Painting the Corners Again

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Painting the Corners Again Page 10

by Weintraub, Bob;


  McHugh saw his best laid plans going up in smoke by Doolin’s unfortunate demotion back to the minor leagues. He understood that the only reason Mickey would have been looking for him at the train station was to carry out the agreement in person and tell him about going back to Estelle. McHugh knew the ax would fall at any second. “You’re right, Mickey,” he said, “I couldn’t make the train but I caught up with the team in Elmira.”

  “Anyway, Davey, here’s what I want to tell you. Me and Lenore both feel we’re hitting it off good and we’re looking to stay together for a long time. At the point you can afford a divorce from Lenore, Estelle and I can split too, and then either of us is free to marry someone else if we want. I knew I had to let you know that during this week, like we said last year in that agreement we had.”

  The exhilaration he suddenly felt was overwhelming. McHugh wanted to wrap his arms around Doolin, to hug his friend as hard as he could. He was about to tell Doolin that he had their arrangement completely backwards, but then thought better of it. Let Mickey believe his demotion was fated, that it had come at just the right time so he could be there with McHugh to claim Lenore for his own.

  “Well then, that’s the way it’s going to be, Mickey, and I’ll give the news to Estelle as soon as we get back to Harrisburg. And the first night back you’re coming over for dinner.”

  “I’d like to, Davey, but I’d have to be sure you had no hard feelings about what I just told you. Because if you did …”

  McHugh interrupted him. “Mickey, no hard feelings at all. We made an agreement and we’ll always be friends. You stay with Lenore and I’ll stay with Estelle. Besides, I want you to tell me all about life in the big leagues. I didn’t get there this time, but maybe one of these days I will.”

  When the team returned to Harrisburg, McHugh found a note on the kitchen table from Estelle. She told him that living in Harrisburg had become tiresome and depressing. She had decided to move to a bigger city and enroll in a nursing school. She was hopeful of finding a job to support herself and of receiving a scholarship to attend classes. She didn’t say that life with McHugh was bad or boring, only that she needed to expand her horizons. “You’ve been good to me, Davey, and I’m grateful. I’ll probably go to Boston. If playing baseball ever brings you there, you may want to look me up.”

  WHEN THE SPIRIT MOVES YOU

  “When Steve (Carlton) and I die, we are going to be buried in the same cemetery, 60 feet, 6 inches apart.”

  —Tim McCarver

  DARRIN CLARK’S NIGHTMARE began in the ninth inning of the rubber game against Baltimore. The visiting Orioles were behind 3–2, but had put runners on second and third with two out. When Carl Fullmer swung and missed at a low slider, putting himself in a two-strike hole, the Fenway Park faithful rose to their feet. Rhythmic applause heralded their anticipation of a game-ending strikeout, victory over the hated but more talented O’s and a return to first place in the division standings.

  Second baseman Clark pounded his fist into his glove and watched the catcher flash a series of signs that called for a curveball breaking outside. He relayed the signal to Hal Perris, playing a deep shortstop, and moved a few steps to his left just before the pitch was delivered. Fullmer, guessing fastball, lunged at the offering at the last instant and hit it on the ground between first and second. Clark glided over, scooped up the ball cleanly, and started to throw it to Mike Josephson at first. But halfway through his motion, it was as if an unseen hand had grabbed his shoulder and pulled on it. Clark hesitated before letting the ball go and then watched in pained disbelief as it flew wide of Josephson and into the Red Sox dugout.

  The thirty-three thousand fans filling the ballpark were stunned by the sudden turn of events. Most of them cursed under their breaths as they sat down again; some did so more vocally. High fives greeted the Orioles’ base runners as they crossed the plate to give their team the lead.

  In the last of the ninth the Sox put the tying run on base with one out. But the disenchanted crowd failed to respond with its support and the rally fizzled. Boston’s fifty-fifth loss of the season was in the books.

  In the clubhouse, Clark was ignored by the beat reporters. They knew better than to ask him to explain the miscue. He sat on a chair facing his locker until the sounds in the room told him it was practically empty. Several teammates came by on their way out to offer encouragement. “Get ’em tomorrow, Darrin,” was the message. He showered alone, dressed slowly, and was the last player to leave.

  The next night’s game was the first of three against the visiting Blue Jays. Toronto was in third place, three games behind the Red Sox. In the sixth inning, with one out and Toronto runners on each base, Clark was the middleman in what should have been a routine 6–4–3 double play. But as he jumped to avoid the sliding base runner, his arm poised to make the throw, he never followed through. By the time he landed on his feet and reloaded, it was too late to get the third out.

  Clark couldn’t believe what had happened. He knew that his arm had met some invisible resistance that prevented him from completing the play. He looked at Perris, ready to blurt out an explanation, but realized it would be useless. How could he expect his shortstop or anyone else to accept what he would say? To make matters worse, the next Blue Jay batter lofted the first pitch over the Green Monster, giving Toronto a three-run lead they never relinquished.

  It was after midnight by the time Clark returned to his apartment. At twenty-eight and single, he lived alone in a town nineteen miles west of Boston. He snacked on some Swiss cheese and crackers, along with a glass of beer. The late night baseball coverage on one of the cable channels featured the winning Toronto home run, but not the play at second base that had set it up. He tried to sleep, but the drone of the air conditioner fighting the August heat and humidity kept him awake for a long time.

  Clark’s short rest ended just before three thirty that morning. He awoke suddenly, realizing that the dream he’d been having had pushed him into consciousness. It was still very vivid in his mind. He had been out on a lake in a rowboat. Another baseball player was with him, someone whose identity he was never sure of. Huge waves, coming out of nowhere, interrupted the tranquility of their day, rocking the boat violently. Neither man had taken a life preserver with him. In an effort to avoid being thrown into the water, they knelt down and wrapped their arms around the wood planks on which they had been sitting. After a short struggle, his friend fell into the lake and was quickly carried away from the boat by the surging waves.

  Clark had never been a good swimmer. He felt that the only chance of rescuing his companion was to try and reach him with the boat and extend an oar for him to grasp. As he rowed desperately, he saw the other player go under and then emerge holding up a white cardboard sign with the number “22” on it. Moments later the friend disappeared again and then re-emerged with the sign still in his hands, but now displaying the number “45.” Clark rowed as hard as he could but was unable to bridge the distance between himself and his fellow ballplayer. The next time he saw the placard rise above the surface of the lake, it again showed the number “22.” Suddenly, the waters were calm again but his friend was nowhere to be seen. It was his crying out for him that jolted Clark out of his sleep. The fear that engulfed him as he recalled the dream sprang from realizing that his own uniform number was “22.”

  The final two games of the series were played on the weekend, with one o’clock starting times. On Saturday, Clark went to the park early to see the team trainer. He explained the sensations he had felt in the course of the two plays that cost the Red Sox both games.

  “Can it be accounted for by some physical disability?” he asked.

  The trainer put him through a series of arm and shoulder exercises, none of which gave Clark any discomfort or caused any disruption in his motion.

  “You’re perfectly fit,” he was told. “I can’t find anything wrong.” What went unsaid, with the look the trainer gave him while shrugging his shoulders
, was that Clark had no excuse for the errors he committed.

  Dusty Harmon, the Red Sox manager, was waiting for him in the dugout when he went out to warm-up. “I think you can use a rest, Darrin. Take a seat today and we’ll see about tomorrow.”

  Clark just nodded in response. As Harmon climbed the three steps to the field, Clark winced as his eyes registered the “45” on the back of the manager’s uniform. Did the “45” intend to sink the “22”? he wondered. Was his career in jeopardy? Was that the dream’s message?

  He sat on the bench for eight and a half innings. In the bottom of the ninth, with his team again trailing by three runs, he was sent up as a pinch hitter. There were two outs and runners on first and second. Clark watched two outside curveballs go by and then drove the next pitch high off the left field wall above the scoreboard. The carom evaded the center fielder long enough to allow both runners to score.

  As Clark took the turn at first base on the way to an easy double, he suddenly felt something hit against the instep of his right foot. It was as if he’d been tripped. He lost his balance and sprawled face down on the base path. He felt the dust and dirt rush into his mouth and cause him to choke. By the time he recovered and got to his feet, the first base coach was shouting at him to “come back, come back.” Clark quickly retreated to the base. As he brushed himself off and shook his head in disgust, he realized that the coach was glaring at him. He met the gaze for a few seconds and didn’t like what he saw.

  The next batter singled into right center field, moving Clark to third. The team’s radio announcer informed his frustrated listeners around New England that Clark would have easily scored the tying run had he not failed to reach second earlier. He also took the opportunity to recall other sad occasions in Red Sox history when a tripping base runner had cost the team victory in important games. Moments later, the second pinch hitter of the inning popped out to end the contest.

  This time the reporters swarmed around Clark’s locker as soon as they were allowed into the clubhouse. Red Sox fans were too high-strung and demanding to let three straight blunders of this magnitude sneak by without an explanation. The media covering the game for their respective newspapers and TV stations were all over him for answers. Clark tried getting away with a repeated “no comment” to the first flurry of questions, but it did no good. They continued to surround him, their pens and tape recorders at the ready. As he listened to their questions, Clark sensed the implication that he was either choking as the race for the playoffs came down to the last thirty-five games, or that he had some physical ailment he was concealing from management.

  His frustration won out and he turned his chair around to face them. “Listen,” he said, jerking his head from side to side to include them all in his answer, “I can’t explain the screwups I’ve had in these last three games. On both of those throws, something seemed to just grab hold of my arm and keep me from making the play. Then, rounding first this afternoon, I’d swear someone stuck out his foot and tripped me. Don’t tell me no one was near me because I know that. That’s what makes this so weird. I’ve never fallen down running the bases before … ever! I’m perfectly okay physically—believe me, I checked—so there’s no excuse for any of those plays. Right now that’s all I can say about it because I can’t figure it out. I don’t want to sound like the pressure’s getting to me, because it’s not, but some strange things have been happening. It’s like a science fiction story and I’m in the middle of it.”

  Clark looked around at everyone standing there, getting his words on their tapes and in their notebooks. He wondered if he shouldn’t have said what he did, realizing how bizarre it must have sounded. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “That’s it guys. I just feel terrible for what this has cost my teammates.”

  The questions kept coming, but the interview was over as far as he was concerned. He turned his chair back to his locker, stripped off his uniform, and headed for the trainer’s room without saying another word. The members of the fourth estate had vacated the clubhouse long before he showered, dressed, and left himself.

  The Sunday sports pages played up Clark’s “confession” in dramatic fashion. Characterizations of his present state of mind ran the gamut from the ridiculous to the absurd. If any respect was due him for the six years he’d already been with the Red Sox, consistently contributing to the team’s success, no one writing about him that day saw fit to give it. The Globe cartoonist, in three panels, drew him holding his bat at the plate as if he were playing cricket, running to first base backwards, and getting ready to catch a popup near second with his bare hands. “What Next?” the caption read.

  The noise in the clubhouse switched abruptly to low whispering when Clark entered to get ready for that afternoon’s game. He’d seen what had been written about him and wasn’t surprised at the reception. It was best to just go about his business, he decided, and let things run their course. He put on his uniform, went out onto the field, and spent the next forty minutes stretching and running near the left field wall. When he returned to the dugout, Clark looked at the lineup card and saw that utility-man Mike Rooney was penciled in again at second base.

  The game was a laugher for the Sox as they scored six runs in the first inning on the way to a 12-2 victory. Clark sat in the far corner of the dugout all afternoon. He got up only to give fisted high fives to three teammates who hit home runs and to keep his cup filled with Gatorade.

  That night he had another bad dream. He saw himself driving alone through a cemetery during spring. He was admiring the manicured patches of late-blooming tulips as well as the lilac bushes that were just beginning to show their varied shades of purple. At a three-way intersection, Clark came upon a funeral cortege that consisted only of a hearse and a single chauffeur-driven limousine behind it. He decided to follow it, and then walked to the burial plot at a discreet distance behind the five people who emerged from the parked limo.

  No member of the clergy was present. The cemetery employees put the coffin in place above the hole that had been dug for it. One of the men who had wheeled it from the hearse to its final resting place faced those in attendance and quickly read a few prayers from a small black book. Then, just before the deceased was lowered into the ground, a woman holding a shopping bag approached. She took a white baseball uniform shirt out of the bag, unfolded it, and placed it over the end of the casket. Watching her intently, Clark first saw the “Red Sox” lettering on the front of the shirt, and then, as she laid it down, the number “22” on the back. He woke up in a sweat and spent the next hour worrying about what it meant before falling back asleep.

  Monday was an off day for the team, with an optional practice scheduled for ten in the morning. The Yankees would be Boston’s next opponent, on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday night. Clark was worn out from both the stress of the past few days and the lack of sleep, but felt certain that he’d be expected to show up for infield work.

  Only one other player and two coaches were in the clubhouse when he arrived. Clark found an envelope sitting on the shelf of his locker. It had his name on it, no return address, and no postage stamp. He assumed that it had been delivered to the team’s offices that morning and brought to his locker by one of the clerical staff. The handwritten letter inside was addressed to “Dear Mr. Clark.”

  “I think I can help you,” it read. “Someone in the other world is trying to send you a message. I’ve seen it happen many times. Please take this seriously and call me at 617-391-1813.” It was signed, “Mr. Espirito.”

  “Another fan letter, Clark?” one of the coaches asked, making no effort to hide the mockery in his voice.

  He didn’t let it upset him. They were frustrated too, he realized.

  “Yeah,” he answered, “some guy who saw that dive I took Saturday said I’d make a great goalie. He wants me to call the soccer team for a tryout.”

  The others laughed. Clark got into his uniform and laced up his spikes. He headed for the door to the t
unnel leading to the field but stopped before reaching it. He returned to his locker and dug all the change out of his pants pocket. Taking the letter he’d received, he dialed the number from the pay telephone in the corner of the room. The phone was answered after just one ring.

  “Hello,” said a low, heavy voice, “this is Mr. Espirito. Is that you, Mr. Clark?”

  “Yes, but how did—”

  The voice cut him off. “I’m glad you called. There is a troubled soul on the other side that needs your help. Tell me, have you had any unusual dreams lately?”

  “Yes,” Clark said, “that’s part of what’s been happening.”

  “You’ve got to let me know what they were.”

  Clark already trusted the person on the other end of the line. “I’ll be glad to. Can we meet this afternoon, maybe somewhere in Kenmore Square?”

  “No, I mean tell them to me right now. It’s important for you to do so.”

  Clark looked around at the handful of players and coaches in the clubhouse. He turned his back to them and spoke in just above a whisper. “I’m sort of in a public place, but I’ll talk softly. Can you hear me okay?”

  “Yes, Mr. Clark, perfectly. Let me hear what you dreamt.”

  As soon as he began to detail the first dream, the recorded voice of an operator broke in and asked for more money. He had three quarters and a nickel left, all of which he quickly deposited. He returned to the first dream, finished describing it, and, at Espirito’s urging, went on to the second one.

  When he was through, there was just a short pause before Espirito spoke. “Find out who wore the number “22” for the Red Sox before you, Mr. Clark. I feel certain the answer lies there. But don’t wait. Whoever is calling out to you wants your help right away and will continue to hurt your play on the baseball field until you give it. Goodbye.”

 

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