“I threw my stuff in my Brewers bag and still haven’t unpacked it.”
Gini was thrilled—she had her husband back full-time. His years in the game had put a strain on the marriage. I share what I’ve learned from Rance, Boomer, and Randy about divorce and ask, “What kept you guys together?”
“Poverty. Mainly we couldn’t afford to get a divorce,” Gini says, making Jaime laugh. Then she turns more serious: “Some of the people you’re gonna meet today, we’ve been friends with since we very first got married. Those were our friends from church who have been with us through thick and thin,” she says, touching Jaime lightly on the shoulder.
“It was tough. We had our times when you would have thought we could easily have gotten divorced. But we ultimately found our commitment to each other was stronger than anything else,” Jaime says, his voice growing soft.
“Did you see the strain on other couples?” I ask.
“Yeah, because the guys were all sleeping around,” Gini replies. Baseball players, more than athletes in any other sport, are known to be dogs. I think back to Rance describing his teammates as “kids in a candy store” and his ex-wife’s suspicions that he had had an affair.
“Between that and being away, the celebrity must go to their heads,” I offer.
“Yeah, well, that was never a problem for us,” Gini cracks, smiling at Jaime. They form the perfect battery, finishing each other’s sentences, laughing and then laughing harder. She leans over and whispers in his ear, reminding me of a meeting on the mound where the pitcher and catcher discuss strategy while covering their mouths with their gloves, stymying potential lip readers from the opposition.
The company is arriving soon to ring in America’s 239th birthday, and there’s pork shoulder to smoke and dips to put out and beer to chill. Gini gets up to start putting out the spread. “If you’re at my house and you’re hungry or sober, it’s your own fault,” she tells me.
* * *
*
“Where’s Jaime?” I ask Dale, one of the guests and my Cards Against Humanity teammate, when I get back from running an errand. Short on booze, the gang had sent me out for reinforcements, during which I came across my first drive-thru liquor store. Yes, in Arkansas this is a thing.
“Check downstairs,” he says.
I walk downstairs to Jaime’s man cave past the framed lineup cards and ball from his first Major League win (September 24, 1983, versus the Orioles) and find him sitting on the couch in a giant home theater, an entire wall taken up by a screen.
“I just struck out Eddie Murray!” he yelps as I sit down. A few years back Gini had several old VHS recordings of his games transferred to DVD, and today, for the first time, Jaime has popped one in. Fifty-eight-year-old Jaime watches twenty-seven-year-old Jaime stalk the mound in his powder-blue Brewers jersey, his ritual of nervous tics and compulsions on display between pitches: tug hat, wipe nose, wipe hand on sleeve, rub ball, etc. It’s from June 1984, one of his better games, one of the days when he was locked in and could quiet the voice of self-doubt in his head. I watch his catcher, Jim Sundberg, come to the mound for a visit, and I ask Jaime something I’ve always been curious about: “What is the catcher saying to you?” Does he reveal an elaborate strategy for the next hitter, a sequence of pitches based on voluminous scouting reports designed to exploit a weakness? I’ve spent many games trying to read lips, burning with curiosity over the wisdom that must be imparted in these sacred time-outs.
“Usually he said, ‘C’mon!’” Jaime replies.
I am devastated.
We watch a few more innings of Jaime’s prime in relative silence, enjoying the respite from being social. We both enjoy the company of others but prize our solitude as well. Being on grill duty gives him an easy excuse to duck out whenever he tires of the conversation—got to check on the meat! Watching baseball on the Fourth of July in the middle of the country with an ex–Major League baseball player feels like living the childhood fantasy of every boy who has ever collected baseball cards.
And then the unexpected. This quiet, borderline-shy elite former athlete turns to me and says over the whir of air-conditioning, “This December will be thirty-six years I’ve been married to Gini. Four and a half years ago she was diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer.” He twirls his wedding ring while he talks, his voice steady and earnest. “Only 2 percent of breast cancer is inflammatory. It’s the worst. Ten years ago, 40 percent would die in five years. But we’ve made a lot of progress.”
My stomach tightens, and I look away toward the floor. No, no. That’s just not right, not fair. Not with these people, not this couple that lives so fully and honestly.
I find my voice: “Did she have surgery?”
“Yeah, she had a mastectomy. After she was diagnosed one of the things they figured out is that the order of the treatments is a big deal. She had chemo, and then a drug called Herceptin, then a third drug. She did that for eight months and then the surgery and the radiation down in Houston. She’s clean. Every six months she has a checkup. Next year she starts going once a year.”
I’m sure he has said all this a thousand times to dozens of people in the same matter-of-fact tone. But then he continues in a different vein: “It metastasizes in the brain. We’re just . . .” He pauses. “It was really tough, and at the same time it gave me an opportunity to show her how I felt about her. I’d say that’s probably my main drive today is keeping her . . .” His voice trails off again.
He takes a moment, resets. “She’s awesome, she’s smart, she teaches, she loves to teach and is a really good teacher. I read some of the stuff on your teaching website. Anyway, she teaches programming and AP computer science. All electives, and she has probably 85 percent boys, and they all have Asperger’s.”
He catches his breath.
Finally, finally Jaime is allowed to be out of control.
The words and the love spill out, his emotions wild and running ahead of his brain, and it’s all good, it’s great, actually. He may be a pitcher, but he knows a pitcher is only as good as his battery mate, and with apologies to Jim Sundberg, there’s none better than Gini.
“Got to check on the meat!” he announces, springing to his feet and out of the room.
I sit alone in the darkness of the theater, holding on to the emotion, smiling faintly. I’ve never been a big fan of the Fourth of July—like New Year’s Eve, there’s too much hype, too many expectations—but I know this is one I will never forget. I get up and walk upstairs, ready to rejoin the party.
* * *
*
The next morning when I say good-bye to Jaime and Gini, I feel like I’m leaving family. But no sooner am I back on the road than dread creeps in. I know what’s coming next, and I don’t like it. I’m going to have to do something that I hate and that I’m not particularly good at: I’m going to have to lie.
9
Chasing Carlton
Carlton Fisk never won any nice guy awards.
—Doug Wilson, author of Pudge: The Biography of Carlton Fisk
Days 18–20
July 6–8, 2015
Miles driven: 5,013
Cups of coffee: 46
Lowell AR to Sarasota FL
October 21, 1975
Carlton is used to this.
As he saunters to home plate with his distinctly erect posture, shoulders square and chin out, he knows he can win this game. Nearly forty thousand hoarse Fenway Park faithful pray his bat will end their agony and let them once again exhale. It’s the bottom of the twelfth inning of Game Six of the World Series between the Boston Red Sox and the Cincinnati Reds, tie score. All of the gut checks, the forks in the road where Carlton kept on the path of most resistance, refusing to quit—dropping out of the University of New Hampshire after his freshman year; four years in the Minors working off-seasons as a clerk in a clothing store and reporting for duty once a month in the Army Reserve; the shredded knee last season when doctors questioned whether he’d ever be limp-free again, let a
lone play baseball—were necessary to arrive here, with 75.9 million people (out of a possible 216 million) around the country watching on television, studying every cloud of breath snorted into the crisp autumn air.
Long before he was the star catcher of the Boston Red Sox, he was one of only forty-two in his graduating class at Charlestown High School, a tiny outpost in New Hampshire along the Connecticut River. The second oldest of six kids, Carlton learned the value of hard work from a young age under the strict and demanding eyes of his parents, Cecil and Leona. If the house and yard work didn’t get done, down came the switch that was kept above the back door.
With the frigid weather keeping the season so short, baseball was a mere diversion from Carlton’s true passion, basketball, in which he excelled, leading his high school to the semifinals of the state championship in 1965, his senior year. Despite a heroic effort in which he scored forty points and pulled down thirty-six rebounds, Charlestown High lost by two points to rival Hopkington. Following the game, the first thing that Cecil said to him was, “You missed four free throws.”
It was typical Cecil. Whatever Carlton did, it was never enough.
“I never got a pat on the back,” Carlton would say years later.1
But now as he stands in the batter’s box in the wee hours of the morning (12:33 a.m. to be exact) and peers out at Reds pitcher Pat Darcy, his back doesn’t need any pats—it’s been carrying the Red Sox since his return in late June. Weighing twelve pounds at birth, he had been nicknamed “Pudge” from an early age, but he is anything but soft. He thrives on the responsibility, relishes the individualistic nature of baseball, a pseudo–team sport really, with its one-on-one duels between pitcher and batter. Carlton enjoys being alone because he can control the outcome, not having to worry about anyone else doing their part.
He begins his ritual, patting the dirt with his cleats, reaching up to tug his jersey above his right shoulder with his left hand, jerking both arms back twice in a violent stretch, opening up that back as wide as an aircraft carrier. Now he reaches the bat completely over and behind his head, a yogic salutation to the baseball gods. He shakes his head violently for just a second, his cherubic cheeks rattling at spasm speed, fighting the bite of October. He taps the plate once with the bat, then cocks it behind his head, locked and loaded. Wasting no time, Darcy rocks and throws a fastball over the plate but eye-level, for ball 1. Carlton steps out briefly and takes a deep breath, his chest visibly rising and falling.
Darcy delivers the second pitch, an inside sinker, and Carlton strides forward, planting his right foot forward, his left knee bent low, jerking the ball high with an uppercut swing. It’s clearly got the distance, but will it stay fair? He takes a step toward first base, watching the ball sail, then takes another lateral hop, and then, in what will become one of the most iconic images in sports television history, he waves both arms to the right once, twice, three times, willing the ball to stay fair, and when he sees it collide with the top of the foul pole to signify a home run, he jumps straight up, both arms extended toward the sky. He jogs around the bases, fans pouring onto the field like a spilled drink, disappearing into a mass of humanity by the Red Sox dugout. While the Red Sox will go on to lose Game Seven and the World Series (the Curse of the Bambino remaining intact), this moment delivers Carlton into baseball providence.
But it isn’t just Game Six or just extra innings of the World Series—this game will age so well (considered by many to be the Greatest of All Time) because of its historical context and the accidental shot of Fisk waving the ball fair. The last several World Series were snoozers, football is growing in popularity and threatening baseball’s grip on being the National Pastime, and there is widespread acrimony between the owners and players that has fans calling them all greedy. But the 1975 World Series brings the joy back, delivering close, suspenseful games between two franchises with passionate fan bases. The image of Fisk’s reaction is pure luck. Cameraman Louis Gerard is stationed behind the Green Monster (Fenway Park’s iconic left-field wall) shooting through a hole in the scoreboard and has been told to follow the ball if Fisk hits it, as is the custom. But right before Fisk launches the bomb, a rat scurries onto Gerard’s leg, forcing him to keep the camera trained on home plate and landing the footage of Fisk. The clip forever changes the presentation of sports on TV (it will earn Gerard an Emmy) as editors and executives realize the gold they have in following the players’ expressions and reactions, not just the action itself.
Carlton’s life will never be the same.
* * *
*
For the next 1,216 miles, I sweat. Not just tingles-at-the-edge-of-my-hairline sweat, but rivulets running down my sideburns and dripping onto my lap, sweat that works like gel each time I reach up with both hands to slick my hair back. I unstick one butt cheek and then the other from the seat of the Accord, then reach down to separate my boxers from the skin of my butt cheeks themselves, the damp fabric suddenly cool when I sit back down again.
I’m not just sweating because I’m driving through oppressive heat in the heart of July. I am also nervous that I’m about to fail. When I missed Gary Pettis back in Houston, he had a reasonable alibi—it’s midseason, he’s with a Major League club, and his boss had issued a gag order. But with Carlton Fisk I’m the nerd in high school asking the head cheerleader to the prom and getting flat-out rejected.
Passing through the Deep South exposes the tortured id of America. While I ruminate on Carlton, playing out wildly fantastic scenarios that end with me getting arrested for trespassing or stalking, a gallery of billboards streams by, alternating salvation and sex: He’s coming, then New Fleshlights!, followed by Evolution is a Lie and Exit Now! Spa!, a tug of war between our chaste and depraved selves. I suddenly long for the banal roadside of San Diego with its ads for George Lopez shows and Kansas concerts.
From the moment I unsheathed his half snarl from the Wax Pack, I knew Fisk would be a problem. The bigger the player, the bigger the ego. One of the greatest catchers of all time and a bona fide Red Sox hero, Fisk reached a level of celebrity that has kept him always in demand. While Jaime Cocanower and Randy Ready are now just two guys on the street, Carlton Fisk never stopped being Carlton Fisk. My initial approach to contacting him before the trip was the same as it was for everyone else: I snail-mailed a letter of introduction to his two addresses on file, one in New Lenox, Illinois, the other in Bradenton, Florida. When that led to radio silence, I went through the proper channel of finding his agent, Kim (Fisk is the only Wax Packer to still need one), to whom I dashed off an email asking for Fisk’s cooperation. Her initial response was encouraging, asking how much time I would need and even suggesting some possible dates in late July when we would both be in the New England area. She said she would be with him in person soon and would approach him with the idea.
A week later, her tone had changed: “Thank you for your interest in Carlton. Unfortunately he is going to pass at this time,” she wrote. I closed my email, swore so loudly that my landlord asked if everything was okay, and knew at that moment that I was going to have to go rogue.
I didn’t take it personally. When the MLB Network recently shot an entire documentary on Game Six of the 1975 World Series, hosted by Bob Costas, Carlton declined to participate. (Who rejects Bob Costas?) In a rare interview at the end of his career, he told writer Pat Jordan, “Why the fuck should I tell them?” when Jordan asked how he felt about the media wanting to know more about his life. When journalist Doug Wilson decided to write an entire book about Carlton, the definitive biography, Carlton once again passed even when his brother Calvin, sister Janet, and ninety-seven-year-old mother, Leona, were happy to cooperate. “Carlton Fisk never won any nice guy awards,” Wilson wrote in the concluding chapter of his book, adding, “As far as anyone knows, he never tried out for one.”2
He was known as private, prideful, and reclusive, his personality matching the salty New Hampshire woods he had emerged from. Players respected him for h
is intensity and old-school defense of the game’s traditions (he memorably yelled at Deion Sanders when he didn’t run out a pop-up) but kept at a distance.
“Stoic and in control, he spoke what he believed, said what needed to be said and little else. He was Calvin Coolidge in John Wayne’s body,” wrote Wilson.3 While never the social chair in the clubhouse, he was immensely popular with fans in blue-collar Boston; in his rookie season, he was already receiving more fan mail than any of his teammates, including legends like Carl Yastrzemski.
But throughout his career, and it was a long career—twenty-seven years in pro ball, twenty-four of those in the Major Leagues, the story of Carlton is one of longing for acceptance and of pride. He did things that no other catcher in history had ever done, things that enshrined him in the Hall of Fame in 2000. He caught more games, hit more home runs, probably got in more shouting matches with opponents and teammates who didn’t play the game “the right way.” He could talk the talk and walk the walk (shoulders square and chin out). But no matter how many games he caught, how many home runs he hit, it was never enough. He never felt appreciated enough, never respected enough. He did have legitimate gripes: every time his contract expired with the Red Sox and later the Chicago White Sox, management seemed to lowball him. In his later years, it became an absurd recurring dance, with the White Sox thinking he was through and Carlton defying time, doubling his effort in the gym and tripling his discipline to extend his career. The very end says it all. In 1993, at age forty-five, everyone but Carlton knew it was time. The White Sox kept him on the team long enough to break Bob Boone’s record for most games caught, 2,225, even holding a special ceremony to commemorate the night, and then a week later delivered the call that every athlete fears most—we’re letting you go. Carlton was sad and furious—how can they treat people like this? But reality bites: he was hitting .189 and could no longer throw out base stealers.
The Wax Pack Page 13