Three Nights in August

by Buzz Bissinger

  Slow it down by staying ahead of it to stay on top of it.

  It was the mantra he repeated to himself after every half inning. The mantra he used then and the mantra he uses now. Slow it down by staying ahead of it to stay on top of it. A minimum of seventeen times a game. The dual responsibility of focus on the present and anticipation of the future, sometimes playing out scenarios a full inning or two ahead so nothing will take him by surprise.

  He pulls the little cheat sheets from his back pocket and looks at them even though they can't give him much advice so early in the game. Thoughts travel through his mind in those little Godot blips.

  Does what he normally does, which is throw a lot of fastballs early...

  Showed good command...

  Got the ball inside good...

  Away pretty good...

  There should be some relief in those blips; they suggest that Stephenson's got game tonight, the head rejecting the heart. But La Russa feels no respite, because of what awaits the Cards: the most talented pitcher in baseball right now.

  5. The Pitcher's Tale

  I

  IT'S MARK PRIOR, standing on those thick redwood legs, peering at the plate with that blank stare of beneath-me contempt. But Prior's stuff is what gives La Russa the most trouble. Because Prior has the stuff—first and foremost a nasty fastball with what hitters call "late life." It has a little extra pop at the end that makes a really good fastball far more than simply a function of how fast it measures off the radar gun.

  Orlando Palmeiro, who spot-starts and makes a careful study of pitchers, will tell you that there are some fastball pitchers who barely get out of the eighties. But that pop, that little point underneath the exclamation, makes them difficult to hit. But Prior does throw in the nineties. And he brings it smoothly and effortlessly all the way up from those redwoods, like the steady spout of water from a fountain where you can't quite grasp the mechanics of how it can flow so easily yet so forcefully.

  And it's not only his fastball. He's got that curve with the nice tight break. If he ever gets that changeup going—the last dab of paint in crafting the perfect portrait of a power pitcher—the demands on hitters will become impossibly intense, forced to respond to the middle nineties on one pitch and the low eighties on the next, without knowing when the downshift is coming and having four-tenths of a second to react to it.

  Kerry Robinson enters the batting box to begin the bottom half of the first. He's overmatched here, as is every Cardinal tonight except the great Pujols. Prior gets the sign from Paul Bako. Prior shows no emotion—not a speck, no anticipation, no excitement—just the machinery of his motion, exquisite, almost without exertion.

  He comes with a fastball to begin the night's journey. It sails high to give Robinson the comfort of a 1-and-0 advantage in the count. In his foxhole, La Russa paces back and forth a little bit. There's a distinct pattern to it: three paces out, three paces in, three paces sideways. Part of it is habit, and part of it is a highly developed sense of superstition, the belief that any break in the routine will bring a hex. Early in his career with the White Sox, he had to wear a flak jacket as the result of a death threat. The threat passed, but La Russa wore the jacket for another month because his team was winning.

  There isn't much to learn from that first pitch. But the fact that it was high might indicate that Prior, despite his outward presence, is acutely aware of what's at stake in this series and is maybe overthrowing a little bit, a heart that does beat madly under pressure. So La Russa lets himself hope that maybe this first pitch bodes poorly for Prior, just like Garrett Stephenson's first pitch of the game, a fastball strike, was a good omen.

  But Prior settles down after that. He comes in with two nasty fastballs down and away in the zone to push Robinson into a 1-and-2 hole. He comes with a fastball, his fourth in a row. It's high and inside; Robinson takes a cut at it and manages to foul it off. Prior comes with a fifth straight fastball, clearly thinking that he can dominate Robinson with his strength: no need to break up the pattern with anything off-speed. It jams Robinson. He puts a swing on it, but there's no authority to it, and the result is an easy liner near the bag at second for the first out.

  It brings up Bo Hart, second in the ersatz lineup that injuries have forced on La Russa. Hart approaches the plate with an infectious earnestness, bouncing and bounding in: Let's go, let's go! The Cardinals fans, red-soaked in their own regalia to counterbalance the machine gun nests of Cubs supporters, love him for it, live through him; he treats his at-bats as they might if they were suddenly told to get in there and hit major-league pitching, grab a stick of wood and plug their ass off. His uniform is usually dirty and his body outstretched, diving for something, getting to something, fighting off something. Now the Cards fans cover him with cheers as he arrives at the plate, bellowing his name: Hart.

  Prior throws a curve that catches him looking for strike 1. It's obvious that the Cubs have been studying their own video compilations; this is an area where Hart has been having increasing trouble. He swings through an inside-and-low fastball to make the count 0 and 2, and now he's in baseball hell, so helpless and lonely, the plate metastasizing because of the hitter's desperate impulse to flail at anything that might remotely get him out of his hole. Prior can feel the kill shot. He throws a curve that buckles down and away on the outside corner. In the parlance of the players, it's a filthy pitch. Hart has no choice but to swing at it.

  He actually gets something on it. He hits it hard, and it skips past Prior's foot and past second base for a single. It's a sweet piece of hitting, a suggestion that Hart's War—his battle against the curve—will someday be won. Prior threw filth at him, and he spanked it right back.

  Up comes Pujols, who takes two fastballs for an immediate 0–2 count. Normally, this would be baseball hell all over again, but neither Pujols nor Prior is normal, so the at-bat has just begun to have narrative. There is no better matchup in all of baseball right now: the perfect storm. Certainly, La Russa is eager for Pujols to emerge as the hero, but even he can't help but relish the mano a mano between the two, the beautiful game between pitcher and hitter.

  There is Prior, as if he's been at it for a decade—in on the black, out on the black, up on the black, low on the black—trying to tempt with something nasty and offering nothing plump. As his performance shows tonight, he has exceptional location. He works both sides of the plate with his fastball. His curve, because of its tightness, doesn't hang like a fat apple on a tree. And he's smartly situational with it—with a "get me over" breaking ball early in the count for strike 1, and then a bounce-in-the-dirt breaking ball that a hitter will chase with two strikes. He isn't afraid to go inside, as many young pitchers are, either because they fear hitting someone or because they've been burned too many times by those springy aluminum bats that allow high school and college players to send even an inside pitch with authority to the outfield. But what is most prodigious about Prior is his combination of maturity and mechanics. Even before he had thrown a major-league pitch, one ranking had Prior fifth in efficiency after Nolan Ryan, Curt Schilling, Randy Johnson, and Roger Clemens.

  As for his maturity, it isn't exactly the serene, modest, old-soul kind. He's cocky as hell, like many young athletes La Russa has seen in recent years who at the first sign of prowess are singled out by parents and coaches and teammates and lose all link to the grace of humility. His maturity has more to do with how he husbands his most precious resource: his arm. The fluidity of his delivery protects it, of course, but so does his attitude, his willingness to throw breaking balls in clutch two-strike situations instead of the more typical alpha-male fastball. Unlike most young pitchers, he does not believe that the solution to all problems is more juice on the ball. For now, his cockiness serves instead of impedes, never a sure thing in baseball.

  Pujols also has an uncommon maturity, hitting as though he's been at it for a decade, with his own disciplined command of the strike zone, refusing temptation, trying to force Prio
r to throw the ball in a meaty part of the plate, where he can drive something with his own mechanically sublime stroke that launches the ball off the bat. Pujols comes into Game 1 with his statistical set and the heels of that thirty-game hitting streak:

  Prior comes into Game 1 with his statistical set, which has only gotten better as the season has progressed. In the last four games, he's given up two runs in thirty-one innings:

  Pujols so far has Prior's number: unafraid and unabashed. He simply tags him, with a .556 average against him and two home runs. Prior, who considers Clemens and Ryan his role models, pitchers notorious for going up and in, is not about to back down by overtly pitching around him, an intentional walk without making it look intentional. Given that both players are still in their twenties, La Russa can sense the beginning of something memorable. "It's gonna be a war," was the description he once again used. There was a crease of excitement in his voice as he said it—not simply a manager's appreciation but also a fan's appreciation—something to look forward to in the way that DiMaggio versus Feller and Mays versus Gibson and Aaron versus Drysdale were something to look forward to, moments when the eight other players on the field might as well return to the dugout so they too can have the joy of watching.

  So Pujols isn't going to wilt on the 0 and 2—go away with some halfhearted slap swing—just as Prior isn't going to wilt on it with some breaking ball in the dirt. Pujols is all steel, and Prior looks more impenetrable than ever. He's not afraid of Pujols—he's not afraid of anyone—which is the way every twenty-three-year-old should be.

  You know he's going to bring it. He does bring it. And Pujols puts a swing on it. There is that sweet-sounding crack as the ball flies off the bat and launches into right with the speed of expectation. The red-drenched faithful come out of their seats, and so do the blue-drenched faithful, colors colliding all over the stadium. From his corner in the dugout, La Russa bolts forward a few steps, willing it with his eyes and a slight opening of the lips as if what he really wants to do is scream his head off—just bloody scream —savoring the prospect of a 2–0 lead in the bottom of the first off Prior, the anticipation on his face the anticipation he's had a million times as a manager when a ball starts off like lightning: Will it carry?

  It's just a little too much off the end of the bat. Sammy Sosa in right makes the catch as it dies, and all that anticipation gives way to the reality that Jim Edmonds is up with two outs and Hart still on first.

  Prior runs the count to 1 and 2. It puts Edmonds at a clear disadvantage, but the count also opens up a small sliver of possibility that La Russa may try to exploit. Because of the count in Prior's favor, La Russa figures that the next pitch will be one of two choices: a high fastball or a curve in the dirt, something out of the strike zone that still induces Edmonds to chase. He's also calculating that with the upper hand in the count, Prior's focus is going to be on Edmonds anyway, not paying attention to whether Hart tries to steal second.

  As Prior goes into his wind-up, Hart takes off on La Russa's sign. It's a classic manager strategy, so classic that most managers now routinely look for a steal with two outs, on the theory that it's better to make the third out at second than at the plate. If the ball is a curve out of the strike zone, he'll probably steal it. If it's the high fastball, he probably won't, because of the greater velocity and the quality of Bako's arm. It's an aggressive play to try so early; other managers might wait for the game to settle in a little bit. But for La Russa, it meets the threshold of aggression with common sense. It's a push for a run with two outs in the bottom of the first against a pitcher who has thrown first-pitch strikes to the last three batters he's faced and has been virtually unhittable his last four games. It's the only way to deal with a pitcher this good: be proactive, make something happen. If Hart succeeds, he can now score off a single. That's obviously the preferred result. But if Hart is thrown out, it's not the end of the world, because it gives Edmonds a fresh count to start the next inning, a baseball mulligan.

  Hart hauls down the line toward second. He's gotten a good jump and has decent speed. It still hinges on whether La Russa has guessed right that Prior will come after Edmonds with a curve.

  It is a curve in the dirt. Edmonds doesn't chase, and Bako doesn't even bother to throw. An inning that seemed dead may have something left to it after all, particularly when Edmonds pushes the count to 3 and 2. Suddenly, Prior needs to make a pitch in the strike zone. He doesn't want to walk Edmonds, not with Scott Rolen up next and capable of hitting something for extra bases with his natural-born power. Because of the count, it's an obvious fastball situation, when a pitcher cornered like this goes to his strength. But Prior elects maturity instead. He comes with a curve, but it's not one of his best ones. It's middle of the strike zone, belt-high. From the dugout, La Russa can see its voluptuousness. It's such a peach for Edmonds, something he can drive. But he's not looking for it. His assumption, the common hitter's assumption, is that Prior is going to come after him with the fastball, which means that he has to adjust. It is virtually impossible to adjust to a fastball when you're looking for a curve, although it is possible to adjust to a curve when you're looking for a fastball. But Edmonds's timing is still off a little bit. He taps a three-hopper to first and the inning is over.

  There is no particular tumult in the dugout as the first inning ends. Opportunities in baseball come and go all the time, and dugouts early in the game resemble luncheonettes where all the diners know one another and have formed little cliques and talk amiably until one of them has to go to work, and it may take hours before that even happens. Farthest right are the bench players, who may or may not get into the game. La Russa rarely ventures into this territory, perhaps because he may hear them talking about hunting or cars instead of baseball, which would drive him crazy, just as it drives him crazy when a hitter gets a single and starts chatting it up with the first baseman as if they're distant cousins at a family reunion. He shares the fan's view that it simply doesn't look good: Baseball is meant to be a game of competition, not a game of whas-sup dawg? In the middle are the starting pitchers who won't get into the game because, like an extended Sabbath, these are their days of rest. Stephenson sits on the bench in back, left alone to ponder the next inning, with Simon and Ramirez, the remaining two heads of the monster, due up. As Hart and Edmonds file back into the dugout to end the inning, Stephenson comes out of his reverie, gets his glove, and heads back out to the mound.

  II

  STEPHENSON THROWS a solid second inning. He gets Simon out on a 1-1 fastball in. It's a good location pitch, banging Simon inside, just like Duncan told him to do. Stephenson comes back from a 3-1 liability to Ramirez for an easy fly out to center. He uses his head against Alex Gonzalez, working him in so he gets antsy that he better protect the inside of the plate, the inside conscious thing, then works him outside and fools him so badly that he awkwardly lunges at the ball for a weak foul out.

  Prior answers in the bottom of the second with his own 1-2-3 dispensing of Rolen and Tino Martinez and Miguel Cairo in twelve pitches. So far, La Russa hasn't seen anything from Prior that surprises him. He's spotting the ball well. He's showing excellent command. If there's anything that buoys La Russa, it may be the pitch count. Rolen took a seven-pitch at-bat against Prior before flying out. Edmonds went seven pitches in the first before that weak tapper on the stealth curve. Through two innings, Prior has thrown thirty pitches, which would put him right around a hundred in the seventh and maybe force Dusty Baker to consider the purgatory of the bullpen.

  La Russa watches Prior with professional admiration. But in emotional terms, Prior gets under his skin. It isn't Prior personally that bothers him but what Prior represents: the young player with the big talent who instead of being circumspect his first few years in the league routinely rises to the media bait so prevalent today and gives answers to everything, when he hasn't been around long enough to have the answer to anything. He doesn't like the intemperate out-of-the-blue comments Prior mak
es about the Cardinals, how he hates them. He doesn't think he needs to make comments about Barry Bonds, how he isn't afraid of him, when this is Prior's first full year in the league and this is Bonds's eighteenth. I think he needs to be doing this a while is the way La Russa thinks about it when he watches him pitch. It's an old-fashioned comment, said by a manager who believes in circumspection among young players because that's the way he came up: Your first couple of seasons, no matter how good you are, you should be in the corner, shutting up and soaking it in.

  Prior can rank up there with Schilling and Maddux and Johnson by the time he's through. With his rare mix of stuff and smarts, he is that dominant. But he's also that young. He has the swagger that is the hubris of youth, taking his invincibility for granted when nobody ever should, receiving too much early attention and slathering in it.

  La Russa has seen a procession of pitchers over the years who have broken down and busted out because of arm problems and high expectation problems and personal problems and, perhaps most of all, problems making the distinction between being a thrower and being a pitcher. He has seen young pitchers done in by their need for speed. He has seen pitchers done in by the fear of coming into the majors even though they have major-league-caliber stuff. He has seen young pitchers done in by being rushed to the big leagues, as every team is hungry for pitching. Time after time, he has seen the fall from the stratosphere, the burnup. No player in baseball is more vulnerable than a pitcher, the physical and psychic requirements for sustained success not only monumental but also fragile. The line between success and implosion is so terribly thin. Climbing a sheet of ice has more job security, as evidenced over the past thirty years by the number of number-one picks in the baseball draft who were highly touted, highly ballyhooed pitchers but flamed out without ever getting close to the majors.