and the regulars would always ask how things were down there playing for the Cornholers. Or sometimes they’d call them the Cocksuckers. Baseball humor is not what you’d call sophisticated.
We opened against the Red Sox that year. Middle of April. Baseball started later back then, and played a saner schedule. I got to the park early that day-before God got out of bed, actually-and there was a young man sitting on the bumper of an old Ford truck in the players’ lot. Iowa license plate dangling on chickenwire from the back bumper. Nick the guard let him in when the kid showed him his letter from the front office and his driver’s license.
“You must be Bill Blakely,” I said, shaking his hand. “Good to know you.”
“Good to know you too,” he said. “I brought my gear, but it’s pretty beat-up.”
“Oh, I think we can take care of you there, partner,” I said, letting go of his hand. He had a Band-Aid wrapped around his second finger, just below the middle knuckle. “Cut yourself shaving?” I asked, pointing to it.
“Yup, cut myself shaving,” he says. I couldn’t tell if that was his way of showing he got my little joke, or if he was so worried about fucking up he thought he ought to agree with everything anyone said, at least to begin with. Later on I realized it was neither of those things; he just had a habit of echoing back what you said to him. I got used to it, even sort of got to like it.
“Are you the manager?” he asked. “Mr. DiPunno?”
“No,” I said, “I’m George Grantham. Granny to you. I coach third base. I’m also the equipment manager.” Which was the truth; I did both jobs. Told you the game was smaller then. “I’ll get you fixed up, don’t worry. All new gear.”
“All new gear,” says he. “Except for the glove. I have to have Billy’s old glove, you know. Billy Junior and me’s been the miles.”
“Well, that’s fine with me.” And we went on in to what the sports writers used to call Old Swampy in those days.
I hesitated over giving him 19, because it was poor old Faraday’s number, but the uniform fit him without looking like pajamas, so I did. While he was dressing, I said: “Ain’t you tired? You must have driven almost nonstop. Didn’t they send you some cash to take a plane?”
“I ain’t tired,” he said. “They might have sent me some cash to take a plane, but I didn’t see it. Could we go look at the field?”
I said we could, and led him down the runway and up through the dugout. He walked down to home plate outside the foul line in Faraday’s uniform, the blue 19 gleaming in the morning sun (it wasn’t but eight o’clock, the groundskeepers just starting what would be a long day’s work).
I wish I could tell you how it felt to see him taking that walk, Mr. King, but words are your thing, not mine. All I know is that back-to he looked more like Faraday than ever. He was ten years younger, of course…but age doesn’t show much from the back, except sometimes in a man’s walk. Plus he was slim like Faraday, and slim’s the way you want your shortstop and second baseman to look, not your catcher. Catchers should be built like fireplugs, the way Johnny Goodkind was. This one looked like a bunch of broken ribs waiting to happen.
He had a firmer build than Frank Faraday, though; broader butt and thicker thighs. He was skinny from the waist up, but looking at him ass-end-going-away, I remember thinking he looked like what he probably was: an Iowa plowboy on vacation in scenic Newark.
He went to the plate and turned around to look out to dead center. He had dark hair and a lock of it had fallen on his forehead. He brushed it away and just stood there taking it all in-the silent, empty stands where over fifty thousand people would be sitting that afternoon, the bunting already hung on the railings and fluttering in the little morning breeze, the foul poles painted fresh Jersey Blue, the groundskeepers just starting to water. It was an awesome sight, I always thought, and I could imagine what was going through the kid’s mind, him that had probably been home milking the cows just a week ago and waiting for the Cornholers to start playing in mid- May.
I thought,
But when he looked at me, there was no panic in his eyes. No fear. Not even nervousness, which I would have said every player feels on Opening Day. No, he looked perfectly cool standing there behind the plate in his Levi’s and light poplin jacket.
“Yuh,” he says, like a man confirming something he was pretty sure of in the first place. “Billy can hit here.”
“Good for him,” I tells him. It’s all I can think of to say.
“Good,” he says back. Then-I swear-he says, “Do you think those guys need help with them hoses?”
I laughed. There was something strange about him, something off, something that made folks nervous…but that something made people take to him, too. Kinda sweet. Something that made you want to like him in spite of feeling he wasn’t exactly right in the top story. Joe felt it right away. Some of the players did, too, but that didn’t stop them from liking him. I don’t know, it was like when you talked to him what came back was the sound of your own voice. Like an echo in a cave.
“Billy,” I said, “groundskeeping ain’t your job. Bill’s job is to put on the gear and catch Danny Dusen this afternoon.”
“Danny Doo,” he said.
“That’s right. Twenty and six last year, should have won the Cy Young, didn’t. He’s still got a red ass over that. And remember this: if he shakes you off, don’t you dare flash the same sign again. Not unless you want your pecker and asshole to change places after the game, that is. Danny Doo is four games from two hundred wins, and he’s going to be mean as hell until he gets there.”
“Until he gets there.” Nodding his head.
“That’s right.”
“If he shakes me off, flash something different.”
“Yes.”
“Does he have a changeup?”
“Do you have two legs? The Doo’s won a hundred and ninety-six games. You don’t do that without a changeup.”
“Not without a changeup,” he says. “Okay.”
“And don’t get hurt out there. Until the front office can make a deal, you’re what we got.”
“I’m it,” he says. “Gotcha.”
“I hope so.”
Other players were coming in by then, and I had about a thousand things to do. Later on I saw the kid in Jersey Joe’s office, signing whatever needed to be signed with Kerwin McCaslin hanging over him like a vulture over roadkill, pointing out all the right places. Poor kid, probably six hours’ worth of sleep in the last sixty, and he was in there signing five years of his life away. Later I saw him with Dusen, going over the Boston lineup. The Doo was doing all the talking, and the kid was doing all the listening. Didn’t even ask a question, so far as I saw, which was good. If the kid had opened his head, Danny probably would have bit it off.
About an hour before the game, I went in to Joe’s office to look at the lineup card. He had the kid batting eighth, which was no shock. Over our heads the murmuring had started and you could hear the rumble of feet on the boards. Opening Day crowds always pile in early. Listening to it started the butterflies in my gut, like always, and I could see Jersey Joe felt the same. His ashtray was already overflowing.
“He’s not big like I hoped he’d be,” he said, tapping Blakely’s name on the lineup card. “God help us if he gets cleaned out.”
“McCaslin hasn’t found anyone else?”
“Maybe. He talked to Hubie Rattner’s wife, but Hubie’s on a fishing trip somewhere in Rectal Temperature, Michigan. Out of touch until next week.”
“Cap-Hubie Rattner’s forty-three if he’s a day.”
