For Love of the Game

by Michael Shaara

  They sat in silence. After a while she said: “But … what are you going to do?”

  He sat for a long moment. The answer was about to come, from the deep dark back of the brain. He said: “Strange thing about me. I never … I can’t go to a new place, a new town, put on a new uniform, play hard and strong for somebody else. Not now. Not after all these years. The money … with strange guys … in a strange town … I just can’t. So. What else? I’m going home. Just like you. Me and you. Going home.”

  They sat in silence. It took her a long moment to realize what had happened and what it meant to him, although she could not know how much she meant and could not ask, not now, perhaps not anymore ever again, and she stood up, beginning to shake, because they had moved into another world and she wanted to hold him but couldn’t and was beginning to cry. She said: “Billy. Got to go. Good-bye. God bless.”

  She started off, began to run. He watched her go, made no move, sat there wooden in the cool wet air of September. Harvard came by once more, jogging toward a broken sunlight. Chapel: feels like you’ve taken one hell of a punch and you have to hold on to get through the round. He rose, walked out along the path, saw a field and some big trees to the right, felt raindrops falling slowly, lightly, and went over to stand under the trees, without lightning in the sky. No game today? Ah then, no choice. Home, Mr. Chapel.

  But there’s nobody there.

  “You don’t need me, Billy.”

  In the mountains, this winter, a lonely Christmas.…

  There was only a light rain and he saw teams forming out on a baseball field a short way off, young kids, a junior league, and a game was beginning without worry about rain, the sky was clearing.

  Weather report last night had said it would be clear in the afternoon.

  There’ll be a game today.

  There were a few parents scattered along the sidelines, a fat coach with a yellow baseball cap, an umpire with a white shirt yelling something about getting the game under way.

  Billy walked over and sat a long way back under a tree watching that first inning begin. All kids—not even twelve years old. Dreamed of the early days, saw visions of … the big kids coming up to hit … that one kid who hit it over the fence that day, that crisp golden day, with the bases loaded, over the fence, foul, foul by less than a foot, and then, very carefully, threw him the slow curve knowing he’d be going for it, reaching, too soon, and he struck out, and Pops back there, up screaming with joy: “Way to go, Billy Boy, way to go! All the way, Billy Boy, all the way!”

  All the way.

  Done?

  A tug at his sleeve. He looked down: faces of three very young boys.

  “Hey, that’s you! You Billy Chapel. Jeez! Hey, Mr. Chapel, you gonna pitch today?”

  THE STADIUM

  THE STADIUM IN that town was across the river, and it took a long while to get there in a cab. When Chapel arrived it was already jammed and he had heard the game was already sold out: it was. About eighty thousand people. All come to see the Yanks. To see the Yanks win. There would be almost nobody at all there from Atlanta, a reporter for the paper, some business types who just happened to be in town this day with nothing much else to do. But for the Yanks it was a very big day and the place was alive already with empty beer cans and signs being drawn and lifted and Chapel sat deep in the back of the cab while it pushed through. But … this really might be the last time. To come through the crowd up to the gate at the players’ entrance with all the sounds, along with those silent drums that beat in the brain long before the game, steady, slow, heavy, marshaling the power. He had done this all his life: got ready for the game. Approached the game with that ritual of grandness, used to think of boys mounting chariots, just before the race, the trumpets blowing, the crowds gathering to scream and wave flags—wonder if they had known that same impending wave of elation, the same joy of collision ahead, just round the bend, back when they played their own game a long time ago. This may be your last time. But. You can watch television. Still there was something dreamlike in the air around him; he could sense the steadying of chariot horses, the shining of the spears. All over. He brushed that aside. Daydreamer.

  Time to grow up, old daydreamer.

  There are still two days of the season. Two days in which to dream.

  Nope.

  One day.

  Today.

  Tomorrow … you’ll not be here.

  You can leave … right now.

  Scheduled to pitch today.

  You can pitch today.

  Last time.

  One more time.

  He sat in the cab by the gate. Yankee fans all round, alive. They have two games left in this season and they’re in contention. If they win today and tomorrow they go on into the playoffs for the World Series. If they lose one game … that’s why the manager, old Maxwell, is pitching you today. Because he hates the Yankees. I wonder if he knows I’ve been traded.

  I don’t have to pitch today.

  I may well be … already done.

  Ah.…

  I could go back to the hotel and be gone, home in the mountains, up high in the Super Cub, by Sunday morning. Snow there already, light white. September snow, September sunlight. Fly the plane. Take the Cub and put down in the flat snow-fields and go wandering, and maybe … think. Plan. People think you’re slightly nuts. Flying up in those places? In the mountains? Are you out of your gourd? But oh … the clear blue sky when the wind was down, and the long low circling over the endless rock mountain, slowly down the long low lines between the ragged walls.…

  He awoke. The cabdriver said: “Here you go, Mr. Chapel. They’re waitin’.”

  A man by the gate who had recognized Chapel was waving. Must have been told: get Chapel. Where’s Chapel? He paid the cabdriver and walked toward the gate. The man there said happily: “Hey, Mr. Chapel, how you doin’? Good to see you. They gettin’ a little worried so Maxwell sent me out here. They got you scheduled today, hey, man? Boy, this is gonna be a dilly.”

  Chapel went on by and down into the dark, through a cluster of people, nodding, pats on the shoulder, questions he did not answer. The door into the locker room was open for him and one of the locker boys scolded him, but it was very noisy and busy inside and so Chapel moved in through the locker room, his mind gone slightly blank, unable really to see who was there and hear anything that made sense. Nothing yet clear. It may be for years, it may be forever.…

  He felt a clutch on his shoulder.

  “Chappie! Hey, man, how you doin’?”

  He turned: Gus, anxious, nervous, worried, sad.

  Gus: “Christ, buddy. I didn’t think you was comin’. Jeez, I thought, Billy’s gone. He’s really gone. Oh, boy. That poor bastard, Ross, he’s out in the hall. He keeps bangin’ the door. You want to tell him anything? You didn’t see him when you came in?”

  Chapel shook his head. Then another big face: mustached, gray-haired: Maxwell, the manager: angry, loud-mouthed.

  “Chapel! Well, for Chrissakes it’s about time. Where the hell you been? Chrissakes, get out there and warm up. Don’t take your sweet time, we’re goin’ right on schedule. Get a move on, man!”

  He was gone, yelling toward a man whose name Chapel did not place. “Listen, you, I wanna talk to you, you gotta cut out that shit, you hear?” Chapel did not hear what the shit was. He looked at Gus, and suddenly—from nowhere—there was a smile, a spasm of splendid joy. He grinned, patted Gus, went back toward his own locker through the team, between the black and white, the Cuban, the Puerto Rican, the country boy, the city boy, the old pro and the young dreamer, the settled and established and the scared and the lonely. They said once traded you couldn’t really go back home to the old locker. If everybody else knew it and you went into that room, it was not your room and not your team and not your uniform anymore and everybody knew it and you were some kind of alien, a man who didn’t belong, and so most men once traded didn’t come back, they just—disappeared, and the next t
ime you saw them was on another field somewhere else in another uniform, and there was always some slight fragment of the old days, old memories, but … they were gone. From this game. The game that mattered. This one today. Always the one that mattered. The next one. The one not played. Not yet. The one we wait for. Today.

  “Hey, Chappie, how’s it goin’? Hey, man, you blow ’em away. You clean ’em up and lay ’em down. Man, I’d like to snuff ’em, Chap. I’m with ya.”

  That was Christopher. Nick Christopher. Team captain. Shortstop. One of the few good men on that team, an old pro who would be back next year and knew it and could therefore relax this day, in the locker with the losers, the last-place team. Most of them were here together but not together, would separate in a few days and see each other no more, some never to come back to the big league again, not ever. Near Christopher were the established few, the men who were good and had proved enough, or almost enough, to play this game in peace. But beyond them, and on all sides, were the others. Here on one side their smiling faces and jokes and kidding and over there was the sudden stillness, the strained faces, the anger, longing for the chance yet to convince somebody to give them one more chance, and then some with fate in their eyes, a certain peace, had resigned and let the chain go, would not be back next year and knew it, and since many around them knew it, there was that clear silence, that withdrawal from the … misbegotten.

  Chapel walked through the room with nods and silence—it was normal for him not to talk much at all. They did not know of the trade. He thought about that. The trade was not yet done. Not yet real. Why? Season not yet over? The trade real only then? What the hell goes on in you, Billy? This is a business. Mucho money here. What the hell difference does it all really make? No one here knows it. No one looks at me as if I was a Martian. So. ’Tis only true if … if what?

  He moved into that separate place in the locker room, always kept toward the back of the room for the Big Men, to prevent too much annoyance later by newspaper people. He went through the key men, beginning with Christopher, the shortstop, and they all gave that grateful hello and nodded, backed out of the way of that big man, Billy Chapel—on his way, that guy, to the Hall of Fame—one of the great ones—in all the record books.… Ah, Christ, if I could have been as good as Billy—he’s made it, Billy, he’s got security. Maybe with luck one of these days you’ll make it, too, if you try hard enough. There was Manieri the third baseman and Dutch Johnson, the silly man with the mustache who told bad jokes and then laughed himself half to death while lying on the floor, a magnificent centerfielder, and then … Gus. Only friend. Only one who knows. No one knows. So. I am still … this is my team. One more time.

  He reached his own locker—not his own, his visiting locker, his name taped high, and misspelled: Chappell. Gus was at his side.

  “Christ, Chappie, I thought for a while.… Listen, that Ross fella, what do you want to do about him? You think you owe him? After all.…”

  Chapel opened the locker door, saw his shirt. Gus went on rattling away.

  “I thought: he’s gone. He’s on the plane right now and it’s good-bye Charlie. I don’t think anybody knows anything. Maxwell don’t know. What do you think? He’s got you scheduled today and he’s a hard rock about it. He wants you, nobody but you. That kid Garcia, that skinny lefty from Puerto Rico, you know the one, he kept pleadin’ for a shot, sayin’ there’s only two days left, and what the hell, we got nothin’ to lose, which is a point, and he begged for a chance today against the Yanks, said even the big bosses would go along with him, to show his stuff, but Maxwell kept sayin’, ‘Not today. Maybe tomorrow. But not today. I go with Chapel today. And that’s all she wrote. Got me? Now shut the hell up and sit down. I’ll call you if I need you. Maybe in relief.’ That’s what Maxwell said.” Pause. “He sure hates the Yanks. You happen to know why?”

  “No.” Chapel lifted out his shirt, looked at the number.

  Twenty-one.

  Gus: “Chappie. What the hell you gonna do?”

  “Twenty-one,” Chapel said dreamily. He smiled. “They had a royal fight over that. Mom and Pop.”

  “Over what?”

  “The number on the uniform. I’ve had that number … always. Since high school. My mother was an astrologer type. You know? And she wanted 9. She was sold on 9. But my father wanted 44. Don’t remember why. But he loved 44. Then one day they compromised. Twenty-one.” Chapel was dreamily smiling. “Twenty-one. They settled on that important number. At twenty-one you’re a man. In those days. Vote at twenty-one. Drink at twenty-one. So, they got together. They voted. I’ve had that ever since.”

  Gus was staring at him.

  “How you doin’, kid?”

  Chapel: “Oh. Who the hell knows?”

  He turned, blinked, looked round the room, saw old faces which were no longer there, back in the days when he was young and had older friends, all the old pros watching and waiting with joy, and none of them there now, all of them gone, the days had ended … seventeen years. He was the last. Why was that important?

  I’ll not be back.

  “You see Carol. Chappie?”

  Chapel nodded.

  “How’d it go?”

  “It was … okay.”

  “You going to New Zealand? Or.…”

  Chapel shook his head.

  “Ah. Shit.”

  Chapel put down the shirt. Put his fingers along the front buttons. Stopped. Looked at Gus. Can’t quit … today. Will quit tomorrow, but not today. He nodded. Nothing else was right. Cannot run now. Cannot leave now.

  Gus: “Look. I think … if you don’t mind … I got to tell that guy, that Ross, I got to tell him something.”

  Chapel nodded.

  “All right.”

  “Yeah. But what?”

  Chapel: “Gus. I can’t quit today.”

  Gus stared, openmouthed.

  “Gonna quit. Yep. No doubt of that. This is it. I go nowhere else. But I don’t quit today. You understand?”

  Gus, blinking: “Sure, Chappie, sure.”

  “So.” Chapel held out his hand, raised the forefinger in the long, slim signal: One. He said, from deep in the throat: “One more time.”

  Gus nodded. He put out his hand, Chapel took it. Gus left.

  Chapel put his hand to the right arm, held it round the muscle, talked to it for a long second: Old buddy, give ’em all we’ve got. The season’s over. So. Are you ready?

  He flexed the arm. Felt fine. He started to dress.

  The team had already gone out when he finished; he was the last. He went slowly out into the sunlight and it was all fresh and clear, rain clouds were gone, a great day for the airplane, and he remembered that day he took Carol up and flew through the New Zealand mountains, flew in a Cessna 182 with ice skis, put down on a glacier, the Franz Josef, and walked on hard, cold ice … won’t go this year … so … wind today? Very light. Good. Give them no help with that. Everything on your side. But they’ll want to win today. And my team.… My team? … won’t give a damn. So … no matter. Does it matter?

  Oh, yes.

  Win the last one. Why does it matter so much? Don’t know. But it does. But all you can do is your best.

  I’ll do that.

  Only a game.

  But today … today I’ll throw it all, I’ll throw all that’s left because there’s nothing to save anymore, no more rest to take anymore, today.…

  He went to the warm-up circle where Dewey Bell was waiting for him. Bell was the reserve catcher, behind Gus. He could sometimes hit, he was a streak man, but he was not consistent and he did not have the arm yet … he had the brain. No doubt of that. Strange how so often … a great arm, an empty brain. He was standing with the glove, waiting to warm Billy up. A quiet man, waiting, biding his time, for Gus’s job, because Gus did not hit. It was normal and natural and caused no pain. Most of them lived with that light in their eyes. Billy nodded hello, stared at Dewey Bell. Billy thought: I never had to live that way. I ne
ver went through that. Boy, the luck you’ve had. Well. Pop would say: “Play your heart out, Billy. Give it all back, Billy, everything you’ve been given. Give it all back … out of the golden arm.” Pop’s words. Give back the golden arm. And when it’s all gone, you’ll know, and look at it that way, Billy, there’s no more to give … and you gave your best … always your best. From the golden arm God gave you.

  Chapel shook his head. Cool it. Too bloody emotional. Cool it. Throw. Calmly. Think no more … of the heat of the sun, nor the furious winter’s rages.… No. Little music. Copland. He began to hum, aloud, a tune from Rodeo. Took the clean baseball in his right hand, rolled the ball over, rubbed and cuddled and got the feel of it, touched it in that way he sometimes touched the wheel of the airplane, set the foot on the mound, took a good long slow look, set the distance, took a good long deep breath, then leaned back the first time slowly easily calmly, lay the ball back there behind him at the end of his arm, drawing the aim with his eyes, timing the body, focusing all things together, and he threw the first one.

  It was faster than Bell expected. He jumped, but caught it, looked back quizzically.

  “Hey, for Chrissake. Take it easy, you mind?” He threw the ball back. “You knock my hand off. Besides. You’re too old to throw that fast. When you gonna learn that?” He looked over toward the Yankee bench, cocked his head to one side. “Oh. I get you. You scarin’ the crap out of them. Okay. But gimme time to set myself.”

  First pitch too fast. Chapel: relax. Warm up. Better timing. He set himself and almost lobbed the next one, confusing Bell, but that didn’t matter. Chapel was hearing the music in his head and conditioning himself, timing himself, sending messages all through the body, sensing the step, the push, the pull, the weight. All fine today. All good today. End of the season, hard slow cold season, they never scored behind you, but, no matter, you aren’t weary today. That’s a fact. Surprising. You have plenty tucked in there today. Must be a state of mind. I wonder … how far? Five innings? Six? Oh please God … today … if I could just go the distance. Let me go all the way. Give the old arm.… A rare thing for Chapel, who did not pray or go to church. But the desire was huge. He thought: be at least a little crafty, old man. Take it easy now. Rest and prime it. Save it for when you need it. Be crafty for once. Well. But best thing is blaze away at the beginning, put ’em down, boy, down, show ’em who’s boss. Then get foxy. Sure. Waste nothing. Save the energy until you really need it, but … this is the last day. Today, you’ll use it all. Sudden memory of Mom: “God has blessed you, Billy, with that wondrous talent. Remember someday … to give Him thanks.” He never had. Well. May do it today. Right, Mom. But it’s a little late. So … don’t think on that. Music. And throw.