by Bill Branger
“Get an exterminator.”
“I spoiled them. I spoiled them in Florida, put them up at that hotel. This is New York, this isn’t Florida. People live like this here, don’t they get it?”
“When I first came up, I was in that East Side hotel you own, George. I’d rather live in a Chinese prison than live there.”
“Oh, Mr. Bigshot now with his $650,000 contract —”
“George, you want to settle this now? You call up Sid and make him a reasonable buyout offer and I’ll walk tomorrow. I’m tired of your shit and I’m tired of getting a headache every day listening to those kids and I’m tired of interpreting for Sparky when Sam goes and hides in the clubhouse. Even Sam gets tired of them.”
Silence.
Now George became conversational in tone: “What’s wrong, Ryan? With the team?”
“Time will tell.” It is my all-time favorite sports cliché.
“What’s that mean?”
“It means you got to give them time and treat them right.”
“All right. I’ll send over an exterminator.”
“That’s a start.”
“What if this thing doesn’t jell? In a month or so.”
“Then we’ll finish lower than you expected.”
“I expect to win the pennant, nothing less. New York expects nothing less.”
“It’s good to have great expectations.”
“You see any bright spot in any of this? Sparky looks like he’s on dope, I can’t get a straight answer from him. I should fire his ass and get someone else.”
“It isn’t Sparky. Sparky is fifty-six years old. He’s used to talking to ball players, not talking through his clubhouse manager. They’re a decent bunch of players —”
“You were supposed to weed out the bad ones.”
“Some are better than others. What did you expect, twenty-four supermen?”
“Yes. I expected twenty-four supermen and one washed-up reliever,”
“Well, you got part of your expectations.”
“You mean you.”
“I mean the kid — Raul. He’s genuine, George, hell learn Ms way the first go-round of games, but it’ll be the hitter learning, not the pitchers learning how to pitch to him. Because you can’t. You can walk him, to get around him, but if you put it anywhere near the plate at any speed with any curve, he’ll hit you. He’s a natural born hitter and he’s only twenty-three. You stole him.”
That pleased George, to think he’d made a good theft.
“Anyone else?”
“Pitcher named Ramon Suarez, he’s as hard a thrower as I’ve seen since Nolan, but he’s twenty-two and gets steamed up when things don’t always go his way, Billy Bacon is trying to show him some tricks with a slider but he’s kind of stubborn about his own style. What they really need, all of them, is to loosen up. I think that between Castro and you they’re a little insecure.”
“Insecurity in an employee is a good thing,” George said.
I didn’t say anything. George was an old leopard and he wasn’t going to learn new spots.
“What about the catcher, Orestes?”
“You coulda done better keeping a veteran there, settle down the pitchers.”
“Too late now,” George said. “You’ve got something nice to say about everyone. You sound like Sparky.”
“George, spring training is just not the place to form a new team. They got to play with each other — they came from different teams, you know. They got to learn to adjust to each other, to the weaknesses as well as the strengths. How long you been around baseball, anyway?”
“I got a good mind to fire your ass right now.”
“Go ahead. The checks can be sent to me at Houston.”
“But I won’t”
“Why?”
And he sounded just like Sid that night in Chicago.
“I need you right now, Ryan. You’re useful.”
Damn. Just like Sid said he would say if you pressed him on it. He needed me more than I needed him.
17
George had to do something. When he gets antsy, the way he did, he’s a whirl of motion, just keeps moving, I could see the signs of it because I had been with him a while. What he decided to do is to have an inspirational meeting in the locker room.
The team was suiting up for a practice session, the first time they had tried the game in the shadows of the old ball yard. There was the usual locker room chaos. One of the kids had a radio and the music was too loud and tinny, like it came out of a can. Two of the players were buck naked, standing on a bench and doing some sort of dance step, swaying like chorus dancers. I seen all this shit before and now it depressed me, whereas before I never took notice of it. Some of the players used to prepare for a game by playing gin rummy, but these kids didn’t have any cards on them.
George came into the room about eleven in the morning and the first thing he did was shut off the radio. One of the kids — the one they called Tío, which means “uncle” in Spanish — went over to the radio and turned it back on.
George, just as calm as anything, pulled the plug on the radio and picked it up by the handle and smashed it into the concrete wall. It was an attention-getter, no doubt about it.
Tio went over to the broken radio and picked up the parts of it in his two hands and began to weep. I knew from before he could do this on cue. He was the class clown and it was pretty good, even when it got tiresome. Like throwing down his glove and stomping on it every time I came on the field,
George didn’t know what to make of it so he got mad. I don’t mean angry, either.
“Ryan, I want to talk to these assholes and I can’t find Sam,” George shouted at me.
I was dressed already, right down to my spikes. I looked around bet Sam was hiding good. I went over to George and said, “Maybe you can hold your inspirational chat until we have a workout. Take the piss out of them, they’ll be more receptive to a sermon.”
“I’m not a wet nurse,” George said, looking exactly like the duchess in Through the Looking Glass. “Listen up, hombres!”
— This is the owner of the team,, men, George Bremenhaven (I said in Spanish).
— He broke my fucking radio, this son of a whore.
— Who the hell does he think he is?
— He’s the owner (I said to the crowd crowding around George).
I said to George, “Looks like a lynch mob.”
“Tell them I’m the señor who signs the paychecks and if they don’t like it, they can take the bus back to Cuba.”
— Men, the owner here says if you don’t quiet down and listen, he’s going to send everyone back to Cuba.
That seemed to have the wrong effect.
— He can send me back right now (Raul said).
— Man, I said, what would El Supremo say?
That had the right effect. Everyone fell silent, contemplating Castro, George thought it was a show of respect for him and I didn’t explain. Then I saw Romero, Castro’s fink, standing in the tunnel outside the locker room door. I walked across the locker room to the door and my spikes were the only sound. I smiled at Romero, And slammed the metal door in his face.
That provoked a couple of smiles from the troops. And made George smile for a moment before he began.
“Men, we stunk up spring training, but today we have a new start on a’ brand-new season,” George said.
He waited for me to translate.
— Men, this horse’s ass means to preach you a sermon. He is going to tell you a lot of shit about playing for the great New York Yankees and about tradition and all that. Just be quiet and listen. The sooner we listen, the sooner he’ll leave.
I nodded to George.
“Men, you’re the building blocks of a new Yankee tradition, reaching across the hemisphere for a new era,” George said.
— Men, George says his mother was not a whore because she never charged for it.
Tio caught on. The others were dumbfounded. Tio smil
ed at me for the first time, a genuine smile, not a smirk aimed at the dumb gringo pitcher with the broken slider.
I was very, very sober. We all waited on George.
“Men, we all of us have to show the rest of the league what we’re made of. We’re the brothers in history of Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Reggie Jackson”
— Men, he is now reciting the names of famous Yankees past —- Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Reggie Jackson. Don’t pay any mind to it.
“Men, I want fire in this team. I want fire in your bellies. You aren’t just playing for Castro or Cuba, you are playing for something greater — the New York Yankees!”
I groaned at that.
George looked at me and waited for me to translate.
— Men, Castro will cut off your gonads if you are sent back in disgrace to Cuba from the New York Yankees. He told me as much when I met him.
— You met him? (Raul asked).
— Sure did. Bearded fellow, smelled of Old Spice.
— Old Spice? (Tío asked). What is Old Spice?
— Cheap aftershave lotion.
— He don’t shave ever (Tío said).
— Maybe he likes the smell.
George said, “You mind carrying on your conversation some other time? I got things to say.”
“George, why don’t you just wrap it up. This is giving me a headache. I can’t keep all these conversations in my head.”
“All right, men. It’s up to you. Be proud of your tradition, you are wearing the pinstripes now and a whole world is watching you. More important, the greatest city on earth is watching you.”
— Men, George is finally wrapping up his bullshit. Now is the time to give him a big cheer. It will make him happy and it will make us happy because he will finally go away.
I looked pleadingly at them and they stared me down. And then, out of the blue, Tio began to applaud wildly, shouting and clapping, and the others, sensing the joke, started to do the same. Clapping and laughing and jumping up and down. It was like a room full of Harpo Marxes all doing a number on this Margaret Dumont in a three-piece suit. George and I went outside to the therapy room.
“Well, George, you certainly inspired them,” I said.
“I did, didn’t I?” George said.
“Brought a lump to my throat, I can tell you.”
“Stop being so cynical, Ryan. These are kids, simple farm kids, and they can be moved if you press the right buttons. They’re just looking for an authority figure to tell them to do their best.”
“I guess that’s right,” I said. “I wouldn’t know, never having been one.”
“That’s what I got rid of a fifty-million-dollar payroll for. To get some enthusiasm and team spirit back in the game,” George said.
“Team doesn’t have an / in it,” I said.
“You don’t believe that, but I do,” George said. “This is bigger than anyone’s ego.”
Not bigger than George’s, of course. I sort of shuffled him out of there because the kids were still cheering hysterically and I was afraid even George would begin to understand it was all a joke. We closed the clubhouse door together and went into the tunnel that runs under the stands, George didn’t even hear the laughter that was starting to build in the locker room.
George said, “I’ve been thinking all night about this, about the team and lighting a firecracker under them and about what you said.”
I don’t like it when George starts quoting me to me. I try never to say anything of consequence to him.
“About Sparky being too old,” he said.
“I never said that,” I said.
“Sure, don’t you remember? You pointed out to me he was fifty-six years old. A fifty-six-year-old gringo who doesn’t speak a word of Spanish. I made a mistake, Ryan. I let sentiment guide me instead of good judgment.”
George and sentiment have never been on the same street together before. Not even in the same town.
“Ryan, I want you to manage this team,” he said,
“No, George, you don’t. I don’t know how to manage nothing bigger than my checkbook.”
“I made up my mind this morning. I’m getting rid of Sparky.”
“Well, you ain’t gettin’ rid of him on account of me.”
“I called Sid on my way over here. I told him and he’s waiting on a call from you,” George said. “You give him a jingle and I’ll go and tell Sparky, God, I hate telling someone he’s through.”
George hated no such thing. Nothing like telling a man he was fired. It gave George the same feeling a hunter gets when he bags a white-tailed deer on the first day of the season.
“George, the season ain’t even started yet,” I said. I was pleading less for Sparky than for myself. George was putting me in the equipment bag again and I was going to get hurt in there, bumped around by bats and bases and all.
“Sid and I talked price. You can be a player-manager like Pete Rose.”
“I ain’t like Pete Rose, for Christ’s sake. What am I gonna do, put myself in as a reliever?”
“When it comes down to it,” he said.
“Managers got to pay their dues, George. Work in the minors a while, do some coaching. I can’t just take over a team. Especially a team like this, bunch of raw recruits out of some Communist country. They ain’t just wet behind the ears, they’re wet all over.”
“Ryan, if I did things the way things are always done, I’d never get anything done. I do things the way I do things, my own way. I always have and I always will.” He was fading into his Frank Sinatra imitation and there was no stopping him.
I said, “George, let me think on it.”
“You call Sid Cohen right now in L.A. and he’ll give you the details. I’ve called a press conference for two P.M. With that, he turned on his little tasselled loafers and went through the nearest door, doubtless humming to himself. Scooby-dooby-do.
I called Sid.
“What did you agree to?” I said.
“I don’t agree to things, except George called me and told me what he was going to do and I asked him how much he intended to pay you. Ryan, you are going to be a 1.2-million-dollar man this season.”
“I’ll make a fool of myself.”
“Probably”
“Which would ruin my chance of getting a decent coaching job with anyone.”
“Your chances, Ryan, are nil to begin with. Every team in the league is on the Yankees’ case because of what George did. And you, you schmuck, agree to go to Cuba and bring his scabs home with you. Frankly, I don’t see how you can do yourself much more damage.”
“So I should finish the job, is that it, Sid?”
“You should take the only chance you have. Go out and win one for yourself.”
“How’s that?”
“Is this team any good? I was watching Chris Berman on ESPN. He doesn’t seem enamored.”
“He gets paid not to be enamored. Besides, he’s in love with himself.”
“What about it, Ryan? Can they do themselves any good?”
“I dunno.”
“Can they finish third?”
“I dunno.”
“Let’s say you manage them to third place. I don’t think anyone would fault the job you did. Say, finish with a .500 average. That would put you in a different light your rookie season as a manager.”
“I don’t know how to manage.”
“Half of them don’t. But you know how to speak Spanish. That puts you one up on Sparky. George said that Sparky depends on the clubhouse manager to be his interpreter. That’s pretty pathetic, you have to agree.”
“Language is a problem, tell me about it. I been taking Excedrin. I was watching ‘The Mary Tyler Moore Show’ last night and I started translating it into Spanish in my head. I don’t know how they can do that for a living day after day over at the UN building.”
“It’s a gift. Take the money, Ryan. And do yourself some good.”
“George says I put the idea in his head. I don’t wa
nt to be the man who fired Sparky”
“Sparky has a two-year contract, he’ll be all right. He can go down to Kentucky and raise race horses.”
“So George is willing to pay me $550,000 to manage on top of the $650,000 to pitch?”
“Don’t get an exaggerated sense of your own importance, Ryan. This is business. He’s still got you by the short hairs, even more when you take the job, but you’ve got no alternative I can see, other than fiat-out quitting.”
“I was thinking along those lines yesterday,” I said.
“You’d walk away from that kind of money?”
Silence.
“No, I guess not.”
“Guess not? I should say not. Figure you pay half of that in taxes and my ten percent, you’d still walk away with about a half-million dollars. For what? Putting up with some shit for the next six months.”
When I broke into the Bigs, I got $30,000. I've been careful about money all my life, which comes from being raised poor and knowing you were poor. Money is just counting to some people, but to me it’s real. I never forgot the first time I read a Scrooge McDuck comic and saw that critter jumping into piles of coins in his vault. I could relate to it. Sid was right; his sense of knowing what I would do for money was uncanny.
“All right, Sid,” I said.
“Listen, Ryan, listen. This isn’t going to stop here. I can work on a bio for you, tell your side of the story of the year of the Yanquis —. Something along that line.”
“I can’t write.”
“It’s the last thing you have to know how to do to get published, believe me,” Sid said. “You tell George we’ve got a deal and fll send along the contract when I get it.”
“I hope this thing semi-works out,” I said.
“It will, Ryan,” Sid promised.
At least it sounded like a promise. Maybe it was only a wish like crossing your fingers but I was a desperate man all of a sudden and I would grab at the first straw that floated along like it was a life raft. One last year in the Bigs was all I wanted, and it seemed that that was getting a lot more complicated the more it went along.
18
The next day became the worst day I ever had in baseball. It was the worst day since old Booker beat the crap out of me in fourth grade, in fact, and then I went home and got more of the same from my old man.