Three Nights in August

by Buzz Bissinger

  A box of scuffed baseballs stood in one corner, rejects that hadn't made the cut. A stack of pizza boxes bore the pockmarks of their half-eaten cargo. There was a FedEx slip on the carpet and a picture of somebody's baby and a baseball card of the old Giant great Juan Marichal with that leg kick poking a hole in heaven and a stack of unopened fan mail and a twenty-dollar coupon for Guis-seppe's restaurant. One player, Al Levine, a righty reliever cut toward the end of camp, had even left behind a copy of his contract, as if the compensation he was receiving for being released, $600,000, wasn't worth the paper it was printed on, probably because he knew he would find enlistment papers somewhere else. The only people in the clubhouse were the attendants scurrying about, throwing blue towels into metal shopping basket bins, collecting soiled stirrup socks, removing peels of tape. And then Rick Ankiel walked in to gather his things, as if he had waited for this moment when no one would be there to see him.

  La Russa still believes in Rick Ankiel. He still believes that he can get it back if he's left alone for a little bit without the rubberneckers smelling flesh, rediscover the muscle memory of what once was there. "He still has it in him to pitch well," says La Russa.

  But whatever happens, there is the image of somebody trying to make a comeback—not in his forties or fifties or even his thirties, but at the age of twenty-three. Which is why, as La Russa watches Prior on the mound in Game 1 with his impervious strut and thinks to himself: Maybe he needs to be doing this a while, he's thinking it as much for Prior's benefit as he is his own. Because nobody, no matter how good you are already and how much better everyone thinks you will become, is ever immune to the vagaries of what can happen when your life depends on throwing a baseball.

  6. Praying For Change

  I

  LA RUSSA FEELS gratified by Stephenson's performance so far. He's put two zeros on the board. He didn't float something up and over for Randall Simon. He used both sides of the plate with Alex Gonzalez. He has kept the ball down.

  It's too early to make predictions, but La Russa wonders whether this might be a pivotal moment not only in Stephenson's season but also for his career, the moment when a pitcher realizes who he is and what he is and what he's capable of and drops the action-hero pretensions that get him into trouble. Maybe it's like the epiphany Todd Stottlemyre experienced when he came over to the A's from Toronto in the early 1990s and placed himself at the mercy of Duncan.

  Stottlemyre, by his own admission, suffered from the big-balls delusion. La Russa understood that attitude and to a certain degree embraced it. He had been around pitchers enough to know what egotistical creatures they had to be because of the very nature of what they did, alone on that little hill with the outcome of the game in lockstep with their performance. "They're starting pitchers," he said. "They need to be heroes." Now he didn't even bother to ask a starter how he was feeling when he visited the mound, as the only one he had ever encountered in a quarter century who didn't flat-out lie, admitted to being out of gas if he was out of gas, was Tom Seaver. The rest said they felt great even if they no longer had any feeling left in their arms.

  Stottlemyre was the ultimate mound warrior. But under Duncan, he harnessed his drive and competitiveness so that each batter became a potential out, not a rite of ego. He learned how to kill with location. He realized that if you toss in the right mix of pitches—think of yourself as a chef making a soufflé with varied ingredients—the hitter's timing, his most precious commodity, is stolen from him. Stottlemyre fell in love with command, which even when you don't have good stuff on a certain night can still get you through. He became something he had never really been before—a pitcher—and he credits Duncan for that transformation, the first pitching coach who taught him more than mechanics. The Deacon got inside his head because of the meticulousness of those charts, proved to him with hard-core data what he was doing wrong, and fixed the circuitry to turn him from an inconsistent .500 pitcher into a pitcher with a consistent winning record.

  So maybe here's where Stephenson crosses the border from thrower to pitcher and never crosses back. He's had his moments before, moments when it's worked on all cylinders and moments, terrifying moments, when he himself has acknowledged that he has no idea where his fastball is going. Now would be a lovely time to do it, against a young gun like Prior with first place in the Central on the line. The only thing La Russa hasn't seen from Stephenson is off-speed. Twenty-seven pitches thrown through seven batters and all of them fastballs. But that's okay as long as Stephenson ultimately starts mixing in his curve and changeup. Also, with the eighth and ninth hitters coming to the plate in the top of the third before Kenny Lofton's up again, there's a little relief in the lineup. Given the way Stephenson is pitching, the third inning should be easier than the first two.

  The catcher Bako leads off for the Cubs. He's hitting .213 with no home runs and eleven RBIs. Finally, Stephenson has a matchup that favors him; in four at-bats, Bako's never gotten a hit against him.

  Stephenson comes with a low-and-away fastball that Bako swings through to get the first-strike advantage. Stephenson's next pitch, his twenty-ninth straight fastball, is up and in for a ball to make the count 1 and 1. In the dugout, a queasy feeling comes over La Russa: Where are the curve and the changeup? Where is the deception? Why give the eighth-place hitter who isn't hitting two and a quarter a gift like this by throwing nothing but fastballs?

  Stephenson comes with another fastball. He is hoping to locate the pitch inside, but he doesn't, at least not inside enough. Bako hits it sharply into right. Kerry Robinson reaches into the corner, cutting the ball off before it goes to the wall, and saves it from becoming a double.

  Now La Russa begins to worry. Stephenson's bipolar disorder is showing definite signs of relapse. In the Cubs dugout, a vicious yet accurate rumor is no doubt spreading: He's throwing nothing but fastballs up there. No pitcher should ever let a hitter feel comfortable, and if Stephenson keeps throwing heat, the Cubs will come to the plate with a bat and a Mai Tai.

  Stephenson faces Prior next and jams him, with the result a harmless pop-up to the infield. It gives Stephenson his first out, and maybe La Russa's agitations are the agitations of a man who agitates over everything, even the little crushed paper cups that procreate on the dugout floor: La Russa walks the length of the dugout, kicking them into neat little piles. The reality is that Stephenson, after working his way through the Cubs lineup, has given up only the one hit, to Bako. But La Russa still frets, waiting for the game to sucker-punch him, his only defense to agitate. He went into the inning hoping to catch a break. With the lowest spots in the order due up first and second, he harbored the expectation that Lofton, coming up with two outs and nobody on, would be neutralized. But that fastball to Bako has set off a potentially wicked chain, because Lofton now settles in with a man on first and only one out.

  Stephenson digs himself a hole with three straight balls, then gets back into the at-bat with two strikes to make the count full at 3 and 2.

  It's another sumptuous subplot: The hitter has an assumed advantage because of the likelihood that the pitcher will come with a fastball, rather than risk a walk with something too fine that will put runners on first and second. But La Russa and Duncan will often try to screw up that assumption if they figure it's likely that the runner on first is going for second off the 3-2 count. They encourage their pitchers and catchers to treat the situation as if the runner is already on second, with first base open, to lessen the usual tendency to give in to the full count with a fastball. Instead, they preach off-speed here; a walk that puts runners on first and second is still better than the hitter getting the fastball he thinks he is going to get. La Russa himself will further encourage the antifastball philosophy by conveying to the catcher through signs what pitch the pitcher should throw. But he makes no sign here. He believes that both Stephenson and Chris Widger have been sufficiently coached on fastball danger. He believes the pitch will be a curve or a changeup to muck up Lofton's anticipatio
n.

  It's a fastball. A high fastball. The kind of pitch that keeps Lofton in gloves and gold chains. He slaps it the other way into the corner in left, Pujols scampering after it. Bako scores easily from first. Lofton reaches second standing up. The Cubs lead 1–0.

  The next batter, Martinez in the two-hole, singles on a fastball to drive in Lofton: 2–0 Cubs. That pitch was in but also up, the kiss of death. In the foxhole, La Russa's inner voice pleads with Stephenson: Mix in something different! Stephenson obliges with a changeup to begin the at-bat against Sosa. At this point, La Russa is almost shocked to see it.

  Finally. But it's moot anyway, as Stephenson, after building to 0 and 2, loses Sosa to a walk to put runners on first and second with, still, one out. The last thing Duncan had told Stephenson in their meeting—the moral he left him with—was not to get frustrated and lose concentration if things started to go a little sour. But the back-to-back hits by Lofton and Martinez have obviously flustered Stephenson, and La Russa has the feeling that he is slipping away, a crooked number in the works with all that potential damage approaching in the four-, five-, and six-spots.

  It's a great situation for Alou in the cleanup—he usually kills Cardinals pitching with his RBI aggressiveness—but he flies to left for the second out. There are still runners on first and second. Stephenson has given up three hits, a walk and two runs; he suddenly looks scraggly and rattled. It's been a bumpy inning, an ugly inning. Yet he can still walk away with minor scratches if he gets the next out.

  The object that blocks Stephenson's escape from the inning is Simon, the very Simon who, Stephenson acknowledged, kicks his ass. This is the key at-bat of the inning, probably of the entire game, and La Russa's inner voice is succinct: You get Simon out. You got a game.

  Stephenson knows it too. If he retires Simon here, it's the Cardinals who get the crucial psychological lift because the Cubs should have done more damage. It's also a crucial mental victory for Stephenson, a bad matchup that he turned in his favor, an at-bat that can propel a pitcher the rest of the way.

  Simon offers no pretext of discipline. He plays the game the way Bernie Mac might play it: sweet and fun and just a wee bit devilish. His shirt billows like an America's Cup jib, his girth ample enough to scare Bigfoot. He likes getting up there, guessing the pitch, and then taking an El Niño swing. He has no clean stride into the ball, just a little baby step, and after he swings, he looks even more disheveled, as if he just exited from one of those roller coasters where you hang upside down.

  His ebullience does sometimes get him into trouble. He has actually earned a little piece of baseball lore already this season, not for anything he did while playing but for using a bat to trip up an unsuspecting mascot dressed up as a bratwurst during the runaround-the-field race the Milwaukee Brewers put on at each home game. The poor bratwurst—it actually may have been an Italian sausage—collapsed in a tottering heap. The video image of it went around the world, and Simon paid a $432 fine for disorderly conduct. When he is playing, he has good bat speed. He can drive something deep, and as Duncan pointed out to Stephenson, he likes his meat up.

  The first pitch is a curve low in the zone. Simon is way out in front of it, terribly fooled.

  He fouls off the next pitch to make the count 0 and 2. Stephenson's in control now, and from the stands comes a rumbling murmur that yes, yes! he is going to squirm his way out of this thing with only two runs.

  He throws a fastball outside, then a fastball inside. They're chase pitches, considerably off the plate but appropriate. Simon doesn't bite and the count is squared at 2 and 2.

  Before the next pitch, La Russa sees Stephenson shaking off the sign from Chris Widger. He knows what that means: Widger wants Stephenson to go with a breaking ball, particularly because Simon doesn't hit curve balls well. Stephenson, however, still wants his fastball, feels most comfortable with it. Widger sets up inside to at least get the right location.

  The ball floats up and away. Simon hits the bejesus out of it. He smacks it hard to the opposite field in left. Stephenson turns and watches and thinks, or maybe just prays, that it's carrying foul. Pujols goes into the corner in left to see what kind of play he can make if it stays fair: get a good carom off the wall and maybe hold the runner at first from scoring. He's on the run, readying for the zigzag off the bumpers. But then he stops and simply gazes at the ball as it opts for early retirement.

  Simon has just hit a three-run homer. The Cubs lead 5–0.

  Duncan squints in the dugout. There's a look of bemused irony on his face, as if to say, Now, Garrett, what did I tell you about getting the ball up to Simon? What did I tell you? As for Stephenson, he's visibly upset. He isn't thinking at all now—to hell with the game plan. With Aramis Ramirez up, he throws another fastball—a particular kind of fastball that pitchers in this situation often throw—a fastball that La Russa recognizes as a first-pitch pissed-off fastball, a fastball that invariably causes regret. Ramirez hits a home run four rows beyond the Budweiser sign in left center: 6–0 Cubs.

  As Duncan trots out to the mound, La Russa opens the little black box in the right corner of the dugout just inside the tunnel entrance. He pulls out the phone and speaks to Marty Mason, who in turn gets Sterling Hitchcock up and throwing in the bullpen. Over in the Cubs dugout, Dusty Baker takes a healthy guzzle from a green Gatorade cup, then chases it with a healthy spit as a little toast to the Cubs' crooked number. Prior, with a white towel around his pitching arm, sits on the bench as implacable as ever, his hair barely matted even in the heat, his sideburns so long and straight, you could land a plane on them.

  Stephenson glumly listens to Duncan. His head is down, awkwardly cocked, the goatee around his chin thin and insubstantial. He's getting a terse baseball lecture here, the look on his face like a child who knows that trying to throw the eraser past the teacher's head was stupid once and inexcusable twice. He will be punished for this. There will be another demotion to the bullpen.

  He manages to strike out Alex Gonzalez to end the inning, and even that's scary, as Gonzalez rips the first two pitches foul into left field, pulling them just a little bit too much. But the damage is done—nine batters, five hits, six runs, two home runs—to raise Stephenson's death toll to twenty-eight. He is through for the night after three. He relied on his fastball too much, and he couldn't control it. He paid the price, exactly what La Russa predicted would happen if he pitched this way. His matchups now seem prescient given the collective performance of those three ex-Pirates in all of three innings: Six at-bats. One double. Two home runs. Three runs scored. Five RBIs. And Stephenson's hastening into oblivion.

  II

  THE DUGOUT is quiet after the top of the third ends. La Russa hasn't given up yet. A 6–0 disadvantage this early in the game is not insurmountable. Things simply happen to the Cubs because of the handcuffs of their history, and they particularly happen in St. Louis. Since 2000, the Cubs have won only four of twenty-seven games at Busch. And in the back of their minds must be the time last year when the Cards overcame a 9–4 deficit in the ninth to win 10–9 on a three-run homer by Edgar Renteria. But Prior is pitching tonight, and although this is nowhere close to the best game he's pitched this season—his fastball doesn't have the location that it usually does—he still has the it. He has what Scott Rolen describes as "presence," an intangible confidence. It may be impossible to quantify, but as Rolen puts it, "The difference between a 3-and-1 fastball fouled back or lined to center is who has the most confidence."

  He easily dispenses with the Cardinals in the third and fourth, the only hit a go-nowhere single by Edmonds. In the foxhole, La Russa has trouble purging the top of the third out of his mind. The home runs bother him less than the very first at-bat of the inning when Bako, who doesn't even hit two and a quarter, got that gift pack of three straight fastballs. But he still refuses to become dispirited, pushes himself to grind away even harder whatever the reality. The game in 2001 between Houston and Pittsburgh—when the Astros lost after be
ing ahead 8–2 with the Pirates batting with two outs and nobody on in the bottom of the ninth—creases his mind. Anything can happen in baseball: the beauty or the brutality.

  But by the end of the fifth, with the score now 7–0 Cubs, thoughts of a comeback are fading. Prior has given up only two hits. He's thrown first-pitch strikes to eleven of the eighteen batters he has faced. No Cardinals runner has gotten beyond second base. The St. Louis faithful recognize the plodding, futile rhythm of a rout. The air was sucked out of them in the third with Simon's swing. They've uttered little since, and as they scan the out-of-town scoreboard, they find more bad news:

  1 2 3 4 5 T

  LOS ANGELES 3 0 0 0 0 3

  HOUSTON 2 1 1 0 6 10

  If the Astros keep it up and the Cardinals keep it up and the Cubs keep it up, the dogfight atop the Central will produce a complete flip-flop in the space of one game:

  HOUSTON 69-62 .527

  CHICAGO 68-62 .523

  ST. LOUIS 68-63 .519

  In the bottom of the sixth, the crowd emerges from its funk when Pujols appears at the plate for another war against Prior. He got just under one in the first, and then he walked in the fourth. But Prior has nothing to lose now. He has a 7–0 score on his side and you know what, Albert, let's put down the switchblades and go straight to sabres. My best against your best. Deal?

  Deal. Prior comes with a fastball on the first pitch. It rides the radar gun at 93 mph.

  Pujols counters. He flicks his bat toward the dugout as if it's too hot even for his own hands, follows the ball with his eyes as it cracks the ozone layer and heads for some telecommunications satellite. It reenters earth with an innocent plop on the grassy knoll behind center field, 414 feet from where it originated. It's a meaningless run in the flow of Game 1. The Cardinals will still end up losing 7–4 on a three-run ninth-inning rally that fizzles. But as Pujols encircles the implacable Prior on the mound in his pulled-up blue stirrup socks covering up calves so big that his nickname is Calfzilla, there is the comfort that at least one score has just been settled.