“Mickey’s okay,” he answered. “My ear is a little itchy and I’m hungry. I also want to—”
“No, Mick,” Lester interrupted, propping his mask up on top of his head. “How do you feel about the game? About finishing pitching the game?”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said, tugging at his left lobe. “I’d like to finish.”
“Is your arm okay?” Murph asked. “Lester, how’s he coming in?”
“Yes,” Mickey replied. “My arm is okay.”
Lester nodded in agreement. “He’s coming in fine, Murph. He ain’t lighting it up like usual, but he’s fine.”
Murph removed his cap and scratched his head. He felt a sick uncertainty rising inside him, like everything in his immediate world was riding on this one decision.
“Well okay then,” he said, lingering until the home plate umpire broke things up. “Let’s get out of this mess and get back to hacking. And you let me know, Mick, if anything changes and you need to come out.”
A weak comebacker and a timely punch out got Mickey and the Braves out of the jam with no further damage. The game seemed to slow almost to a halt from that point on. Both teams exchanged threats in their respective halves of the next two innings, but at the end of nine, the score remained 1–1. It was going to take extra innings to decide the winner of the contest.
Murph sat with both Mickey and Lester before the start of the first extra frame.
“Can you go one more, Mick?” Murph asked him. “I got Ernie warm and ready in the pen, but you seem to be rolling along okay. Tired yet?”
“Not yet, Mr. Murphy,” he said. “My ear is better too.” Murph’s eyes shot skyward and he shook his head as the Braves spilled out of the dugout for the extended play.
“Watch him, Les, please?” Murph whispered in Lester’s ear. “I mean it.”
Mickey had been dancing through raindrops for the majority of the game, recording just two 1-2-3 innings out of the nine he had completed. His line score was respectable for sure but not punctuated by the eye-popping statistics that had come to define one of his starts. He had surrendered eight hits and walked four while only fanning five Phillies. It was not the sexy performance that fans had envisioned as they came through the turnstiles, yet somehow he had held the first-place Phillies to just one run and had his team poised for a much-needed victory.
Mickey ran deep counts on the first two Phillies batters but retired each on a routine grounder to Roy Hartsfield at second base. The next batter dunked a dying quail that landed in between short and left field; the one after that got jammed with a running two-seamer but somehow managed to inside out the ball over the first base bag and into the right field corner, where it rattled around as the runners dashed around the bases. By the time Tommy Holmes had thrown the ball in, there were Phillies standing on second and third, and the Braves bullpen, which had already been on standby, prepared now with urgency.
Murph’s next decision was easy. With the go-ahead runs on second and third and an open base at first, it didn’t take long for him to call Lester’s name and hold up four fingers. The intentional pass would set up a force at any base and move Mickey one step closer to getting out of the inning unscathed.
The young man would need all the help he could get. He was running on fumes. He had thrown well over his usual number of pitches and was laboring with everything he did. The ring of sweat around his cap and the slumping shoulders told the whole story. Murph saw what everyone else was noticing but grit his teeth and offered up a prayer to anyone who would listen. Just one more batter. Come on, please. One more batter.
Play resumed with Mickey firing a fastball that sailed high and wide for ball one. He exhaled and took the return throw from Lester, squinting into the stadium lights that, together with the bright, merciless moon, cast the entire event in blurred, gleaming white. Mickey’s next delivery was somehow perfect, a four-seam heater that split the plate right down the center. The crowd roared its approval.
With the count now even at 1–1, Mickey peered in at Lester for his next sign. He stared long and hard, and saw the two fingers Lester was dangling between his knees. But his thoughts were prickly and varied. Sure, he was considering how he was to get this final out, and the sight of Jolene behind home plate certainly aided him in his cause. But the heat had fevered his mind so that every thought, fear, or concern that was housed inside his brain was released from its cell simultaneously.
It started with him remembering how when he was a boy and got overheated, Molly would dip a rag in cold water and wrap it around the back of his neck. He remembered how her hands felt as she held the cool cloth in place and could still hear her soft voice as she spoke to him. But Mickey’s present fever also brought back images of Clarence and how he would explode every time he caught Molly with that rag and basin of cold water.
“Confound you, woman!” he would thunder. “Ain’t I told you a million times to stop babying that boy. What in tarnation you trying to do, make a damned sissy outa him? Bad enough he’s a retard.” That harsh reminiscence led to other disturbing snapshots in his mind’s album, like Oscar’s lifeless body crumbled in a bloody heap, Boxcar’s funeral, the men in white hoods who had issue with Lester, and of course Lefty—there was always Lefty. Ozmore bothered him too—not so much him, but the way he spoke to Jolene. It all came rushing at once, so the signs Lester continued to flash were met with glazed eyes with the film of a tumultuous past. Only the impatience of the man standing at home plate waiting to hit had the power to shatter the paralysis.
“Time!” the umpire yelled as the Phillies batter stepped out of the box to regroup. The interruption was enough to free Mickey from his stupor so that he could hear Lester’s encouragement and really see the two fingers the catcher was putting down.
The 1-1 curveball was flat, a helicopter that spun over the middle of the plate but too high to be called a strike. Lester figured the batter would be sitting on a heater for sure now, so he doubled up and put down two fingers again. This time Mickey found the zone, dropping in a 12-6 hook that looked as though it parachuted straight into Lester’s glove. All of a sudden, things for Murph and the Braves were looking good.
“Atta boy, Mick,” they yelled from the bench. “One more now. One more.”
Mickey breathed deeply and licked his lips. The sweat dripping from his forehead was bothersome, especially when a few drops snaked their way down the side of his nose and into his eyes, causing him to blink wildly until the stinging subsided. It made focusing on Lester difficult at first, but after another deep breath and a quick glance at Jolene, who was watching him with hands folded and pressed nervously to her lips, he acknowledged Lester’s request for a fastball on the outside corner.
The ball left his hand as if it had been launched from a howitzer. It sped through the thick August air, its path straight and true, and entered Lester’s glove with a thunderous thud after shaving the black on the outer portion of the plate.
“Ball, outside!” was the call.
Lester held his glove in place momentarily, a tacit protest of the blown call. Murph was not nearly as reserved.
“Are you shittin’ me back there?” he screamed. “That plate’s got corners!” He paced back and forth for a moment before continuing. “You’ve been giving it all game, goddammit. Now you’re gonna start squeezing him? Now?”
The umpire, incited by Lester’s showmanship and Murph’s ongoing diatribe, called time, removed his mask, and from his position behind home plate, fired back at Murph.
“The ball was outside. That’s it. Now shut your mouth in there. Enough. I’ve heard enough. One more word and I’ll run ya. Now let’s play ball.”
Murph mumbled a few choice words under his breath before nervously resuming his place on the dugout’s top step. Bases juiced and a 3-2 count to the batter in a tie game was more than enough to twist his insides and make his mouth dry—and all of it with Mickey out there.
“Come on, Mick,” he yelled in the most optimis
tic tone he could muster. “Go get ’em.”
Mickey heard the encouragement despite a raucous crowd that was trying to will the home team to victory. He composed himself as best he could after Murph’s argument with the umpire and leaned forward to take his sign. Then, with fifty thousand of the Braves’ faithful holding their collective breath, he fired. It was a fastball that ran in on the batter’s hands. It beat him, but he managed to catch a little of the ball and foul it into the ground. He fouled the next three pitches off as well, each time spoiling Mickey’s stellar effort at the last second.
The nine pitch at bat began to vex Murph. Mickey was out of gas and he was not sure how much longer the kid could go—how many more strikes he could throw. If he only knew what the next pitch or two held in store, he would have gone the unconventional route and pulled him now, instead of doing so after a disaster had occurred. He also thought, with a tinge of sardonic humor, how useful glimpsing the future would be in the rest of his life as well. But those sort of ruminations died a quick death once he remembered Matheson and what the timeless baseball sage would have to say about that.
“Baseball, Murph, like life, my friend, can only be understood backward,” he’d always said. “You feeling me? It can only be understood backward, but it must be lived forward.”
So forward he went, calling to Mickey with any words he could think of to cajole the young man into one more strike. Whatever he was saying was somehow working, because Mickey continued to battle, pumping in four more fastballs that the batter fouled off straight back. Murph was pleased that the boy was up for the challenge, but knew, as any good baseball man does, that the more pitches the batter saw, the more likely it was he was going to get a pitch he could finally handle. The at bat was becoming interminable. Eight foul balls in a row and thirteen pitches in all. And with each one, the advantage swung closer and closer to the batter.
But Mickey kept firing. Inside. Outside. Inside. Outside again. Four more fastballs that found the zone, only to be spoiled once again by the intractable bat of the man standing sixty feet, six inches away from him. The strategic dance went on for three more pitches until finally Murph had seen enough. The collective heartbeat of an anxious crowd whose murmuring had escalated like the distant rumbling of thunder had become his own. He could no longer stand by as just an observer.
“Hey, Les,” he called from the dugout. The catcher turned his head to discover Murph, his eyes wide and expressive, his right hand holding up three fingers. The catcher nodded and then turned his attention to Mickey, who was looking more and more like a wilting flower.
“Okay now, Mick,” Lester prodded. “Here we go. Hit the glove now. Nice and easy.”
Lester set up on the outer half of the plate. He pounded his glove three times, nodded his head, and let three fingers hang down between his knees. Mickey accepted the request with little consideration. Then he came set, lifted his leg, cocked his arm, and released the payoff pitch.
The ball zipped through the air seemingly with the same velocity and vigor as the previous dozen pitches. But as it moved closer to its target, it slacked and sputtered before dying entirely just as it approached home plate. The batter, who thought he had finally received the fat fastball he had been waiting for, swung wildly, missing the ball by a good six inches, thereby ending the marathon inning and setting up an opportunity for the Braves to win the contest in their last at bat.
Murph wasted no time putting his plan into action. Jethroe led off the inning with a beautiful bunt that he pushed past the pitcher. By the time the second baseman had time to corral the ball, Jethroe was standing on first base. Murph continued his small ball strategy by calling for a sacrifice bunt from Hartsfield. It was executed to perfection, moving Jethroe to second base, which gave Murph and his boys two shots to drive home the game-winning run.
Lester was the first to get a shot at playing hero. He worked the count in his favor to 2-0, but given the recent success he was having at the plate and with an open base at first, the Phillies issued an intentional pass, eliminating the threat while setting up a double-play situation.
Tommy Holmes was next. He jumped on the first pitch he saw, hitting it right on the screws. The ball jumped off the sweet part of the bat and seemed destined for a date with the left field corner when Phillies third baseman Willie Jones dove with his backhand fully extended and snared the rocket in his webbing for a game-saving out. Now the momentum swung to the other dugout, where the whiz kids from Philly were hooting and hollering and suddenly feeling good about their chances. The only one standing in their way now was Buddy Ozmore, who was hitless on the day with three strikeouts.
Ozmore had cooled off considerably since the brawl with the Dodgers. He was hitting just .186 since, with a wheelbarrow full of strikeouts. The advanced scouting that the Phillies had done made the present predicament that much more palatable for them. They were so sure Ozmore represented little or no threat that they wasted no time going right after him. The first pitch he saw was a four-seam fastball right down Broadway for a called strike. That was followed by another fastball that just missed high for ball one. There appeared to be very little strategy being employed by the Phillies’ battery. It was a good old-fashioned challenge: Here’s my fastball. See if you can hit it.
After falling behind 2–1 on another heater that missed upstairs, the Phillies hurler took a little walk around the mound, trying to regroup. Ozmore went nowhere. He dug in deeper, so that when the next pitch was finally delivered, his whole body was still and ready. And in one deft slice of his bat, he sent the ball high and far. At first it appeared to have just enough to elude the sprinting outfielders. But then it kept carrying, as if being guided to its intended destination on the wings of an angel. When the celestial journey was complete, the ball had easily cleared the left center field wall and touched down some 390 feet from home plate. The walk-off heroics delighted an already frenzied crowd that roared and cheered and stomped its feet as the hometown boys lost themselves in a delirious celebration that began at home plate and spread across the entire infield.
When the merriment made its way into the locker room, they were still feeling good. It was just one victory, but it kept them alive and had provided a newfound energy that had them all believing in the impossible. At every locker, talk of the upcoming run down the stretch was rampant, as was praise for those who had carried the load on this particular day. Naturally, Mickey received the lion’s share of attention.
“Hey, Mick, you were really something out there today,” Murph said. “You didn’t have your usual stuff but you gutted it out. Hell of a job.”
The boy sat in front of his locker, one cleat and sock off, the others still intact. He was trying to figure out what Murph meant by “stuff,” but the traffic around his area didn’t allow for much contemplation.
“Hey, uh, Mickey,” called out Spahn. “I just want to tell you something. You’re all right, kid. Not sure if you remember the first time we met. It was back in Milwaukee, two years ago. I visited the Brewer clubhouse as a favor and you were there—just a scared little rookie. Makes today all that much more incredible. Just thought I should tell you.”
Mickey reached out his hand to meet the one coming toward him. “Yes, Spahny, I remember,” he said. “They called you The Invincible One. Only I didn’t know why or what that was. Mr. Murphy told me. Only I don’t know still.”
Spahn laughed and slapped Mickey on the back. “That’s okay, pal. No sweat. Everyone else knows.”
Others heard the exchange and laughed too. Everyone except Ozmore, who, despite receiving a few pats on the back, was feeling a little underappreciated for his late-inning heroics. “Sure,” he mumbled under his breath. “Give the kid all the attention and thanks. All I did was win the game for us. But everyone can’t stop talking about Mickey. Rotten, no good—”
People couldn’t stop talking about Mickey. September arrived quickly, bringing with it cool air, pennant races, and heightened speculation about
end-of-the-year honors. Mickey’s domination on the mound and tremendous fan appeal made him the topic of just about every conversation, including the obvious realization that he was the odds-on favorite for Rookie of the Year. Lester, who was making a pretty compelling case for his own candidacy, often joked with Mickey about their competition for the hardware.
“You’re killing ole Lester, Mick,” he’d say. “Man alive. Eighteen round trippers, fifty eight RBI and a .273 batting average would be more than enough any year to win that there trophy. Ain’t too many rookies putting up numbers like them.”
Mickey never knew what to say.
“But no, siree. Not this year. You’s have to go and light the whole world on fire. Seventeen wins. All those strikeouts. Damn, boy, how’s ’bout giving a black man a break.”
Lester would carry on for a while and really kick it up a notch when he knew the other guys were listening. It was all harmless fun and would go on until Mickey always responded the same way.
“Mickey sure is sorry, Lester,” he would say. “I am not trying to kill ole Lester. You can have some of my strikeouts, Lester. We can share.”
Mickey’s heartfelt confusion always broke up the entire room. The guys laughed so hard every time Mickey said something like that they nearly starting crying. And Lester’s half of the repartee made them roar even louder.
“Oh, so you’s gonna share with Lester, huh? Of all the things he wants to share, he gives me strikeouts. Like I don’t have enough of them blasted things already. What a guy.”
Everyone wanted to talk to Mickey, especially as the season wore on. He was like a lightning rod. Opposing players stopped over before each game. Umpires couldn’t help themselves either. The fans embraced him as one would expect—with the affection only afforded to one who had captured their hearts and imagination like nobody had ever done before. And of course the media saw in Mickey a different story every day.
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