Sophomore Campaign (19 page)

Many of the players felt Murph's words and sat around afterward, exchanging heartfelt confessions and promises of future exploits of heroism and bravado. Some said nothing.

However, despite their manager's impassioned plea, and a roiling recrimination that burned inside almost every man's belly, they still could not do anything right. They dropped four more games, each more frustrating than the one before. On Monday, they lost to the Colts. The bats were good enough to win, banging out fifteen hits and ten runs, but Butch Sanders was awful. He struggled all game with his command, walking seven batters and yielding four round trippers, and in the process, squandered three different leads. Murph suddenly felt afflicted with an uncompromising demon.

“What the hell is he doing out there?” he bawled. “Jesus Christ. Is he even trying?”

“Certainly is a queer duck,” Matheson commented. “Never struggled like this before.”

“Yeah, he's got it in his head that he can't pitch to Lester. Some bull about communication and comfort level.”

“Well, you can't just leave him out there,” Matheson continued. “Jesus, I know you don't feel like butting the bull off the bridge, but someone's gotta talk to him.”

“I wish I could, Farley. I do. I have tried before, several times, but he's not having any of it.”

“Bah,” the old man grunted. “If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. I'll talk to him. I got plenty to say.”

Murph's feelings raced back and forth between anger and action.

“No, Farley,” he said. “No. I got a better idea. When he comes in, I'll have Mickey do it. Maybe it'll make some sense coming from another pitcher. Especially if it's Mickey.”

The two of them watched from the top step of the dugout as Sanders continued to struggle. With two outs, he walked the Colts' two and three hitters on eight straight breaking balls in the dirt and then fell behind the cleanup hitter, 2–0. Lester shouted some
encouraging words from behind the plate, and implored Sanders to heed the signs he was being given, but the intractable pitcher just looked past him, as if he hadn't heard a thing. He stood on the mound, full of piss and vinegar, and let go his next offering, a feckless fastball right down the middle of the plate. The Colts' slugger jumped all over it, mashing the baseball into the gap in left center-field. The little white missile scorched the grass as it skidded toward the wall. It was destined for extra bases, and most certainly would have scored two, had Jimmy Llamas not gotten such a great jump on the ball, cutting it off with a deft backhand and then firing a strike to Arky Fries at second to nip the batter just as he slid into the bag. Llamas was thrilled, and began firing his imaginary six shooters all over Borchert Field as he jogged in from his position. It gave the fans something to cheer about, but the furrowed lines on Murph's face told the real story. “Sanders, sit your ass on the bench and don't move. You're done.”

Murph stormed to the other side of the dugout and sat himself down next to Mickey. The boy was busy fingering a brand new baseball.

“Say, Mick, I need you to do something for me,” Murph said, tapping Mickey on the knee. The boy did not stir. He could hear Murph talking to him, but did nothing to acknowledge him. He just sat there, chewing the inside of his cheek, examining the ball.

“One hundred eight,” he finally said, spinning the ball in his hand.

“What?”

“One hundred eight.” Murph shook his head and sighed.

“One hundred eight what, Mick?” he asked.

The boy tossed the baseball in his hand and smiled. “One hundred and eight red stitches. This ball has one hundred and eight.”

Murph scratched his head with bewilderment. He sat there,
measuring what he was about to say, as Mickey remained suspended in his own web of thoughts. Murph was dying. A halo of misfortune spun around him and mocked his idleness. For a split second, he considered letting Matheson speak to Sanders. Maybe the old guy was right. Why would Sanders listen to Mickey? Then he remembered Matheson's inane ramblings and decided that his first choice was the lesser of two evils. “So Mick, I was thinking that—”

The boy began tossing the ball up again and caught it a few more times until another idea suddenly seized his imagination and catapulted him from his seat.

“Whoa there,” Murph said, grabbing the boy before he took flight. “What's the hurry?” The boy motioned to the white bucket of balls resting against the dugout wall.

“Mickey's going to check the others.”

“No, Mick. Not now. I have something you need to do for me.” Murph explained to the boy the need for all the pitchers on the staff to be able to pitch to Lester. He complimented him for the way
he
worked with the catcher and suggested that his behavior was one that he wished the others would emulate.

“So you see, Mick, I was thinking that maybe you could talk to Sanders. You know, tell him how Lester has really helped you and all. I think he, and the others, just might listen. After all, nobody's had better results than you.”

Mickey's face contorted, as if he had just placed something sour passed his lips. A dark voice sounded somewhere deep in his mind and a look of dull recollection glazed his eyes.

“Mickey, are you listening to me?” Murph asked, vexed by the boy's apparent indifference. “Did you hear what I said?”

Mickey stared straight ahead, and began chattering a partial repetition of his favorite poem.

“Mick, what's going on?” Murph persisted. “Come on. What's happening?”

“…a harvest mouse goes scampering by, with silver claws and a silver eye.”

Murph's mouth tightened as if someone had pulled it shut with an invisible chord. “Come on, Mickey, we don't have time for this. Why are you doing this now? I need you to talk to Sanders. Stop messing around. Now. He's killing us and poisoning the rest of the staff.”

The boy stood silent for a while looking down at his cleats.

“Mickey does not want to talk to Butch Sanders,” he replied. “No. I do not want to.”

“What do you mean you don't want to? Why the hell not?”

Mickey fell silent again.

“Why the hell not, Mick? Why won't you talk to him?”

“And moveless fish in the water gleam, by silver reeds in a silver stream.”

Murph's frustration leaped wildly the following night. The Giants were in town, and brought with them an eight-game losing streak and the league's worst record.

Gabby Hooper got the ball and turned in a solid performance, scattering nine hits and allowing just four runs. But the Brewer offense sputtered, led by the anemic performance of their slumping cleanup hitter Woody Danvers. Danvers was flat out awful, stranding a staggering nine base runners in his first three at bats. He looked ghost-like, blundering through each inning ineffectually, a slave to the slump that had enervated his confidence and any vestige of his physical prowess.

Still reeling from the previous failures that night, he limped to the plate, carrying with him myriad misgivings and a chance for redemption. The bases were full of Brewers, and the crowd, still
drenched in the thunderstorm of frustration that had washed away their voices for most of the night, began to stir, morphed into a striation of beleaguered souls united by the intoxicating idea that the script for some late inning heroics had all but been written.

The pitcher's first offering was true—a four-seam dart that split the plate knee high for a called first strike. Danvers bristled at the call, then stepped out of the box, rolling first his eyes and then his shoulders in a desperate attempt to shake himself from his offensive stupor. The next offering missed up and away, followed by an off speed delivery in the dirt. Both the buzz from the crowd and Danvers' confidence seemed to burgeon uncontrollably as the count shifted in the batter's favor. Even Matheson could not contain his enthusiasm.

“All right, Woody!” he screamed, the vein in his right temple straining against his leathery skin. “Bases chucked. You got ‘em now. He's gonna try to bell the cat. Be ready now. Here comes a fat one.”

Matheson was right. After wiping the sweat from his brow and then fingering the rosin bag and firing it to the ground, the frustrated pitcher grooved a fastball dead center. It was a perfect pitch—just as if it had been placed on a tee. Danvers drank in the opportunity, guzzled the myriad visions of breathless glory attached to the albescent sphere as it spun right toward his happy zone. The bat met the ball just as it crossed the plate. The timing was perfect, producing a melodious
crack
that for an instant, catapulting every fanny out of its seat for a closer look. It sounded like victory. Sweet victory. But that sound was all they would get, because in his haste to expiate the night's previous failures, Woody Danvers had swung too hard. Way too hard. His whole body twisted in spasmodic pulsation. His front shoulder flew open prematurely, and the back one dipped below his hands, so much so that when he whipped the bat through
the hitting zone, he only caught the underside of the ball and sent it soaring straight up in the air, like a toy rocket whose trajectory was harmless and predictable. It wasn't long before the catcher was camped under the towering pop, pounding his glove as the lifeless ball parachuted safely into the yawning pocket.

When the game was over, the reporters spilled through the clubhouse and into Danvers' locker like a clutter of spiders carrying venomous intent. Their assault was dogged and merciless.

“What happened to you, Woody?” one writer asked. “Good God, you went from a house on fire to a smoldering campfire at a Girl Scout cookout.” Danvers flushed, and his eyes alighted. The next salvo was even more biting.

“So, Woody, how are you gonna sleep tonight, with those goat horns on your head?”

The tortured slugger rumbled like a volcano. His face contorted with jeering defiance, and from his narrowing lips came a sizzling sound, something shrill and inhuman that had risen up from a place deep within him, the place in everyone rarely touched by others, the place where all clouded memories and brooding insecurities reside quietly, peacefully, until roused from their slumber.

“You goddamned guys are unbelievable,” he exploded, firing his cap to the floor. The force of the projectile set them all on their heels. “Unbelievable. For weeks now, nobody's been better. Nobody. Where were you then? Huh? At Lester's locker. That's where. Or somewhere else. It sure wasn't here. So, why now? Huh? Why? Why don't you go ask Lester why he couldn't get it done? How about Hooper? Was he brilliant tonight? Or Finster or McGinty or Jimmy Llamas? Why don't you go bother them? Huh? Go see if they'll listen to your bull because I'm done.” Danvers was inconsolable. He just slammed his locker and stormed off. Refused to speak to any of the media for days afterward. Things were certainly amiss.

But of all the Brewers, Mickey was struggling the most. He just wasn't himself. More than ever, his thoughts were scattered and prickly. It could have been all the ugliness he had seen. He was still asking Murph about the “men in white hoods” and was relentless in his pursuit of an answer to what in his world was a simple question.

“Murph, why does Lester being dark matter?
We
like him. Why don't other folks?”

Murph frowned. A pall of loneliness and doom gradually stole over him. “I don't know, Mick,” he answered, shaking his head erratically. “I told you before, a hundred times, it ain't easy to understand.”

The weight of confusion was eating away at him. It showed. Then again, maybe the boy was just getting tired. He had logged a lot of innings and had performed at an almost superhuman level. It was a lot to ask of a kid who still was, in essence, just a farm boy. Of course, his troubles could have had something to do with the notes he began receiving in his locker every day, He did the same thing every time he got one—leaned up against his locker, limbs slack, eyes wide and curiously vacant, his lips parted from his teeth, quivering in silent alarm. His hands were also unsteady, and the tiny paper would shake violently as it dampened beneath his tremulous grip. And the words. Those words he read to himself, over and over, were like tiny daggers pressed slowly into his sides.

Forget what you saw boy, or someone will get hurt bad
.

Each time it happened, he felt this unavailing shame, as if somehow he had done something wrong by seeing what he saw. And he saw it, over and over again. That face, ugly and mean, revealed to him and only him that night. It was awful. The desire to conceal his secret was mastering. Nobody could know about this. Nobody. So each time he got another note, he tore the dreaded paper into a thousand pieces, one small section at a time, and then sprinkled
the remnants like confetti into the waste paper basket, all this while reciting catatonically his favorite poetic lines.

Murph saw the boy was floundering, but was powerless to put a name to it. He hoped quietly that whatever it was that was ailing his young ace would pass as cryptically and swiftly as it had come. But things only got worse.

Mickey got the ball in the first half of a twi-night double dip against the Giants. It was a perfect evening, attenuated by a resplendent, even sky tinged here and there with splashes of red and orange. Borchert Field was filled to capacity, something that had become customary each time Mickey took the hill, with legions of Mickey Tussler disciples, including of course the rabid coterie of worshippers from Mickey's Minions and the Baby Bazooka Brigade. They were always the most vocal and demonstrative, but their unbridled zeal had struck a chord with many of the less expressive fans, who, after observing the antics of these fanatics, began coming to the ballpark dressed from head to toe in Brewer garb while carrying placards and banners professing their unmitigated love for their favorite Brewer. Everything was right, Murph told himself, filling his lungs with the cool evening air. This would be the night that Mickey would return to form.