“You gotta be kiddin’ me,” Danvers said smiling as he slipped past the two. “You guys are at it already?”
“We got a lot of catching up to do,” McGinty replied, making the cards dance in his hands with his patented riffle shuffle. “It was a long winter.”
“Well you might want to take a little break, McGinty,” Danvers continued. “Your boy, Mickey, just came in. And he was asking for you.”
Mickey sat quietly at his locker, removing one article at a time from the gunny sack that Molly had taken from the farm before she left for good. First were his socks—six pairs in all, separated carefully by length and degree of wear. Next came his cleats, which he always placed at the bottom of his locker, each on its side, with the spikes lined up in perfect accord. Then came the baseballs. Fifteen brand new, pearly white Spaldings, which he set on the top shelf in five rows, each three deep. He had just begun to hang his jersey and fold his pants when he heard from around the corner the familiar sound of his best friend on the team calling his name.
“Mickey Tussler. Where are you boy? Cripe, I know you can’t be hiding!” Mickey’s spirits soared when he caught sight of Pee Wee, who sat down next to the boy and shook his hand. Pee Wee was Mickey’s refuge on the team, the one guy who, from the very beginning, watched out for Mickey, particularly when he first arrived and the others razed the hulking pitcher unmercifully. He was Mickey’s mentor, at Murph’s behest, but had grown to really love the kid. He remembered just how much when he finally saw him.
“Well ain’t you a sight for sore eyes,” he said. “I heard you weren’t coming back.” Mickey stared back blankly, but was enormously pleased.
“Nah, Mickey is playing baseball, Pee Wee,” he said. “I love baseball.”
“Well, I’m glad to hear it, Mick. Really.” Pee Wee folded his arms and smiled. A slight moment of awkwardness fell on them, as Pee Wee struggled for something to say. It had been so long. And so much had happened. “So, what did ya do all winter, big fella?” he asked. “You all settled at Murph’s place?”
“Mickey made snow balls, Pee Wee,” he answered. “One hundred eight. Lined ‘em all up in the yard. It was cold outside, and my feet got all wet. You should have seen.”
Pee Wee chuckled quietly as the familiar patterns of discourse emerged once again. “That’s great, Mick. Really. We had some snow in Chicago too. I did quite a bit of shoveling for my mom.”
The two of them continued to volley tidbits about the past few months, stopping only once or twice to allow Mickey to finish his sorting and organizing. Pee Wee watched as his friend transformed his locker into an orderly masterpiece.
“Well, whatta ya say, Mick,” he said. “You ready to go win us something special this year?”
Mickey stopped and rolled his arms wildly, the same way he did before every pitch he delivered. Pee Wee stood before him, silent. It really had not been that long, yet he found himself amazed by the startling reality that this enigmatic kid, who was riddled with all these peculiarities and idiosyncrasies, was the team’s most valuable player. He watched him, trying to delve deep behind the eyes, and thought that perhaps the boy finally got it. What he meant to all of them. Christ, he was the Baby Bazooka, the talk of the town.
Surely he had to know by now.
“Well, Mick? How about it?”
“I’m sorry, Pee Wee,” he said. “They all melted now. The snowballs. I can’t show you.”
One by one, the others trickled in. Each brought with him his own story. Clem Finster arrived sporting a full beard, and spent a good fifteen minutes explaining to all of them how his facial hair had changed his life immeasurably.
“I’m telling you guys, it’s amazing. Everyone treats me differently. Guys are afraid of me. Nobody wants to mess. And the women? It’s crazy man. The women are always looking. Christ, it’s awesome. It’s like I’m a new man.”
Buck Faber, who had shown up twenty pounds heavier than when he had left in September, laughed and poked at Finster playfully. “Well, does a new batting average come with this new man?”
A wave of raucous laughter rose from the ranks.
“Good one, Bucky,” Rube Winkler said, rushing to Finster’s defense. “But at least Finster there is sharing his news. Looks to me like you’ve been holding out on us.”
Faber scrunched up his nose and shrugged. “What the hell you talking about, Ruby?”
Winkler smiled and patted his belly gently. “Heck, is this the way your good friends have to find out? Why didn’t you tell us you were expecting?”
One of the last ones to arrive was Jimmy Llamas, whose penchant for making an entrance had not diminished any in the off season. Each year, Llamas came back to camp with a new persona. Some identity he had adopted as his own. He was lost in a perpetual search for self, so most of them just laughed, knowing full well that it would never last. That by the second week of spring training, he’d be James Borelli again—“Jimmy Llamas,” the same old puffy lipped, gap-toothed cartoon character whose very being provided more comic relief than Bob Hope. But his antics, as benign as they were, really irritated Woody Danvers, who was a bit of an egotist himself and perhaps the most irascible guy on the team. Danvers thought he had cured Llamas of these sophomoric antics the year the kooky centerfielder came to spring training with a pipe and smoking jacket, professing to have discovered “culture.” Danvers, unbeknownst to Llamas, mixed a little cow manure in his tobacco blend. Later that day, Llamas lit up, puffed hard on the pipe while pontificating about “the finer things in life,” only to fall to his knees, hands clutching his throat, when he realized what had happened.
“Howdy, partners,” Llamas bellowed, entering the room wearing a ten-gallon hat, leather vest, and black lizard skin cowboy boots. “How do I look?”
Here and there were whispers and muffled laughter as the attention of the entire room turned immediately to Danvers, who had stood up, slammed his locker door, and narrowed his eyes in Llamas’ direction.
“Like you just took a ride on the idiot wagon, and hit every bump along the way before finally falling off.”
The entire room roared. Llamas blushed and fired back, mumbling something about Danvers’s mother. Everyone laughed again. That drew the ire of the chiseled third baseman even further.
“Okay, numb nuts,” Danvers warned. “It’s a little early, but you asked for it.”
Danvers rushed for Llamas, collared him and cocked his fist behind his ear while the others looked on. This was usually the time that Boxcar stepped in, right before anything really serious transpired. He was the law. But he was noticeably absent, which left the responsibility to Murph and his sententious assistant, old man Matheson.
“Enough already,” Murph hollered. “It’s way too soon for you two idiots to be doing this. I have enough of my own crap to worry about without babysitting you two jackals. Okay? Am I clear? Now get your crap together and make sure you’re on that damned field in twenty minutes.”
Murph stormed off, leaving a trail of overturned laundry bins and batting helmets in his wake. They all just stood around for a moment, stunned by Murph’s explosive rant, uncertain what to make of the atypical outburst. It was only Matheson’s inane commentary that shook them from their collective stupor and sent them all scrambling for the field, while he just continued to spew his vapid remarks.
“Well, what are you all standing around for, hunched over like a pack of dogs crapping razor blades. You heard your skipper. It’s show time. We’ve got a clean slate. Yeah, that’s right. Atta boy, Woody. You too, McGinty. What about you, Finster? Ha ha. That’s what I’m talking about. Hustle out there. Go get ‘em. Slice the melon. Fly in the face of it. This here’s a hard row to hoe fellas, and believe me when I say…”
Baseball was back everywhere. High above, as though suspended by invisible strings, a band of crows flew idly, listlessly, desultory stains pressed against the pale blue sky. With eyes both dark and ulcerous, Chip McNally stood, arms folded, and spoke passion
ately with his Rangers about the upcoming season. It seemed impossible that anyone should be unhappy on a day such as this, when the world had burst open once again. Who could find fault with today, especially McNally, whose team was coming off a rousing victory over Murph’s Brewers en route to the championship. “Last year is last year, boys,” he began, pounding a fist into his open palm. “It means nothing right now.” He shook his head violently, and a reckless rage settled around his heart.
“And, we shouldn’t be too proud of ourselves. We barely hung on. Christ, to have those rat bastards nipping at our heels on the very last day. Inexcusable. Completely inexcusable. We will bury them this year! All of ‘em. From that whining has-been Murphy to Mickey, that freakish wonder boy. Ya hear me. Bury them! I will settle for nothing less.”
Lefty Rogers, whose face and neck bore the painful reminders of his run-in with Mickey just months before, listened quietly in the lengthening shadows of the others as McNally continued his harangue.
“And we open up with those turds in just about a month. So we need to be sharp. Ready. There’s not a minute to be wasted here.”
The manager’s words filled Rogers with an unavailing wrath. Since that fateful day last season, when he lost all hope of nailing down a championship for the Rangers and most likely a call up to the big show, all the workings of Lefty’s frustrated imagination had been concentrated on vengeance. It’s all he thought about. Dreamt about. He had carried it with him all winter. He held it at the hospital, as doctors worked tirelessly to put his battered body back together. It haunted him at night, when he lay his head on the pillow after hours of rehabilitative exercises. It trailed him everywhere, this frustration, a roiling pulsation that ate at him mercilessly in the absence of a tangible outlet. Oh, how he had waited for this day. A chance for redemption. Vindication. His frustration, now unfettered, held up a torch to the fragile fabric of his inner demons, illuminating the pitcher’s festering malevolence.
“I’m all for that, Mr. McNally,” he said, stepping into the center of the group. “Count me in. Just hand me the ball and point me in the right direction. I’ll be there.”
Back at Borchert Field, under a sky splashed here and there with rectangular strands of white filament, some of the Brewer pitchers began loosening their arms, the annual ritual of resurrecting those muscles which had lain dormant for many weeks. Gabby Hooper grabbed a ball and paired up with Rube Winkler. Packey Reynolds did the same with Butch Sanders, and the foursome headed down the left field line, moaning and jawing about sore shoulders and stiff biceps.
“Hey, Mick,” Sanders called back. “Wanna join us over here?”
Mickey, who had spent several minutes studying the pattern of the laces in the webbing of his glove, started to yawn, as if a simple game of catch was of no interest to him, then emptied a bucket of balls of his own at home plate and scampered down the opposite foul line, stopping when he reached the right field corner. With a quick smile and a jovial, audible “perfect,” he placed the empty bucket on its side, then trotted back down the line and proceeded to line up the mess of baseballs—four perfect rows, each five balls deep.
The foursome continued to throw softly, struggling with the rust that had formed on each of their arms with the five-month lay off. It was evident that none of them was any better off than the other, but bravado soon got the best of all of them.
“Jesus Christ, Hooper,” Winkler said. “That’s all you got? Hell, I’ve seen better arms on my grand daddy’s chair.”
Sanders, who caught Winkler’s eye and was suddenly aware of the public scrutiny, shot him a quick grin before throwing his next ball to Reynolds with a little more zip on it.
“Yeah, you should talk, Ruby,” Hooper fired back. “You couldn’t break a pane of glass with that puss ball you’ve been throwing.”
They all laughed, and began peppering each other with a litany zingers until, through the mist of insults, a thunderous sound, like a gun being fired in a stone canyon, halted their attack and left them wide eyed and gape jawed.
“Holy shit,” Winkler said. “I don’t believe it.”
There was a moment of pure, motionless disbelief, when all else seemed to stand still, as the four of them watched with astonishment and incredulity as Mickey bent over to pick up another baseball.
“Did he, uh, just do what I think he did?” Hooper asked, shaking his head rigorously as if to extricate the madness which had entered his head and altered his senses. “From over there?”
They had scarcely reconciled the enormity of the feat when Mickey rolled his arms, licked his lips, and let fly a second baseball. The little white sphere rocketed through the still air like a meteor, its trajectory crisp and true. With eyes wide with wonder, Hopper, Winkler, Sanders and Reynolds stared as the ball careened off the center of the bucket, splitting the silence with a deafening crash.
“That’s 329 feet away, guys,” Winkler gasped. “On a line.”
The others shook their heads. As the display continued to unfold, they all became increasingly preoccupied. There was talk about calculating velocity and power and all kinds of wild speculation about just how far his arm could reach. Someone even whispered the name Superman.
“Hell, I thought it was crazy last year,” Sanders said. “But this? I’ll be damned if this don’t beat all.”
Mickey continued firing baseballs, one after the other, and each followed the same path, seemingly wedded to the same destination. The befuddled pitchers just stood and watched, pale-faced and open-mouthed, with a wild stare that slid away only after Mickey had hurled the final ball. They tried to bring what had just transpired into some definite relation to themselves and ended up frustrated and noticeably envious but mostly just dumbstruck by the boy’s raw ability. Hooper was the only one who could manage to break the silence.
“Unbelievable,” he mumbled. “Un-friggin’-believable.”
Murph, who had just stepped onto the field to hit fungos to some of the outfielders who had followed him out, was rattled by a discovery of his own—one that crept up on him eerily before fanning out across the entire ballpark like a storm cloud. It was Boxcar.
The team captain walked slowly, deliberately, a dwindling figure moving languidly in Murph’s direction, half extinguished by the rise in temperature, or worry, or perhaps something far more formidable.
“Holy Hannah, Boxcar,” Murph gasped once the catcher was close enough to receive the words. “What the hell happened to you? Where the hell is the rest of you?”
He was almost ghostlike in his appearance, his once burly frame reduced now shockingly to a skeletal form that swam awkwardly in his uniform. His face was wan and faded. In his eyes, which were sunk deep now in the dark folds of his lids, was a look of grim determination struggling against an unforeseen peril.
“Sorry I’m late, Murph,” he said, his eyes far away from what he was saying. “Let’s play ball.”
Murph, along with several others who had trotted over once Boxcar had arrived, looked at him with alarm. Something was very wrong.
“Wait a minute here, Box,” Murph said. “Just slow down a minute. What the hell is going on with you? Look at yourself. You look awful.”
“Ah, I just got a bug or something, that’s all. Ain’t been feeling too good the last few weeks.”
“Did you go see a doctor?”
Boxcar scoffed and thumped his chest with his fist. “Doctor? What the hell for? What do they know? It’ll pass, same way it came, and I’ll be good as new. I’m fine. Really. So quit your gawking. All of you.”
A veil of sobriety fell over them as they listened to Boxcar plead his case, their hopes rising and falling like skittish birds balancing on a tree limb. It was all too much. This was their captain. The last bastion of vitality and unadulterated strength. The rudder of their ship. How could this be the same guy? Their thoughts were killing them. A big part of each of them just wanted to run, to dismiss what had now become so painfully evident. A small part of each o
f them was already in flight.
“I mean it. Enough with it,” he demanded, nostrils flared, his tongue passing recklessly over chapped lips. “Why do you keep looking at me like that? Let’s get to work. I don’t know what the hell is wrong with all of you. Standing around like a bunch of cackling old hens. What’s wrong, Boxcar? Why are you so skinny, Boxcar? Go to the doctor, Boxcar. Blah, blah, blah. Holy Christ. Enough with it. Okay? I can’t understand you guys. Behaving like a bunch of wash women. Jesus Christ. Did everyone forget why we’re here? Don’t we have a season to prepare for?”
APRIL
The early morning sunlight spilled across the countryside and dripped gently over Murph’s tiny house like golden honey over the side of a glass jar. Murph and Molly sat across from each other, sipping coffee and picking at the banana bread she had made the night before.
“Well, you’ve been awfully quiet lately,” Molly said, playing with the frayed ends of her napkin. “How’s everything going?”
“Okay, I guess,” he replied. “Most of the rust is off. Guys are hitting and throwing pretty well.”
“So what’s the long face about? It sounds pretty good to me.”
Murph held her off momentarily with a quizzical look that was neither hard nor inviting. He really did not intend to discuss team matters at home. ‘Don’t crap where you eat’ he heard Matheson telling him. He was pretty sure it applied. It was one of the few times the old coot made sense. He was quite certain the comment would just pass, and that he could successfully move the conversation in another direction. But when he felt, all at once, a certain current being turned on somewhere deep within, he could no longer be silent.
“It’s Boxcar. Something just ain’t right. You should see him. Looks like a damned corpse. All skin and bones. And he’s been dragging himself around the field like every step may be his last. It’s a real problem. I can’t seem to stop thinking about it.”
Sophomore Campaign Page 4