For Love of the Game

  “Josephus.”

  “What the hell you have for breakfast?”

  “Scotch and water.”

  “Hmm. Know what? You get older, goddammit, you gettin’ faster.”

  “Wait till next time. You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”

  “Ah, come on. If that’s true, I quit.”

  Durkee threw: right up the middle: strike one. Durkee understood. Ah. Why not? Chapel dug in. Durkee watched him, threw the next one far outside. Chapel chuckled. Durkee grimaced. Chapel said: “Tell him I think it’s time I hit one. Yep. Time to swat.”

  They took him seriously and Durkee got careful and the next two pitches were fastballs, low. Chapel: don’t want to walk. Hell, waste time standin’ out there. Next pitch a slow curve: Chapel hit it on one hop to Durkee, didn’t bother to run, just went a few casual steps and then turned and ambled back to the bench.

  “See you, Josephus.”

  Birch laughed. “Hope I see you.”

  Chapel wandered back, but the inning was already over before he sat down; he stopped by the water cooler and drank that cool clear mountain dew, which was the kind the Old Man had started years ago and always tasted so fine on the warm days, and while he was standing there the next Hawk popped up, and so Chapel went back out for inning number three.

  This was the easiest time, the bottom of the order: the last three men, the pitcher, and Chapel relaxed just a bit, began to glide through it all with some music in the brain and the pitching all clockwork natural, machinelike, precise, more and more instinctive with each passing moment, his head doing all the work back there in the dark overconscious part of the brain while Chapel dreamed along, firing away, not quite so fast now, that was unnecessary, not trying to strike them out anymore but getting them to hit one soon, pop it up, ground it out, foul it, and so it went; no one even got a fly into the outfield and the three were down. Chapel had a moment of splendid peace, warmth in the arm. A rare day. A fine day. All my life … this is what I was born to do. He sat … went back into the darkness.…

  … and saw his father, Pops, catcher’s mitt resting on the left knee. Twelve years old: Billy boy. Pop went out there with this big catcher’s mitt and he’d move it around, and wherever he moved it Billy would throw until he hit the mitt. First the right, then the left.… “Always keep ’em down, Billy, except the wasters. And throw them fast. That’s right. Keep ’em down. If they have to go for ’em low like that they don’t hit ’em straight, you see what I mean? The higher you pitch ’em …” he held the glove up to his chest, “the easier you make it for them. Oh, you fake ’em sometimes. A little too high. Too far inside. But never right here” … in the center of the chest. “Never down the tube, Billy. You move that ball around and shave all the edges, hit the corners, inside outside, never give ’em a good one, a soft easy one. But don’t waste ’em too low, unless, well, now hit the left knee. Fastball, Billy. No need for the curve yet. When you’re older. You wait for the curve, when the arm is ready. Come on, Billy. Ah! That was great! Right on the money. Ah, kid, you’ve got a future. So help me God, you’ve got a natural-born.…”

  … they went out on this dirt road out in the woods, and Pop had picked this one straight part as long as the rubber to the plate would be, and a place where the road had a natural mound where it came round a curve in the trees, and he and Pops went out there to practice … and Billy grew up.…

  … driving one day in the mountains … Pop with Mom in the front seat and Billy, the only child, always the only kid there, no brother, no sister, none ever, never knew why, too late to ask, and he was always in the backseat and they were talking about him thinking he was asleep and wouldn’t hear, but he heard, always to remember.

  “Ah, lady love, but we’re lucky. Who else is so lucky? He’s such a good kid. Such a good sweet decent kid. And can he throw that ball. Godamighty, he’s a natural.”

  “Oh he is. There’s something just, well, just nice in our boy. Wonder who he got it from?”

  “Certainly not me. Couldn’t be me.”

  “Oh, you. You’re … all right.”

  “Can’t help wondering if sometime, if maybe God didn’t have somethin’ to do with it.”

  Billy listened. Pop didn’t like church. Was against hell … and preachers.

  Mom said: “Well, honey, you know, someday we maybe ought to let him just sit in at the church. People at school … some of the children laugh at him, you know.”

  “Nope. No church. Not yet. Not for Billy. They do nothin’ but hellfire and brimstone, scarin’ poor little kids to death, givin’ ’em nightmares on how evil they are just thinkin’—no. Billy don’t need none of that.”

  “But Billy … you know lately … the boy is alone.”

  Silence.

  Pop: “He does love … the game.”

  Mom: “Yes, but.…”

  Pop: “Tell me this. Now tell me. Do you think he plays … just for me?”

  Mom: “What? Land sakes.…”

  Pop: “No. I mean it. I love the game myself. And Billy knows that. And he’s such a sweet kid. Do you think he goes out there … ’cause I want him to?”

  Mom: “Now. Ridiculous.”

  Pop: “Honest.”

  Mom: “Well, maybe he started that way. Maybe it helps him. Yes. I think it does help him. The way you root for him. But you know and I know and now everybody knows, that boy is good at pitchin’. And he knows that, too. It’s … natural. And he’s lucky to have that. To be so good … as good as he is.”

  “Ah, that he is. Oh, lady, isn’t he somethin’? You sit there watchin’ him and everybody gets still, because he’s in a class by himself and everybody knows it, he’s on his way.… Because you know what I feel? That little kid back there is gonna make us so proud … so proud.… And he wins … you see him come home so happy. I hope to God.…”

  Mom turned to check her sleeping son: Billy closed his eyes. She thought him asleep, tucked a blanket round him, put a warm touch to his forehead. He was never to forget that moment in the backseat, those words up front from Mom and Pop, from whom there had come a gentle childhood. Mom worried, Pop cursed … and they loved him. Chapel sitting on the bench in the dark felt a surge of emotion, opened his eyes. Goin’ Home, Goin’ Home.… But they’re not there anymore.

  Nobody’s home anymore.

  Carol’s goin’ home.

  Carol’s gettin’ married.

  He saw a Hawk batter strike out. Shucks. This here team … doesn’t hit much. At all.

  Game is: nothing—nothing.

  Gus was tapping him: time to go.

  Gonna win this one. Gonna give ’em hell today. If only the folks … but maybe they know. Gee, if only they could be there, somewhere.

  Out at the mound he tried to clear the memory of Mom and Pop. Focus on the hitter. Go to music: yes: Copland, then, word by word, a song from Neil Diamond. It went on automatically as he stood there in deep concentration, the music flowing by as a stream beside him, keeping him company all the way down to the end of the game, would be always there unless there was a tough situation … if men began to get on base, but there was nothing tough at all this day. Down they went like dominoes—but one man hit a fly ball to center, longest ball of the game, but high, not far, and slowly adrift: Johnson wandered over lazily and tucked it in. So Chapel went back and bore down, and all the while, in harmony with the pitching:

  You had reasons a-plenty for a-goin’

  This I know, this I know,

  For the weeds had been steadily growin’—

  Please don’t go, please don’t go. (Strike three!)

  Are you goin’ away with no word of farewell

  Will there be not a trace left behind?

  Well I could have loved you better

  Didn’t mean to be unkind,

  And you know, that was the last thing

  on my mind …

  Billy eased back, went to the sinker, got the last man on a high hopper to second. Back off the mou
nd.…

  … a good song. Lesson too late for the learning. I am, I said. Fella used to love Neil Diamond, too, was Old John, Big John, the Poor Man’s John, the ancient owner of the Hawks who’d owned the team when Billy was born: there he sat with his feet up on the desk, as usual and natural, smoking that cloudy pipe, blowin’ the damned smoke in all directions all over the room, wearing a spotted tie, loose, as always, wandering around the field always in a white and spotted shirt. Springtime. Old John said: “Roberto. I must tell you … the Plan.”

  He had the custom, whenever he used those sacred words, “The Plan,” of pausing first and turning his head first left, then right, making sure he was not to be overheard. He’d gotten it from an old movie. He said: “The highest tab any player gets in this game this year, so far as I know, is.…” He gave a number. He did the same thing every year. Then he’d say: “I can at least match it. How’s that?”

  Chapel would say, “Fine,” and they would drink on it, and so was the contract formed every year, from the first year on, for fifteen years. Chapel did not get an agent. Baseball was changing, but he did not change with it. He had his talk with the Old Man every year and the lawyers drew it up as instructed. Sometimes the Old Man would say wistfully, “Roberto, old kid, why don’t you sometimes just argue a little? I mean, even a little. Hell, you could push for more, just a little, probably. You know that.”

  And Chapel would smile and never answer. And they knew why, and the Old Man liked that part of him very much. Billy was young and clean, fresh out of the old days. He had all the money he needed, and land and a hotel out in Colorado, and even money out of commercials, and the rest of it was all headaches and taxes, and mathematical complexity, and he had begun with the Old Man, played his first game in the major leagues because the Old Man came to see him and shook his hand, and the team he played for belonged to the Old Man, and the Old Man, Big John, was Head Coach. To Billy Chapel, all was in order and he did not argue. He was a very good pitcher. He was becoming a great one. But toward the end there were many gathering complications, and the Old Man, who saw it all coming, began to warn him.

  “Billy, Roberto … one of these days I ain’t goan be here no mo … to settle with. You got me? You and me, we have this here now ‘verbal’ agreement that’s good as Gibraltar right now, but Jesus and Christ, but … but … the times they are a-changing. Billy, go get yourself a legal representative from t’other side and get all the fine points written down. Listen. You do that, sonny.”

  “Okay. But I don’t need it yet.”

  “Roberto, someday.…” But he did not say: “I’m dying.” Could not say that. Though he knew, he knew.…

  A hit. Chapel knew from the roar next to him on the bench. Opened an eye: somebody had singled, a bouncer through the hole at short. On first base. Who? Ernie … Italian fella. Right fielder. Well. Go ahead, folks. Blast away. Chapel closed his eyes.

  “Earth receive an honored guest.” Carol quoted that when the Old Man died. In the spring … when the season, two years back … Rise and Fall. She talked of civilizations. History buff. Good to listen to. But made him think of the Old Man and the team, and the game itself: teams rise and fall: the great days of the old Giants, the Yankees, the Dodgers, the Reds, they all come they all go. Odd. But in the beginning … those early days … so young, and the big guns forming around him; the Hawks were on the rise, and glad to see him come, and many friends then, many close friends behind you and with you afterward in the bar or in the restaurant or out with the girls that came in flocks: days to look forward to a possible World Series, to hope and plan and wonder, and then you did it: victory. And then again. The Old Man with the champagne. Hugged Billy: “Kid, God bless you. At times like this … oh, God, there’s nothin’ to say.” Joy in the locker. Golden Age. Did it again. Billy won three games in the World Series. Came on as a reliever in the eighth inning of the last one and blew ’em away. The Old Man boomed: “Talk about contract this year, Billy. We give you half the team.”

  Then the big boys slowly began to depart and Billy was past thirty and more and more alone, because the younger players did not feel comfortable with him—the Old Man explained that one night: “Billy, you been up ten years. You are as close to the heart of this team as any man can be, and they all know it. Always remember, Billy, that the better you get the more lonely you’ll be.”

  True.

  Why. Never understood. Carol: jealousy. Talk like a woman? She said: “Billy, you’re too lucky in this life. You have so much … they’ll never have. You know that. You love it.”

  So. There will be an answer: let it be.

  The last few years, the team went steadily down. Decline and Fall. The Old Man was tired. Did not really try anymore. Let it be. But it did get a bit lonely. Except for Carol. Made a hell of a difference … another roar. Good God, another hit. Ernie going to third. Make it? Christ. He did. Well. Interesting.

  But Chapel had learned not to waste energy rooting. Backed away. Think of something else. Harder now. Saw the Old Man. At his home in the mountains. Went fishing there all those years, together in the boat.… Old Man on a fly rod.… “Billy, when the time comes I think you’ll know it. I don’t think nobody will have to tell you. When you haven’t got it anymore you may know it all of a sudden in one day and you may have to see them hit the ball over and over, but Billy, I leave it up to you. You go when you’re ready. You tell me. Okay? Agreed? But nobody will ever push you. Never. You done too much for me, kid, in all these years. Except … why do you call me John? My name ain’t John.”

  “Your name is Burton.”

  “Yeah. Isn’t that awful?”

  “You don’t look like Burton. You look like John.”

  “John who?”

  “Just … John.”

  “So. Sometimes I call you Roberto. But you know what? You ain’t really Roberto. You don’t look like Roberto.”

  “Who’s Roberto?”

  “Oh. I got it out of an old Hemingway book, war book. Good book. I forget the title.”

  Earth receive an honored guest.…

  Just before he died … wanted to talk about it. Couldn’t. Wandering. Didn’t stay on the same subject. But one day he said: “Goddammit, Billy, when I’m gone go out west and get a gunslinger and come back here with force or they’ll get you, kid, they’ll hurt you, all that legal … minefield … a goddam minefield.”

  Chapel: I never planned. Couldn’t think of him gone. He went the same year as my folks. Rise and Fall. Must ask Carol someday … why does so much have to end in pain? Why can’t a man just reach the high point, and then … explode in Technicolor … in his chosen place, on his chosen day?

  Carol: close now, that lovely face: “Billy, why do you love this game? Only a game. But you love it so.”

  * * *

  … tap on the shoulder. Gus. What did we get?

  Nothing.

  Ah, but I do love it so.

  He stood up. Gus was talking, Maxwell had come over to say something, warn him about something to which Chapel did not listen. Did not need. He was getting waves of emotion now. This was going to be a strong day. Love all this. Walking out to fire away. Today … something sparkled in the air now. Something different now. All systems are Go—as Pop used to say. There were no mistakes, not even errors behind him, the control was damn near perfect, and he was threading needles with blinding speed, deceptive curving stuff, functioning with that magical sensation of total control, as if he was flying way up on a clear day and the plane was smooth, the air like glass, all the ticking steady steady, loving the white clouds, the little white specks on the windshield. The difference … All this will pass. Last day. Don’t think on that. Live every moment, Billy. Ah. Here comes Birch. Know what? You’ll get him. The music stopped, all systems slowed, the drum moved to a different beat, and Chapel was wary, foxed Josephus, got him to go for the sinker and trickle it back to the mound. Two. Relax a bit now, drift off and let the machine purr and wind and fire—
Copland now, Rodeo—and he began to back off the mound to look up at the sky and rest for one moment, one short but total moment, just looking at a round white cloud.

  Then for the first time he looked down at the team—from man to man in the infield and then out to the broad outfield, something he rarely did, or needed to do, all that was for Gus and the manager, but now … his eyes came back into focus and he looked with care.

  Something different.

  They stand … alive.

  They seem to have come alive. Why? They’re eager.

  Amazing.

  All this year, all the last few weeks … they just sort of stood there, waiting for it all to end. But now, today … beat the Yanks? Is that it? Well, whatever.

  But they sure are different.

  Good feeling.

  But at this moment Chapel felt the first weight of real fatigue. Too soon. Too soon. There is much left, but … one must shift the gears. He stood resting for a long moment in the great silence, breathed long breaths of cool calm air, shifted his gear in his own quiet way, grinned at the team—he felt a fine difference now—then turned back to pitch.

  Music came on when he returned to the mound, a soft clear voice in the back of his brain:

  “Don’t look so sad, I know it’s Over”

  He fired with rare intensity. Strike one.

  “But life goes on, and this old world will keep on turnin’ ”

  He stopped for a moment, rubbed the ball in his hand.

  “Just be glad for all the time we had together, there’s no need to watch the bridges that we’re burnin’ ”