by Guy Franks
“Decaf,” he said as he handed her a cup.
She took it and managed a short laugh.
“What do we know?” he asked Shake.
Before Shake could answer “Not much” the large doors of the emergency room opened and a nurse appeared. “Corey Lyon,” she called out.
“Here!” cried Corey, almost spilling her coffee.
“Your father wants to see you.”
She handed her coffee back to Rick and followed the nurse through the doors, peppering her with questions as the big doors slid shut behind them.
In ICU, Corey tiptoed towards her father’s bed. He was hooked up to an IV, a heart monitor, and wore a nasal cannula that fed him oxygen. He appeared to be sleeping peacefully. She sat down next to him and laid her check against his arm. The touch of her cheek brought him back to consciousness.
“Daddy.”
He blinked his eyes and beheld his daughter. “Are you an angel?” he asked in his confusion.
“It’s me. Corey.”
“Corey… My little girl,” he said weakly.
“Shh, it’s okay. I’m here now.”
“Where am I? What time is it?” he asked. She told him where he was and why he was there and he listened quietly. Tears formed in his eyes and he took her hand in his. “Corey,” he said again, this time with a frail smile. “My little girl.”
“I love you, Daddy.”
“I love you too, baby… Can you forgive an old man? I’m a fool… A senile old fool.”
“Shh, it’s okay. Everything’s okay. There’s nothing to forgive. I know you love me and always loved me. There’s nothing to forgive. It’s all right, Daddy. Everything’s all right. I’m here now.”
“I bless your marriage.”
At these words, she lifted their clasped hands to her face and started crying. She struggled to gather herself. “You’re coming home with me,” she finally said in a voice fierce with emotion. “You’ll stay with us and I’ll take care of you. Don’t worry about anything, Daddy. I’ll take care of you.”
“I’m happy… I’m…” But his eyes closed and he fell back asleep before he could finish. Corey laid his arm back down on the bed and rested her cheek against it again. A nurse came in and checked his vitals and left. After a while, Corey felt his arm move and she looked up to see his eyes opening again.
“It wasn’t a dream,” he said looking at her. “Rocket.” (“Rocket” was his pet name for her.)
“Daddy-O.”
“Where’s the doctor?”
“He’ll be here. They need to run some more tests, so just relax for now. We’ll get you out of here. And you’re coming home with me so I can take care of you.”
He nodded his understanding and looked at her warmly. “I need a hug.”
She leaned over awkwardly but was able to get her arms around his shoulders while she rested her head against his chest. She squeezed gently and he managed to raise both arms and hug her back.
“Better,” he said as she sat back down. He glanced over at the heart monitor. “How’d I get her?” he asked.
“Shake brought you in his car. He also called me.”
“Glover. Good man… Where is he?”
“They’re all in the lobby.”
“Ask him to come in here… I want to tell him something.”
“They only let family in here. You need to rest right now. You can see him later.”
“No… I need to see him now. Please, Rocket.”
“Okay, Daddy. I’ll get him”
Speed had figured things out and come to the hospital, and he and Shake and Rick and Orson sat without talking in the waiting lobby. The big doors slid open and Corey appeared. Immediately they all stood up.
“He’s stabilized and resting,” she told them. “They have some more tests to run before they let him go.” The four men were relieved to hear the news. “He wants to see you, Shake,” she added.
“Me? Is it okay?”
“Yeah, come on.”
“All right—hey, you guys should go home. No sense in sticking around here. If anything changes I’ll let you know, but it sounds like he’s doing better.”
Rick and Orson agreed that was a good idea and got ready to leave. Speed stayed put. Shake followed Corey to the big doors but they did not budge when she pushed on them. She knocked loudly and a receptionist leaned out her window to see who it was then leaned back. The doors opened but a no-nonsense-looking nurse met them on the other side. She looked sternly at both Corey and Shake.
“Is he family?” she asked Corey.
“Yes.”
The no-nonsense nurse doubted the answer but let them pass. When they came into ICU Rex was sleeping, so they both stood and waited next to his bed. “He said he had something to tell you,” she said. Shake nodded his understanding. Corey touched her father’s arm, rubbed it gently, and the old man’s eyes opened. “Shake’s here,” she told him.
“Glover,” he said, barely audible. He said something else that Shake couldn’t hear so Shake came in closer and bent over him. “I have my little girl back,” said Rex weakly.
“I see that. It makes me happy.”
“I had something… I wanted to tell you. Come closer.” Shake bent down lower and turned his head to better hear. Rex spoke, his voice feeble but clear:
For God’s sake let us sit upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of Kings.
Shake pulled back and looked into Rex’s sorrowful eyes. He gently squeezed the old man’s shoulder and was about to say, “No, it’s not time yet” when he heard loud noises outside in the hall. It was the voice of Rex’s oldest daughter Rae. When he looked back at Rex his eyes were closed. Shake followed Corey out to the hallway where they met Rae and Ed Cornwall.
“What’s he doing here?” demanded Rae. “Only family is allowed in here.”
“Daddy wanted to talk to him,” said Corey
“I don’t care. Where’s the head nurse?”
“Rae, dear, please,” said Ed in a conciliatory tone, glancing first at Corey and then at Shake. “We just got the call and rushed here as fast as we could, so we’re a little flustered as you can imagine. What’s the doctor say? How’s he doing?”
“I just talked to the doctor,” said Rae curtly. “They have more tests to run. Due to his heart problems.”
“Oh, yes, his heart problems,” replied Ed nodding. “Of course.”
“What heart problems?” shot back Corey. “No one ever told me daddy had heart problems.”
Rae cut off her husband before he could answer. “Why’s that you think?” she retorted. “You’re never around. He has early Alzheimer’s and heart problems, but how would you know?”
“You know why that is,” said Corey briskly.
“Yeah, he disowned you. But what? Now you’re reconciled? Did he forgive you?
“There was no need. Daddy loves me and he’s going to come live with me.”
“How sweet. Now you’re finally going to help me with him? It’s a little late.”
“Excuse me a moment,” said Shake interrupting, his voice rising in anger. “But when we found Rex out in the storm, he was damning you and calling you a murderer. Why would a father say such a thing?”
“Because he’s out of his mind—but what business is that of yours,” she snapped angrily. “This is family business and you don’t belong here. Where’s the head nurse?”
“Rae, dear, please.”
“Daddy asked for him,” said Corey. “He wanted to say—”
But before she could finish an alarm sounded from Rex’s room and a nurse rushed in to see. She left immediately and returned with a doctor wheeling a crash cart. Corey was on their heels but the nurse turned and gently pushed her back and closed the curtain behind them to block the view. H
is angel Corey, weeping and afraid, bowed her head and hoped and prayed.
22
CHAPTER
It is not the honor that you take with you, but the heritage you leave behind.
Branch Rickey
Rex Oliver Lyon II died that night in the hospital of heart failure. Ed Cornwall was quick to get the story to the papers and even the New York Times and Boston Globe carried small articles on Rex’s passing. He was born on November 11, 1903 and died at the age of eighty-two, and most newspapers gave a short summary of his life that included his founding of the Lyon Bolt Manufactory in 1929 at the age of twenty-five along with his ownership of the New Britain Kingsmen, a Double-A affiliate in the Eastern League. Local papers carried more extensive obituaries, noting that Lyon Bolt Manufactory, in its hey-day, had factories in four states, employed five thousand people, and was awarded the Army-Navy “E” Award for excellence in war production during WWII. Other papers mentioned his more notable charitable endeavors.
Shake spent a long night at the hospital comforting Corey, and when he boarded the bus the next day for New Haven he appeared somber and bleary-eyed. The team already knew about Rex’s passing so he didn’t need to make an announcement and instead plopped down in his seat next to Burton. Rick handed him the morning paper with Rex’s obituary and Shake read it as the bus started up. When he was done he sorted through the box of VHS tapes. There was a TV and VCR player on the bus and most of the tapes were either WrestleMania or comedies. Shake found a Steve Martin movie and stuck it in the VCR. He needed cheering up.
In New Haven, they settled into their hotel rooms and then got ready for their four-game series against the Admirals. Shake had given Corey his hotel information and told her to call him if she needed to talk. She called him Tuesday morning and in a shaky voice let him know that funeral services would be next Saturday. Yes, she knew the team had a series in Waterbury that weekend but was sick and tired of arguing with her sister about it who refused to postpone it so the whole team could attend. Could Shake come to the service anyway, she asked. Say something on behalf of the team? Of course, he said, he’d be there no matter what. She made him promise.
Shake wanted to ask her about ownership but he didn’t. She had enough things on her mind. He hoped to get the straight scoop from someone at the funeral, though he had a bad feeling what that scoop would be. Rae Cornwall wanted to sell the team and in the interim they’d probably have to deal with her husband Ed. He didn’t look forward to that.
The Kingsmen split the series against the Admirals and headed on over to Waterbury. Shake managed the Kingsmen to a win on Friday and handed over the reins to Rick Burton for Saturday’s game. It was all arranged with the big club and Rick wished he could go with Shake, but he understood the situation and asked Shake to pass on his condolences to Corey.
Services were at 1:00 at St. Mary Church and Shake got home in plenty of time so he could dress in the appropriate attire. At 12:15 he left and picked up Speed and Orson. Rex’s employees at Beehive Stadium—the ground’s crew, ticket-takers, concessionaires and parking lot attendants—would all be there.
A Nigerian-born priest spoke sparingly about Rex’s life and quoted scripture. He had a thick accent, which Shake found difficult to understand, and Shake suspected that the thirty-something priest had never met Rex personally. Ed Cornwall gave a dry eulogy that focused primarily on Rex’s empire-building and charitable works and never once mentioned Rex’s passion in life—baseball and his beloved Kingsmen. Corey read a long poem she wrote about her father. It was eloquent and touching, comparing their father-daughter relationship to a great lion and his cub, and Shake was left like many with a lump in his throat.
When Corey finished she looked out at Shake. “I’ve asked Shake Glover to come up and say a few words on behalf of Daddy’s ball club, The Kingsmen, which he loved very much. Shake and my dad were good friends… Shake.”
Shake stood up. He noticed that Rae Cornwall glared at her half-sister from the front row. Shake was not listed on the printed program as a speaker but Corey, to her ever-loving credit, had outplayed her sister and invited Shake to come up and speak. Shake smiled to himself at that, pulled out the folded speech from his inside pocket, and strode to the podium.
Shake
Thank you Corey. On behalf of myself, my coaching staff, the players, and all the employees who worked for Rex at Beehive Stadium—many who are here today—we would like to pass on our heartfelt condolences to the Lyon family for their great loss. Rex was a good man and we’ll miss him dearly.
Those of you who know me know that I’m a great lover of William Shakespeare. I call him the Bard and quote him frequently, sometimes to the great man’s detriment. But I have found that when something needs to be said, something stirring and profound—like at the passing of a good man—then I find the Bard is my go-to guy and can be counted on to hit a homer. Rex, for all I know, was never much of a Shakespeare fan. We never played the quote game. Our game was baseball trivia—arcane baseball trivia, like how many stitches are there on a baseball—and we played it whenever we found a chance. We did our best to stump the other. For the record, Corey, I never once stumped your dad.
But there’s another reason I have for relying on the Bard today to help me say what I want to say about Rex, and it has to do with his last words. They were spoken to me on his deathbed and was the one and only time he ever quoted Shakespeare to me. You’ve read his last words in the newspapers, the quote about sitting on the ground and telling sad stories of the death of kings, and I’ve thought long and hard about why he picked that quote. It’s from Richard the Third, which is the story of a deposed king, and maybe that’s what drew him to the quote. I don’t know. But there is another quote from the play spoken by Richard himself—and this is after he’s been forced to give up his crown—that I think very much captures the mood of the day.
Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;
Make dust our paper and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth,
Let’s choose executors and talk of wills:
And yet not so, for what can we bequeath
Save our deposed bodies to the ground?
And I will lean on him heavily herein out.
We’ve heard much today about Rex Lyon the businessman, the empire-builder, and what can one say other than
His deeds exceed all speech:
He never lift up his hand but conquered.
But over-shadowed somewhat are all his charitable works—his philanthropy and good will towards men. He was no Scrooge. Far from it. The newspapers have listed many of his gifts to the community—The Lyon Children’s Hospital, AmeriCorps, Big Brother and Sisters. The list goes on and the evidence of a life well-lived is right there. Here is someone to admire, a man guided by the belief that people owe something back to the community they live in. There is not a person in this Church today, certainly no one associated with the Kingsmen, who have not been touched at some point by his generosity. Who then will fill this void? Who will pick up Rex’s mantle? A man of great deeds has left us and it feels like
The breaking of so great a thing should make
A greater crack: the round world
Should have shook lions into civil streets,
And citizens to their dens
But I’m not here to canonize Rex as a saint. He wasn’t a saint. He was a man—a man with good and bad in him just like the rest of us. If each of us has been touched by his generosity, then we have also been touched at some point by his wrath. He was a complicated man whose ‘taints and honours waged equal with him.’ He was not what people today would call ‘politically correct’, and he could be sunny one minute and a raging storm the next and say things that he was sorry for later. But he spoke his mind and
He would not flatter Neptune of his trident,
Or Jove’s power to thund
er. His heart’s his mouth.
So, yes, he had his faults. As do we all. His just seemed bigger at times because he himself was bigger than life. But I can’t imagine Rex any other way, or would I want him any other way. When I think of him in this way, I am reminded of one of my favorite quotes from Measure for Measure since it fits Rex to a tee:
They say, best men are moulded out of faults;
And, for the most, become much more the better
For being a little bad
I believe a man is defined by what he does. We have the business empire Rex built and his many wonderful charitable works—all these things help us to define Rex, but there is one thing missing, one key ingredient missing from our picture of Rex. Without it we miss one of the very things that gave him joy. And that thing is baseball. His love of baseball also helps us define him. He understood that baseball is a game of perfect distances and beautiful numbers, with its own sages and poets. He heard wisdom when Yogi spoke and genuflected at the altar of Durocher. Willie Mays was his favorite player and he surely agreed with the person who once said ‘There have been only two geniuses in the world, Willie Mays and Willie Shakespeare’.
If you were to ask me what a perfect day would be to Rex, I would tell you this: a day game at Beehive stadium. The sun is out, the stands are full, and Corey walks by his side. He talks to his concessionaires, making sure the hot dogs are hot and the cold beer is cold, probably barks at one of you to refill the cup dispenser, then climbs the stairs into the stands where he visits all the season-ticket holders, calling them by name and asking about their kids, before he parks himself in his box with a beer and bag of peanuts to watch the game. And the Kingsmen win, maybe on a dramatic homer in the ninth, and Rex shouts for joy and hugs Corey then leaves the box to close up shop. And once the stadium is empty of fans and the players have scattered to the four winds, Rex taps a kegger and calls on his employees to join him for a beer in the settling dusk underneath the stands. And there he toasts the team and the victory, sure in that moment that all is right with the world
Branch Rickey, the great owner and greater man, once said, ‘It is not the honor that you take with you, but the heritage you leave behind.’ Based on that true and simple formula, we can say goodbye to Rex confident in the knowledge that he left a rich heritage behind him. And so, now, I have only my last goodbye to say to Rex and I will let the Bard say it for me: