Living on the Black

by John Feinstein

Villone did what he was paid to do, getting Gordon to fly to Bobby Abreu in right for the final out. On the bench, the normally stoic Mussina stood and clapped for Villone as he came to the dugout.

  The bullpen did the job the rest of the way, and the Yankees scored an insurance run in the seventh and broke the game open in the eighth. Mussina had his first win since June 29. Just as important, he had some of his confidence back.

  Six days later, his teammates made it relatively easy for him by bombarding White Sox starter Jose Contreras, the Cuban exile who had been the cause of one of the more famous lines in recent Yankees–Red Sox history. When Contreras had fled Cuba, the two teams had engaged in a bidding war for his services, both believing he might be the next Orlando Hernandez. The Yankees ended up signing Contreras, causing Larry Lucchino, the Red Sox team president, to call the Yankees “the evil empire.”

  Contreras had been a dud in New York, most notably when pitching against the Red Sox, and had been traded to Chicago, where he blossomed away from the New York crucible and had been the top pitcher for the White Sox during their World Series run in 2005. Now, though, he was struggling, with an ERA way over 6.00, and the Yankees jumped all over him. Bobby Abreu hit a three-run home run in the first, and Hideki Matsui hit a solo shot to make it 4–0. After Mussina gave up a three-run homer of his own to Juan Uribe in the second to close the gap to 4–3, the Yankees got five more runs in the third on a three-run Robinson Cano home run and a two-run shot by Cabrera. About the only Yankee who didn’t homer was Alex Rodriguez, who had been sitting on 499 since Saturday.

  The home-run barrage drove Contreras from the mound and made the score 7–3. Mussina had no further trouble from there and was in his car on his way home when he remembered that Glavine was going for number three hundred that night. Since Milwaukee was in the central time zone and the Yankee game had lasted less than three hours, Mussina was pretty certain they would still be playing. He flipped on the radio, and, sure enough, the Brewers were coming up in the bottom of the seventh.

  “It was just as Tom was coming out of the game,” he said. “I remember thinking he had to have pitched well, but now he was going to have to sweat out his bullpen trying to finish it.”

  Mussina was almost home when the Brewers tied the game in the eighth, and he felt for Glavine. “He obviously pitched well, and now he had to go back and do it all over again,” he said. “I just didn’t want to see him have to try four or five times to get there the way Roger [Clemens] did. That was tough to watch from up close.”

  Glavine woke up the morning after the game in Milwaukee with a hangover, even though he hadn’t been drinking the night before. “I guess it’s just a combination of everything,” he said. “Building up to the game, the game itself, being so close, not getting it, and, most of all, knowing we have to go through the whole thing again this weekend.”

  Team Glavine had flown back to their various homes on Wednesday, the plan being for Chris and the kids to come back to Chicago on Friday and for everyone else to come back Saturday or Sunday. Glavine wasn’t the least bit surprised when the Met bats exploded for twenty runs during the last two games in Milwaukee — both wins. “I guess it’s just not meant to be easy,” he said. “This way, when I get it, I’ll feel as if I’ve earned it, that’s for sure.”

  The Mets made the short trip down I-94 after their 12–4 victory on Thursday and opened their series against the Cubs in Wrigley Field on Friday afternoon. The North Side of Chicago had pennant fever. The Cubs had spent a lot of money in the off-season and had hired Lou Piniella as their manager, amid high hopes that they could win the weak National League Central Division. After an awful start, the Cubs were playing much better baseball and had moved percentage points ahead of the Brewers and into first place when the Mets got to town. The Mets, after winning the last two games in Milwaukee, led the Phillies by four and the Braves by four and a half.

  The teams split the first two games of the series in front of boisterous, standing-room-only crowds. The finale was ESPN’s Sunday-night game. Players are accustomed to playing in the afternoon on Sunday. Playing at night, especially when the next stop was home, wasn’t something anyone was looking forward to doing.

  That was especially true of Glavine. It meant killing time all day rather than getting up, going to the ballpark, and pitching. As it turned out, the late start might have been a break. All four of the Glavines’ children were in town for the game: Jonathan, Chris’s son from her first marriage; Amber, Tom’s daughter from his first marriage; and Peyton and Mason, their two sons.

  On Saturday night, Jonathan was sick. He had a fever, chills, the whole twelve-year-old works. Tom stayed up with him until he finally was comfortable enough to sleep, in the early hours of the morning. Not surprisingly, Tom woke up feeling lousy — tired, maybe a little bit sick himself.

  “If I’d had to pitch at one o’clock,” he said, “I’m not sure I could have done it. Being able to go back to bed and get some extra sleep helped.”

  The day was comfortable, but late in the afternoon a warm front swept into Chicago, leaving heavy, humid air hanging over the city. By the time everyone got to the ballpark for batting practice, it was sweltering, a far more uncomfortable night than it had been in Milwaukee — and that hadn’t been comfortable by any means.

  “I really didn’t feel great warming up,” Glavine said. “I still felt as if I was a little bit sick, and I felt tired. Plus, the heat was really bothering me. It isn’t as if I didn’t pitch in a lot of hot weather in Atlanta. Normally, it wasn’t a big deal. But I really didn’t feel good at all.”

  While Glavine was struggling to get ready for the game, Paul Lo Duca was fighting to get into the game. He had not played on the road trip, and there was some talk that he might have to go on the disabled list. He insisted that he felt much better and was ready to play. Randolph still didn’t want to take a risk and lose him for a month by bringing him back too soon.

  Because the clubhouse in Chicago is so small, the two men walked out to the dugout to discuss Lo Duca’s status for that night.

  “Willie, you were a player, you should understand how I feel about this,” Lo Duca said. “You know how much this game means to me and to all of us. I wouldn’t tell you I could go if I didn’t really believe I could. If you think I’m hurt that bad, you should put me on the DL. But if you aren’t going to do that, let me play.”

  Randolph thought about it. He appreciated Lo Duca’s desire and his competitiveness. He knew how close he was to Glavine and how much it had hurt him to sit out the game in Milwaukee. He decided to take a chance. “Okay,” he said. “We’ll give it a shot.”

  Thus, it was Lo Duca behind the plate when Glavine walked out to pitch the bottom of the first, after Jason Marquis had set the Mets down in the top of the inning. Glavine very much wanted an easy first inning to get some positive adrenaline pumping so he might start to feel a little bit better.

  Fortunately he got just what he needed. The always-difficult Alfonso Soriano hit a fly ball to Lastings Milledge, who was playing center field because Carlos Beltran was hurt. Ryan Theriot did the exact same thing, and Derrek Lee hit another fly ball, this one to Moises Alou. One-two-three — eleven pitches — just what the doctor ordered.

  The Mets got Glavine the lead in the second. Actually, Glavine got Glavine the lead in the second. Milledge singled with two out and promptly stole second. Glavine, given a chance to drive in a run, did so, hitting a ground ball right up the middle for a base hit. Running on the pitch, Milledge scored easily, and the Mets led 1–0.

  “It was nice to get the hit and the run home,” Glavine said. “By then I’d almost forgotten how lousy I felt. Getting the lead early was nice, even if I had to do it myself.”

  He was joking, bragging — as all pitchers do — about his offense. His defense continued to be outstanding as the game wore on. The Cubs didn’t get a hit until Soriano singled with two out in the third. Theriot followed with a single to center, and Soria
no tried to go to third — probably not a terribly bright move with two down, and Milledge, with a solid arm, fielding the ball quickly. Whether Soriano would have been out is tough to tell because halfway to third, he pulled up, grabbing at his hamstring. He practically fell into David Wright’s tag, the ball arriving long before he did.

  It stayed 1–0 until the fifth, and it was beginning to look like another suspenseful night. Finally, the Mets got their pitcher a little cushion in the fifth when Luis Castillo singled, moved to second on a deep fly to center by Wright, and scored on a ringing double to right by Carlos Delgado, who was still struggling to get his batting average over .250 but seemed to be slowly finding his stroke. That made it 2–0.

  A moment later, after Delgado had moved up to third on a Marquis wild pitch, Green doubled to score him. This time, there was no doubt about Delgado scoring. He was almost across the plate before the ball landed, and the Mets led 3–0.

  Glavine retired the side one-two-three, and in the Mets dugout and bullpen the countdown began. “It felt like a World Series game,” Billy Wagner said. “It was that kind of tension. No one said anything, but we all wanted to make sure we didn’t have a repeat of Milwaukee. Tom had pitched his butt off there, and he was pitching his butt off again. It was hot, and his pitch count was starting to get up there, so we all knew we were going to have to finish it for him.”

  Glavine had kept his pitch count down early, but the Cubs began to do a better job waiting him out. He had only walked one — ex-teammate Cliff Floyd in the second — but, as usual, was running deep counts. He knew he wasn’t going to finish, but he wanted to give the bullpen as little work to do as possible. In an ideal world, he would get through seven and let Aaron Heilman pitch the eighth and Wagner the ninth.

  Because the game was on national television and it was a Sunday night, most of the baseball world was watching. Rodriguez had finally hit his five hundredth home run on Saturday — after going twenty-eight at bats without it — and Bonds had at last hit number 755 to tie Aaron on Saturday night, a moment so dramatic that Bud Selig was seen in the stands with his hands shoved deep into his pockets. Bonds hadn’t played on Sunday because the Giants wanted to be sure he got his 756th at home, thus avoiding the specter of Bonds being booed after breaking baseball’s most cherished record.

  Bridget Moynahan had not yet given birth.

  The stage was wide open for Glavine. For most, there was a feeling of inevitability about it all after the Mets scored two more in the sixth to make it 5–0, Reyes and Delgado driving in runs. The only disappointment was Green grounding out with two outs and the bases loaded, when the Mets had a chance to turn the game into a laugher.

  A laugher is just what you might think it is: a game in which the margin is so great that the team in the lead can actually laugh in the dugout during the game. In his classic 1965 book Now Wait a Minute, Casey!, a chronicle of the Mets’ pathetic first three seasons under Casey Stengel, author Maury Allen described the Mets’ first true laugher, a 19–1 victory at Wrigley Field in 1964. Several writers were sitting near the Mets bullpen because it was a beautiful afternoon, and, as the lead built, they kept asking utility man Rod Kanehl if the game was a laugher yet.

  At 9–0 in the fifth, they asked Kanehl if it was a laugher.

  “Not yet,” he answered.

  At 13–1 in the seventh, they asked again.

  “Not quite.”

  At 19–1 in the ninth, they inquired once more.

  “No, not for sure yet.”

  Finally, with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, Kanehl turned to the writers and said, “Now, it’s a laugher.”

  That same day, according to legend, a fan called the New York Times sports desk to see how the Mets had done.

  “They scored nineteen runs,” the man on the desk said.

  There was a pause and then, “Did they win?”

  Forty-three-years later, the Mets were a lot better team, with a Hall of Fame pitcher on the mound. Any hit by Green probably would have made the game a laugher. Instead, the lead was 5–0.

  “Most nights you’re up five-nothing with Tommy Glavine on the mound, you figure the game is over,” Rick Peterson said. “But knowing what was at stake, I don’t think any of us weren’t nervous.”

  The least nervous person in the park appeared to be Glavine. He quickly retired the first two hitters in the sixth, before Derrek Lee hit a fly-ball double just fair down the right-field line. Aramis Ramirez followed with a double deep to center, and it was 5–1.

  “It was almost inevitable they score after Lee’s ball,” Glavine said. “Ramirez kills me all the time, and I’d already gotten him twice. I was just happy I kept him in the ballpark.”

  He struck Floyd out to end the inning, and it was 5–1 with nine outs to go.

  Mark DeRosa, another old teammate from Glavine’s Atlanta days, started the seventh with a ground ball to Wright. Eight outs to go. Glavine was tiring in the heat, and he knew it. Realistically, he knew if he could finish this inning, that would be it for the night.

  Angel Pagan followed with a shot down the left-field line that brought up chalk, bouncing directly on the foul line. “Lee hits it an inch fair to right; Pagan hits it an inch fair to left,” Glavine said. “With a little luck on either ball, I think I get through the seventh.”

  Randolph and Peterson consulted. Pagan had doubled on Glavine’s 102nd pitch of the night. Basically, they needed Guillermo Mota and Pedro Feliciano, both warming in the bullpen, to get two outs and get the ball to Heilman for the eighth. If it had been a one-run lead, Peterson might have gone out to get a read on how Glavine felt — “tired as hell” would have been the answer — but with a four-run lead they decided to trust the bullpen.

  Randolph went out to get him, waving Mota in as he crossed the foul line. Glavine wasn’t surprised or upset, although, if truth be told, no one on Team Glavine was jumping for joy at the sight of Mota trotting in. Peyton Glavine had been caught on camera in Milwaukee mouthing a derogatory word about Mota, not a profanity, but he had clearly been frustrated. In the SportsNet New York truck, director Bill Webb saw the shot and decided there was no need to put an eight-year-old boy on screen reacting understandably to a very disappointing moment. What’s more, Peyton Glavine probably spoke for all Met fans. At the end of the inning, he showed the shot to his announcers, Gary Cohen and Ron Darling, to see how they felt about it. Both agreed with Webb, so the shot wasn’t seen in New York. It was seen in Milwaukee.

  Even without the shot appearing in New York, Glavine heard about it the next day from friends. When the family returned to Chicago, he sat his boy down for a little talk about being the son of a public figure.

  “I just told him he had to be aware when he was watching Dad pitch that he might be on camera,” he said. “You’d rather not have to lay that on an eight-year-old, but I figured I should remind him. I also tried to explain to him that, even though he gave up the hit, Guillermo was trying just as hard as I was and just as hard as he did in his ball games.”

  That was almost the same message Glavine had delivered to Mota when he had come into the clubhouse in Milwaukee. “Don’t worry about it; I know you tried.”

  “Really, that’s all you can ask of anyone,” Glavine said.

  Now, as Mota trotted in, Glavine handed the ball to Randolph, who gave him an emphatic pat on the back as the fans began to stand en masse to cheer Glavine. He was a little less surprised than in Milwaukee — since it had already happened once — but just as moved by the gesture. “The Cubs and the Mets have had a pretty intense rivalry for a long time,” he said. “For those fans to stand and do that, to me, was really something memorable.”

  Glavine was actually pumped as he left the game. He gave Randolph a return pat on the back with his glove — something he never did leaving the mound — and tipped his cap to the crowd.

  “I had an incredible feeling of satisfaction right at that moment,” he said. “I’d felt so lousy all day, and I’d gone
out and really performed — pitched really well. Even if we’d somehow blown it, I would have still walked out of there feeling good about myself. I didn’t want that to happen, and, to be honest, I didn’t think it would. But it was a very nice feeling I had right there.”

  He got to the dugout, accepted all the congratulations, and watched Mota instantly give up a single to Jason Kendall, moving Pagan to third. Randolph wasn’t taking any chances this time around. Mota tended to be either very good or very bad, and he didn’t think he could afford to wait and find out if the Kendall hit was a fluke or a harbinger. Once Piniella had sent up left-handed-hitting Jacque Jones as a pinch hitter for pitcher Kerry Wood, Randolph waved in Feliciano.

  Wanting to make up for his performance in Milwaukee, Feliciano got Jones to ground to Castillo for the second out. Pagan scored, and Kendall moved to second. Seven outs left. But Mike Fontenot, who had taken Soriano’s place in the lineup when he pulled up lame, cracked a double to left, scoring Kendall and cutting the gap to 5–3.

  Glavine, sitting in the dugout, couldn’t help but flash back to Milwaukee. “I’d be lying if I told you that at that moment I wasn’t nervous,” he said. “I was. There were still seven outs left, it’s Wrigley Field, and they have a good lineup. I sat there and thought, ‘Oh my God, if I have to go through this again…’ ”

  Randolph was thinking along those same lines. Heilman had been warming up, and Randolph decided not to wait any longer to get him in. Theriot was now coming up as the tying run. Heilman trotted in, trying to keep himself calm.

  “We all felt let down when Tom didn’t get the win in Milwaukee,” Heilman said. “He had done his job that night; he deserved to win. This was the same situation: he had done his job. In fact, the lineup had done its job scoring five runs. It was up to us to close it out.”

  Heilman is a rare major leaguer in that he not only went to college — Notre Dame — but graduated. He’s quiet but extremely thoughtful, one of those guys the writers who regularly cover the team go to often because he almost always has something smart to say on any given topic.