by Bill Branger
Pop. He popped that son of a bitch toward right and I turned to watch the line drive descend. It didn’t. Just kept getting higher the longer it traveled. Cleared the wire fence in the outfield by ten feet and the players — those in the field behind me and those lounging behind the plate — started dancing and laughing and yakking it up. I never seen a happier bunch of ball players since I was a kid and we were doing it for the love of the game.
Raul just stood there, grinning at me.
So I tried again. I have a good slider left over from my tutelage days under Catfish. Understand, I’d been idle all winter and might be a little rusty, but I gave it my best shot.
Slider slid the way it was supposed to.
All Raul did with it is what he did before. Only this time it was center held, rising on the line just like a shot fired at a squadron of ducks. A low-lying duck would have been grounded by that ball — I swear it was going 90 miles an hour when it cleared the fence.
When someone hits a ball out as fast as you managed to throw it in, there is something very serious about his hitting.
I must have shook my head in wonder because everyone started cracking up and pointing at me and yakking. To show I was a good sport, I pulled off my glove and threw it down and shook my head again. That got them off again. Then I walked to the plate.
I was going to shake hands with Raul, tell him he had a good stroke.
But when I dropped my glove, he dropped his bat and turned and walked back toward the dugout of the practice field. It wasn’t a dugout, exactly, just a covered area over a long wooden bench. The bats were in a rack at the side of the bench.
— Shit, man, I was just going to say you got a sweet swing.
— Fuck you (Raul said), you just got a lousy pitch, is all. I can’t believe you’re good enough to play for a major league team.
This got everyone laughing again and making mocking gestures. This one clown, Tio, took a glove and threw it down and stomped on it, up and down, and shook his head in mock fury and this got the players all crazy with the giggles again.
Felt my face getting flush, but then I thought better about it. The hell with them.
We stayed at it. The Cuban kids had moxie, which is a New York word I personally like.
Well, I did manage to prove to myself that I still had enough to win one for the gipper. I struck out the clown Tio on three pitches and I managed to get Orestes to ground out, except the second baseman threw the ball a mile over the first baseman’s head.
— You boys are a bit sloppy in the field (I said to none of them and all of them),
—- They’re just nervous (Raul said).
I stared at him a moment to see if this was another Cuban joke. But Raul wasn’t giving any indication.
— They oughta be. Old Fidel there, he says these boys are the best, that’s the way he sold them to George. If they can’t pick up a grounder out of the dirt, they are going to be the laughingstock of New York City.
— New York will not laugh.
— That’s what you say. (I shrugged.)
Raul came over from the dugout and stood about this far from me. His face was serious, and when he was serious he looked jest as young as he was. It was a different look he got when he was batting. This was a twenty-three-year-old look,
— Tell me, Señor Shawn, have you been up in the Empire State Building?
— What’s that got to do with handling a grounder?
— It is the tallest building in the world.
— Not anymore.
— I have read this.
— I don’t really give a shit.
— What’s your problem, Señor?
— My problem is your problem. Can’t Jimenez play shortstop?
Raul just stared at me a moment before replying:
— This business. “Business,” you said. Why is Doctor Castro sending us to North America?
— Beats the shit out of me. Believe me, you boys are not the popular choice.
—- Is there danger?
— Naw. We only kill empires.
— That’s a joke, bet I am not joking, Señor.
— C’mon and play ball.
Raul trotted to the outfield then and I settled back to spray a few out there with a fungo bat, just to make sure that the boys actually did know a thing or two about fielding.
It went all right. Raul is not Jimmy Piersall in the outfield when it comes to flat-out fielding, bet he was all right, as good as Doak Walker had been for us at considerably more money. Damn. I was even beginning to think the way George talked, and that bothered me. The other thing was, the guys were taking it seriously. They were on their toes in the outfield, even when the sen started falling and we had been at it long enough to make es all look like drowned rats. I was giving it to them good on the hitting and fielding and the rest of it and they were taking it with a measuring spoon, like medicine.
That night I was taken to a big white building in the center of the city by my guide Martinez, who said I would be received by the Supremo himself.
I was wearing a white polo shirt and dark slacks and sneakers because it seemed to me the heat demanded that no one overdress himself. We took Mr. Martinez’s Trabant to the white building and I thought my back would give way before my legs numbed up.
We untangled ourselves from the car and went up some steps and through a couple of doors and halls and then we were in a big room with a lovely carpet on the floor and a lot of paintings on the walls. A couple were portraits of Fidel and his merry men in the mountains during the armed part of the revolution. There was also a Cezanne, which I knew was a Cezanne because it was signed Cezanne.
Around ten P.M., Castro and his entourage came into the room and I just stood there, not knowing what I was supposed to do or say. This is usually the best thing if you really don’t know what to do next. It’s what rabbits do.
Castro smelled of Old Spice when he came around to give me a hug. I did notice that men hugged a lot in Cuba, but mostly each other, I attribute nothing to this, just note it,
—- Señor Shawnus (he said), I hope you have enjoyed your visit to Cuba and you have seen how excellent is the baseball which we play.
— It is excellent, Mr. President. I enjoyed it more than I can say. And Mr. Martinez here was very kind to me to show me the city and everything.
— The hotel room. Did you like the hotel room?
— I liked it very much. It’s just like a hotel room in the States.
— Don’t patronize me, Señor. I’ve lived in the States and I would much rather live in Cuba.
— I know what you mean, sir. I am not patronizing no one. I am just saying what I saw, sir. I like your city and your people.
— Then why do you declare unceasing war on us, day after day, trying to bleed us to death?
That stopped me for a moment. The only time I ever thought of Cuba in my life before this whole thing started was wondering why Ricky Ricardo couldn’t speak better English and now I was being turned into the United States. I didn’t want to get into a fight here over anything. George sent me down to get him some scab ballplayers and I was just doing my job.
— I’m just a baseball player, Mr. President. I don’t declare war on no one except the Baltimore Orioles and the Boston Red Sox.
“Oh, speak English,” Fidel said. “I can barely understand a word you said. Your Spanish is terrible, you’re going to have to learn to speak it better”
“I been trying to lisp it the last three days,” I said. I was getting a little irritated with the attitude. Everyone was so sure their shit didn’t stink that they didn’t even notice what a slum they were living in. These people acted like they were French. The nice thing about Americans was we use language to understand one another. If a Mexican says something in English I don’t get, I ask him again and he tries harder until I understand him, even down to using hand signals. The Cubans acted like Spanish was a joke I didn’t get, and I say that’s rude of them.
“Do you mean to insult me and my countrymen?” Fidel asked. He has very large eyes, brown, but you wouldn’t want to get them lit up the way they were lighting up then. I backed off, even literally.
“I didn’t mean no nothing, Mr. President. This is a great honor for me to be sent here, to see your best baseball players play and to see your wonderful city. I hope I can come again, sir, when the season is over up north.”
“When the season is over, you will still be playing, Señor Shawnus. In the World Series. Because my brave youths are the best baseball players in all the world and now the world will see that. I have accepted your government’s humble petition to make amends for the past thirty-five years, years of insults and plots and acts of war, because I am a man of peace and honor.”
I never saw someone as full of himself as old Castro. Not even George. Not even Tommy Tradup who was the best hitter we had last year before George sold him. Tommy thought hitting a home ran earned him two women per night so he’d just hang out in Elaine’s until they’d come to their senses and adore him. But Castro had an excuse, because no one was saying no to him for all those years until the Russians fell in on themselves.
“I don’t know what to say,” I said,
“You say ‘thank you,’” he said.
“Thank you,” I said.
“On behalf of a grateful American government.”
“President, I don’t know nothing about this stuff, about what’s going on with you and us, I just know I was supposed to come down here and escort your ball players to the Yankee spring camp in Fort Lauderdale. I’m just a simple baseball player.”
“With a lousy slider,” he said then.
“What?”
“My Raul humiliated you today when you tried to bean him. You have a reputation as a beanball pitcher, and when you tried to bean our best player, he became very, very angry. To that point, he was willing to accept you for what you are, an old baseball player who thinks he can speak pure Spanish, which you obviously cannot. But when you anger a Cubano, you stir up a nest of vipers, and this little viper struck back and showed you how pathetic your intimidation is.”
This diatribe seemed to have exhausted him and he reverted to Spanish.
—- You, I hold you, responsible for the safety and the well-being of those twenty-four boys who will go to the spring camp in Florida. You and the government. If you harm those boys or let the fanatics in Miami harm them, then it will be on your head. I will follow you wherever you try to hide, whatever hole you crawl into, and I will deal with you. Remember that Fidel is watching you, Señor,
This did not set well with me at all.
And then I thought of Charlene warning me about this.
And Sid. When I called Sid the next morning after my night with Charlene, he was practically hysterical and told me I was crazy to go to Cuba in George’s place. Funny how people who give me advice all say the same things.
I tried to soothe him.
— El Presidente, I want you to know the health and welfare of your ball players, of my teammates, is a prime concern to me personally.
— I know it is. It has to be.
That was it. That last line was it. He turned away like he was dismissing a waiter and moved back across the room with this gaggle of people around him and left me and Mr. Martinez alone with just a security guard to glare at us. What had I done to offend anyone? Did Castro really think when Ms boys played their first game in the Bigs that someone wouldn’t brushback a hitter? How was I responsible for that?
I went back to the hotel and took another shower. The water ran slow, but I managed to get wet enough to stand in front of the air conditioner until I started to feel shivery all over. Then I toweled off and tried to call George in New York. For the third straight day, the lines were overloaded, the operator told me. I thanked her and went to bed. I never did get to sleep that night, which explains why I was so groggy in the morning.
The players looked groggy, too, assembled with their bags at the airport. It must have been a fine howdedo, their last night in Havana. I felt a little sympathy for them — they were just kids going to America where everyone spoke a different language and people drove tiny new cars.
But not too much sympathy. Especially for Raul. He was clinging to this girl like he was going to Vietnam to fight or something, and I thought that was a little melodramatic. She covered him with kisses and she was sure something to look at. So I looked at her until Orestes, the catcher, came over and asked me what I thought I was staring at.
I might have to take shit from Castro, but I was damned if I had to take it from Orestes.
— What do you think? Lovely young thang over there with Raul.
— That is his intended, Señor.
— I hope he has good intentions.
— Are you insulting that woman, Señor? Or my friend, Raul?
— I ain’t insulting nobody. I never insult anyone this early in the morning. I could make an exception in your case, however.
— You better watch yourself, Señor.
— You mind your own business, Orestes.
He just stood his ground, glaring at me, and I looked away, back to the girl and Raul, just to see what he would do. But he didn’t do anything. There were security guards everywhere in the almost empty airport and Mr. Martinez was nowhere to be seen. I wanted to say good-bye to him; he had been kind to a stranger.
Instead, we boarded a plane.
The girl hanging on Raul walked him across the tarmac and then a soldier barred her from going any farther. I thought Raul wouldn’t go any farther either, but I wasn’t going to say anything. This was George’s show and I was just the tour guide.
We walked up the ramp to the twin-engine prop job and Raul made it halfway up when the girl cried out to him.
— I love you, beloved. I love you and I miss you already. I love you.
He turned and I thought he would bolt back down the ramp steps, but
there was a security guard standing at the bottom. He looked at the guard. The guard shook his head slowly and I guess Raul got the message. He trudged up the last steps like he was walking to the chair.
The plane bumped up and out of Cuba and I looked out the window. The countryside was green and there were mountains in the east. I thought I saw Guantanamo Bay but, never having seen it on the ground, I sure couldn’t swear to it from the air.
We touched down at Mexico City an hour and twenty minutes later. We went through customs fairly fast and there were TV cameras but they were kept at a distance. I thought I saw Mr. Baxter, George’s State Department friend, bet I might have been mistaken.
We picked up a guy named Romero there. He wore a tropical suit already plastered with sweat and a dirty white shirt and tie. I asked him who he was and he said nothing in a particular way of saying nothing — he just stared at me and then walked past me. He sat down in a front seat of the plane and did a head count on the players. They saw him. So he was big brother, I thought, the chaperone. I felt relieved to have the chaperone along; whatever happened would be his problem, not mine. That’s the way I thought then.
The plane lifted out of the smog bowl of Mexico City (which would make L.A. look clean) and headed sort of north and east toward Lauderdale.
We touched down in a shade over two hours.
Then the fun really began.
15
The New York Yanquis. Papers everywhere were calling es that.
George didn’t like that part of it, but he liked the publicity just fine. For a club with twenty-four rookies and one over-the-hiller (me), he was getting more ink than the Bulls in Michael Jordan days.
Sparky Hershberg was back as manager, still without a clue in Spanish, and Sam Ortiz, the clubhouse manager, was now promoted to sit in the dugout with him or stand by the sidelines and interpret for him.
The young warriors from Havana treated Sam with mild contempt for a few days until they found out that getting along with the clubhouse man is more important t
han getting along with the owner.
Sam worked it by first showering them with the luxuries of the Bigs. Big, fluffy, clean towels by the dozen. Locker space. Soap and shampoo for showers. Taking care of their bags, getting them to the right rooms at the hotel, making sure the icebox was stocked with mineral water and Coke and beer.
Then he started punishing the guys who patronized him. Orestes learned first when Sam stranded him at the practice field and Orestes had to walk back to the hotel, asking directions most humbly of anyone who looked like he might know Spanish. There are not a lot of people in Fort Lauderdale who look like they might know Spanish, and those who do are generally the hired help. Orestes was pulling his Spanish grandee on them and they resented it; they might have to take that kind of shit from Anglos who paid their paycheck but be damned if they were going to take it from another greaser.
Orestes got the idea.
Protestors were there from Miami from the git-go, but the cops handled it because there were plenty of FBI guys around, too. The FBI guys walked around in suits with white shirts and ties and talked into their lapels a lot and wore hearing aids. It was all very distracting between that and no one speaking English and the curious but unfriendly national media coming down every day to see the monkeys in the zoo.
I was working on Ryan Shawn’s problems, which were several. Raul had been right. Something was wrong with my slider. I stayed on the field longer than anyone else just to play catch with Billy Bacon, the pitching coach.
At night, after a couple of beers and a steak and salad, I went back to my room and immersed myself in television English. All that Spanish I was using day after day was taking a toll on me.
We did an exhibition with the White Sox.
The Chicagos were mean about everything. The pitcher threw so many inside that the umpire — it was Flaherty — had to go out to the mound and explain it was only a fucking exhibition game.
The Sox gave us the dog. No reason to slap someone twice with the ball on a steal of second. They had beat Tio, but when Tio stood up to dust off his togs, the second baseman slapped him with the gloved ball again for good luck. This pissed off Tío and he said something in Spanish and the next thing you knew, everyone was out of the dugout.