was I who had been hurt, as if it was I who was in the field trying to make the catch, as if it was I who had splintered his leg. I could see the ball rising, coming out of the infield and then see myself turning and giving it the gas. I could feel the sun singeing my ear and prickling the side of my neck and face. I approached the boundaries of the field. It was a minor league park with minor league limits. Some parks have fences, this had a wall, a big green cyclops of a wall. That wall terrorized the baseball field stalking the perimeters like Job's God. The grass was no sparser than most outfields but it was dry and I could hear it crunching beneath my snapping cleats and it reminded me of running on dead crickets. The warning track passed but I took no notice of it. I didn't let up and I hurtled into the concrete wall and jammed my leg straight into it. And I was boxed into the dark, copper-tinged taste and smell of blood and injury. It was as real as that to me.
The flags weren't flapping bravely in the wind. They drooped at the pole. They didn't look all that different from me. I was withering inside my uniform. And I wasn't the only one effected by Addams going down for the count. Parish hadn't seen what happened and he clearly wanted to stay out of the know. He not only avoided conversation, he wasn't making any eye contact that might provoke a word. Beeker was operating like he was in some kind of melodrama. His movements seemed to be exaggerated and too deliberate to be real. Bernard had turned belligerent. He was taking his swings like he was avenging 100 years of family honor against the Black Knight. As it happened, St. Bernard connected for a three run homer that eradicated the lead our opponents had achieved with a few scattered hits.
I followed St. Bernard into the batter's box and looked towards the mound. Their pitcher was an average looking guy, except for his arms. Stuck on the average looking guy were a pair of unaverage orangutang arms. I gamely lifted the bat off my shoulder with as much strength as I could summon. The first pitch out of the hand came inside, way inside. Under usual game conditions I can step back out of the path of a ball without resorting to the death scene from Camille. The less dramatic, the less it looks like my fur is ruffled. I watched the ball head for the spot between my eyes and froze like a cornered rabbit. The pitch struck my forearm as I flung myself backwards. Even though I'd followed it all the way I had to convince myself that the catcher hadn't hit me across the arm with my own bat. I was certain my arm was at least broken if not shattered.
I searched for something I did to deserve going out with an injury. I wanted to play forever. Was there a warning I hadn't heeded? Maybe in the beginning, when I was new to the team.
"Walecome to the tame." His name was Podres and the light of a gospel shone in his eyes. "You in luck you wunt cheer last yare when we wuz lanshin in the abyss." He was friendly and eager and had the clean cut reserved for shock troops. He told me the team had been saved, they'd been tapped to rise from the heap and take a place among the league leaders. He led me past the pitching machines, the batting cages, teams of technicians, measuring devices, diagrams and analyses, to a cluster of clipboards. "Hair ah the nummers."
We stood reverential before the charts. I would come to this place again and again in the times to come to be with my teammates and study those numbers on bended knee. I would pray that some great technique would be revealed and open up a new realm of performance.
"Bottom of the ninth, two down," the patter came from behind us in the batting cages, "the crowd on its feet, and a rookie coming to the plate. He steps in. The pitcher checks the sign, goes into his windup, delivers."
The sharp report of a ball striking a bat sent us looking towards home plate. "Oh and it's a long ball going going, get out of here. Pandemonium." Another drive fixed our eyes on an easy smooth swing wearing Addams across its back. Even his misses had a confident grace about them.
"Betcha he don't hit anudda outta da indfield. Ow much?"
Podres and I looked at the offer but let it alone.
"No takas? Okay, betcha da neggst un goes ova da woll."
"I ain't a better, but that guy can sure hit."
"Hmm, that rimains to be sane," Podres wasn't so impressed. "Welhaf compar him again our nummers. He's got pow but welhaf to see bou fishycy."
It didn't take long to discover that his numbers didn't add up. It was early in one of our first games. With a man on first, he picked up a ball deep in the right-center gap and took a shot at the lead runner travelling to third. We normally bring the ball into second but he threw a strike to third that should have caught the runner if our baseman had made the tag. When Addams came in from the field the coach met him.
"I don't know where you learned to play ball but here we throw to the proper base."
"He be out if the tag be made."
"You put men on second and third."
"I had me an out. He be scoring on throws to second."
"Listen Hebe," a name that would stick, "I don't have to explain this but I will. Our statistics tell us that hitting the cut-off man and holding the trailing runner on first out of scoring position keeps down their run production and gives us the chance for a double play. You're new, but from now on you do as directed. No questions."
"There seems to be some dissension on the team between the new young power hitter and his coach." The voice was constant but low in volume. P.A. had become such a fixture on the team that no one gave him much regard even when he was placed next to them on the bench.
I sat slumped against the back of the dugout knowing that the coach's words were right but admiring that cannon shot in from the field.
Hebe's time on the team was like living under the inquisition, nothing but torture for him. His batting cage sessions became sermons on the basic hitting commandments and contrasting displays of what was considered devilish natural splendor. He had a smooth, powerful swing that was designed to find the outskirts of the field but he was placed second in the lineup, a spot on the team reserved for contact hitters, so he was repeatedly instructed to shorten his swing, punch the ball, and take fat pitches that allowed our lead-off man to steal. "Take the message into your heart," they told him, "there's room in the organization higher up."
But in center field, Hebe was unfettered. He buzzed the field pushing its boundaries back. And no one was complaining. No pitcher was going to critique a shoe-string catch that kept the tying run at first. Or get to the dugout and say, "I wish you hadn't gotten to that ball so quick I was hoping to load the bases and pitch my way out of it."
The team handled him like a ball with with wet paint on it, as if contact might taint them with his unorthodoxy. For my part, I stayed frozen behind the bent brim of my cap, fearful he'd try to adopt me as a battery mate. I did not want to lapse and I knew Hebe was the kind of catylst which would set off reactions and I'd find myself on the wrong side of reverence. Nor did those who had come from the same stick ball streets with the same movement born of dodging what's in those streets and the same asphault accent, chat up a game with him. He no doubt threatened them the most. They had exchanged that style and, like all recent converts, were very concerned about being caught off base. Hebe must have felt like a man stranded on second. His natural enthusiasm and ebullience begged for audiences but his teammates showed no inclination of tuning in. His play changed. The bursts from the outfield became three and four hoppers designed to just get the ball in, then they slowed further until they barely limped into second. The trainer said his arm was tired and the coaches, not so much in word but more in their exchanged looks, seemed to take heed that this was one more indication that he was not among those with favored grace. When he finally crashed into the center field wall those in the know shook their head in affirmation. Hebe was one more sign and they gave praise for their deliverance.
After the game, I sat alone shadowed by the eerie
presence of Hebe's injury and my own very real crippled forearm. I began to conjure up ghost stories from the diamond, past injuries to others that haunted parts of my baseball memory. An earlier time spooked me in much the same way a game-losing dropped ball gets replayed over and over with never a different result. I was just a dippy kid and I thought of him as the best ball player who ever played. He could throw from the depths of the outfield a perfect one hopper to the plate, he only hit where they weren't, and on the basepaths he was a catcher's worst fears. I didn't personally have any contact with him or nothing but I watched him play enough to know, and I'd seen enough baseball to know and I knew he was the best. It was on one of the game days that I squeezed in down front, where I liked to sit, and I landed next to two baseball types wearing neckties and I heard some talk that they had money in their hand and contracts in their pockets and I kept looking through their fingers until I saw the bare palm and then figured the talk wasn't real. I watched the big player dig a ball out of the grass or blow a hole in the infield with his bat and I'd hear them comment, "Looks like big league material to me." Then late in the game, he went high against the outfield fence and caught his spike in the chain link and went down in a heap. Just like that the two packed up their money and contracts and were gone. The last thing I heard them say was, "Many are scouted but few are chosen."
So I moped around the hotel nursing my throbbing
arm and remembering hurt of all kinds while the rest of the team were out riding the town. I was missing the fun side of the guys. We liked to hit the Asian or Latin quarter of a city. The boys would say it was where their money was really appreciated. It's a matter of responsibility we'd tell each other and who has more responsibility to fill the boxscore than the team at the top of the heap. We did not take the league standings lightly. It was a take-no-prisoners attitude. Sometimes we got a little overzealous and wiped out a bar or restaurant we were there to save with our patronage but the people seemed to endure by anticipating rewards to come. I knew that was where the team was, out showing the population what winners looked like and giving them something to shoot for. We believed that our winning ways were signs of the championships to come. The team was out spreading the word and I was alone in melancholia.
"I was of a mind to wait arount to see ow you feelin." I must have looked like I thought he was trying to start a love affair because he was quick to add, "And asides I pitch the morrow so I can't carouse anyways." His name was Moses Becker but everyone called him Beeker because of his rather large probiscus. Not that he didn't wear it well. When he stood atop the mound and pointed his nose at the batter it was like staring into the face of a rocket launcher.
Beeker had a way about him that made it seem that a joke was somewhere in scoring position. It wasn't that he was that funny looking but crazy things seemed to follow him. There was this time when he was pitching: He was working on the second half of a very successful season with a good record against everyone but one team and one player in particular. The guy wasn't that bad but he wasn't that good either. But as is sometimes the case, a particular mediocre hitter may consistently hit a very good pitcher and in turn, a very good hitter may consistently hit poorly against a particular mediocre pitcher.
It wasn't enough that the guy lit up the scoreboard with Beeker but he'd celebrate by raising his arms and giving it a victory run like he'd just won the World Series or something. He had a large body and an undersized head that swept directly down his back. We called him Rodent. Our catcher, Bernard St. Bernard, began to get miffed at him. St. Bernard was calling the pitches and he took the hits as slaps across the front of his catcher's mask. Our right fielder had played ball with Rodent in a lower class and mentioned in passing a peculiarity about him when the catcher was within earshot. It seems Rodent was somewhat squeamish about other people's bodily discards. The right fielder had witnessed a time when an opposing catcher accidently spit on the guy's shoe and he had begun to gag. If the bat boy had not been around to wipe his foot off, he would have left the game. Bernard was an eminent tobacco chewer and a prolific spitter so everyone figured he'd chaw up and then drain all over the guy's laces.
The bets were off when we caught a look at the ump. He was not overly fond of tobacco spitters. As a matter of record he was downright vicious towards them. If you let fly with a juicy one around the plate, he'd make you want to put it in your cap before trying it a second time. If you were a pitcher or a catcher, the strike zone would shrink, belt buckle high and zipper wide. If you were a batter, you might as well swing at the moon. No one dared even register a guess as to what he'd do if spit was actually spilled on the plate itself. St. Bernard didn't want to find out and he couldn't be sure the spray or residue falling from the target's shoe wouldn't leave its mark across the plate.
None of us had seen the bat boy leave under Bernard's orders, nor had we noticed him come back and present a small package to St. Bernard. We took our places in the field hoping Beeker could take revenge with his own sword. If he was on his game, he'd face Rodent in the second inning. Sure enough the first batter in the second inning went down on strikes; the second hit safely. It was obvious to everyone in the park that Rodent was relishing his chance to get to Beeker early and spoil the outing and as it turned out, relish it he would. Rodent discarded his on-deck bat and stepped towards the plate giving Beeker a call-the-shot homerun eye that said, "Hey, I know your girlfriend ... well."
Bernard started in sneezing. None of us in the field thought much of it, though we might have noticed that he didn't raise his mask but sneezed right through the bars. We took the occasion to relax a bit. He was still sneezing when Rodent was almost to the batter's box. Suddenly St. Bernard turned and sneezed right at the guy. "Excuse me. Oh, I am sorry," and with that Bernard reached up and wiped his hand on the guy's chest seeming to brush something off. Rodent was focusing his attention on Bernard's concern. He caught sight of something because he immediately turned away and began to gag. St. Bernard, genuinely concerned, like the caring person he was, rushed to his aid and stuck his face squarely in front of the guy, close enough so that he got a good look at the green stuff running down Bernard's nose and into his mask and a good whiff of the catcher's foul breath and then St. Bernard says, "Geez, you sick or something." The sight of Bernard's dribbling nose and the hunks of green running off the mask was more than Rodent's weak stomach could take and he moved towards his dugout where he finally puked. He was helped off the field by his teammates. When we came in at the end of our half of the inning, the bat boy filled us in on how he had run up to the hot dog stand and brought back a handful of pickle relish and onions and how Bernard St. Bernard had chewed the onions and taken the relish out with him in the second inning. "I quess he just doesn't have the stomach for the game," he commented.
Beeker sitting in front of me made the red bulge on my arm seem smaller as I remembered that incident. He had one arm bare and one sleeve of a windbreaker pulled over his other arm, his pitching arm. He should have been in the bigs already but somehow the book on him was that his arm was bad and it was only a matter of time before it failed altogether. It was a prognosis that was of course closer to being fulfilled with each passing season.
I knew him to be a talker so I got him going. "How's the arm?"
"Never knowed for sure but I'm alookin to go all nine." He was our stopper, the pitcher counted on to pull the team out of a downward spiral or push us further into a climb for the lead. He went the distance and the rest of the staff went for a breather. He held the opposition's run production down keeping a game within reach so that a couple of runs squeezed over the plate chalked one up in the win column for us. We may not have played any better when he was pitching but it sure seemed as though we did. We felt like we were back in the race after one of his starts. After a game in which Beeker had pitched, after the rest of the team had gone, he remained, sitting in the trainer's room, his arm packed in ice.
Since I felt like brooding, he went on, "My pa had his leg," he thumped his knee, "in a cast the last time I seed him. Did I ever tell you he uster be some football player? But it shore did cost him. Thas how he got his knee all hut up. Some morns it takes him nigh on 15 minutes to get his legs out of bed. He never let me play football, said it was 'a fools' game' but if he thought he was able, he'd be out on the field amorrow. Can't really blame him. If the devil hisself had a pill that promised me a great arm but with horrible catasterphies, I'd take a handful so I could be better'n great, the bestest. I'd cut off both arms and stick the ball twixt my teeth if it meant being the best there ever was."
I squirmed in the chair, I ain't never met anyone who had ever picked up a ball or set their foot down at speed without that same wish to find a potion, consequences or not, in which greatness was bottled.
I pursued questions about his arm while my fingers
traced the red swell on my own forearm.
He continued, "It was a day in the fall, wet and
cold and the leaves were comin down off a the trees. I'd pitched a right fair number of tough innings that yar. It had been a good season and I was athrowin fiah. I disremember who we were aplayin agin or wheren I was doin the playin but it was a potent game, the game that was agoin to put the icin on the yar for the team so I wanted to be the mostest overpowerinest I could be. My arm got lazy-like and then I felt a little pop, not a powful hut or anythin, but a quare kind of a twinge."
"I guess a good pitcher gets paid to throw hard."
"No. I was a good thrower than. Now I'm a good pitcha. Before I had heat, now I've got control." He lowered his voice. "Just twixt you, me, and the catchas, some days I coulnt throw a pea pas a blindman. Those are the days I really pitch me some."
I moved my eyes to his arm and fought off considering what it meant to be hurt, Beeker should have been called up but he wasn't. If he had made it up and then strained his arm, he could have hung around, but as it was, no one wanted damaged goods. Injury is the one knocked out of the park in the ninth when you thought the game was won or the summer squall that takes a lead away before the game was legal. Beeker had fingered and prodded the seams and hide of a ball until he could make it draw circles in the air. He had teased and taunted an array of batters with his moves. But he couldn't control his own arm. There's no place in the bigs for pitchers without control. I felt the bump throbbing again. Or hitters who can't duck. I fought to keep out the infectious thought that I was not among those chosen to be in the bigs. Those who make it up belong otherwise they wouldn't be up and that means those who don't, don't. The best play with the best. That's how you know.
It didn't take long for the red bump to lose its color and shrink.
"He's back."
"Yeh, are we lucky." They were all in a pretty good mood.
"Pay up times callin. Who owes on da wajah dat he'd be back."
Two voices were muffled in a business transaction. I thought I heard come from the loser, "Well, he's not technically back till he hits again."
"Thank goodness, our double play combination is still intact."
"It's a ground ball to Sinkers, he bobbles it, sends it off to Nevers who manages to stay above the bag, and throws to first. Is it a double play, fat chance. What a combo, Sinkers, to Nevers, to Fat Chance."
The team was sharing a good bit of deprecation.
All except the second baseman who I could see wince in the same way one takes a vaccination hoping the prick passes quickly. When a double play goes bad most of the blame focuses on second base. The action pivots around second base. The second baseman points himself towards the throw, takes it in, and fires the ball to first all the while skipping out of the path of the runner trying to separate the baseman's legs from his torso. It is a play of great drama and anticipation and when the outcome is less than successful the main actor takes the brunt of the criticism.
But I knew that a double play takes on the characteristics of a relay race. If you're way behind on the first leg or you muff the baton pass, then you're going to have a hard time coming in first, no matter what the other legs do. And the old sinkerball thrower was the man in the blocks.
The coach stepped forward, "I'm tired of a ball in our infield looking like popping corn bouncing erratically out of a pot. We're going to focus our practice session on putting a lid on it. Those not involved take the field and run your drills."
Three of us remained on the bench after the rest of the team had dispersed. The coach began again, "We're going to practice fielding techniques. We're going to school ourselves on each twitch of the bat, each movement of the glove, and each release of the ball. We're going to take a look at our pivot. We're going to take a look at positioning. What I'm going to show you is the culmination of all the plays and misplays that went before. We know without a doubt the best way to turn a double play. If you follow our program, you can get two every time it's within reach."
We followed the coach to our positions. "It's not enough to go through the motions, you've got to believe in what I tell you."
We were poised with serious study on our face.
"If you aren't going to have convictions, you don't belong out here. You have to know deep in your soul that what you learn is the most productive way to play the game. And so tight are the tolerances that there is no room for deviation. We've done the study and analysis for you. So if you're not willing to invest the time and effort in learning what we have to give you, quit now."
As expected, no one moved.
"Let's start at the top. Gloverman, the choice is yours where you want to make the play, first or second."
I liked hearing that. The one thing I knew how to do was find the right base. Since before I could remember, ever since I was a young kid playing ball, I knew the outcome of my throw. My throw might take on the flight of a bent arrow but I knew if the flight had been true, the runner would have been out. I use to believe that all infielders had it, but after watching guys go to the wrong base or try to cut down runners they had no chance of getting, I realized that wasn't the case. I knew that many had the feel but not the true perception. Not that it was anything so remarkable. I felt more like an idiot savant. One thing I did swimmingly, the rest floundered. Later, after my skills had developed and the game was in control, I liked to dangle the base out before the runner before I shot him down at the last instant. So when the coach said I should come up with the ball and go to the base where I thought I had the play, I felt comfortable I could handle it.
The highest arc of the sun was spent going over sleights of fielding, like keeping the throwing hand within grasp of the pocket. It was with a fervor that I approached each ground ball and that made me look like a true disciple. I never felt like I had a little white light above my head. But 6 to 4 to 3 became as rote as a ritual and not one heretical word was going to be pronounced by me.
When game time rolled around, it was my glove that kept me on the field. My batting average numbers looked like an odometer on a car going in reverse, slowly clicking down. Since I'd been hit by the pitch, I was backing away from the ball, not bailing out with bat flying and arms in the air, but imperceptibly keeping my weight over my heels. I wasn't leaning into it. By swinging only from my shoulders I could get contact but it was only the rebound speed of the pitch that sent the ball away from the plate. Unless I hit a hole in a pretty fast infield I wasn't going to be disturbing any dust off first base.
So what did I wish for? No, not wish, pray for. Every time the phone rang in the coach's office, I prayed that it was the call. That it was the bigs calling me up. I wanted to be plucked out of the line-up, to win the sweepstakes and leave my sinking average. That call could fix things up. It could change me, I knew it. All I was asking was for one little phone call. Of course it was ludicrous to believe that as soon as a pitcher got wind that I couldn't take an inside pitch he'd tell the league and they'd oblige and stay on the outside of the plate, all in the interest of fairness.
Moses hadn't been delivering either. He had lost his last three outings and had been replaced in the rotation. The box scores after each loss were summed and cubed and weighed in water searching for a witch. And if there was some burning to be done, then no one was about to put out the flames when those fires licked at losses.
In response, Beeker had taken up with a doll. Not the kind of doll in a slinky dress that melts against your thigh. This doll had a big smiling bobbing head affirming every idiotic proposal. After bouncing the head before each game, Beeker had worked his way back onto the mound and won a game.
"Take a shaht at the head thare, Glove Man. Maybe some luck rub off on your po self." Podres had seen me eyeing the doll.
At a county fair I'd won a doll like it once, but I snapped its fool neck during a batting slump in high school and left its head permanently kissing its feet so I was respectful of the totem if for no other reason, then its longevity. "Do you think its got enough?" I didn't want to encroach on any luck that had been assigned to Moses, not so much out of deference to him as fear of misappropriating his luck and turning it into a curse hanging over my head. Beeker shrugged a go ahead shrug.
Yeh, I knew if I thought about it, it didn't make sense so I resigned myself not to think about it. Greater baseball forces than I could comprehend were at work.
"He winds up and will he deliver? Yes, it's a blow to the head."
I sent the doll's head bobbing by a quick smack.
"I'll give youse 2 to 1 dat by da enda da night we get evwyone to give da doll a shot."
Parish sidled up to me, "Twouldn't fetch too much stock in wat Podres sez. Have you eva watched him get dressed?"
"It doesn't seem to be that exciting a diversion."
"Watch him sumtam. Fawst e up and teks off is
shoes, than stockings, than britchiz, than shots, than shut, than undashut. Next e dresses, hat, undashut, shut, right back to his shoes. Like as not you llowed that a body does it for convenience. Wrong! E wares his mitt on his wrist the entiah pawcess."
We were all standing around and poking each other in the ribs laughing at the foolery in such an exercise when someone reminded, "Oh yeah, what about those lucky socks you wear."
"Tain't the same. They wuck."
"Yeh, they walk by themselves. Last season he wore two pairs of socks without washing them, one for home games, one for away games. They were so rank his own shoes couldn't stand being near them."
"I saved on wosh. And tweren't that bad."
"They were worse. You're just lucky I was used to it."
"Well, you don't smell like no gulls flou gawden eitha."
"It's not just smell. I played on a team where it was bat cleaning. We had the cleanest bats I'd ever seen. Of course they seldom were scratched by a ball. It began well-intentioned enough. The hitting instructor that year during the spring was a hall-of-famer and happened to show a couple of the guys how to polish the bats to judge where their swing was connecting with the ball." On a clean bat, the ball leaves a mark where it strikes the wood. A batter can make some adjustments to get more of the sweet part of the bat on the ball. "When spring instruction ended, the coach went back home. And somewhere between that moment and the end of the season things got jumbled up. The two who had first learned about adjusting their swing to the strike of the ball began to hit well and the better they hit the more they polished their bats. Baseball players aren't as stupid as they look, they can put two and two together. Soon the whole team was towelling and cleaning their bats. The team jumped to a great start. Everyone was hitting well, so the polishing continued. No one was making too many adjustments to their hitting because they didn't want to tamper with something that worked but no one wanted to stop waxing their bats either because that was also working. About mid-season the team went into a slump, a bad slump. Some of the guys couldn't hit white standing waist-deep in a snow drift. You might think their response would be to study their hitting techniques. But you'd be wrong. They're response was to make their bats cleaner. They instituted inspection and special bat preparation times. By the end of the season they came out of the slump and finished about where they usually did. I don't believe you could convince too many on the team that it wasn't the polishing that eventually saved the season.
"And for me, I learned my lesson. I now only let my girlfriend polish my bat."
As I eyed the bobbing head of the doll, I thought how easy it was for all of us to laugh. The same bunch who seldom let a smile peer out in a game, who stood in front of the pitching machine or the clipboards with their brows furrowed and their eyes drawing beads, could still tickle each other over stinking socks and shiny bats.
"I needs odds on da football game tonight."
He wasn't betting on the game. He was betting on himself. It was his way of measuring where he was in the scheme of things. He wasn't even a real gambler. A gambler knows luck runs in cycles and he bets heavy when he's up and guarded until he thinks it's bottomed. A good gambler is a good money manager. But something else was attempting to be managed. He was trying to determine the nearness of mortality.
Coach Cal was in the corner of the locker room witnessing, "Listen to what I'm telling you, Hebe. You've got to know your limits." Hebe was coming back from his injury and joining the team. "You've got to fear that wall. Revere it. Pay homage to it. And you do that by playing the bounce. That wall is there to help our team. Anyone can try to make a grandstand catch but you've got to have the courage of our beliefs." Addams made no reply.
It had been a long season for the coach. He had
lost players to trades, to injuries, to retirement. And he was about to end the season by standing across the field from the team that he saw as evil incarnate. Their best pitcher was due to start, the one with the orangutang arm, the one who had hit me. The papers had printed the line on the game and it wasn't in our favor. Coach Cal looked like a man with his back up against it.
Before the game Cal said, "P.A., I'd like to watch
this game and enjoy the natural sounds of play without your commentating. Do you think I could do that? Is there any way you could sit and pretend you weren't here?"
P.A. thought, and thought again, shook his head and said, "Coach, it's a metaphysical impossibility. I can visualize myself visualizing that I don't exist, but I can't see myself not existing. It just can't be done."
"Just shut it up P.A.."
Hebe took his place in center field. I stood at short. I could see the wall staring over Addam's shoulder. I wondered what silent prayers he was muttering. On the mound for our opponents was the pitcher who had shot the ball into my arm earlier in the season.
In the second inning I scrambled to my right for a bouncing knock, looked towards second but saw that the runner had gotten a great jump so I moved the ball to first for the out. When the inning had ended Cal met me at the dugout entrance.
"What's the big idea?"
He was in my ear and I was baffled by the inflammation his words were showing.
"Why do you think we spent all that time running over the double play, so you could go throw to first when the opportunity came up?"
"The play at second wasn't there."
"Don't tell me it wasn't there. It's always there. You make the play no matter what. For the fans, for the team, and for the coaches. If you've got a double play combination, you pick up the ball and start it off. Get it?"
I probably made some indication that I understood because he let me find the bench but I was completely unmoored. I knew what I knew. At least I thought I knew what I knew. I knew I had no hope of getting the man at second so I went to first. I didn't expect to do well at the plate but when my glove was also taken from me, I was like a boat without an anchor and as the storm approached I was without shelter. Being adrift in a wind-tossed sea was not apt to aid my performance with the bat.
From the on-deck circle I could watch St. Bernard. He touched his forehead, chest, and both shoulders, a ritual he always performed before batting. He failed to reach first.
I reluctantly moved towards the plate.
Every horse player knows that there are horses that will always run ahead of a certain field. No matter how poorly a jockey rides the race that horse will refuse to finish behind that group of horses. Many times, (unless the horse is a true champion) when it moves up to higher stakes competition it fails to find the lead. Handicappers call this class. Class as it applies to athletes often embodies some of this horsesense. By the way I stood with my bat on my shoulder and let the strikes go past, it must have been obvious to everyone in the park that I was out of my class.
Sitting on the bench between innings gazing out onto the field I began to see things. I watched fear push up the grass and make the sky a wonderful shade of blue. I knew that if I tried to step into the ball for a hit I'd be struck down again by the pitch. Sure it was irrational. I also knew that if I couldn't sweep the bat off my shoulder and lift my leg into the ball, I was through with baseball. This was somewhat less irrational. The whole thing was like a pop fly with no one directing traffic, a collision was in the offing. Nothing to fear but fear itself. Whoever said it was right. Until you know fear, and you know fear because something very real comes and shows it to you, you don't have to worry, you can be fat, dumb and happy and believe you can go on that way forever.
My number was called again to take the batter's box.
I took the sign from Cal. I squinted and he flashed it again. He was telling me to hit away.
"Time," I turned to the ump. I walked towards the coach which was a very clever way of concealing any surprise strategy. The field kept their eyes on us as I whispered, "I don't think I'm getting the sign straight."
"I'm telling you to hit away. Gloveman, you can do it. You can step in and drive that pitch anywhere you want, so do it," he intoned.
The meeting did nothing to settle the cloud of silt that made murky my thought. No outs, a guy stamping his cleats on first. I should have been asked to take so the runner might have a chance to break for second. Or to take till a strike and hope for a walk. Heaven knows I was capable of standing fixed with my bat on my shoulder. Or bunt. I could manage a feeble effort at dropping the bat in the path of the ball. Everyone in the park knew that this was the place for a sacrifice bunt, everyone but the coach. Move the runner. Everyone knew that was good sound strategy. It was Cal who preached that game, that was the way he insisted on playing. Hit away? There wasn't much of a chance that was going to happen.
The first pitch came across the plate low and to the outside. The pitcher looked towards me and continued to stare even after the ball had been returned to him. It was a curious eye. Not a challenge or a look of contempt, neither was it one of sympathy, but something that asked me to define my problem and to strike out at it. I could see his fingers wrapped over the ball. His wrist flicked. It was his message. He delivered the pitch to the same place as before. That same stare floated out over the plate as the ball was returned to him. Again his wrist twitched. The burst blew out of his hand.
Impulsively I lifted my left foot out toward the mound and whipped the bat around. As I stood on first base I could only think of getting to the plate and taking my swings again and of somehow sending a nod out to the pitcher. Neither was to happen in that game.
It was in our very next trip into the field that Hebe made his catch. The ball was hit hard and deep into right center. I watched Hebe gather speed and head back towards where the ball was shooting, back towards the wall. He showed no inclination except to make the catch. With his head up and his glove reaching, he moved against the odds. But flying leaps in the face of the odds was part of the territory. That's how centerfielders played. Maybe that was why they played. He crossed the warning track. I counted his steps telling him to hold. Play the bounce. Up he went leaving his feet and squeezed the ball into his palm. He sprawled into the face of the wall and then slid down its grasp.
I don't know if he was looking for me, I'd like to believe he was. The second baseman went out as the cut-off man and I, in turn, should have been moving to second base to take the relay. From the corner of my eye I could see the runner rounding toward the base. He wasn't stopping at second. Without regard to what I was suppose to do, I moved to where I knew the throw was coming. I wasn't about to let the tag be missed. I don't know how he made the throw, it came from the depths of the outfield and should have taken at least one pump of the arm and plenty of back muscle. But from where I stood on third, it looked like a catcher's throw, all arm.
The ball came in low and skipped once into my glove and the runner ran into it.
I had both arms up and was yelling Addams, protracting out the syllables.
In the midst of my celebration I felt an inexorable hollowness creep up my gut. The word in the locker room was that Hebe was getting his walking papers at the end of the year. He'd play out the season, but after that he was gone. He'd never get a chance to play in the bigs. I'd never seen Hebe pull up when breaking up a double play. I'd watched him bounce into the wall twice and held my breath waiting to see if he'd broken his fool neck. Yet, he was on his way out of baseball. He'd never even get a chance to come to bat in the bigs.
I can't remember who won the game. I remember Addams' catch. And him grinning from the base of the wall. And the coach meeting me along the sideline to tell me to hit away. And I remember their pitcher.