struck out Wade Boggs both times I faced him. The game lasted eight hours and seven minutes before they called it at four-oh-seven the next morning, Easter Sunday. Guys came home and caught hell, their wives thinking they were out all night fooling around.'
'They finished the game sometime in June,' Darwin said, 'but I don't recall who won.'
'I don't either,' Charlie said. 'I was gone by then.' He grinned at Darwin. 'I remember Wade Boggs saying, 'A game like this, you can have a bad week in one night.' '
Darwin was staring at him again and Charlie put on a serious look as Darwin said, 'You spent your entire fucking career in the minors except for one game.'
'I was up by the end of August that time. With other clubs too, but was mostly used for batting practice. I had all the pitches, even a split-finger that worked sometimes. I'd throw knucklers, give the boys a chance to see if they could hit junk.
Or I'd come inside hard, get 'em to develop the nerve to hang in there.'
'You were up several times - why didn't you ever stay?'
'I was wild my first, say, five years, I have to admit that.
But being a southpaw with a blazing fastball, shit, there was always a club wanted to have a look at me. Then there was a period I might've been cuttin' up too much. I was having fun.
Wherever I was I got my picture in the paper for one thing or another, like brawls they'd say I started. I'd hit a batter and he'd stand there giving me the evil eye. What I'd do, I'd hold my glove down by my leg and give him a motion with it like I'm saying, 'Come on. You think I hit you on purpose?' He'd come tearing at me and the benches'd empty. Seventy-three, or it might've been '74, I won the big-league bubble-gumblowing contest.' Charlie raised his hands like he was holding a basketball. 'Goddamn bubble was this big, I swear.'
He knew he had Darwin's attention, the way the man was staring at him, but couldn't tell what he was thinking.
'On the road for something to do, I'd catch balls dropped from the roof of hotels - put on one of those big mitts catchers use for knuckleballers? It always drew a crowd, only management never cared for what they called showing off. That's the kind of thing I'd get sent down for - don't come back till you grow up.''
'I got a guy,' Darwin said, 'wants to dive off the roof of the hotel. What you said reminded me. He calls up, says he's a professional high diver and wants to know how many floors we have. I told him seven. He goes, 'I'll dive off the roof into eight feet of water.' And he'll bring his own tank.'
'I'd like to see that,' Charlie said. 'How much's he want?'
'Five bills to go off twice a day.'
'Sounds cheap enough for a death-defying stunt.'
'Said he worked in Acapulco.'
'Shit, I'd hire him. He likes high risk, he's no doubt a gambler. Pay him and win it all back at your tables.'
Charlie noticed Billy Darwin's keen, appraising look and pulled out another idea that might impress him. 'Set up one of those radar guns they use to see how hard the ball's thrown?
Put in a pitching rubber and a bull's-eye sixty feet six inches away, a buck a throw. Anybody can throw a hardball a hunnert miles an hour wins . . . how much would you say?'
'Ten grand,' Darwin said without even thinking about it.
'You have that on a sign by the radar cage,' Charlie said.
'Another one, it says 'Beat the big leaguer and win a hunnert bucks.' These strong young boys come along and look me over. 'Hell, I can take that old man.' Five bucks a throw - you could make some money off me.'
Darwin kept staring at him. 'You can still throw?'
'I can get it up to around eighty.'
'Come on - an old guy like you?'
'Hell, I'm only fifty.'
Darwin looked at his screen again. 'Born in August of '48, you're pushing fifty-four.'
'I can still throw harder'n most anybody wants to try me.'
'You think,' Darwin said, 'you could strike me out?'
'You play much?'
'High school and sandlot, couple years of industrial ball.'
'You bat right or left?'
'Left.'
'Yeah, I can strike you out.'
Darwin paused, thoughtful, and then asked him, 'What've you been doing the past sixteen years?'
'I was a rep for the Jack Daniel's people, went on the road with promotions. Then did the same thing for Miller Brewing.'
'You married?'
'Divorced, a long time. I have a couple of daughters, both in Florida, five grandchildren.' Charlie said, 'Is this the job interview?'
Darwin had that thoughtful look again. 'You really think you can strike me out?'
Charlie shrugged this time. 'Step up to the plate, we'll find out. You want to put money on it?'
The man kept staring. Finally he said, 'How about this? I whiff, you're my celebrity host.'
Charlie jumped on it. He said, 'Hell, I'll strike you out on three pitches,' and wanted to snatch the words back as he heard them. He saw Darwin smiling for the first time.
'I'll bet it was your mouth,' Billy Darwin said, 'kept you in the minors more'n your control.' Not a half hour with Charlie Hoke and starting to sound like him a little. Darwin said, 'You're a gamer, Charlie. I'll give you four pitches.'
Charlie set it up. He called Vernice at the Isle of Capri coffee shop, told her please not to ask any questions and let him talk to Lamont, one of the busboys. Lamont Harris was the catcher on the Rosa Fort high school baseball team. Charlie knew him from going over there this past spring to help the pitchers with their mechanics, hit fungoes and throw batting practice now and then. He told Lamont to meet them at the field after work, bring a couple of bats, a glove, his equipment and, hey, the oversized catcher's mitt Charlie had sold him for ten bucks.
By five-thirty they were out on the school's hardpack diamond playing catch. Charlie took his warm-up pitches, throwing mostly sliders and knucklers, while Billy Darwin in his sunglasses, shorts, his silky shirt and sneakers stood off to the side watching and swinging a bat. Lamont strapped on his protection and Charlie motioned him out to the mound. He told Lamont, a big seventeen-year-old he'd played catch with all spring, 'Use the knuckleball mitt.'
'That's all you gonna throw?'
'He'll think it and want to look the first one over. While he's looking,' Charlie said, 'I'm gonna throw it down the middle of downtown.'
And that's what he did, grooved it. With that popping sound of the ball hitting the catcher's mitt, Lamont called, 'That's a strike,' and Darwin turned his head to look at him.
When he was facing this way again, swinging the bat out to point it at him, Charlie said, 'You satisfied with the call?'
'It was a strike,' Billy Darwin said, swung the bat out again, brought it back and dug in, Charlie observing the way he crowded the plate.
This time Charlie threw a slider, a two-bit curveball that came inside and hooked down and over the plate and Darwin swung late and missed. But he hung in, didn't he?
Okay, with the count nothing and two Charlie was thinking about offering a big, sweeping curve, lefty against lefty, throw it behind him and watch him hunch and duck as the ball broke over home plate. Or, hell, give him a knuckler, a pitch he'd likely never see. Get it anywhere near the plate he'll swing early and miss it a mile. Charlie gripped the ball with the tips of his gnarled fingers, his nails pressed into the hide, went into his motion, threw the floater and watched Darwin check his swing as the goddamn ball bounced a foot and a half in front of the plate.
'He came around on it,' Charlie said.
