"The kid got laid last night," Doo confided in me as we rode out to the airport in the team bus. "I think it was his first time. That's the good news. The bad news is that I don't think he remembers it."
We had a bumpy plane ride; most of them were back then. Lousy prop-driven buckets, it's a wonder we didn't all get killed like Buddy Holly and the Big Fucking Bopper. The kid spent most of the trip throwing up in the can at the back of the plane, while right outside the door a bunch of guys sat playing acey-deucey and tossing him the usual funny stuff: Get any onya? Want a fork and knife to cut that up a little? Then the next day the kid goes five-for-five at Municipal Stadium, including a pair of jacks.
There was also another Blockade Billy play; by then he could have taken out a patent. The latest victim was Cletus Boyer. Again it was Blockade Billy down with the left shoulder, and up and over Mr. Boyer went, landing flat on his back in the left batter's box. There were some differences, though. The rook used both hands on the tag, and there was no bloody foot or strained Achilles tendon. Boyer just got up and walked back to the dugout, dusting his ass and shaking his head like he didn't quite know where he was. Oh, and we lost the game in spite of the kid's five hits. Eleven to ten was the final score, or something like that. Ganzie Burgess's knuckleball wasn't dancing that day; the Athletics feasted on it.
We won the next game, and lost a squeaker on getaway day. The kid hit in both games, which made it sixteen straight. Plus nine putouts at the plate. Nine in sixteen games! That might be a record. If it was in the books, that is.
We went to Chicago for three, and the kid hit in those games, too, making it nineteen straight. But damn if we didn't lose all three. Jersey Joe looked at me after the last of those games and said, "I don't buy that lucky charm stuff. I think Blakely sucks luck."
"That ain't fair and you know it," I said. "We were going good at the start, and now we're in a bad patch. It'll even out."
"Maybe," he says. "Is Dusen still trying to teach the kid how to drink?"
"Yeah. They headed off to The Loop with some other guys."
"But they'll come back together," Joe says. "I don't get it. By now Dusen should hate that kid. Doo's been here five years and I know his MO."
I did, too. When The Doo lost, he had to lay the blame on somebody else, like that bum Johnny Harrington or that busher bluesuit Hi Wenders. The kid's turn in the barrel was overdue, but Danny was still clapping him on the back and promising him he'd be Rookie of the Goddam Year. Not that The Doo could blame the kid for that day's loss. In the fifth inning of his latest masterpiece, Danny had hucked one to the backstop in the fifth: high, wide, and handsome. That scored one. So then he gets mad, loses his control, and walks the next two. Then Nellie Fox doubled down the line. After that The Doo got it back together, but by then it was too late; he was on the hook and stayed there.
We got a little well in Detroit, took two out of three. The kid hit in all three games and made another one of those amazing home-plate stands. Then we flew home. By then the kid from the Davenport Cornholers was the hottest goddam thing in the American League. There was talk of him doing a Gillette ad.
"That's an ad I'd like to see," Si Barbarino said. "I'm a fan of comedy."
"Then you must love looking at yourself in the mirror," Critter Hayward said.
"You're a card," Si says. "What I mean is the kid ain't got no whiskers."
There never was an ad, of course. Blockade Billy's career as a baseball player was almost over.
We had three scheduled with the White Sox, but the first one was a washout. The Doo's old pal Hi Wenders was the umpire crew chief, and he gave me the news himself. I'd got to The Swamp early because the trunks with our road uniforms in them got sent to Idlewild by mistake and I wanted to make sure they'd been trucked over. We wouldn't need them for a week, but I was never easy in my mind until such things were taken care of.
Wenders was sitting on a little stool outside the umpire's room, reading a paperback with a blond in fancy lingerie on the cover.
"That your wife, Hi?" I asks.
"My girlfriend," he says. "Go on home, Granny. Weather forecast says that by three it's gonna be coming down in buckets. I'm just waiting for DiPunno and Lopez to call the game."
"Okay," I says. "Thanks." I started away and he called after me.
"Granny, is that wonder-kid of yours all right in the head? Because he talks to himself behind the plate. Whispers. Never fucking shuts up."
"He's no Quiz Kid, but he's not crazy, if that's what you mean," I said. I was wrong about that, but who knew? "What kind of stuff does he say?"
"I couldn't hear much the one time I was behind him--the second game against Boston--but I know he talks about himself. In that whatdoyoucallit, third person. He says stuff like 'I can do it, Billy.' And one time, when he dropped a foul tip that woulda been strike three, he goes, 'I'm sorry, Billy.' "
"Well, so what? Til I was five, I had an invisible friend named Sheriff Pete. Me and Sheriff Pete shot up a lot of mining towns together."
"Yeah, but Blakely ain't five anymore. Unless he's five up here." Wenders taps the side of his thick skull.
"He's apt to have a five as the first number in his batting average before long," I says. "That's all I care about. Plus he's a hell of a stopper. You have to admit that."
"I do," Wenders says. "That cockhound has no fear. Another sign that he's not all there in the head."
I wasn't going to listen to an umpire run down one of my players any more than that, so I changed the subject and asked him--joking but not joking--if he was going to call the game tomorrow fair and square, even though his favorite Doo-Bug was throwing.
"I always call it fair and square," he says. "Dusen's a conceited glory-hog who's got his spot all picked out in Cooperstown, he'll do a hundred things wrong and never take the blame once, and he's an argumentative sonofabitch who knows better than to start in with me, because I won't stand for it. That said, I'll call it straight up, just like I always do. I can't believe you'd ask."
And I can't believe you'd sit there scratching your ass and calling our catcher next door to a congenital idiot, I thought, but you did.
I took my wife out to dinner that night, and we had a very nice time. Danced to Lester Lannon's band, as I recall. Got a little romantic in the taxi afterward. Slept well. I didn't sleep well for quite some time afterward; lots of bad dreams.
Danny Dusen took the ball in what was supposed to be the afternoon half of a twi-nighter, but the world as it applied to the Titans had already gone to hell; we just didn't know it. No one did except for Joe DiPunno. By the time night fell, we knew we were royally fucked for the season, because our first twenty-two games were almost surely going to be erased from the record books, along with any official acknowledgment of Blockade Billy Blakely.
I got in late because of traffic, but figured it didn't matter because the uniform snafu was sorted out. Most of the guys were already there, dressing or playing poker or just sitting around shooting the shit and smoking. Dusen and the kid were over in the corner by the cigarette machine, sitting in a couple of folding chairs, the kid with his uniform pants on, Dusen still wearing nothing but his jock--not a pretty sight. I went over to get a pack of Winstons and listened in. Danny was doing most of the talking.
"That fucking Wenders hates my ass," he says.
"He hates your ass," the kid says, then adds: "That fucker."
"You bet he is. You think he wants to be the one behind the plate when I get my two hundredth?"
"No?" the kid says.
"You bet he don't! But I'm going to win today just to spite him. And you're gonna help me, Bill. Right?"
"Right. Sure. Bill's gonna help."
"He'll squeeze the plate like a motherfucker."
"Will he? Will he squeeze it like a motherf--"
"I just said he will. So you pull everything back real fast."
"Fast as Jack Lightning."
"You're my good luck charm, Billy-boy."
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And the kid, serious as the preacher at a bigshot funeral: "I'm your good luck charm."
"Yeah. Now listen . . ."
It was funny and creepy at the same time. The Doo was intense--leaning forward, eyes flashing while he talked. The Doo was a competitor, see? He wanted to win the way Bob Gibson did. Like Gibby, he'd do anything he could get away with to make that happen. And the kid was eating it up with a spoon.
I almost said something, because I wanted to break up that connection. Talking about it to you, I think maybe my subconscious mind had already put a lot of it together. Maybe that's bullshit, but I don't think so.
But I left them alone, just got my ciggies and walked away. Hell, if I'd opened my bazoo, Dusen would have told me to put a sock in it, anyway. He didn't like to be interrupted when he was holding court, and while I might not have given much of a shit about that on any other day, you tend to leave a guy alone when it's his turn to toe the rubber in front of the forty thousand people who are paying his salary.
I went over to Joe's office to get the lineup card, but the office door was shut and the blinds were down, an almost unheard-of thing on a game day. The slats weren't closed, though, so I peeked in. Joe had the phone to his ear and one hand over his eyes. I knocked on the glass. He started so hard he almost fell out of his chair, and looked around. They say there's no crying in baseball, but he was crying, all right. First and only time I ever saw it. His face was pale and his hair was wild--what little hair he had.
He waved me away, then went back to talking on the phone. I started across the locker room to the coaches' office, which was really the equipment room. Halfway there I stopped. The big pitcher-catcher conference had broken up, and the kid was pulling on his uniform shirt, the one with the big blue 19. And I saw the Band-Aid was back on the second finger of his right hand.
I walked over and put a hand on his shoulder. He smiled at me. The kid had a real sweet smile when he used it. "Hi, Granny," he says. But his smile began to fade when he saw I wasn't smiling back.
"You all ready to play?" I asked.
"Sure."
"Good. But I want to tell you something before you hit the dirt. The Doo's a hell of a pitcher, but as a human being he ain't ever going to get past Double A. He'd walk on his grandmother's broken back to get a win, and you matter a hell of a lot less to him than his grandmother."
"I'm his good luck charm!" he says indignantly.
"Maybe so," I say back, "but that's not what I'm talking about. There's such a thing as getting too pumped up for a game. A little is good, but too much and a fellow's apt to bust wide open."
"I don't get you."
"If you popped and went flat like a bad tire, The Doo would just find himself a brand-new lucky charm."
"You shouldn't talk like that! Him and me's friends!"
"I'm your friend, too. More important, I'm one of the coaches on this team. I'm responsible for your welfare, and I'll talk any goddam way I want, especially to a rook. And you'll listen. Are you listening?"
"I'm listening."
I'm sure he was, but he wasn't looking; he'd cast his eyes down and sullen red roses were blooming on those smooth boy-cheeks of his.
"I don't know what kind of a rig you've got under that Band-Aid, and I don't want to know. All I know is I saw it in the first game you played for us, and somebody got hurt. I haven't seen it since, and I don't want to see it today. Because if you got caught, it'd be you caught, even if The Doo put you up to it."
"I just cut myself," he says, all sullen.
"Right. Cut yourself shaving your knuckles. But I don't want to see that Band-Aid on your finger when you go out there. I'm looking after your own best interests."
Would I have said that if I hadn't seen Joe so upset he was crying? I like to think so. I like to think I was also looking after the best interests of the game, which I loved then and now. Virtual Bowling can't hold a candle, believe me.
I walked away before he could say anything else. And I didn't look back. Partly because I didn't want to see what was under the Band-Aid, mostly because Joe was standing in his office door, beckoning to me. I won't swear there was more gray in his hair, but I won't swear there wasn't.
I came into the office and closed the door. An awful idea occurred to me. It made a kind of sense, given the look on his face. "Jesus, Joe, is it your wife? Or the kids? Did something happen to one of the kids?"
He started and blinked, like I'd popped a paper bag beside his ear. "Jessie and the kids are fine. But George . . . oh God. I can't believe it. This is such a mess." And he put the heels of his palms against his eyes. A sound came out of him, but it wasn't a sob. It was a laugh. The most terrible fucking laugh I ever heard.
"What is it? Who called you?"
"I have to think," he says--but not to me. It was himself he was talking to. "I have to decide how I'm going to . . ." He took his hands off his eyes, and he seemed a little more like himself. "You're managing today, Granny."
"Me? I can't manage! The Doo'd blow his stack! He's going for his two hundredth again, and--"
"None of that matters, don't you see? Not now."
"What--"
"Just shut up and make out a lineup card. As for that kid . . ." He thought, then shook his head. "Hell, let him play, why not? Shit, bat him fifth. I was gonna move him up, anyway."
"Of course he's gonna play," I said. "Who else'd catch Danny?"
"Oh, fuck Danny Dusen!" he says.
"Cap--Joey--tell me what happened."
"No," he says. "I got to think it over first. What I'm gonna say to the guys. And the reporters!" He slapped his brow as if this part of it had just occurred to him. "Those overbred, overpaid assholes! Shit!" Then, talking to himself again: "But let the guys have this game. They deserve that much. Maybe the kid, too. Hell, maybe he'll bat for the cycle!" He laughed some more, then went upside his own head to make himself stop.
"I don't understand."
"You will. Go on, get out of here. Make any old lineup you want. Pull the names out of a hat, why don't you? It doesn't matter. Only make sure you tell the umpire crew chief you're running the show. I guess that'd be Wenders."
I walked down the hall to the umpire's room like a man in a dream and told Wenders that I'd be making out the lineup and managing the game from the third base box. He asked me what was wrong with Joe, and I said he was sick. Which he sure was.
That was the first game I managed until I got the Athletics in '63, and it was a short one, because as you probably know if you've done your research, Hi Wenders ran me in the sixth. I don't remember much about it, anyway. I had so much on my mind that I felt like a man in a dream. But I did have sense enough to do one thing, and that was to check the kid's right hand before he ran out on the field. There was no Band-Aid on the second finger, and no cut, either. I didn't even feel relieved. I just kept seeing Joe DiPunno's red eyes and haggard mouth.
That was Danny Doo's last good game, and he never did get his two hundred. He tried to come back in '58, but no go. He claimed the double vision was gone and maybe it was true, but he couldn't hardly get the pill over the plate anymore. No spot in Cooperstown for Danny. Joe was right all along: that kid did suck luck. Like some kind of fucking voodoo prince.
But that afternoon Doo was the best I ever saw him, his fastball hopping, his curve snapping like a whip. For the first four innings they couldn't touch him at all. Just wave the stick and take a seat, fellows, thank you for playing. He struck out six and the rest were infield ground-outs. Only trouble was, Kinder was almost as good. We'd gotten one lousy hit, a two-out double by Harrington in the bottom of the third.
Comes the top of the fifth, okay? The first batter goes down easy. Then Walt Dropo comes up, hits one deep into the left field corner, and takes off like a bat out of hell. The crowd saw Harry Keene still chasing the ball while Dropo's legging for second, and they understood it could be an inside-the-park job. The chanting started. Only a few voices at first, then more and more. Get
ting deeper and louder. It put a chill up me from the crack of my ass to the nape of my neck.
"Bloh-KADE! Bloh-KADE! Bloh-KADE!"
The orange signs started going up. People were on their feet and holding them over their heads. Not waving them like usual, just holding them up. I have never seen anything like it.
"Bloh-KADE! Bloh-KADE! Bloh-KADE!"
At first I thought there wasn't a snowball's chance in hell; by then Dropo's steaming for third with all the stops pulled out. But Keene pounced on the ball and made a perfect throw to Barbarino at short. The rook, meanwhile, is standing on the third base side of home with his glove held out, making a target, and Si hit the goddam pocket.
The crowd's chanting. Dropo's sliding, with his spikes up. The kid don't mind; he goes on his knees and dives over em. Hi Wenders was where he was supposed to be--that time, at least--leaning over the play. A cloud of dust goes up . . . and out of it comes Wenders's upraised thumb. "Yerrrr . . . OUT!"
Mr. King, the fans went nuts. Walt Dropo did too. He was up and dancing around like a kid having an epileptic fit and trying to do the fucking Hully Gully at the same time. He couldn't believe it.
The kid was scraped halfway up his left forearm, not bad, just bloodsweat, but enough for old Bony Dadier--he was our trainer--to come out and slap a Band-Aid on it. So the kid got his Band-Aid after all, only this one was legit. The fans stayed on their feet during the whole medical consultation, waving their ROAD CLOSED signs and chanting "Bloh-KADE! Bloh-KADE!" like they wouldn't never get enough of it.
The kid didn't seem to notice. He was on another planet. He was that way the whole time he was with the Titans. He just hauled on his mask, went back behind the plate, and squatted down. Business as usual. Bubba Phillips came up, lined out to Lathrop at first, and that was the fifth.
When the kid came up in the bottom of the inning and struck out on three pitches, the crowd still gave him a standing O. That time he noticed, and tipped his cap when he went back to the dugout. Only time he ever did it. Not because he was snotty but because . . . well, I already said it. That other-planet thing.