“Poor old John,” Jed Ledbetter said as the hearse pulled away from the Soldiers’ Home. He took off his hat and held it over his heart. “Poor old John. He went and missed the grand parade.”
DESIGNATED HITTER
As I’ve said, I love baseball. If I were the athletic type, I would have tried to play. Since I’m not, I sometimes play beer league softball, which is not the same thing at all, at all. Those of you who have done likewise will recognize that a good deal of this story is drawn straight from life. I never met anyone like Michael, though. I wish I had.
You find all kinds playing beer league softball. I ought to know. They let me play, for instance.
I’ve been a baseball nut since I was a kid. Unfortunately, I’m also a klutz. I can hit, a little; I can’t field at all. As soon as they saw me with the leather, the rest of the Gators-that’s my team, in case you hadn’t worked it out-took to calling me Dr. Strangeglove, after Dick Smart, a notorious nonfielding first baseman with the Pirates and Red Sox back in the sixties. I have to say I earned the name.
So when we go out there, I’ll catch some of the time. That’s pretty safe for the team-there’s no stealing in slow-pitch. If we’re way ahead or way behind, I’ll get in an inning or two at first. Mostly I’m a designated hitter. The leagues we play in-a lot of beer leagues, come to that-all fifteen guys on the team get to hit, even if only ten can be on the field at any one time.
I’m also our official scorer, statistician, what have you-damn sight better at that side of the game than playing, worse luck. And at beer and pizza, I’m a champ. That’s as important as the game, just about.
Besides, my girl thinks I look good in the uniform.
Which is more than I can say for some of the Gators who are nine times the ballplayer I’ll ever be. Joe Humphreys, our real first baseman, looks like an avocado with a beard in his dark green softball togs. And Stuart Boileau at short is skinny enough to be a lizard. He has this habit of licking his lips all the time, too, which doesn’t hurt the image. Once at Shakey’s we ordered him a pepperoni-and-bugs pizza. If they would’ve served it, he would’ve eaten it.
All of which brings me around by easy stages to the oddest-looking ball player I ever saw. This was at the start of last year’s spring leagues, and my Gators were in deep Bandini. A couple of guys have been transferred out of state since last fall, and two or three more were working nights for a while. We were plain strapped for troops. A bare ten had shown up for our opener, and our archrivals, the Tomcats, trounced us, 14-5.
I didn’t exactly cover myself with glory in that game, either. I was a fat 0 for 3, though I got on my last time up when their pitcher embarrassed himself by throwing my comebacker eight feet over the first baseman’s head. I razzed him as I stood out there, and he gave it right back. “That’s the only way you’ll ever reach against me,” he said, which was near enough true that I shut up.
After me came our leadoff hitter. Stuart did us proud with a sharp single to center. Like an idiot, I tried to go to third on it, even though the other guys had a fellow with a rocket for an arm out there. Gave it all I had-headfirst dive into the bag. Well, actually shoulder first-something went crunch-pop when I hit. “Ouch!” isn’t what I yelled. I jammed it good. My right arm was in a sling for the next couple of weeks.
To add insult to injury, I was out.
Sling and all, I showed up at the park next Tuesday night. Even if I couldn’t play, I liked hanging around with the guys- and I can drink left-handed.
It didn’t look like there was going to be a game, though. Only nine of us were there, counting me, which you shouldn’t. You’re supposed to field ten in softball, but it’s legal to go out there with nine. Eight or fewer and you forfeit. “Where’s Roy?” I asked Wes Humphreys, Joe’s little brother (he’s only six-three) and our manager.
“Called me this afternoon-he’s got the flu. Sounded like hell.”
“Bad.” Without Roy we didn’t have a prayer of fielding a team. And with a forfeit, we’d be two games back of the Tomcats right off the bat. In a ten-game season, that’s death.
Wes knew all this better than I did. He hates losing, and won’t take it lying down. So now he called to this fellow sitting in the bleachers watching us loosen up: “Hey, man! You play this game?”
“Me?” The guy looked startled. “A little, maybe.” He had an accent that wasn’t Spanish. Not a good sign, if we were after a ballplayer.
Well, he had to be foreign, or else the melting pot had gone and melted down. I’d noticed him watching us the week before, too. I couldn’t help it. He was a medium-dark, medium-heavy black guy, maybe thirty, but his hair-he corn-rowed it, very neatly-was Irishman red, I mean flaming, and hung past his shoulders. He wore a mustache and goatee that were even brighter. I went to high school with a Japanese kid who spoke pure, hush-ma-mouf Arkansas-turned out his folks had been resettled there during the war, and stayed a while afterward. He jolted me every time he said something. Looking at this guy now was like that-his hair and his hide spectacularly didn’t match.
Wes would have taken him if he was a giant panda covered with chocolate feathers. “Come on down!” he said, waving. “We’ve got open roster slots. You can join us for the season if you want, or sign up and then duck out after tonight-we’ll have more people here next week. Whatever you want.”
Wes is a good talker. He has to be. He sells glassware for a living. You could see the guy thinking it over. Finally he shrugged and ambled on over to us. He didn’t have a uniform, of course, but his clothes were grubby enough to play in: faded Levi’s, a Coors T-shirt, and beat-up running shoes. About what we wear to practice.
He said his name was Michael, with a bit of a guttural on the “ch.” He shook hands with everybody (left-handed with me), then Wes dug our ancient spare glove out of the bottom of his duffel bag.
Michael hadn’t been stretching when he said he played “a little.” He lunged awkwardly for balls when he was playing catch, blocked grounders with his shins or his feet as often as he fielded them cleanly. He threw from the elbow, girl-style, not too straight. I could see Wes regretting things already, but Michael was a warm body, anyhow, and catching he wouldn’t be all that much worse than I was.
When it was Michael’s turn to hit in our warm-ups, Wes, who was pitching BP, waved him to the plate. He looked worse up there than he had in the field. He stood straight up and down, with his left foot so far in the bucket it wasn’t ever pointing at third base: more like at our dugout off third. He held his bat at a funny angle, with his hands a couple of inches apart. Yeah, I know Ty Cobb did the same thing, but Ty Cobb’s grandmother had to be a more stylish hitter than this Michael.
Wes gave him a nice, fat pitch to hit. He took a clumsy swing, missed. He muttered something under his breath and tossed the ball back. Next pitch, he hit a little ground ball that dribbled between Stuart at short and Pete Sadowski, our third baseman: a hit, sure enough. Not impressive, but it’ll look like a line drive in the box score, as the saying goes. “Attaboy!” Wes yelled.
Next pitch was another clean miss. Michael took the one after that, then hit a bloop just past first that Joe couldn’t quite reach. In a game, that would have been a double. Then a grounder straight at Pete on third, except it hit a pebble and kicked away from him. Another miss. Then a pop fly over Smart but too short for the outfielders. Then a big bouncer right at Smart, but on the last hop it flattened out and went between his legs. Then another bloop that sent Joe puffing down the line. He couldn’t catch that one, either.
This must have gone on for another five minutes. Every so often Michael would miss, and those incandescent cornrows would fly as he shook his head in annoyance. But when he hit, it would be one little bleeder or bloop or bad hop after another. Nothing like art, but nothing like outs, either. Finally our left fielder, Ted Canter, who was far and away the best athlete on the team, slid six feet on his belly to snag one of those pops maybe two inches off the ground.