Sophomore Campaign (29 page)

Murph stiffened at first. Then he melted a little, a subtle thawing noticeable not even to the most astute observer. Rosco's idea was a little out there, but it had somehow reached out and wrapped itself around Murph's imagination nonetheless. It only took another few seconds for the hesitation to finally give birth to a decision.

“You know what, John? That's fine. It's fine. Nothing's gonna stop us this time. We're gonna win this damn thing anyway, so why not get both you and McNally off my back in the process? Right? Yeah. I like the sound of that. You got yourself a deal.”

Murph reached out, and he and Rosco locked hands.

“Okay then. We have a deal.” Rosco smiled.

“Yes, we have a deal. But I have to tell you, John. I still don't like you. And you should know something right now. If you step out of line here—if you do not live up to your end of the bargain, or if any other stuff happens, you're done. I mean it. If you screw with me, you will be one sorry son of a bitch.”

As the hours before the final contest wore on, Murph grew more and more uneasy, with the indomitable fear of yet another season that would see him and his Brew Crew whimper into the off season without having finally made some meaningful memory for the Milwaukee faithful. He felt so miserable that he questioned whether or not he would even make it to the game—thought that perhaps at any minute, he would take one final breath, a painful attempt for just a little more air, before collapsing violently to the ground.

The enormity of the situation was overwhelming. Molly was there for him, her cheery buoyancy a constant source of comfort. Yet, despite her gentle ways, Murph struggled with the specter of fading hope, with the possibility that this could be the last game he would ever manage for the Brewers. Dennison's edict was clear.

“You know what you have to do, Arthur, right?” he had asked at the onset of their last closed door session. “I'm not kidding this time.”

“I know, Warren,” he said, struggling against pangs of sullen aggression. “I get it.”

As a way of allaying his nervous energy, Murph summoned the entire team for an early meeting and subsequent practice the day
before the showdown. He stood in front of them, with something camouflaged and disrupted brewing behind his eyes.

“I don't think I have to tell all of you what tomorrow means,” he began, wiping the corners of his mouth with his forefinger and thumb. As he stood there, he recalled, in a blurred montage of images from his past, the fleeting glory that had whispered to him such false promise. There was the Rookie of the Year honor back in 1924; then there was the batting title the following season. He even hit the pennant clinching homerun later that year. Oh, what could have been had Fate only smiled upon him. It was another lifetime ago, sure, yet during moments like these, the sting was just as painful. “Tomorrow, we have a unique opportunity, fellas,” he continued. “Redemption. Tomorrow is about redemption. About righting a wrong. I want you to remember last year. I want you to remember what it felt like to watch them celebrate, knowing that you were going home for the winter. I want you to picture that—every pitch, every out, every inning. Picture how that made you feel. Then I want you to look inside yourselves—really look inside yourselves—and imagine just how awful it would feel for that to happen to you, again. How it would stick in your craw, eat away at you, for the rest of your lives. Trust me, fellas, there are some things that you never forget. It will trail you like a ghost if Chip McNally and the Rangers get the best of you again tomorrow.”

He picked up the baseball resting on the trainer's table and looked into it as if it were made of crystal.

“But, the opportunity for you to set things right—to claim what is rightfully yours—is priceless. Embrace that. Use that as the motivation to play your asses off. Play every out like your life depends on it. Like it's the last out you will ever play. Do that, because it will inspire you. Do that, because you owe it to yourselves. And to those
fans who will be screaming for you. Do it, because for some of us, it may very well be the last hoorah.”

Then, through a luminous morning mist that made each of them appear to be apparitions out for a senseless jaunt, they took the field in customary fashion, with the infielders spreading across the freshly turned dirt in preparation for box drills and the outfielders loping out toward the damp grass where they would spend the majority of the morning shagging flies. The pitchers and catchers did their own thing as well; jogged down the right field line, settled in the corner and began pairing up for some light throwing and tactical preparation for tomorrow's big contest.

“Mr. Murphy sure wants to win that game,” Mickey said, as he and Lester began stretching their legs. “Yup. Mickey thinks Mr. Murphy is a good manager. He should win. He likes baseball more than anyone I know.”

Lester smiled.

“Yeah, Mick, he does,” he said, sitting on the grass.

He spread his legs out as far as they would go, until the formed a giant “V”, then leaned forward with his fingers, reaching first for his left foot, then for the right. Mickey did the same.

“He sure does, Mick. But just liking the game ain't enough sometimes. You gotta prepare, work hard, and then the players, like us, we gotta perform. Do the things that everyone's expectin' us to do. Then old Murph got's a chance to bring home the prize.”

He stopped for a minute to pull his legs into his body.

“And even then, if all that happens, there ain't no guarantees. Baseball's funny like that. You just never know.”

Mickey's nerves tightened. He clenched his teeth and drew both hands together in a sudden tremor of realization.

“What if Mickey is no good tomorrow, Lester?” he asked,
plowing through a snowstorm of unsettling thoughts. “What if they hit the ball, Lester? Or I can't throw hard enough?”

“Don't sweat it, Mick,” Lester replied, his eyes wide and calm. “You're the best we got kid. Hell, you're the best anyone's got. Ain't no game without you.”

Mickey's eyes were glassy in the morning glare. He was thinking about last year, and Lefty, and what had happened to Oscar that day, and how he had lost control, and wound up sitting in that dirty jail cell instead of pitching that day. God he missed Oscar. He was also remembering Murph's face after that game—how it looked like it was melting right off his head.

“But last year, Lester. Last year, Mickey wasn't there. Mickey let the team—”

“That was
last
year, kid,” Lester said. “Last year is last year. Ain't nothin' to be done about that now. All you can do is go out there tomorrow and do like Murph said—give it everything you got. Somethin' tells me that if you can do that, we'll all be alright.”

Mickey rose to his feet. He was still a little stiff, but his breathing was easier for the moment. He put on his glove, took the ball from Lester and watched almost hypnotically as his partner jogged a few steps away before settling directly across from him, some sixty feet away. Then, in the first warm rays of the ascending sun, the boy began tossing the baseball, ever mindful of the daunting test that awaited him.

The evanescence of September twilight faded quickly into a deep night. The entire area surrounding Borchert Field lay shrouded in darkness save for the brilliant glow of a silver moon that shone through the weightless clouds hovering dreamily above the dozing hamlet and the emerging light beginning to hum from the towering light stanchions all around the stadium—splashes of artificial luminosity that lit the eager faces of the Brewer faithful as they poured through the turnstiles and made their way to their seats.

Murph had been in his office the entire day, fettered to his desk and the daunting prospects which lay ahead. He had come a long way in this game, had his fair share of both success and failure, with the latter emerging as the norm the past few years. Still, through it all, the game was all that mattered. Just being a part of it. Baseball was him. He
was
baseball. Now, after all these years, everything had been reduced to just nine innings; twenty-seven outs to determine his fate. Christ it was vexing. The sea of crumpled lineup cards strewn across the floor told the collective story of his torment.

“What's all the lollygagging about, young fella?” Matheson barked, clearing a path on the littered floor with his foot. “Come on now. Time's a-wasting. It's time to thump the tub.”

“I just don't know, Farley,” Murph said, shaking his head. “I don't know if I can stomach this. Don't know if I can do it.”

“What are ya talking about, Murph?' the old man questioned.

“It ain't like before, Farley. This is really it. Dennison means business this time.”

“Bah. Warren Dennison is a damned mooncalf. A real soft head. Don't know his ass from third base.”

The tumult slowly rising outside from the impatient crowd reached Arthur's ears. He was weighing an image of a younger him, circling the bases, then crossing home plate with the pennant clinching run. The entire team was waiting for him, arms open, mouths frothing with celebratory juices. It was a moment he never forgot. That, and the conversation he had afterward with Otis Clayton, the man who had scouted him for the big league Braves.

“You've arrived, kid,” he said, stuffing the end of his pipe with a pinch of tobacco. “And let me be the first to say it. You're the real deal. Five-tool player. One who is going to be one of the best to have ever put on a pair of spikes. Your future is as good as done.”

It was all there that day, unfurling before him like a golden path to stardom and baseball immortality. Standing there now, he realized just how far he had fallen. Somehow, things just did not turn out the way he had always envisioned.

“I know, Farley, I know,” he said, trying to jolt his face back into some semblance of sanity. “It's just that—ah, never mind. You're right. We got a game to play.”

“That's the old pepper, Murphy boy,” Matheson gushed. “Now let's go out there and give ‘em hell.”

The steady glare from the stadium lights painted the freshly manicured field with a luminous sheen, one that imbued the dirt and grass with a celestial quality. Murph climbed the dugout steps, gave a long look around and filled his lungs before placing one foot on the
sacred ground, careful not to disrupt the freshly lain lines of lime as he made his way toward home plate for the pre-game ritual. McNally was already there, his mouth curling in a fain't but noticeable smile, as if to suggest that he somehow knew the outcome of the contest and was trying not to boast too early. He was always the same—always in character. Murph hated this man now more than ever.

“You guys sure are making this a habit,” the umpire said as Murph arrived at the batters box. “Wouldn't be the final game of the season without a showdown between you two.”

Murph forced a smile and handed the man in blue his lineup card. McNally was still wearing that stupid grin.

“Yup,” the opposing skipper said, pulling his lineup card from his back pocket. “Every season ends the same way. You can count on that.”

Murph fought against the throbbing in his temple. “Don't be so sure of yourself, gimpy,” he said, rubbing his hands together. “Things are a
little
different this time. You couldn't get to my pitcher this year.”

McNally found himself propped up against the old truth and struggled momentarily with the feeling.

“Now, I told you I had nothing to do with that, Arthur,” McNally said, laughing. “It hurts my feelings that you would suggest that I did. Was a terrible thing that Rogers did. A real shame. I actually want Tussler in the game. Wouldn't have it any other way. This way, when we beat you—and make no bones about it, we will beat you—there ain't no excuses to be had.”

Murph, feeling like he wanted to place his hands around McNally's throat and squeeze, did what he usually did in circumstances such as these. It was the only way he knew.

“I wouldn't go popping any champagne corks just yet,” he said before walking away.

Mickey led the Brewers onto the field to a chorus of raucous cheers. The tiny ballpark was in bloom. In every row, in every seat, in every corner where there was enough room to house a body, hope was ripening with a pulsating, breathless energy. All of the Brewers tingled with the energy flowing from the stands, as if somehow the standing-room-only crowd had found a way to transmit the emotional current to each of their hometown heroes.

Mickey felt his stomach churn. The excitement was awesome, and made him smile for the moment, but reminded him just how vital he was to the night's happenings. He scanned the crowd behind home plate quickly as he prepared to take his warm-up tosses. He saw Mr. Meyer, the butcher. In the row behind him, just to the left, was the man who fixed the leak in Murph's roof last fall. He was sitting next to Mrs. Kutner, the elementary school teacher, who was talking with Joan Ulanoff, a good friend of hers who had just arrived and hadn't even had time to sit. Mickey noticed that the man sitting directly behind her was laughing and using a handkerchief to clean the dust off her seat. It was Sheriff Rosco. And of course, there was Molly, sitting in her usual seat, watching her special boy perform at a level she was still unable to truly conceptualize. There were so many people there who he knew, and just as many, mostly men dressed in suits and fedoras, that he did not. And they were all holding rectangular pieces of cardboard, each with his name on it, spelled in such a way as to celebrate the young hurler's pitching prowess: GO MIC
K
EY! He had a fain't impulse to begin counting but Lester's impatient cry from behind the dish jolted him back to matters at hand. He began treating the eager crowd to a series of warm-ups that sounded something like a twenty-one gun salute.