A Midsummer Madness

by Guy Franks

2.Pitch around him, see if he chases, then go for the strike out.

  3.Pitch around him, walk him, and set up the double play.

  Shake knew these hitters, knew their stats and had read the scouting reports, but stats didn’t tell you everything. The next batter, the Reds number five hitter, was a big RBI guy, a free-swinging Dominican who might just chase, but anything close could be disastrous. It was a righty-righty match-up but his pitcher was having control problems. The Reds number six hitter was streaky—hot and then not—and had grounded out to second last time up. That was a righty-lefty match-up, and going against percentages he made up his mind and gave Larry his instructions.

  The pitching coach jogged out to the mound and gave everyone the plan: Davis was to pitch around their clean-up hitter (“nothing close”) and go hard after the next batter. Everyone was to play back for the double play. Benedict jogged back to the dugout.

  “How’s he feel?” asked Shake.

  “He’s fine,” answered Benedict. After a pause he added, “Estrella wanted to pitch to him.”

  Jose Estrella was their catcher, a top prospect, and a Dominican. “I’m sure he did,” said Rick Burton cryptically. Shake eyed him. He knew all about Rick’s crazy theory—call it a conspiracy theory—that Dominican batters hit better when they got into the box next to a Dominican catcher. Rick couldn’t prove it with stats but he was sure it was true. I have drunk and seen the spider, mused Shake as he turned his attention back to the field.

  The unintentional-intentional walk went off without a hitch and the Reds number six hitter stepped into the box with a man on first and third. He lined the first pitch deep and foul then took the next pitch for a ball. On a 1-1 count he hit a sharp grounder up the middle that looked like a base hit, but the Kingsmen’s second baseman Dane Hamilton made a back-handed grab, stepped on second, and threw a pea to first for the double play. It was a thing of beauty.

  “Looked like you on that one,” said Rick, who had played with Shake in the minors.

  Shake smiled at that and yelled “Nice turn!” to his second baseman as he came into the dugout.

  “Louie Louie” by The Kingsmen blared out over the loud speakers. At all home games in the bottom of the seventh, the PA announcer put on “Louie Louie” and the crowd sang and danced. Ushers roamed the stands looking for the best dancers, who were rewarded with a coupon to Round Table Pizza. The grinding tune fed the shift in momentum.

  As chance would have it, the man who had just given them that defensive gem—Dane Hamilton—led off the inning and got a single. He eventually came around to score and they went into the eighth down by one. Davis struggled in the top of the inning but gutted it out to stay down by one. In the bottom of the inning, Estrella hit a monster home run to tie things up going into the ninth. Shake brought in his reliever, who set the Reds down one-two-three in the ninth, and they came back in to hit. The top of their order was due up. The planets were aligned and Shake wanted to end this thing in the ninth, especially since it was get-away day and they had a bus to catch in the morning.

  Hank Prince strode to the plate and Shake went through the scenarios. If Hank got on base he could:

  1.Straight-steal

  2.Bunt him over

  3.Hit and run

  4.Steal on the first pitch and bunt him over to third.

  He liked the last scenario the best. On a 2-2 pitch, Hank blooped one down the third base line that was a sure hit but he tried to stretch it into a double and was thrown out at second. Some managers would chalk that up to aggressiveness but not Shake. Tis one thing to be tempted, another thing to fall. It was another mental mistake: Hank had run through Coach Larkin’s stop sign at first, and despite having the whole play in front of him when he made his turn, he had failed to see the inevitable. Troubling. Shake tried to make eye contact with Hank as he came back into the dugout but Hank avoided it.

  The next hitter, shortstop Gary Hoffman, was hit by a pitch. It was now one on with one out and Shake wasn’t going to eat up another out with a bunt. He’d let his number three hitter Mike Goff hit away. The Reds pitcher, rattled by the hit batsman, walked Goff on four pitches. That brought the Reds manager out who called in a new reliever. The starting pitcher walked slowly off the field to the tune “Hit the Road, Jack” and taunts from the fans behind the Reds dugout. The right-handed reliever warmed up and got ready to face the Kingsmen clean-up hitter Travis Burks.

  On the first pitch he saw, Burks scorched a grounder past the third baseman. Game over. The players leaped out of the dugout to pound Burks on the back while Shake and the other coaches skipped gingerly onto the field to get into the handshake line. The loud speakers blared out “Smokin” by Boston.

  Back in his office, Shake fielded questions from the local press. The local press consisted of the New Britain Herald, the City Journal, WDRC AM 1360 (who broadcast the games), and a journalism student from Central Connecticut State University. They crowded into his office while Orson Kent stood in the doorway listening in. The interview was almost over.

  “You got Pittsfield coming up,” said the Herald reporter. “Another opening day. How do you like the match-up?”

  The Pittsfield Cubs were the Chicago affiliate, a big league club Shake had played briefly for in the 70’s before they released him. He didn’t have fond memories of the Cubs and enjoyed beating them whenever he got a chance, but he kept all that to himself. “Lookin’ forward to it,” answered Shake. “Opening days in another ballpark are always tough, but we got Andy going and we’re hitting the ball pretty good right now, so I like our chances.” The reporter turned off his recorder and Shake looked around the room. “Is that it?” he asked.

  “One more,” said the journalism student. He had introduced himself as Balt Porter. The young man was smooth shaven with thick brown hair and wore Clark Kent glasses. Shake signaled okay, and Balt asked his question in his soft-spoken voice: “In the seventh you pitched around Segura to get to Bailey, so instead of going with the righty match-up you went with the lefty match-up. How come?”

  “A hunch,” replied Shake. “Bailey had grounded out his last time up and we needed a double play. I got lucky.”

  There were a couple “we-know-better” chuckles from the veteran reporters as they got up to leave. “Okay, guys,” said Shake with finality, “See you later.” As the reporters filed out, Orson stared keenly at Balt as the young reporter passed him by in the doorway. Shake caught the exchange and asked Orson, “You know him?”

  “Huh… Oh, no.” Orson seemed in a bit of a daze but came out of it quickly. “So why did you pitch around Segura and go after Baily?” he asked Shake. “Really? The numbers were against it.”

  Shake could feel another sabermetrics spiel coming on. Orson was a big disciple of sabermetrics which used empirical analysis of baseball statistics to predict tendencies and performance. Davey Johnson used it with the Mets but Shake was not a big believer in it. Orson was a graduate of UConn with a Sports Management Degree (whatever the hell that was) and like any young grad he loved showing off his knowledge, but before he could get going Shake decided to enlighten the lad.

  “Baseball statistics are like a girl in a bikini,” he said. “They show a lot, but not everything. I’ve watched Bailey the last couple years and he’s a streaky hitter. When his front side’s down during his swing, he drives the ball but when it’s not he hits a lot of grounders, especially against righties like Davis who have a two-seamer that rides in on lefties. When Bailey’s on I probably pitch to Segura there but he’s not at the moment and all the stats in the world ain’t going to tell you his front side’s late in his swing. You got to pay attention.”

  “Hmm,” replied Orson. “Bailey almost got a hit though. Hamilton made a nice play.”

  “He sure did.” Rex Lyon appeared in the doorway, saving Shake from having to explain the obvious any further.

 
“Nice game, Glover,” said Rex.

  “Thanks, Rex,” answered Shake. He quickly looked the old man up and down. Rex wore the same old suit and tie combination, with the tie loosened and top button undone, which always gave him a distinguished yet hands-on appearance. He sported close-cropped white hair, and under his bushy white eyebrows a pair of piercing blue eyes held steady on their target. Rex always reminded Shake of one of those whaling captains that one saw pictures of in the maritime museums.

  After his quick assessment, Shake concluded that the old man was back on his game. Rex appeared quick and alert. He’d given a nice speech to the Booster’s club before the game today, and had even helped roll out the tarp after their rain-shortened game yesterday.

  “Five-hundred and sixty-five feet.”

  Shake raised an eyebrow at Rex’s blurb. He noticed Orson was glancing at him as though to say “Here we go again” but the kid didn’t get it. The old man was giving him the distance of the longest homerun in baseball history.

  “Mickey Mantle,” shot back Shake. “Griffith Stadium… ’53.”

  “Right or left-handed?”

  Shake thought for a moment (Mantle had been a switch-hitter). “Shit, Rex, you got me… Left-handed?”

  “Uh uh. Right-handed, off lefty Chuck Stobbs.”

  “Damn, you got me. You’re the man.”

  “And don’t you forget it.” Rex rapped his wedding ring on the door jamb (he was a widower). “Got things to do and so do you. I’ll see you when you get back.”

  Shake did have things to do. He needed to finish his post-game summary and fax it off to the big club then shoot on over to The Mermaid Tavern, their local watering hole, for the real post-game analysis with his coaches. He chatted a minute longer with Orson then let him go so he could start his paperwork. He first went over to his filing cabinet where a cassette player sat next to a small stack of cassettes. Shake grew up in the rock and roll era of the fifties and sixties but his taste in music ran more toward Sinatra and Dinah Washington. He liked some contemporary stuff like the Police and Billy Joel, and he took out a cassette for The Little River Band, popped it into the slot, and hit play.

  Shake finished up his game report which included a rundown on his pitchers. The big club was interested in all their prospects but especially their pitching prospects. In his report he noted that Davis had started out strong, topping out at ninety-one and hitting his spots, but in the seventh had tired and started missing location. In the eighth, his four-seam was down to eighty-nine but his two-seam and slider were still effective. Overall line: eight innings pitched, six strikeouts, four walks, and five earned runs. Not bad for his first start.

  Shake replied “Yeah” to a knock on the door and Rick popped his head in.

  “Meet you over there,” he said.

  “Yeah, almost done,” replied Shake. Rick closed the door and Shake finished up his game report and faxed it to the big club using the rickety fax machine in his office. He changed into street clothes and headed out into the locker room. All the players were gone except for Dane Hamilton.

  Dane sat alone at his locker. He was almost six feet tall with hazel eyes and dark blonde hair that was cut short. His close-cropped hair and a slightly receding hairline hair accentuated his forehead and made him look—at least to Shake’s eyes—like a cloistered monk. The fact that Dane’s eyes always seemed to be lost in thought and his brow knit in perpetual worry added to his monkish look. But his body was anything but monkish; it was a middle infielder’s body. He was strong in the shoulders, light on his feet, with cupped hands and a slight stoop that any baseball scout would have recognized immediately as a second baseman’s body.

  Shake walked over to him. Dane’s hair was wet and combed back and he straddled the bench in front of his locker, head down, reading a book. The kid’s a bit of an odd duck, thought Shake. In spring training he’d seen Dane playing chess in the clubhouse. Not many players went in for chess; it was usually cards or Strat-O-Matic Baseball or a board game like Risk that could go on for days—but rarely chess. His story was also an odd one, too: he was drafted out of college (Cornell, no less), played a year in the minors where he showed great promise, then had up and quit and gone back to college to get his Master’s degree. Now at age twenty-six he was back in baseball.

  “What you reading?” asked Shake as he came up to him.

  Dane dog-eared the page and closed the thin paperback. “Camus,” he said looking up.

  Shake looked down at the cover. He was familiar with the book. “Kind of heady stuff for April baseball,” he said.

  “I’ve read it before.” He tossed the book into his open locker as though he was disgusted with it.

  “Words, words, words.”

  “Cornel, right? What was your major?”

  “Philosophy”

  “Jeez. And I thought I was a stranger in a strange land… I feel for you. I was drafted out of college in ’61—Cal-Berkeley. Most kids back then were out of high school or maybe had a year or two of JC, and most of the coaches were suspicious of college grads. Intimidated might be a better word. It’s a little better now-days. But Ivy Leaguers are still a rarity, like an honest man in congress.”

  “To be honest, quoted Dane, “as the world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand.”

  “Ahh,” laughed Shake. “You know your Hamlet, I see.”

  “Here and there,” replied Dane with a smile. “My mom loves Shakespeare.”

  “My dad did, too.” Shake liked this kid. They probably had a lot in common and he’d have to sit down with him some day and have a real talk, but right now he had places to go. They talked a few moments longer before Shake turned to leave. “That was a nice play in the seventh,” he added, glancing back. “Probably saved the game.”

  “I was expecting it. Thanks. See you tomorrow.”

  The kid’s a thinker, concluded Shake as he walked away. Thinking could be good in baseball and it could be bad. Thinking through situations was good thing; it aided reaction and execution. Thinking about the absurdity of existence in the batter’s box was a bad thing.

  Shake walked out to the poorly lit parking lot and saw a figure standing by a car. As he got closer, he recognized the figure immediately as Corey Lyon, Rex’s daughter. She’d been a fixture at the park ever since he’d become manager. Her father doted on her, and she followed him around happily running errands for him and learning the business. She knew more about the business of baseball than most men and everyone expected her to take over for Rex once he retired, but they had a falling out after she married a punk rock musician. Now she was banished from the park, banished from his house, banished from his life. In Shake’s mind she was a sweetheart and nothing would ever change that and the whole situation saddened him.

  “Hey, little girl!” said Shake with a big grin.

  She bounded towards him—“Shake!”—and gave him a big hug. She’d always been skinny but he could feel her ribs as he hugged her. Her short blonde hair was spiked on the top and she had the same piercing blue eyes as her father. The hair was a “punk thing,” figured Shake, and it contrasted oddly with her pretty face which had both mature and empathetic features to it.

  “What you doing out here in the shadows?”

  “Yeah, well, you know. I waited for my dad to leave. I was hoping to talk to you, see how he’s doing. My sister doesn’t tell me much. I was here for opening day hiding out with the bleacher bums. I saw you help my dad into the stands. What was that all about? That was a smart move in the seventh, walking Segura. Bailey’s pounding the ball into the ground right now. Looks like Estrella bulked up over the winter… So how’s my dad doing?”

  Shake chuckled. She had a frenetic speaking style and she could throw a lot at you in a short amount of time, kind of like a relief pitcher warning up in the bullpen with the bases loaded. “He’s fine,” replied Shake.
“Same old Rex—everyone’s favorite S-O-B. He misses you but won’t admit it.”

  “Really? How do you know? He called me last week and asked me if I had anything to say to him. I told him I loved him and he says, ‘Is that it, do you have anything else to tell me?’ I said ‘no, nothing’ and he says, ‘nothing comes of nothing’ and hung up on me. I’ve heard some things, too, like he’s forgetting things, almost like he has Alzheimer’s. What have you seen?”

  He respected Corey, found her to be highly intelligent, and so he told her the truth—what he’d seen recently, the forgetfulness, the episode in the tunnel—all of it. They talked for over twenty minutes in the darkened parking lot and she asked a bunch of questions that he tried his best to answer. She told him Rex was having tax problems and had signed his company and estate over to her older sister for protection (that’s the first he’d heard of that). She handed Shake a slip of paper with her phone number on it “for emergencies.” He told her to come over to his place any time if she wanted to talk and, before parting, they hugged again and he told her she was getting skinny and needed to eat. She promised she would and disappeared into the night.

  Shake drove downtown to The Mermaid Tavern and joined his coaches and Orson at a table in the back. They were already on their second pitcher of beer. He wasn’t in the mood for beer so he went up to the bar and ordered a drink. Don the bartender knew him by name and knew just how much Bacardi dark rum and diet Pepsi to pour into a tall glass. While Don mixed his drink, Shake looked around the bar. The place was half full but there were no ball-players. They knew it was the coaches’ hang-out and usually avoided it. They had their own hang-outs. He glanced around for Lucy—“Dark Lucy” was her nickname—the owner of The Mermaid, but she was not around.

  “She’s upstairs,” said Don as he placed the drink in front of Shake.

  Shake nodded and took his drink (he didn’t need to pay, he kept a running tab) and walked back to his table. He sat down and jumped into the conversation which, at the moment, was about the true age of Dominican ball-players—in this case Manny Ortiz, who was one of their outfielders. Manny said he was twenty-four but Rick Burton claimed he was thirty while Bob Kalecki was sure he was twenty-six. Teddy Larkin said they were both wrong—he got it straight from Mike Faust the trainer. Faust taped Manny’s ankles before every game and ankles never lied. He was twenty-eight.