Paint Black

by Bolado, Baltazar

  Haddox didn’t reply. He returned to his crouched position, glove and hand on his knees.

  Porter moved closer. “When we were kids, the game… it fascinated us. We loved its purity. We played to have fun, nothing more.”

  Going quiet, Porter seemed lost in thought, causing Haddox to glance in his direction.

  The strange expression the outfielder wore spoke of broken dreams and melancholy. “I remember how bad I wanted to taste the food after I signed my big league deal,” Porter continued. “Then… time passes… and you realize the deal ain’t ever gonna come unless…”

  Haddox remained in his crouched position.

  Spitting to the side, the outfielder said, with cautious repugnance, “Unless you take matters into your own hands and take control of… tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow? Quit talking in riddles.”

  “A competitor don’t care where his advantage comes from, he does what he’s gotta do.”

  Haddox shook his head. “I don’t cheat.”

  “Who said anything about cheating? I’m talking about taking advantage and winning.”

  “Call it whatever you want. I don’t cheat.”

  “Don’t judge me. You ain’t got no right to judge me.”

  “I’m not judging,” countered Haddox.

  Porter calmed down some. Opening up his glove, he leaned closer to Haddox.

  Haddox glanced down and saw a small container in Porter’s glove.

  “Give it a try,” said Porter. “It’s untraceable. No one’ll know.”

  Haddox didn’t move.

  “Think of your future. Your family.”

  “It’s untraceable?” Haddox asked feebly.

  “Totally.”

  His son’s future weighing heavy on him, Haddox reached out and took the vial.

  It only took a few weeks before the Panther baseball team found out about the pitching competition between Dalton Young and Haddox.

  A player found written instructions referencing the pitching duel. Before long, word of the contest spread like wildfire.

  Although the contest didn’t pull the team apart, understandably, it did add tension to the club’s unity.

  To avoid further disturbance, Ramsey called an emergency team meeting before a home game in late May. “Men, before we go out onto the field I wanted to say something about the pitching contest many of you’ve heard about. It might be possible that some of you might not be too happy about it. Let me remind you—all of you. We are men paid to play a boy’s game. This is our line of work. This is our business.”

  Encircled by the entire team, Ramsey took the time to review every player.

  Some of the players returned his stare; some didn’t.

  “Let me further remind you.” Ramsey’s tone took on a serious quality. “We—you, you, and you, and me,” Ramsey pointed to some of the players and then himself. “All of us are in competition in the minor leagues, sometimes against the man standing next to us. This is the nature of our business.”

  In absolute stillness, the men standing around the manager listened to his words.

  Ramsey shook his head. “It don’t mean nothin’. We mustn’t let this contest between Ryan and Dalton weigh the team down. We must play together as a team and when we’re not making a play, we should be encouraging our teammate to make a play. I don’t want to hear anything more about this. Now, go out there and let’s win one.”

  Mitch Haddox showed age on his face, and his body looked tired. His spirit, however, rejuvenated when he stepped on the field.

  “Throw nice and easy, Son. Never force your energy.”

  Releasing his throw, carefully concentrating on his form, Ryan relished in the exhilaration coursing through his body. The pop of Uncle Mitch’s glove reached his ears in the form of music.

  “When you were my age did you love baseball too?”

  “Oh yes,” answered Uncle Mitch, grinning. “So did your father.”

  Ryan caught his uncle’s lob. He frowned slightly. “What was dad like?”

  “Much like you,” Uncle Mitch replied, his features covering over in thought. “George… he loved the game. We played against each other all the time. It’s just… when we got older, I took it more serious than he did.”

  Ryan threw to his Uncle Mitch, who squatted behind home plate and offered the occasional instruction.

  “Always remember,” Uncle Mitch counseled, “the pitcher must remain in total control when he’s on the mound. To give up control in any way, will cost him dearly. Without the pitcher’s pitch, nothing happens in the game. You’re in control.” Noticing a flaw in his form, Mitch immediately coached the boy. “Pick up your elbow and throw through the ball. There. Much better.”

  Often Ryan pitched to his Uncle Mitch, while Aunt Dorothy sat on the porch, quilting silently. On those special days, Aunt Dorothy served breakfast while Uncle Mitch and Ryan gathered firewood and restocked the Ben Franklin stove positioned near the middle of the two-story house. The house stood out in the country and allowed Uncle Mitch the luxury of building a pitcher’s mound and home plate to one side of the house.

  One day, Ryan asked his uncle a question, “Why didn’t you and Aunt Dorothy ever have kids?”

  Taking a pensive posture, Uncle Mitch lowered his head before answering. “Your Aunt Dorothy,” he nodded, “she’s a wonderful woman and she’s been a good mother to you, right?”

  “Yeah, Uncle Mitch. I love Aunt Dorothy.”

  Uncle Mitch smiled. “Well, you see, your aunt couldn’t have kids. Never a finer woman existed on earth who should’ve had children.” Uncle Mitch smiled, more broadly. Ruffling his hair, the man said, “But you… you’re the only son we’ll ever need or could hope for.”

  The season moved into June and the pitchers remained close. During those hot days of summer, the pressure of the Side-by-Side bore down on Haddox. Resolute determination propelled him through the severe pain in his shoulder area.

  Now, Haddox sat on the edge of the bed in a Springdale hotel room and looked down at the small vial sitting on the bedside table.

  Off in the distance he heard the noise of an Amtrak train thundering in the distance.

  The Panthers arrived in Springdale a day prior, playing the first of a three game series against the Springdale Yellowhammers the previous night. Dalton Young pitched a gem, scattering eight hits but only allowing three runs in a 4-3 Panther victory.

  Young tied Haddox in record, 5 wins 3 loses, and was better in ERA.

  The following morning Haddox awoke in arm pain. At least it’s not getting worse, he reasoned within his troubled mind. A sobering thought entered his mind. I have to pitch tonight.

  True to their word, the Panther coaches organized the pitching rotation to attempt to produce the same circumstances for each pitcher. To fulfill this, the pitchers normally pitched one after the other.

  Haddox reached out and lifted the vial, stared at it intently, then set it back down on the wood veneer table. The veneer, peeling off at one end of the table, offered a distraction, and Haddox picked at it absent-mindedly.

  I can’t afford to pay for the stuff. All in the same thought came the dreadful realization. Yet, if I don’t stop this pain in my shoulder, I don’t know how much longer I can keep pitching.

  The Panthers travelled to Glen Allen Lake, Missouri to play a four game series. Around three in the morning, the team bus entered the city. Still awake, Haddox looked out into the dawn.

  I care more about my wins and losses than the team’s record.

  He couldn’t recall a time in his life when his personal stats meant more to him than his team’s stats.

  Because of the heightened intensity of the Southern Side-by-Side, the Panthers surged, moving up to third place in the standings, behind the Glen Allen Lake Lakers who sat in 2nd. The Climax Heights Dragons controlled first place. Only a game and a half behind the Lakers, the result of the four game series threatened to push the Panthers into second place.

 
Yet, Haddox only cared about his outcome.

  He hated to admit it but he secretly hoped Dalton Young lost in his outing, even while realizing a Young loss meant a Panthers loss. He justified his thinking by telling himself that his son’s future took precedence over even the team.

  The rains began falling as the bus pulled up to the hotel. Haddox hoped the rains held out until Young pitched, and then miraculously finished on the day he pitched.

  He slept soundly through the rains, not waking until just before noon.

  “Thought I’d better give you a shout,” called out Roberto Perez, the Panther’s center fielder. “First pitch’s three hours away.”

  Haddox took a quick shower and forty-five minutes later, he followed Perez out of the hotel door, the men arriving at the park in a light drizzle.

  Confronted by the rains, the teams cancelled batting practice and fielding reps. Fifteen minutes prior to the game’s scheduled start, the umpires called a rain delay.

  Haddox held fond memories of baseball’s long held rain delay rituals. As his playing career matured, his affection for rain delay customs only grew.

  “Deal up,” rang out Matt Owens, the Panther’s left fielder. Instantly, the first euchre game broke out.

  “Playing chips first,” sounded out Pete Findley, the second string second baseman, smiling through the chip-toothed gap in his front teeth.

  Laughter rang out, signaling the start of two other games in quick succession. Soon afterwards, the three groups announced a full-fledged tournament and the betting pool began to grow.

  Other players gathered around lockers, or sat out in the dugout area, swapping past baseball stories and folklore. Anything from baseball records, to tales of great games and great players, preoccupied the storytelling.

  Not feeling up to the jovial betting pools of the euchre tournament, Haddox sat out in the dugout with three other Panther pitchers, Will Brody, Chuck Hornsby, the third starter, and Phil Simon the mid reliever, trading ball stories.

  “I remember my first season in the minors,” Hornsby said, picking at the right side of his mustache end. “Me and Connie, we still hadn’t started a family and things were a lot easier.”

  Haddox tilted his head to the side, looking out into the falling rain, not wanting to regard the heaviness in Hornsby’s countenance.

  “Hell, we were fuckin’ naïve, ya know? Not a care in the world, we thought we were living the dream. Nothing fazed us. I can remember drinking ‘til two, three in the morning and pitching the next day. Then, Connie got pregnant. She popped out the first kid. It wasn’t ’till the doc cut the cord and handed me the kid… then it hit me, right between the eyes. Everything changed.”

  On every rain delay the baseball player reflected. Even the ballplayers not recognized to be deep thinkers couldn’t help to pause at the sound of the rain. The inevitability of reflection during rain delays never failed to leave scars on a ballplayer’s psyche.

  In Haddox’s mind, Hornsby’s story faded out and his stories took their place.

  Haddox was a hard luck pitcher. All of his career things went wrong. Beyond hard luck, poor planning, scarcity of urgency and importance, and the inadequacy of preparation played a part in his failures during the past five years.

  Nonetheless, his career fell somewhere between horrific luck and cursed. He’s attention to fortune played hugely into his mental resiliency. To survive a complex game like baseball, one needed a strong mind to endure.

  But it took a heart to heart talk to make him realize the true importance of life, and discover that his hard luck did not exist in other significant areas of his life.

  Pronghorn antelope hunting in the Smokey Hills Region of Kansas every fall after baseball season—a bonding ritual begun in his youth—took on a deeper meaning through the years. On a cool night in the family cabin, in front of a roaring fire, they spoke of things openly.

  “Uncle Mitch?”

  “Yeah?”

  “When did you finally decide to marry Aunt Dorothy?”

  Mitch Haddox took his time answering the question. He got to his feet and added another split log to the fire. Clutching the fire iron, he poked at the flames until satisfied at the log’s placement before returning to his seat on the Kipling Camouflage Motion Sofa. Pondering how best to respond, he rubbed his chin and said, “Your mother… God never put a finer woman on the planet. After my arm went out… I got down on myself. She didn’t leave me there. She pulled me out of my depression. She convinced me… life needed me. I still had value.” Mitch turned and concentrated on Ryan. “I don’t know where I’d be… if she hadn’t saved me.”

  Accompanying his uncle on expeditions rarely focused on hunting the “big rack” white-tailed buck. Stalking open land in northeast Kansas brought great joy to Ryan. He loved the outdoors and savored the experiences he shared in Kansas’s fertile glory. However, connecting with his uncle far surpassed the excitement of the stalk and the pursuit of the white-tailed buck.

  “You asked me because of you and Stephanie?”

  Ryan took a breath before nodding. “Yeah.”

  “You must remember: The time you believe will be the best time to marry, will never come.” The uncle shrugged his shoulders. “Your Aunt Dorothy—she’s the perfect woman for me. It’s not the timing that needs to be perfect, only the perfect person for you. Life will come and go. You can’t escape it’s end. But it’s what we leave behind that’s our greatest accomplishment.”

  Mitch Haddox found it difficult to speak about things close to his heart.

  “When I learned we couldn’t have our own children, I considered not getting married,” the uncle said, sadly. “But your Aunt Dorothy showed me the way to life. If we hadn’t married, we wouldn’t have been ready to make you a part of our family…”

  “Haddox? Haddox!”

  Ryan broke out of his reverie, Hornsby’s voice cutting into his mind like a sharpened knife. Looking up he noticed Brody, Hornsby, and Simon staring at him.

  “Didn’t mean to bore you, Haddox,” said Hornsby, slightly annoyed.

  “Sorry, Chuck,” apologized Haddox, “I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

  Hornsby leaned over to the side and spit out sunflower seed shells. “Oh yeah? Why dontcha ya share your thoughts. I’m sure we won’t be bored.”

  Stronger the rain fell. Into the face of the coming storm, Haddox raged. Before he could stop them, the words gushed out of his guts like torrents. “I’ve got a great woman in my life. And we got a great kid between us. I’ve got an aunt and an uncle who’ve loved me through everything. I wish… I could’ve done more to repay them.”

  He took off his cap and ran his hands through his hair. Putting his cap back on, the men waited quietly until he resumed. The falling rain seemed to cover his vulnerabilities.

  “And now this… contest…” Haddox shook his head. “I’ve made a mess of my life. And I dragged them with me.”

  Never before had Ryan shared so much of himself, and the men were somewhat surprised.

  “I mean… I love baseball. Everything about it. But… I gotta make a living at it to support my family. If not… I have to think of a better… way.”

  “Look Ryan,” Hornsby shrugged his shoulders. “I ain’t much of a philosopher, but I bet they don’t see it quite like you do. At the end of the day, you, me, we’re just ballplayers. The people in our lives… love us… or not… despite our profession.”

  The two other men quickly acknowledged Hornsby’s words of comfort. “Yeah, come on, Ryan, we’re like you. This game got us and we can’t live without it. Our families, our friends… understand.”

  The men went silent. Only the falling rain spoke in lamentation.

  Such events, such thoughts, such selfless introspection surfaced during the rain delay. The born ballplayer possessed the guts to transcend a religion called baseball.

  After a two-hour rain delay, the rain started to subside. At around 6 PM the game officials allowed the game to begin.
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  First, the Glen Allen Lake Lakers came out in their dull blue uniforms and took infield practice.

  Sitting on the dugout’s edge, Haddox looked down at the Panther’s uniform of purple and gold. Our uniforms are cooler, he concluded, recalling the old adage about better uniforms holding an advantage.

  The Lakers were big all through their lineup and their pitchers were lanky and tall. Dave Petrie, the Panthers 4th starter, and Steve Garcia, the Panthers 5th starter, would pitch the first two games of the four game series. Then, Haddox and Young would pitch the final two games.

  Petrie pitched a solid game, lasting until the 7th inning, before succumbing to the Lakers power hitters. After giving up two home runs in a four-run outburst, Ramsey lifted him and brought in John Catton.

  Tied 6-6, the end game turned into a bullpen duel. Not until the bottom of the eleventh did the Lakers break through. A walk off double by their powerful left fielder Culver Banks drove in the winning run. The 7-6 victory moved the Lakers 2 ½ games ahead of the Panthers in the standings.

  Gloomily entering the confined locker room, the Panthers displayed the emotions of a team defeated.

  “We lost a tough one today,” Ramsey said to the players. Not much of a rah-rah manager, Panther upper management placed high value on Ramsey because of his ability to maintain his team’s emotional equilibrium. His ability to calm derived from his own inner calmness. “Let’s keep our focus on tomorrow night’s game. We’ve got Garcia on the mound, and Young going the following night. We need to rally around them.”

  Garcia helped the Panthers even the series, pitching seven and a third innings and getting a no decision in an 8 to 5 win. The win pulled the Panthers to within a game and a half of second place.

  The following night, Young went for his eighth win.

  Starting strong, Young rode his dominant 98-mile an hour fastball into the 6th inning of a 4 to 4 deadlock.

  Even though the powerful Lakers’ hitters scored runs with the power game—a solo home run, a two run shot, and a run scoring double to the gap—Young managed to stave off the big inning and keep the Panthers even.

  The sixth and seventh innings passed without any real scoring threat. Then, in the top of the eighth, the Panthers put runners on first and second.