by Bill Branger
This let Raul and Maria off the hook but it caused all kinds of problems for poor Elena, which I thought was unfair. The hotel fired her for interfering with guests and that revoked the viability of her green card status in the United States. So I did the next best thing, which was to ask Charlene Cleaver to get her a job at Rice University Hospital, where she is to this day.
Next thing, I had to straighten out Raul and Maria.
I thought and thought about it during the off day. And I figured that the only thing that was going to work was shock therapy.
I called Raul into my little office at the park and we shut the door, to show I was being serious.
And then I told him.
Maybe I was describing something that had never happened the way I described it, but I was betting I was pretty close to the truth. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed to me that George was behind this crazy thing. I couldn’t prove it and I didn’t want to prove it. I just wanted to straighten out Raul’s head and it seemed this might work.
“I will kill him,” Raul said in English.
— No, no, no. You kill him and you’ll go to prison and you will never see Maria again. And don’t tell this to Maria or she might get some of her Cuban connections to shut down our operation. This is all very, very delicate, Raul. You and I are tiny little pieces in a big puzzle. The United States government and the Cuban government got some stakes in making this crazy idea of George’s work and they aren’t going to let us blow the whistle on it.
— You mean I must fear the government?
— A little decent fear of the government never did anyone harm. Elephants sometimes don’t mean to step on you, they just don’t see you in the way.
— Then what must I do to satisfy myself?
You see, this Cuban macho honor thing was rubbing off on my doe-eyed boy, Raul.
— The one thing you know how to do. Hit the ball.
— But then I am doing that for George.
— No, Raul. You are doing it against him. It is your best revenge. If you hit the way you’ve been hitting, George is eventually going to have to pay you millions more. Same with the other players. The worst thing that could happen to George would be to win the pennant, because he’s only got a one-year contract with the rest of the players. He’d have to negotiate big bucks or explain to the City of New York that he was going to cheap out the pennant-winning Yankees. You see? You can have him over a barrel.
— I would like to put him in a barrel of lobsters and watch him try to crawl out.
— He can’t crawl out of this if you don’t let him.
— Why should I trust you?
It was a good enough question. I might have asked it myself if I was talking to me.
— Raul. George doesn’t want to win the pennant.
— He doesn’t?
— It’s all about you and the boys. He had a cute idea, to get rid of his old payroll and pay you peanuts. It worked out and he made money on the deal. And he did some favors for friends in Washington, who are a bigger deal to him. But if he wins the pennant, he turns everything upside down. You guys aren’t supposed to be good enough to win the pennant. You’re kids. Peasants. You don’t know shit. This whole thing is put together with bubble gum and bailing wire.
— Bailing wire?
— Baseball. Structure on structure, all of it without foundations. What do you think a ball club is worth? What do you think a seat goes for? Four dollars for a beer. This game was just a game, but now it’s something else. It’s a business. Winning a pennant is nice, but it causes all kinds of problems. Show me a team that finishes second and I’ll show you a happy owner. Besides, that stuff I told you guys once is true. What would happen to baseball in America if a bunch of Commies came here and won the pennant over all those high-priced Anglos?
— This is giving me a headache.
I thought of Mr. Baxter. He had planted my headache, I said:
— You want to fuck George, then win. You want to fuck these arrogant sons of bitches who run this game, then win the pennant. You want to fuck the government in Washington, then win the pennant.
— And then what?
— Then what? I dunno. Maybe you could go back to Havana and raise kids and I could go home to Texas and say I finished it out by winning a pennant despite the greedy cocksucker owner I worked for.
Raul’s eyes glittered then, exactly as I wanted them to. I saw all my motivation was going to have a good purpose.
That night, he went 4 for 4, including a three-run homer to win it in the ninth.
It was the stuff of heroes.
After the game, we drank beer in the locker room and sprayed it on each other as though we had just won the pennant instead of moving up a half-game in the standings. George stayed away, which was all right because I think Raul might have forgotten himself and killed the bastard right then and there without thinking of the consequences.
The next day, Suarez caught the fire. I let Raul give a locker room speech to the troops because I was speeched out. He was very good. He disparaged George and he said that George wanted us — the team — to lose the pennant because the CIA had told him to do this. He said the CIA said they were unwashed filthy scum of Havana and did not deserve the American pennant.
It was a lot better than I could have done.
Emotion is a funny thing. It can set you up for a fall or make you play out of your shoes. Suarez knocked down the first batter and you could see he meant it. When the batter charged the mound, no one came out of the other dugout. The Cubans had taught them about brawling, I saw. The Cubans take fighting seriously and this was September and it wasn’t worth getting your calf sewn up because some crazy Cuban bastard decided to chomp on you in the middle of a civilized baseball brawl When the dugout finally, reluctantly, began to edge out toward the field, the umps had it all cleaned up. And ejected the hitter this time and left Suarez alone.
Naturally, Suarez knocked down the next guy and then he was gone. Ump was Bailey and he threw his hand out toward the dugout so hard that he wrenched his shoulder. He was steaming, everyone was steaming, and Suarez threw down his glove and spit on the mound, and that did it.
I had used Santana (whom I have not mentioned before) the night before and thought it was my turn. I didn’t want to pitch, but there it was. I went out to the mound and took the ball from Tio and we did our warm-up.
I don’t know why.
I was feeling it myself, getting fired up by Raul’s oration.
It made me thirty-four again. Maybe thirty-three.
The other things crowded into my head, too. I was worried about Baxter from the State Department or wherever and I was worried about Charlene and Raul and Maria and everyone. I was thinking about all these distractions and I went through the pitching like it was something else, the way I think and drive sometimes on a hot night when I have an urge to take the highway down to Galveston. Driving makes the thoughts run free, and this night, pitching was doing the same thing, I know that there isn’t a pitcher on earth who’s gonna admit it, but sometimes you pitch on automatic. It’s like some hitters just hit and can’t really explain why they knew they were gonna hit the ball when they did. They’ll never admit it, but it works that way, just like driving down to Galveston,
I laid it across and I knew exactly where it was going every time. Caught the spot and everyone could see it. The old gringo was doing fine. I laid them down, one two three, for five innings before my arm came back to normal. It hurt a little in the sixth and a lot in the seventh. That’s when I started to think about the job at hand, what I was doing on the mound, rather than figuring out what I was going to do to get myself out of my various messes.
I was sitting in the dugout, watching us bat, holding ice cubes in a bag on my elbow. Seems no one wanted to come over and chat with me, and that was all right just then. I didn’t want to talk to them, either.
Raul lined a double down the first base line — for a rightie, he owned
that line the way left-handers dream of — and I just sat back on the bench feeling the ice on my elbow. I had already taken a steroid before the game but doubling up steroids doesn’t give you twice the satisfaction.
Tio was next and he singled to left, but Raul went around third like there was no tomorrow. Did I say it was 0-0 at that point?
Raul slid home and the tag was on the money, but the umpire didn’t see it that way. Maybe he was afraid of us. Crazy Cubans were scaring the league first and now the umpires. They fought in brawls like brawls meant something — kneeing, scratching, biting, all that. An ump got a black eye in the brawl in Chicago, and even though he didn’t know who did it, he blamed us.
I hung on to win the game. I thought that’s what I was doing, hanging on. With all my thinking about other things, I wasn’t really that in touch with what I was doing. So I just did a day’s work, kept lining them up and putting them down. Heave-ho, heave-ho. Hung on to put them down.
I got a clue when the dugout exploded out onto the field as the last guy, Charley Hough, flied to center. The kids were running at me and I thought I had missed some slight that was going to be the pretext of another brawl. I held up my hands and shouted in Spanish:
— Get back, get back, we can’t afford another fight!
But they kept coming, laughing and smiling, and they pounded me on the back and arm and it hurt like hell.
“Get the fuck off me!” I shouted.
And then I got it.
Turned back to the scoreboard and blinked.
I had pitched a no-hitter without even realizing that was what I was doing. A relief nine-inning no-hitter.
A fucking no-hitter.
The crazy bastards carted me off the field on their shoulders. I bumped my head first on the lip of the dugout roof and then on the entry way into the tunnel and then a third time on the door leading into the lockers. The third time, I started bleeding, but who the hell cared?
Me. Thirty-eight years old. A no-hitter in relief.
And we slipped into first place around midnight when the Orioles lost their third in a row. I was totally drunk by then and my arm felt like the Hindenburg going up in flames, but I didn’t give a shit. I had called Charlene and even she was cheering. Damn. Thirty-eight years old.
Raul was drunk, too, the first time I ever saw him drunk. He was plastered with sprayed-on beer and his eyes were glassy and he kept hitting me on my sore arm, but I didn’t feel the pain that much.
I wisely left the car in the lot and took a cab at one A.M. back to Fort Lee, across the darkness of the Bronx. Even the driver was nice because he recognized me and didn’t sneer at my five-dollar tip. Not so that I noticed.
And then, in my room, I just sort of collapsed. The phone was ringing, but I didn’t give a shit. I passed out and when I woke up, it was morning already and I had three day’s growth of beard on my tongue.
I stumbled to the shower and stood in it while the hot water rolled down my throbbing arm. I was definitely too old for this game.
By eight, I had eggs eaten and coffee drank and I was drinking a can of beer to wash down a couple of aspirins. Aspirins and beer for breakfast; the breakfast of champions.
The doorman called up at nine.
“He say his name is Mister Riccardo, he say he know you.”
Riccardo.
I had my robe on and nothing else. I opened the door. Riccardo was dressed for court with his neat suit and the tie clipped down with a tie pin. He carried a bag with him.
I showed him in, sat him down, and offered him a beer.
He looked at me funny.
“You want some vodka, I keep vodka.”
“Please,” he said.
I poured some on ice and asked him if he wanted something to kill the taste, like orange juice. He didn’t.
I sat down at the table across from him.
“Señor Shawn, you were magnificent last night.”
“Yeah, you see the game?”
“I saw the game. We were in the bar. We were all very happy.”
“Yes,” I said. “How come you don’t look happy.”
“Señor …”
I waited.
He played with the handle of his bag.
“What’s wrong, Señor Riccardo?”
“You will think badly of me,” he said. “I am ashamed of myself.”
“For what?”
“For being the spy.”
“Spy?”
“Do you know when we talk? At the table in the Tapas? Do you know that I spy on you?”
I just sat there. His eyes were small and miserable.
“Spy for who? For Castro?”
“Not him,” he said.
“What do I have to be spied on?”
“You are the manager of the Yankees.”
“I got no secrets.”
“Si. They want to know what you say, everything about you.”
“Who?”
“The people. The people I must deal with.”
“Who?”
“Our government.”
“Ours?”
“Si.”
“You were the one who bugged me? When I was in the Tapas?”
“You know that?”
“Yeah. I know that”
“You suspected me?”
“No. I didn’t think it was anyone I talked to who was bugging me. I just thought they put in a bug or something, whatever they do.”
“No, Señor. They put the wire on me. That is what we call it. I was working for them a long time. I had to work for them. My uncle and father, I told you, they were in the invasion. For many years, I worked for them. For my government. They took care of my mother, my sisters. It was not dishonorable. I hate Castro and what he has done, I —”
“Yeah, but I ain’t with Castro. I’m just the manager of the Yankees.”
“Señor, last night I saw what you did. It was brave. Very brave. Mr. Baxter, he does not want you to do what you do.”
“He told you that?”
“I know things that he doesn’t tell me.”
“And now what? You came up here to have me tell you something?”
“No, Señor. I come to you to tell you there is danger. For you. The State Department does not want the Yankees to win the pennant. Didn’t Mr. Baxter warn you?”
“I thought it might be that.” I got up, went to the icebox, and got another can of beer. I sat down again. “I thought about it, but last night, I won a no-hitter. I never won a no-hitter before. Never even come close. And this was just by accident because I had to relieve for Suarez, who was feeling his oats and knocking down everyone that came to the plate.”
“Mr. Baxter will warn you again,” he said.
“He can go fuck himself.”
“You see, Señor. The government … I know this thing … is not just one thing. This is complicated. Part of the government wants this thing with Cuba to blossom into other things. Others do not. The government is cautious. And you are not cautious. Didn’t he tell you that it was good to find good ball players in Cuba but it was not good to … to rub the nose of Washington into it?”
“No, not exactly in those words.”
“And Señor Castro? If he wins the pennant, this is a bad thing, no?”
“He don’t win. We win. Us. The Yankees.”
“But the men are Cubanos.”
“So are you.”
“I am an American now.”
“And you are Cubano.”
“Yes.”
“Aren’t you proud of the boys?”
“Muy."
“Well? Why do tricks for the government?”
“I don’t care much, but last night, I saw much courage from you. I saw you stand up and do right, even if it would bring bad to you.”
Principles again. I hate principles.
“Is something wrong, Señor?”
“Just figure I threw that no-hitter by accident, that I wasn’t really thinking about it. I was thinking ab
out other things.”
“About your men. Who look up to you “
“No, not about them.”
“Then what?”
That was a good question. One that I never would have asked myself.
“I dunno. I don’t like to be pushed around. I don’t mind a little nudging once in a while, but I don’t like George pushing me around and i don’t like what he did to Señora Guevara or tried to do.”
“You think that, too? That it was Señor Bremenhaven?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“Because I think that other people think that, too.”
“In the government?”
He shrugged.
“You getting this on tape, Jose?”
He looked at me then with infinite sadness. “I apologize again for all that I have done.”
“Hell, that’s all right, You ain’t done nothing by me, Jose. I didn’t say nothing I didn’t mean.”
“But what will you say when Mr. Baxter comes again? To … threaten you.”
“I dunno.“
“You see, that is courage.”
“No, just stupidity. I don’t think that far ahead.”
“Señor, perhaps I can make an amend to you.”
And thee he opened his bag and took it out. I saw what he was thinking before he even said it.
35
Baxter and Sills met me at the park at five. I was late because I had to do an interview with WFAN and about half the TV stations in New York and because I treated myself to a rack of ribs at Wollensky’s that was this side of sinful. Charlene was going to have to forgive me for that one.
Did I say I sent her a dozen roses by wire? I never did that before. What the hell, I never threw a no-hitter before.
I was wearing my blue blazer and a black knit polo shirt and gray slacks. A guy from the Daily News was stalking me and I exchanged pleasant remarks with him for a few minutes before I went into the sanctum of my inner.
The reporter did ask me one thing: “How would you feel leading a team of Cubans to the pennant?”
“I’d feel fine.”
“Some people are upset about the idea.”