Painting the Corners
Page 1
Praise for Painting the Corners
“With these stories, Bob Weintraub has executed a triple play: savvy baseball writing, unforgettable characters, and a home run ending for each tale. By all means, read this book.”
—W. P. Kinsella, author of Shoeless Joe (the basis for the film Field of Dreams)
“Imaginative baseball stories for long rain delays and hot stove league nights.”
—Darryl Brock, author of If I Never Get Back and Two in the Field
“Unique and wonderfully twisted.”
—Ed Asner, actor
“Great storytelling for fans and nonfans alike. Bob Weintraub has big-league talent.”
—Dan Shaughnessy, author of The Curse of the Bambino and columnist for the Boston Globe
“The prevailing trend seems to be to reduce baseball to numbers, to take out the adjectives and hyperbole, eliminating the descriptions of facial tics and personal travails and sunsets, to treat the game as some algebraic problem stretched across a blackboard in the basement of stats guru Bill James or some other math junkie. I myself prefer my baseball with the imagination left in, thank you very much. This collection of deft stories by Robert Weintraub takes us back to the bleachers and locker rooms, to the people who actually play and watch the game. Very nice. Very nice, indeed.”
—Leigh Montville, New York Times bestselling author of The Big Bam: The Life and Times of Babe Ruth and Ted Williams: The Biography of an American Hero
“The world might have had its fill of good stories ‘about’ baseball, but I’m not sure it has had any that are ‘like’ baseball, until now. Bob Weintraub’s sly, slippery tales carry within them something of baseball’s very own cockeyed relationship to reality—the real game within a reality of artifice. They also convey, in a singular, accessible language, those acts of grace, coincidence, and improbable heroics that keep America tethered to its pastime. These stories are as faithful to the spirit of a baseball game as a box score, yet with all the color of a yarn told in a clubhouse during a rain delay.”
—Michael Coffey, author of 27 Men Out: Baseball’s Perfect Games
OTHER BOOKS BY BOB WEINTRAUB
Best Wishes, Harry Greenfield (2002)
My Honorable Brother (2014)
Painting the Corners Again (2014, 2018)
Copyright © 2014, 2017 by Bob Weintraub
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Skyhorse Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.
Skyhorse Publishing books may be purchased in bulk at special discounts for sales promotion, corporate gifts, fund-raising, or educational purposes. Special editions can also be created to specifications. For details, contact the Special Sales Department, Skyhorse Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018 or info@skyhorsepublishing.com.
Skyhorse® and Skyhorse Publishing® are registered trademarks of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.®, a Delaware corporation.
“The Autograph” first appeared in Spitball (1995) and in Fenway Fiction by Rounder Books (2005).
“A Flare for Dan Nugent” first appeared in Final Fenway Fiction by Cornerstone Books (2012).
Visit our website at www.skyhorsepublishing.com.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.
Cover design by Tom Lau
Cover photo credit: iStock.com/CSA Images
Print ISBN: 978-1-5107-2532-4
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-5107-2534-8
Printed in the United States of America
DEDICATION
For my wife, Sandra, who has given me more love and caring than I ever had a right to expect. For Rose and Ben Weintraub who devoted their lives to seeing their three kids get an education and move up in the world. For my son, Steve, with his wife, Sue, and for my daughter, Ellen, with her husband, Jim, who have given Sandra and me six wonderful grandchildren (Grace, Emma, Sarah Rose, Jack, Shayna and Alex) to keep us young. For my cousin, Maury Fisher, who bought me my first real baseball glove. And for Shelley, Lenny, Eddie, Moose, Don, Ritty, Paul and Billy, guys in the Iroquois, our Dorchester “gang,” who played baseball together when we were young but who didn’t make it this far.
CONTENTS
Eighty-Three and Bunting
The Autograph
Knuckleball
The Least Miserable Choice
All the Signs Spelled Victory
Blowing Bubbles
The Kansas City Kid
The Short End of Immortality
A Flare for Dan Nugent
Stealing Away
The Way They Play Is Criminal
Acknowledgments
•
EIGHTY-THREE AND BUNTING
•
A Tribute to Johnny Pesky of the Boston Red Sox
“Don’t look back. Something might be gaining on you.”
—Satchel Paige
EVERYONE KNOWS HOW it started. All the media covering the team got word of it the same day the fax came in from the commissioner’s office. Nobody sits in the dugout during games, it said, unless he’s a player, a trainer, one of the six designated coaches, or the manager, of course. I don’t know for sure but I’m guessing our Pirates’ ball club was the only one affected in a meaningful way. What this new ruling did was ban Hank Cabot from our bench while the games were being played. Hank would have been on the field for a couple hours during practice, hitting fungoes or showing pitchers how to bunt or maybe just signing autographs for kids in the stands who snuck past the box seat ushers to get close to the field. Now, with this directive that came down, his choice, once it was time to play ball, was to sit in the clubhouse, use a player’s reserved seat in the grandstand if one was available, or just go on home and watch the game on TV.
Keep in mind we’re talking about a guy who played infield for this team for thirteen years, coached or managed three different teams in the Pirates’ minor league system for another thirteen, managed the major-league club for four tough seasons when he had to send guys onto the field with a prayer, especially those masquerading as pitchers, and stayed connected with this organization in some way or another for most of the rest of his life. There wasn’t another team in baseball that had a guy like Hank.
When I got the manager’s job six years ago, Hank was doing the same stuff he always did before the games, and I remember finding out back then that the Pirates had a higher percentage of successful bunts year to year than any other team in both leagues. Anyway, unless he was under the weather, Hank always sat near me in the dugout, but he never butted into my job. If I asked him something about a player on another club or some strategy I had in mind, he’d tell me what he knew or what he thought, but he never said anything without me going to him first, never tried to show me up in front of our guys in any way.
We got that fax two days before the trading deadline at the end of July, and the new rule went into effect the first of August. I don’t know who told Hank about it first — it wasn’t me — but that look on his face when he found out was about the saddest thing I ever saw. The commissioner had just taken away the best part of Hank’s life. During a ball game, the dugout was his home for the two and a half to three hours it usually took to play. Every game for Hank was like being dealt a new hand of bridge or poker, and he always had something different to look forward to. He loved the planning and thinking and sometimes the guessing that went into every inning; and he got the most satisfaction seeing one of the players do something on the field he’d spent time teaching him. So the new regulat
ion was a real downer for Hank and for me too.
I had a lot of stuff to think about the next couple of days, every time the GM called me about a trade he had in mind and what did I think of it. At the time, we were on top of our division, five games up on the Reds, and the ball club had looked pretty solid for the first four months of the season. But this thing with Hank was really bothering me, and then I saw an opening for an idea that must have crept into my head while I was sleeping. The trade that brought Jim McKenna to our club — to fill in for any of our outfielders when one of them needed a day off — was originally supposed to cost us Roy Deveaux and some cash. But I liked Deveaux for a lot of reasons, and I figured the Rangers would take a different relief pitcher with pretty much the same record if we threw in something extra. So I convinced Mike Graham, the GM, that we didn’t have to keep carrying three catchers for the two months left in the season, and the Rangers were willing to take the pitcher/catcher deal we offered. That left us with an opening on the 25-man roster, and the next day I was up in Mike’s office to tell him how I wanted to fill it.
“Are you crazy, MacGregor? Are you out of your mind? Do you think I’m about to sign an 83-year-old guy to a contract on this club? We’d be the laughing stock of baseball, and besides I’d bet the commissioner wouldn’t allow it. You can guess what his staff and his lawyers would tell him: that it was a bad joke and wasn’t in the best interests of the game. Tell me you are just kidding, Mac, and let me laugh it off.”
That’s about what I expected to hear Mike say, on my way up to see him, about my wanting to have Hank on the team. Actually, it could have been a lot worse, considering that what I was proposing was probably the most outrageous thing a manager ever went to his GM with. He never slammed his fist or anything else down on his desk or predicted he’d get fired on the spot if he went to the owner with my request. But after a while, when he saw I was serious, he agreed to sit back in his big chair and say nothing while I made my case for bringing Hank onto the team.
“Mike,” I told him, “I know it’s not your style to get too close to the players or the coaches, but you’ve spent enough time on the field with this club to watch Hank and see what he does every day. He’s the best bunter out there, with no exception. When he played the game for the Pirates over 50 years ago, he was always one of the top three guys in the league for reaching on bunt hits. Half the time he was number one. He can lay the ball down anywhere he wants it to go, whether he’s facing a righty or a southpaw. When he’s teaching our pitchers how to move a runner along with a good bunt, he’s not just talking to them, he’s right there in the batting cage showing them how to do it. If you didn’t know it was Hank in the cage, you’d tell yourself the guy in there bunting would make a hell of a number two hitter. Listen, Mike, I think the trade you just pulled off for McKenna was terrific. Now we can give the guys in the outfield a day or two off when they need it coming down the stretch. But I can still use someone on the bench to go to with confidence in a tight game when I want to move a runner over to second or third. Hank’s the guy who can do it.”
I knew I’d impressed Mike with what I said because he didn’t start tearing me apart as soon as I finished. He kind of just stared straight ahead for a while, thinking about what I’d told him. “Could Hank drag a bunt down the first base line off a Roger Clemens fastball?” he asked me.
“No problem,” I said.
“But he can’t run. He’d never beat it out.”
I knew that would be one of his main arguments. “I don’t care about that, Mike,” I told him, “I’m sending him up there to advance the runner. That’s what’s important.”
He went into that cold stare again, sometimes looking straight ahead and sometimes up at the ceiling. I sat there eyeing a couple of bobblehead dolls on the table behind him, but I couldn’t make out who they were supposed to be. Mike didn’t say anything for a few minutes. Then he began tapping on his desk with his fingers for a while. “I really think the commissioner would have a hard time with it,” he said, finally.
“I can’t see it,” I answered right away. “There’s never been an age limit for a ballplayer in the big leagues. Minoso was 50 when he played in a game for the White Sox, and who knows how old Satchel Paige really was when the Indians brought him up. Besides, if Hank can do the job, there are age discrimination laws to protect him. The commissioner isn’t going to use that ‘best interests of baseball’ clause if the lawyers tell him he’ll be breaking the law. The baseball writers would tear him apart if they got the chance. He knows that, and he’d see this isn’t anything like the midget Bill Veeck signed up for Cleveland. That was a freak show, but Hank is legitimate. That’s why I’d bet he’d stay totally out of it. If anyone raised a question, he’d probably say the Pirates have every right to have Hank on their roster if they want.”
“Okay, Mac, but it will have to wait until I speak to the owners. I’ve got to make sure both Mr. Egan and Mr. Stehlin understand we’re not trying to make a farce out of this. Keep it to yourself just in case they don’t go along. I’ll get back to you in a couple of days.”
Well, it took four days before Mike called me. That meant four days of having the writers speculate on who we were going to bring up from the minors to fill the spot. But I knew the owners were thinking this through pretty carefully and probably wanted some time to consult with their baseball friends. Anyway, Mike was able to convince them there was nothing wrong with what I wanted to do and that I was sure having Hank on the roster would help the team. They wanted to know what they’d have to pay him, and I said Hank would be happy as a pig in mud with the major-league minimum. And if the labor agreement with the union didn’t call for a minimum, I said, he’d be happy with nothing, just to be in the dugout while the game’s being played.
Mike had reached me late on Sunday morning, about three hours before we were to close out our series with the Rockies. He gave me the good news and said he was going to call a press conference for Monday, an off day for the team. He also let me know he was going to leak the story to Mel Jackson, his favorite baseball writer on the Pittsburgh Gazette. In his column on Monday morning, Jackson would tell the world what he heard the Pirates “were thinking of doing.” Mike told me to meet with Hank at the park, tell him what our plans were and send him home right away so he wouldn’t be letting the cat out of the bag. I also had to tell him to show up at the stadium at eleven o’clock the next morning to sign a player’s contract and be ready to be the star attraction at the press conference at noon.
I couldn’t take a chance on giving Hank the news in the clubhouse because he might have let out a scream of happiness to wake the dead. Since it was a Sunday and the traffic coming in from where he lived would be light, I figured he’d drive instead of taking the bus to the park as he often did. So I waited for Hank in the players’ parking area and climbed into the passenger seat of his Toyota pickup as soon as he got there. “Relax,” I told him, “it’s nothing bad. But as soon as I let you know what’s happening, you’re going to go back home, keep it to yourself, and see Mr. Graham in the office tomorrow at eleven. Is that clear?”
It was, and when I told him our plans for him, he gave me the kind of hug you’d have wanted to give Marilyn Monroe, and then he let a few tears get loose. So I opened the door to get out, gave him my best wink, and watched him pull out of the lot.
There’s no need my going into detail about what happened on Monday, except I found out the switchboard was totally lit up five minutes after the office opened for business. Every baseball writer in town was at the stadium hours before the press briefing was scheduled to start, and Hank was a big hit answering questions after Mike told the crowd in the press room the club expected to get more than its money’s worth out of his performance the rest of the season. Some of the players had shown up that day for an optional practice, and when the media guys left the park, Hank put on his uniform, grabbed the fungo bat he kept in his locker and went out on the field. I’d have been shock
ed if he didn’t.
Mike and I both figured we had to get Hank an at bat in a game as soon as we could. We didn’t want him to get all nervous about that first one, and it was important to show the fans we hadn’t gone off the deep end by signing him. The Dodgers came in on Tuesday for three games and there was a rush to buy up tickets for the first one that night. Wouldn’t you know we went into our half of the ninth tied 3-3. We got the first hitter on and the pitcher was due up next. We couldn’t have asked for a better situation. The crowd anticipated what was going to happen, and as soon as Hank stepped out of the dugout everyone was on their feet and the noise was as loud as it ever gets in the stadium. I could see Hank didn’t want to tip his cap because he knew he hadn’t done anything yet, so he just stood outside the left-hander’s side of the batter’s box and waited for the fans to settle down. The umpire was patient to a point, but then waved his hand for Hank to get in and hit. The bunt sign was on, of course, but the runner on first knew he couldn’t go anywhere until he saw the ball on the ground. Hank took the first pitch for a strike, but I knew he wanted to see how the Dodgers were going to play it when the pitch was thrown. When Hank saw the pitcher’s motion take him to the first base side of the field after his delivery, he knew where the opening was to put the bunt, and he put it right there on the next pitch. By the time the third baseman stopped rushing straight in and moved toward the mound to field the bunt, there was no play at second base. Hank was thrown out by a healthy margin as he jogged toward first, but the crowd was up and cheering again as he moved back to the dugout. All the guys came over to give him high fives, and a minute later our leadoff hitter singled to right to end the game. Hank had set up the winning run with a beautiful bunt, and everyone rooting for the Pirates, including the manager, went home happy.
Well, Hank’s statistics for August and September made the papers a bunch of times, and there were more sellouts than had been expected, even in a pennant race. That’s because the 65 and up generation filled the seats just to see an 83-year-old guy get in the batter’s box, bunt the ball, and move as fast as he could down the first base line. Hank traveled with the club for all our away games and got standing O’s whenever he made an appearance. The fans all over really appreciated who he was and what he was doing. I sent him up to pinch-hit fourteen times in that period and he laid down a successful bunt on thirteen of them. The only time the runner didn’t move up was when Chico Hernandez was fooled by the pitcher’s motion and was diving back into first while Hank was bunting. Hernandez had no chance to get up and run, and Hank was on the end of a double play. That’s when he got serious about trying to get his legs in shape, and the team doctor gave him the OK to run laps as long as he didn’t feel any kind of tightness in his chest. It was a laugh to watch him at the beginning, but little by little he began doing better and getting farther down the line before he was thrown out. I had to keep reminding myself that he’d be 84 in December, and that all I wanted out of him were those good bunts of his.