by Dan Barry
Unlike Anez, Mondor has had the financial wherewithal to buy peace with the many vendors who had lost money and trust in the Pawtucket Red Sox. He has rewarded those who believed in him, and punished those who did not, none more famously than McLaughlin and Moran, the dominant distributor of Anheuser-Busch products in Rhode Island—including that beer of the masses, Budweiser. The specifics of the falling-out will blur with time. The beer distributor will claim that Mondor refused to pay an outstanding bill left behind by the team’s previous owner. Pawtucket officials will say that the distributor saw the Pawtucket Red Sox as a lost cause, and decided to exercise its droit de seigneur—in the name of the King of Beers—to stop delivering precious Budweiser to the ballpark.
No one disputes Mondor’s message to McLaughlin and Moran when the deliveries of Bud stopped. To wit: Fuck you.
The patrons of McCoy did not want for refreshment, however. Like so many other vendors, the Miller distributor had also been stiffed for several thousand dollars, but, in an act of faith that Mondor never forgot, it accepted his cash-up-front terms and continued its deliveries. A few years later, of course, with the Pawtucket Red Sox now a popular and profitable enterprise, a McLaughlin and Moran representative visited the stadium to deliver the good news that Budweiser could again be made available to PawSox fans. Isn’t that wonderful?
You can just see Ben Mondor, can’t you? Sitting at his secondhand desk, smile stretching beneath his trimmed mustache, eyes squinting behind those shaded glasses, entirely amused by the gross misunderstanding of what matters to him. He reminded his visitor that when he needed McLaughlin and Moran, it had forsaken him. Miller, though, had stuck by him, and so he will stick by Miller. In other words, the King of Beers can kiss his French-Canadian ass.
This will become a kind of annual tradition. Every year, a representative from McLaughlin and Moran will pay a visit to McCoy, asking Mondor for forgiveness, begging for reconsideration. Often that representative will be Terry Moran, a son of one of the company’s co-founders and well aware of McCoy Stadium’s status as a yawning hold of lost potential—Anheuser-Busch’s largest “unsold” in the Northeast. Moran will know from marketing studies that McCoy’s fans actually wanted a choice in the selection of beers at the stadium, and he will weary of constantly being asked wherever he goes in Rhode Island: “How come I can’t get a Bud at McCoy? How come I can’t get a Bud at McCoy?”
“It killed me,” Moran will later say. “It absolutely killed me. And Ben wouldn’t give a shit. Loyalty outweighed everything.”
Even so, Moran will dutifully make his pilgrimage to Pawtucket, join Mondor for lunch at the TK Club, enjoy the older man’s colorful stories, hear again how the Miller distributor had stuck by the PawSox when Budweiser would not, and wait for the right moment to apologize profusely, again, for the sins of his beer-selling elders. And Ben will always say, politely: Sorry.
The rejection will both wound and impress Moran. What loyalty.
By 2003, a quarter-century after the fallout, the beer-selling landscape of Rhode Island will have changed, and the Miller executives who stuck by Mondor will have died. Moran will try again—only this time Mondor will extend his hand to shake on the deal. “I’m telling you,” Moran will say, “it brought tears to my eyes.”
Mondor and his two aides had more than relationships to repair. After nearly four decades of neglect, McCoy Stadium had become a large-scale handyman’s special. Step by step, though, the new management team made capital improvements. Renovations in the clubhouses. New concession stands. A new washer and dryer, so that Hood and his little rascals didn’t have to wheel shopping carts of dirty uniforms up to a coin laundry. Better plumbing, so that the manager, Joe Morgan, didn’t get scalded in the shower every time someone flushed a toilet. Mondor also struck upon the idea of painting murals of all Pawtucket Red Sox players who had made it to Boston for at least a year. Not only would the portraits underscore the minor-league team’s “future stars” message (Look! The great Carlton Fisk played here once! And Fred Lynn! And Jim Rice!), they would draw the fans’ eyes away from the rusted ceiling and other parts of the stadium so in need of repair.
One day a student at the Rhode Island School of Design answered a job posting at the Providence institution that read: Painter wanted for murals. Please contact the Pawtucket Red Sox. She sat for an interview with an enthusiastic Mondor and an unenthusiastic Tamburro, whose doubts about the murals did not lift when he learned that the candidate, Tayo Heuser, the daughter of a diplomat, had grown up mostly in Africa, and therefore had almost no understanding of baseball. But Mondor was the boss. Soon, in the freezing months before the next Opening Day, the work crew at McCoy included this earnest RISD student, standing on a ladder in the whipping cold, painting four-by-eight murals of men she had never heard of on the rough concrete walls—and learning on the job that a baseball bat can be one of the most difficult objects to render precisely.
Her first portrait was of the powerfully built Jim Rice, and he looked diminished somehow: un-Rice-like. Her second was of the graceful Fred Lynn, and he looked…awkward. “Some of them were really funny-looking,” Heuser will say decades later. “They looked like ballet dancers.”
In the years to come, as the stadium undergoes renovations, Heuser will have the chance to improve these “Pawtucket Hall of Fame” murals. They will become an identifiable attraction at McCoy for a while, an essential part of every child’s game-day experience. But in the late 1970s, you could argue that the original murals were more than a bit odd, and that Mondor had become too fond of them. At one point, for example, he handed Heuser several photographs of various men and assigned her to paint their likenesses in the men’s room. She did as she was told, although someone came in while she was mixing paint in a hidden corner of the bathroom. What could she do but remain quiet and still until the visitor finished his business and left. And when she had completed her own business in this sink-and-toilet studio, a group portrait of McCoy denizens adorned the bathroom wall. Here, right above the urinals, were the front-office guys, some maintenance workers, a few of the reporters who routinely covered the team—and the team’s owner himself, holding the round white object of his newfound passion. The artist had provided a description, written in Mondor-speak.
“Bazeball,” it said.
The oil drums in the dugouts burn on. More spectators rise to leave, punch-drunk tired. At least two children sleep—Meagann Boggs, two, in the arms of her mother, and Kenny Laflamme, fifteen, in his stepfather’s Ford Pinto—while a third, David Cregg, ten, the home plate umpire’s nephew, fights off the drowsiness and the cold in the desolate stands, and a fourth, Danny Card, nine, honors that to-the-end covenant with his father. The first-base umpire, Tony Maners, notices that his crew chief and counterpart at third base, Jack Lietz, seems to be in discomfort. During a break in the 15th inning, he hustles over to find that his colleague’s hands are nearly blue from the cold. Maners gives Lietz his gloves, and jokingly says, “If this thing goes another fifteen innings, give them back to me.” Meanwhile, fresh combatants enter the game: two pitchers, the younger one eager to reach the major leagues, the older one struggling to get back. They are separated in age by just five years—a generational gap, though, as far as baseball is concerned.
Pawtucket’s new pitcher, Mike Smithson, twenty-six, has spent the night ensconced in scarves, coats, long johns—he’d wear the tarp if he could. Now he is unwrapped and looming from the mound, a six-foot-eight right-hander with the prerequisite mustache who feels the heightened pressure of entering a game in relief; one mistake and it’s over. He is from Centerville, Tennessee, a Mayberry-like place about sixty miles southwest of Nashville that takes pride in being the birthplace of the Grand Ole Opry comedian Minnie “Howd-ee! I’m just so proud to be here!” Pearl. Yes, Pawtucket is a long, long way from home—though it shares with Centerville a similar pain. Major businesses in Smithson’s hometown, including the Genesco shoe factory, where his father works, will
shutter, like so many textile mills. Not that this subtle connection means anything to the clubhouse wags in Pawtucket, who have taken joy in discovering Smithson’s college nickname: Snuffy.
Starting his second year in Pawtucket, Smithson feels misused by his manager and the Boston Red Sox. When he signed with Boston in 1976 for $12,000, he banked half and spent half on a new Monte Carlo, brown with a cream-colored landau roof, that he could drive into his bright future. A couple of weeks ago, five years after that purchase, he and his wife, Jenny, drove that same Monte Carlo up from spring training, in Winter Haven, Florida, only to stop again in Pawtucket, some forty miles short of Boston. During that long ride, he flirted with quitting the game and returning to the University of Tennessee to complete the coursework he had interrupted to play ball. It seemed that the Red Sox couldn’t decide whether he was a starter or a reliever, and he was tired of it. Tired of watching Aponte get the call before him. Tired of watching Morgan going with his gut, riding the hot hand, and allowing some of his pitchers—Mike Smithson, for example—to sit idle for two weeks at a time.
The Red Sox see Smithson as a talented pitcher whose precision in the bullpen did not always carry into the game, and will abruptly trade him in the spring of 1982 to the Texas Rangers organization—but only after he and his wife have driven their Monte Carlo, once again, some twenty-four hours from Winter Haven to Pawtucket. Checking into their hotel room late on a Saturday night, they will see the phone’s message light blinking, and soon learn that he was scheduled to pitch on Tuesday—in Denver. What could they do but sleep, pack up what had just been unpacked, and start driving to Colorado, in their continuing pursuit of the indefinite. Later that year, Smithson will reach the major leagues and stay for eight seasons, including his last two with the Boston Red Sox. He will temper his opinion of Joe Morgan—whom he once saw shimmy up a foul pole to protest a ball that should have been called a home run—and come to recognize in this unusual man a desire to prepare younger ballplayers for the rigors of the major leagues. And whenever he looks back on his major-league career, Smithson will have to admit that he was prepared, thanks in part to Morgan.
Right now, though, in the 15th inning, Mike Smithson offers a sampling of his complicated case as a major-league prospect, as he slings the ball from the side, his body so tall and his arms so long that he practically slaps right-handed batters upon release.
Strikeout.
Single.
Strikeout.
Walk.
Strikeout.
In the bottom of the inning, Red Wings manager Doc Edwards sends in Steve Luebber, the veteran pitcher who, several hours ago, struck a deal with the neighborhood scamps to swap used baseballs for branches, picket fences, and anything else that would fuel a fire in an oil drum. A minor-league geriatric at thirty-one, with sad eyes that support an aura of having seen it all, Luebber serves as a kind of player-coach, which annoys some of the younger pitchers. On the one hand, he seems to be trying to help you along; on the other hand, he’s in direct competition with you for the very limited opportunities in Baltimore. But anyone who takes a deep breath and reasonably considers the situation would agree: This guy deserves another shot.
Nearly thirty years after this night, Steve Luebber will find himself in a McDonald’s restaurant in Frederick, Maryland, eleven hundred miles from his home in Joplin, Missouri, wearing a golf shirt with another baseball team’s logo, eating another cheap lunch, and waiting for another night’s minor-league game to begin—this time as the pitching coach for the Blue Rocks of Wilmington, Delaware. At sixty, he will have dedicated more than four decades to baseball, playing and coaching for a couple of dozen teams, from Syracuse, New York, to Tacoma, Washington. A bang-around pitcher who could throw a fastball, a curve, a slider, and a changeup, he played in parts of five seasons in the major leagues, including an appearance in just one inning in 1979 for the Toronto Blue Jays, when he faced three batters and gave up two doubles and a walk. Because he failed to get anyone out, his earned run average—the average number of earned runs he would give up in a 9-inning game—is recorded for the 1979 season as infinity.
In no way does this suggest that Steve Luebber will become some kind of baseball sad sack. For one thing, he will return to the major leagues a couple of months after this game in Pawtucket, if only briefly. For another, he will have won six games in the major leagues by the time his career ends, which is six more than most of us will ever win. He will go on to become a much-admired pitching coach, earning a steady income in a pursuit that he loves. And, sitting at a plastic table in this McDonald’s, a line of hungry customers curling around him, he will demonstrate his abiding love by recalling the strengths and weaknesses in that long-ago Pawtucket lineup. Barrett, so pesky at the plate: pitch him in; Gedman, strong low-ball hitter: pitch him away; Koza, weak on breaking pitches: throw him sliders; Boggs, always fouling balls off until he found a pitch he liked: down and away, down and away.
Luebber will be gracious and thoughtful, too, when the inevitable subject of a certain Saturday night in Arlington, Texas, comes up: August 7, 1976. He was the journeyman nobody, transformed into the unhittable starting pitcher for the Minnesota Twins, throwing high and hard for 6, then 7, then 8 innings of no-hit ball, responding in his own way to the “Who the hell is Steve Luebber?” chants running through the Texas stands. Then came the 9th inning, with who-in-the-hell Luebber just three outs from throwing a no-hitter. Now two outs away. Now one out away. A quick strike, and then another, against Roy Howell, a future All Star. Just one more strike, and Luebber will have achieved one of the rarest feats in baseball.
A ball. A ball. A ball. The count is 3 and 2. Just one more strike. A foul ball. Another foul ball. A third foul ball. Just one more out.
Here, in this crowded McDonald’s in Frederick, Maryland, where no one will know who the hell he is, Steve Luebber will raise the invisible baseball that he holds forever in his large right hand. With his forefinger and middle finger extended up, as if about to grant a priestly blessing, he will motion downward, throwing that fastball again to Roy Howell, still standing there at the plate three decades later, bat in hand, ready.
A clean, unimpeachable single up the middle will rocket past Luebber and into the McDonald’s parking lot. The ball will roll through the legs of his gifted, fated center fielder, Lyman Bostock (shot to death two years later over a misunderstanding), for a two-base error, and the next batter, the dangerous Mike Hargrove, so deliberate in his at-bat preparations that he was known as “the Human Rain Delay,” will drive in Howell with a single. No no-hitter. No shutout. Now, from behind the stainless-steel counter at McDonald’s, will come the Minnesota Twins manager, Gene Mauch, to collect the baseball, shake his hand, and say, “Super job.”
Luebber will smile a smile well short of ruefulness. He will agree that honor is found in having come so close. Still, he will suggest. Still. It would have been nice. Now about that game back in Pawtucket, on the mound in the 15th inning….
Infield hit.
Force-out at second base.
Double play.
Rarely can we point to a specific tick in the time continuum and say: Here. Here, exactly, is where reason took a holiday. But the misbegotten night is blessed at least in this respect, for the exact moment when things fell apart shines brighter than any stadium light. It is about 12:45 in the morning, and for two hours now, knowledgeable players and fans have taken comfort in the baseball standard known as a curfew—a built-in time-out, really, that manages to preserve a game’s eternal potential, yet grants those beholden to it the chance to sleep. The understanding is that we will all be able to go home tonight, and someday, maybe tomorrow, we will pick up the game where we left off. After all, according to the International League bylaws and rules that apply to nights like this, no inning shall begin after 12:50 a.m.
Between innings, the three umpires confer with Mondor and Tamburro at the blue-painted lip of the owner’s box, along the third-base side. The Pawtuc
ket executives are under the impression that this will be a brief, gut-check conversation, confirming that everyone is on the same page about no inning starting after 12:50. But their isn’t-this-night-crazy chat stops short when Jack Lietz, the chief umpire, whose hands a moment ago were blue from the cold, says: Sorry, gentlemen, but the game will continue.
Forgive us, the Pawtucket executives say. The wind and cold seem to be affecting our hearing. Maybe it’s our chattering teeth. Could you repeat that?
Lietz says again that the game will continue. He and his brother umpires have no choice. They are literalists of the first order, solemnly bound by the language contained in their bible—the 1981 “International League Instructions for Umpires, Managers and Players”—which makes no mention of such a wise and compassionate option as a league curfew. Previous and future editions of the “International League Instructions for Umpires, Managers and Players” have all said and will say something along the lines of: A curfew will be in effect during the regular season. No inning shall start after 12:50 a.m. Time will be either Standard or Daylight, whichever is in effect in the city where the game is played. But no trace of that paragraph appears in the guide’s edition for this season, 1981. It seems to have somehow fallen out of the webbing of the text, a dropped ball of suddenly vital words.
The future will provide no definitive explanation for how a boilerplate paragraph vanished from a guidebook essential to the multi-million-dollar operations of a professional baseball league. The most plausible theory is that in the deadline blur of hastily typing, photocopying, mimeographing, cutting, and pasting together the 1981 instruction manual, an employee back at the International League’s modest office in Grove City, Ohio, overlooked or misplaced or forgot to include the paragraph, effectively dropping the ball of words onto the floor, where it rolled under a cabinet to be forgotten. Forgotten by everyone, that is, save for International League umpires like Jack Lietz, professional sticklers. “I knew there wasn’t anything about a curfew in here,” Lietz will later say, “because I read this front to back to pick up the changes that are made every year.”