Opening Day: Or, the Return of Satchel Paige
Page 3
Buck had been daydreaming, drifted back so far in time he felt as if he might never rejoin the present. He glanced at Wattles, but wasn’t really seeing.
He was still caught by his vision of that late summer Saturday afternoon in Mars, the far-away Pennsylvania mining town of his youth, the day’s heat just lifting from the city’s modest parkland, a breeze sprung up, gentle enough to soothe away all the troubles of a hardscrabble week. In the stands of the baseball field that was the centerpiece of the park there was something of a crowd this evening, for a game of unusual note was underway.
A barnstorming group of Negro players had come to town to meet a team of locals in an exhibition match. No one in Mars knew who these traveling gypsies were by name, though it was understood that every one of them was good and played a brand of baseball that was, at the very least, entertaining. Seventeen-year-old Buck was as ignorant as anyone else as to their names, though the fact that these were black men making a living playing a game he loved had not been lost on him.
Furthermore, awed by the skills he saw displayed that evening, it had not taken him long to embed their names forever in his mind. A man named COOL PAPA BELL, who careened about the outfield, snatching fungoes that were seemingly beyond the reach of any man (no Mars batter would have the stuff to test his skills). A third baseman named RAY DANDRIDGE, who was smoother and more fluid at the hot corner than anyone Buck had ever witnessed. And the lanky one who pitched, his windup and motion so deceivingly placid that the speed with which his pitches exploded to the plate were doubly astonishing–that was Mr. Leroy “Satchel” Paige himself.
It had been so thrilling to watch these men play that Buck had not so much minded his relegation to a place at the end of the bench for much of the game. And though Buck suspected Paige had barely tapped the bag of tricks he had at his disposal, the man had set down the home team one-two-three, every inning through the eighth, most on
strikeouts, though there had been a scattering of bouncers and dribblers and one measely pop-up that Dandridge had caught in the hip pocket of his baggy pants, much to the amusement of the crowd.
Nor did it seem that anyone minded being trounced by this group, for they were clearly of an order that was superhuman in comparison to the team from Mars. When the Mars manager finally turned to Buck, then, two men out already in the bottom of the ninth and the team trailing by twenty-seven runs, Buck started in surprise.
“Go take your cuts,” Dombrowski said, smothering his perpetual cough.
Buck stared back at Dumbrowski, a man in his late 40’s who during the week was the foreman of Buck’s father’s crew which worked in the mines honeycombing the ground beneath their feet. It hadn’t occurred to Buck to protest having been ignored for virtually the entire game, and never mind that he was not only the best player on the team, but the best ever to play the game in Mars.
Nor was the color of his skin, at least in Buck’s mind, a factor. Color mattered little in a coal mine. The simple fact was that Buck was seventeen, a kid who had his life in front of him. He’d have his shots in time. For Dumbrowski and the rest of the hacking, sallow-faced older men who played ahead of Buck, the next time a team of barnstorming professional ballplayers came through Mars might be too late.
“You goin’ in or not?” Dumbroksi asked.
And Buck jumped to his feet. He pulled his bat from beneath the bench and made his way to the plate, mindful of a sprinkling of cheers from the crowd that still remained.
“Was wondering when you’d get up the nerve,” called Leroy Paige from the mound.
Buck swallowed, not sure what to say. He glanced toward third where Ray Dandridge gave him a skeptical look.
“Out here!” Cool Papa Bell called from center field. He was lounging on the grass, his glove propped on his head, waving in at Buck. There was laughter in the stands.
Buck dug in at the back of the batter’s box and raised his bat behind his ear. He could have sworn Paige had just begun his windup when there was an explosion in the catcher’s mitt behind him.
“Strike one,” the umpire called.
“Careful you don’t get hurt up there,” Buck heard the catcher say.
Dazed, Buck dug his back foot in deeper and tensed his bat, his hands firm on the ash handle. Paige bent intently toward the plate. There was a flicking motion from behind his back, and too late, Buck saw that he’d been fooled. Buck gave a mighty lunge at the blooper ball that Paige had flipped, but the bat caught nothing but air.
“Strike two,” the umpire bellowed, over the catcher’s smothered laughter. Applause and catcalls rained down from the stands.
Paige smiled in at Buck, who felt his ears burning with shame. “Okay, son,” Paige called. “Enough fooling around. Let’s see what you’re made of, man to man.”
Buck wasn’t sure if he could trust him, but it wasn’t as if he had much choice. He nodded his assent, and Paige gave a nod back.
This time Buck saw the windup of Mr. Leroy Paige unfold in intricate detail, like something he would later experience watching a slow-motion film. He saw the shoulder turn, the hand cocked behind the ear, the arm come forward and the wrist snap, and the ball come tumbling down, the size of a regular baseball, at first, but big as a ghostly pumpkin somehow by the time it reached the plate.
Buck had begun his swing by then, and that, too, felt as if it were moving through molasses-filled air. Even though he’d never had his sights on a pitch like this, he was sure he’d be too late.
He needn’t have worried, though. He felt the crack of his bat all the way to his shoulders, at the same time that the speed of the world returned to normal. There was a gasp from the crowd behind him as the ball soared up and away, and even Leroy Paige and Ray Dandridge turned to watch it fly over Cool Papa Bell’s perch in the grass, and over the center field fence, disappearing into the evening sky.
He would hit many more home runs in his time, but even as he began his tour of the bases on that perfect Saturday evening, Buck knew
that there would never be a sweeter moment than this. “Not bad,” Dandridge offered, as Buck circled third.
“Twenty-seven to one, Leroy,” called Cool Papa in from center. “Better bear down, now.”
“I’ll be seeing you,” said Paige, tipping his hat as Buck crossed the plate to the cheers of the hometown crowd.
* * *
Indeed, thought Buck, indeed. He blinked his way from the past, like a man bursting from deep water toward air.
He and Wattles sat amidst a litter of beer cans beneath the shade of a giant ficus in a park near the Grouper stadium. The sun was sinking quickly in the west, and the sprinklers hissed into life nearby. Huge black grackles paced awkwardly through the thick grass and Buck listened closely to their ratcheting speech, wondering if they had wisdom to dispense. Wattles had come to the end of his tether, as he put it, was even now sorely tempted by a job offer from an insurance adjusting agency–steady money, guaranteed advancement. Buck, no stranger to security, having spent thirty years as a doorman, had nodded in sympathy. After all, his own present stint with this game was only a means to a better end, was it not?
“Beenagoddamngoodteam,” Wattles sighed, flipping an empty can at one of the loudest birds.
“Maybe this year’ll be different. A new owner, and all.”
Wattles released a resounding belch that caused several of the grackles to flutter up nervously. “Shit! Hasslebrow’s a glorified produce clerk. That’s okay, but he wouldn’t know a baseball from an artichoke. Besides that, just look at the team, wouldja? You were there, today. Just like Lucco says, it’s a bunch of goddamn idiots. Only thing is, he’s as big an idiot as the rest of us.”
He fell onto his back, peering deeply into the web of branches above them. “Nope,” he said after a moment. “We won’t be getting better. In fact, we’ll be lucky if they don’t arrest us for impersonating a baseball team.” Here, he turned to Buck, his eyes squinting as if he were suffering true internal pain.
Buck nodded, even though Wattles had closed his eyes and almost immediately begun a shallow, rasping snore. The birds cocked their heads at this strange sound, and altered their own song, to chorus with the snores and the hiss of the water.
He wanted to shake Wattles awake, tell the young man to stay the course, work hard, make his dreams come true, but coming from him, what could the words produce but laughter? What had Buck Wilson ended up doing, anyway? He’d stuck out the game for a few years, sure, endured the racial slights and epithets, the poor pay, the lousy fields, the long bus rides, the crummy food...but in the end, he had quit. His father had died, his mother needed someone, or so he had convinced himself, and that had been the end of that. Sure he’d had talent, but life wasn’t about indulging some small talent. There was a lot more to it than that. Stability, security, the prospect of a reasonable life.…
Maybe it was best that Wattles take the job with the insurance company, in fact, and forget the lunatic vision of baseball stardom, as well. How many major league spots were there in centerfield? And how many years would it be yours if you if you found a place there?
He’d given it up, Buck thought. Let Billy Wattles give it up as well, and they would both be better off for it. Buck would spend his comfortable days in the Golden Years Retirement Village, and Billy Wattles could drive a comfortable company car from wreck to fire to wreck, put all his expenses on a corporate credit card.
Buck pondered that vision for a moment, nodding, and then felt, in the next instant, a great suffocating weight pressing down upon him. His sight grew dim, and his breath came in shallow gasps. Suddenly, he realized that the great black birds had ceased their clamor and had come close to watch as he danced his last. The birds cocked their heads, curious, as he struggled for breath, clutching at his chest. Had his father died this way, digging madly toward the light, thousands of feet away from him?
The birds jostled each other and a few flapped into the air, and Buck thought of pigeons soaring into the brilliant blue sky then, a vision from someplace in a better time…and then, struggling toward light, he remembered seeing Cogsill throwing off his catcher’s mitt, hopping and shaking his hand and Lucco gaping with surprise, and he remembered the pitch that had split the dry air of the stadium with the crack of a shattered stick and the pause, as everyone who saw it turned to stare at the old man in the faded uniform, wondering where he had gotten the strength.
Buck himself had no idea. All he knew was how good it felt to accomplish such a thing, to throw a ball as it had rarely been thrown before–one brief reminder of the talent he had once possessed.
The power began to swell once more, then, first in Buck’s arm, and from there up his shoulder, and down into his chest, and then he could breathe again. The air was sweet with its early summer scent. Once again he could hear the birds who had set up a tremendous clatter, like a multitude of gears clashing, old doors creaking open, one after the other, a thousand stones tumbling free down a rocky slope.
He heard Wattles give a muffled kind of groan, and he turned to the boy, realizing that the snoring had stopped. Buck knew something was wrong, even as the smell reached him, cutting acridly through the soft summer air. Wattles’ face had darkened, and the vomit bubbled at his lips, even as his eyes remained closed. He lay there, quietly strangling on himself, and Buck struggled to reach him, scrabbling on his hands and knees through the clutter of empty beer cans and the thick, damp grass.
He pulled at the boy’s shirt front, shaking him as hard as he could, but the eyes would not open. Buck swept his gaze over the expanse of park, saw nothing but a black car parked several hundred feet away, salsa music drifting from its passenger-less interior.
He rose to his knees, panting, and pulled the boy by his leaden arm until he rested on his stomach. The flesh was cold and soft at Buck’s touch. In a frenzy now, he threw all his weight on his palms at Wattles’ back, pushing and relaxing, pushing and relaxing. Vomit slid from the boy’s mouth, and Buck stopped his work long enough to extend a finger into Wattles’ mouth to clear it as best he could.
And next, there was the excruciating pain, and a long high-pitched shriek splitting the twilight as Wattles’ teeth ground down heavily on Buck’s aged knuckle.
“Thefuckyorefingleinmymouffor?” Wattles tried to say, above Buck’s howl.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiyyyeeeeeeeeeeee!” Buck answered, and finally, Wattles released his bite.
III.
The following morning,
practice opened with Buck sporting a huge white knob of bandage at his right forefinger and Wattles trotting gingerly after fungoes in the outfield. Lucco noticed his centerfielder’s hesitance and was careful to send each fly out of comfortable range.
“Get the lead out, Wattles. You go out dancin’, you gonna have to pay the band.”
“Say hey!” Minoso called from the batting cage.
“You’re lucky it wasn’t your pitching hand,” Pisby said, walking up behind Buck. “How’d that happen, anyway?”
“Beer cans,” Buck told him, his eyes averted.
“Well, I was wantin’ to play a little pepper, but with your injury and all...”
“Pepper?” Buck turned to face the boy, a question in his eyes. “Ah, yes. Well, maybe if you pitch and I bat, eh?”
“Okay by me,” Pisby shrugged, tossing Buck a bat.
They found a clear spot in foul territory beyond third base, and Pisby took up a stance thirty feet or so beyond Buck, who set his spikes in the thick grass and waited for the lob which he was expected to tap back to the boy. It would be his first swing at a baseball in…well, in some time.
Pisby said he was ready if Buck was, and Buck nodded. In the distance came a yelp from Minoso as he fouled a batting-machine pitch onto his instep, and that is when Pisby threw.
Buck swung–nothing special, it was just pepper, after all–but what happened next was enough to stun the entire field of jogging, throwing, batting, catching ballplayers into silence. The crack of the bat was thunderous.
Everyone looked to see if perhaps a support beam in the bleachers had shattered, or a light tower had snapped in the breeze. Only Buck and Pisby and Minoso were aware of what had actually happened. All of them watched in amazement as the ball rocketed up against the perfect blue sky, seeming to scorch a trail as it flew high over the fence and out of the stadium.
“I’ll be go to hell,” Pisby drawled softly.
“Gee whiz!” Minoso said, his cap held over his heart.
“I tried to swing easy,” Buck apologized, wondering what on earth was going on.
A delivery boy from Publix brought the ball back because he wanted the autograph of a player who could belt one, not just out of the stadium, but on across the four lanes of Flagler Boulevard and through the blacktop parking lot into a customer’s shopping cart. Buck signed the ball, explaining that he had been standing considerably out toward the fence from home plate.
“And besides, the new ball is livelier,” he added as the boy wandered off, shaking his wondering head.
“Not that lively,” Wattles said.
“Get your ass out in center field where it belongs,” Lucco said.
“Everybody. Get your asses in gear. You think this is some kind of picnic?” He spat needles of tobacco juice on the third base line where the knot of players had gathered. Sharon smiled sweetly, not moving from her place at Buck’s side.
“Now, Frankie,” she said, twisting a ring of her dark hair on her long slender finger. Everyone stopped to see what would happen.
“You, too,” Lucco snarled, “There’s no women on this team. Not yet, anyway.”
Sharon’s face clouded for an instant, as if she might tell Lucco where he coul
d put his fungo bat, but then her complexion sweetened and the players breathed again–all but Buck, whose heart thundered his ribs as he watched her turn away. “Why, Frankie, that’s a wonderful idea, just wonderful.” She was smiling sweetly, but her words echoed ominously in the morning air as she stalked away.
* * *
At three o’clock, Buck appeared in Hasslebrow’s outer office, accompanied by Wattles, who insisted on acting as his agent. “You don’t know how these owners can jack you around, Pops. We’re gonna shoot the moon.”
They found Sharon already seated on the red vinyl couch which sat opposite the vacant secretary’s desk. She smiled and handed Wattles a thick scrapbook as the office intercom began to crackle with Hasslebrow’s voice.
“Are they out there yet, Stella?”
Sharon bent over the desk and pushed the “talk” button. “Yes, we’re out here, MIS-ter Hasslebrow.”
“Well, then have them come in, Stella,” the voice crackled back. Sharon cast her eyes to the ceiling.
“The cheap bastard hasn’t had a secretary out here since he bought the team,” she said.
“Then who is Stella?” Buck asked.
“Doesn’t surprise me one bit,” Wattles said. “You want to pretend you got a ball club, you ought to be able to pretend you got a secretary.”
“A pretend secretary?” Buck repeated.
“Gimme that scrapbook back,” Sharon said to Wattles. “You’re holding my bargaining power.”
“Oh, don’t I wish,” Wattles said, looking at her longingly.
By five o’clock the deal had been swung. Later, Wattles would call it the best “one day” contract in the history of baseball. “Hasslebrow would do anything to bring a crowd in for the opener with the Mice,” he told them. “And after we beat the bastards, we’ll renegotiate something even better,” he added.
As they left the office, Hasslebrow had sat staring gloomily at a picture of Lou Gehrig in full swing, mumbling as if to a ghost. “I’m sorry, Iron Man. Real sorry. Not good for the game, I know. Tell the Babe I held out as long as I could, will you?”