“ Is Primo something else this year or what?” said Jewel Stern.
“Sure is,” said Norm. “If the pitching comes through-”
“And if Rayburn can shake this terrible, terrible-”
“Then who knows what might happen? Let’s see what’s happening in Fanworld. Gil on the car phone. What’s up, Gil?”
“Hello?”
“You’re on, Gil. Go ahead.”
“Jewel?”
“Hi, Gil. What’s on your mind?”
“And better be brief, Gil. We’re getting some breakup on the line.”
“Jewel?”
“Yes, Gil.”
“I heard what you said about Primo, that’s all.”
“And?”
“And it won’t last. He’s a hot dog. Hot dogs always fold in the end.”
“Is that right, Gil? I could name you five or six so-called hot dogs in baseball right now who are going straight to the Hall of Fame.”
“Then there’s something wrong with the Hall of Fame.”
“Tell ’em, Gilly!”
“Sounds like Gil’s got a like-minded buddy in the car with him, Jewel.”
“A like-minded buddy in a very good mood, Norm, perhaps artificially induced. Let’s go to Ruben in Malden. What’s up, Ruben?”
Way to go, Gil, thought Bobby Rayburn, parking in front of the terminal, maybe a little late. Was Primo going to fold? Was some fan, possibly drunken, onto something? Probably not: the woman was right about the Hall of Fame. Jewel. Was she the reporter who wanted to interview him? For some important magazine, Wald had said. The only important magazine Bobby knew was SI. He’d been on the cover three times.
Coach Cole was already outside the terminal, a white-haired, leather-skinned old guy blowing a big pink gum bubble. Coach Cole: played fifteen years in the minors, coached college for twenty more after that, including Bobby’s four years, now lived in a one-bedroom condo a few feet from a sand trap on a third-rate golf course near Tucson. Never made it, not even close. But he understood hitting; more important, understood the way Bobby hit.
“Fuckin’ ugly town,” said Coach Cole, getting in.
Bobby handed him a check for two grand, to cover the tickets and a few hours’ work. Coach Cole rolled it up tightly and stuck it behind his ear. In all those years he’d never made head coach, not even in junior college-maybe, Bobby now realized, because he was always doing things like that.
“How you been?” Bobby said.
“Fuckin’ slice is killing me. And I get up six times every night to piss. Other than that, no complaints.” Coach Cole cracked his gum.
They drove out to a college in the suburbs. A kid in sweats was waiting inside a batting cage enclosed with netting on all sides, behind the practice field.
“All warmed up?” Bobby said.
“Yes, sir.”
Bobby went inside with his bat, took his stance at the plate. The kid, behind a notched-out protective screen, reached into a basket of balls. Coach Cole stood outside, blowing pink bubbles.
The kid zipped one in. Bobby got a piece of it.
“Ease into it,” Coach Cole said to the kid. “I’m no scout or nothin’.” And in a lower voice, that only Bobby could hear, added: “And you’re no bonus baby.” How Coach Cole could tell after only one pitch, Bobby didn’t know.
The kid started pitching, and Bobby started whacking, buzzing drives all over the narrow cage, rippling the netting, making it bulge and quiver from the disturbance within.
“Little more,” Coach Cole told the kid.
The kid threw harder. Bobby hit harder.
“Now some cheese,” said Coach Cole.
The kid, sweating now, began to air it out. No movement on his ball, but good velocity, and the netting made a lousy background. Still, Bobby hit every pitch on the screws, the kid ducking out of the open notch to safety behind the screen the instant he let go.
“Turn ’em over,” said Coach Cole.
The kid threw his breaking stuff. Not much of a slider, but a sharp curve. Bobby hammered them both.
“Mix it up,” said Coach Cole.
The kid mixed it up.
Bobby hammered.
“Change speeds.”
The kid changed speeds.
Bobby hammered.
They took a break, drank water, went back in, did it all again. Sweat was dripping off the kid’s chin now, dripping off Bobby too. The kid had thrown a hundred pitches by now, maybe more. A bulldog, Bobby realized, who must have been thinking that, despite what Coach Cole had said about not being a scout, this was his chance. Too bad he didn’t have it.
The kid started to lose a few inches, a foot, two feet, from his fastball. He also got a little slower ducking behind the screen. One ball shot past his ear so close it ruffled his hair, like a blow-dryer. The kid checked the clock on a nearby steeple after that. Coach Cole made two quick clicking sounds in his mouth, the kind that tell a horse to get going. The kid reached into the basket for another ball. Bobby kept hammering.
Finally one pinged the kid on the shoulder. Or upper arm; Bobby didn’t really see. But a glancing hit, not head-on. The kid grabbed his arm anyway, as though it were something precious, like Nolan Ryan’s. Bobby waggled his bat, waiting.
“ ’Kay,” Coach Cole said. “I’ve seen enough.”
Bobby walked over to the kid, handed him fifty bucks, although he’d said forty on the phone. “You all right?”
The kid nodded, but kept rubbing his arm. He seemed about to say something. Then he didn’t. Then he did. “I’m supposed to start on Saturday.”
Meaning I hope I haven’t pitched my goddamn arm out. Maybe the kid wasn’t a bulldog after all. “Go get ’em,” Bobby said.
Bobby and Coach Cole drove off. “Kid’s got a future,” Coach Cole said.
“That’s not what you said before.”
“As a batting-practice pitcher. Smart, obedient, good-natured. Not many kids like that around anymore. Kids are the biggest assholes in the world these days. Everything’s upside down.”
“And the sweethearts are old guys like you?”
“Bull’s-eye,” said Coach Cole, blowing another bubble. “And as for you, you just wasted two Gs. Plus whatever you gave the kid.”
“Why is that?”
“Because there’s nothing wrong with you. Stance, preparation, swing-all perfect. Never looked better, and I checked tapes going right back to college.”
“Then how come I’m batting whatever the fuck it is I’m batting?”
“Can’t be seein’ it, that’s all. You might think you are, but you’re not. So either you need your eyes checked-”
“I did that already.”
“-or there’s something on your mind. Blockin’ you, if you get what I mean. In which case you don’t need me. And you still wasted two Gs.” There was a silence. Then he added, “Plus whatever you paid the kid.”
