The Big Field

by Mike Lupica

  If it hurt his mom’s feelings, she didn’t let on.

  “I love them,” he’d said when he got to the last page of the second book, the one that had a picture of him signing his first pro contract. “Thank you so much.”

  Then he did something he hardly ever did when Hutch was around. He kissed her.

  It was the first and last time Hutch could remember him opening those books. Hutch hadn’t opened them up again, either.

  Until today.

  He sat there in the silent front room in the quiet house in the middle of the day and looked at pictures of his dad in the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, ones of him playing high school ball and holding up the state high school championship plaque, ones of his dad in his own American Legion uniform, so tight on him back in the day that it looked to be a couple of sizes too small.

  There was his dad scoring the winning run when Post 226 beat Jacksonsville in the finals, when he was fourteen years old.

  There was his dad, bat cocked, looking oh-so-serious, in the fake baseball card somebody had made up for him when he was a senior in high school.

  Once Hutch opened the books up, it was as if he couldn’t stop going through them. Maybe it was because his dad looked happy on the pages of these books, happier than Hutch ever saw him now.

  He sat there on the couch and found himself wishing he could have known that Carl Hutchinson, the one who loved baseball this much once.

  Too much, according to his dad.

  Just once, Hutch wanted to see baseball make his dad look this happy again.

  No, Hutch thought, not just baseball.

  Me.

  A woman from the American Legion Tournament Committee met them near the two palm trees outside Gate B a little after five, walked them through the stands behind the first-base dugout and around the picnic area before they finally came to the building behind the right-field wall where the real Cardinals dressed for spring training games.

  Once they were inside the clubhouse, they saw the lockers for Albert Pujols and the rest of the team, saw where Tony La Russa’s office was, felt the thick carpet under their feet.

  Cody said, “I’m glad we’re getting to play out there,” pointing back in the general direction of the field. “But I’m pretty sure I want to live here.”

  Tommy O’Neill, who lived a couple of blocks away from Santaluces in Lantana, said, “This room is bigger than my whole house.”

  “Yeah,” Chris Mahoney said, “but remember something: Tonight it’s our house.”

  Most of the guys had gotten on the bus already dressed in their uniforms. Not Darryl. He had worn a T-shirt and cutoff jeans and sandals, and was quietly changing into his uniform now at Pujols’ locker. There was, Hutch noticed, no wide-eyed wonder from Darryl about being in here, being on the inside, any more than there had been the night before when they’d first taken the big field for practice.

  Darryl acted as if this was exactly where he was supposed to be.

  Hutch thinking: Cody and me and the rest of the guys, we only dreamed about playing ball here someday.

  Darryl expected to be here.

  When Darryl had his spikes on and was good to go, Hutch walked over to him, put out his hand. Darryl looked up at him, waiting just long enough to make Hutch think he was going to ignore the gesture, just leave him hanging. But finally he reached up and casually gave Hutch a sideways slap.

  “Let’s do this,” Hutch said.

  He didn’t expect them to suddenly be the best of friends just because they were in the finals. Tonight Hutch just wanted them to be the best teammates they could be.

  Darryl just shrugged.

  “I’m good,” he said.

  To the end, it was as if D-Will were a baseball team all by himself.

  The guy’s consistent, Hutch thought.

  You’ve got to give him that.

  Hutch saw a television cameraman near the third-base dugout when the Cardinals took the field, saw him aiming his camera and his TV light at two announcers in blazers, neither one of whom Hutch recognized. Sometimes the announcers would look at each other, sometimes straight into the camera, as if they couldn’t make up their minds.

  “What can they possibly be talking about?” Hutch said.

  “The game doesn’t start for another hour and a half.”

  “Probably taping their standup,” Cody said, as the Cardinals started to stretch in front of their dugout on the first-base side.

  “Their standup?” Hutch said.

  “I’m not just your average jock,” Cody said in a smug way.

  “I know things.”

  They stretched and hit and took infield and now the minutes did start to fly by, until the Orlando players were being introduced first, lining up along the third-base line the way big leaguers did before Game 1 of the World Series. Hutch was watching from behind the screen in the Cardinals’ dugout, taking it all in, noticing that by now a decent crowd had filled in the seats on the other side of the field.

  Hutch knew it would be mostly friends and family for Orlando the way it would be for the Cardinals tonight, but he didn’t care.

  Inside his head, this baby was going to be standing room only.

  When the public address announcer finally called out his name—“Batting third and playing second base for Post 226, Number Two, Keith…‘Hutch’…Hutchinson”—he jogged out to stand next to Mr. Cullen and Alex and Brett, slapped them all five, turned and saw his parents and Cody’s parents behind the first-base dugout, in front of a whole row of blue Comcast signs.

  Both Hutch’s mom and Cody’s started waving at him like mad when they saw him look in their direction.

  Hutch, trying to be cool, just nodded.

  Then he caught his dad’s eye.

  His dad nodded back.

  He had made it in time.

  He was here.

  Like always, Hutch took what he could get.

  23

  TRIPP WAS THEIR STARTER FOR GAME 1, AGAINST THE ASTROS’ ace, a seventeen-year-old right-hander named Rod Brown. There had been a story about him in that morning’s Post, recalling the fact that he’d pitched a no-hitter in last year’s final. The story also told how he had moved to Orlando from Austin, Texas, a couple of years before, and how his hero was Roger Clemens, another Texan.

  He wore Clemens’ number, 22, and was known to his teammates as “The Rocket.”

  The story said that the scouts in attendance tonight were primarily there to look at two players above all others:

  The Rocket, and fourteen-year-old Darryl Williams.

  “Nice write-up today,” Hutch had said to Darryl during batting practice.

  “’Bout time,” Darryl said. “Wait till you see what they write at the end of tonight.”

  But through the first three innings, it was Rocket Rod Brown’s night.

  By the time he struck out Cody to end the top of the third—Orlando had won the coin flip before the game, making them home team tonight—it had been nine up and nine down for the Cardinals, with The Rocket striking out five guys already, including Hutch and Darryl.

  The Rocket was everything they’d read about and heard about.

  And more.

  “So that’s what a ninety-mile-per-hour fastball looks like,” Cody said when he came back to the bench.

  Brett said, “Don’t you mean sounds like? I never saw the ball.”

  Fortunately Tripp was matching The Rocket out for out, if not strikeout for strikeout. So the game was 0–0 after three, the only hit so far coming from Orlando’s leadoff man. Hutch and Darryl had vaporized him on the very next pitch from Tripp, on a 4-6-3 double play. Hutch flashed to his left to keep the ball from going into right-field and giving Orlando first and third, nobody out. He thought he might have to dive, realized he wouldn’t have to, gloved the ball, spun around toward the outfield, and still managed to make a perfect throw to Darryl, who snapped off a Rocket-like throw of his own to get the runner at first by
a step.

  “That’s what I like to see,” Hutch said as he and Darryl ran off the field together.

  Darryl nodded toward the people sitting in the seats behind the home-plate screen and said, “That’s what the scouts like to see, homes.”

  Hutch doubled over first base with two outs in the fifth, not trying to pull the ball, just making solid contact. Darryl honed in with a runner in scoring position, doubled him home, and the Cardinals had the first run of the game. Then Hank Harding singled home Darryl and it was 2–0. But Orlando came right back with two runs of their own in the bottom of the inning, Tripp getting wild and walking home one run and wild-pitching home another before getting a pop-up to end the inning.

  When they got back to the dugout, Mr. Cullen informed Tripp that he was done for the night, explaining that if there was going to be a Game 3 Monday night, if the series did go the distance, he wanted Tripp to be as fresh as possible, even with two days of rest.

  “One more inning, Coach,” Tripp said. “Don’t let me end my night with a sloppy inning like that.”

  They were at the end of the dugout closest to the water cooler. Mr. Cullen put his hands on both of Tripp’s shoulders and said, “You know I was a pitcher myself once. So trust me when I tell you something, kiddo: Nothing has ruined more arms than guys thinking they had one more inning in them when they didn’t. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Mr. C said, “Now you go play first base and let Mahoney hold them until we get some runs and bring Pedro in to turn out the lights in the ninth.”

  The Rocket pitched one more inning than Tripp, through the top of the sixth, seeming not to tire, striking out the last three batters he faced: Cody, Alex, Tripp. All swinging. By Hutch’s unofficial count that made it an even dozen strikeouts for the game.

  All the Cardinal players, wanting this guy out of there as soon as possible, had noticed that Orlando had a new pitcher warming up even while The Rocket worked the sixth. But they weren’t positive he was out of the game until they saw the new guy, a skinny right-hander, taking the mound for the top of the seventh.

  “Look at him,” Cody said. “I could use this guy to floss.”

  Hutch said, “You’re assuming that they won all those games and got here with just one stud pitcher?”

  “There’s no way this new guy is as studly as the guy they just took out,” Cody said.

  “Don’t be so sure,” Hutch said, studying the new guy as he warmed up.

  Then he got his bat and went and stood in the on-deck circle, because he was leading off the seventh.

  Unfortunately, the closer Hutch got to the skinny kid, the better he looked. Even though he had an easy motion, pausing a little at the top, the ball just exploded out of his hand, the way the ball exploded off Darryl’s bat even though he had that smooth swing. Hutch also noticed that the new guy had long fingers, always dangerous for a good pitcher, not just because they helped put more spin on the ball, but also because Hutch believed they could hold on to it a split second longer, generating more force and movement on it.

  The public address announcer said his name was Julio Ortiz.

  Julio threw two letter-high fastballs to start Hutch off, both of which he fouled off. The next two fastballs were just off the plate, Julio trying to get Hutch to strike himself out, Hutch being patient, not playing along.

  Two-two.

  Hutch tried to think along with the pitcher now, the way he always did, especially late in the game. He knew Julio didn’t want to walk the leadoff man, not with Darryl waiting there on deck. And Julio probably didn’t even want to go to a full count, put pressure on himself to have to throw a strike.

  It meant that the next pitch might be the best one Hutch was going to see in this at-bat.

  Had to be the fastball again. Julio hadn’t thrown a single breaking ball yet and Hutch couldn’t imagine him messing around with junk—if he had any—and risk hanging one now.

  Hutch dug in, having processed all that in a few seconds, the way he could on a baseball field, in almost all situations, and dug in, thinking fastball all the way.

  Julio threw him what looked like a fastball, what should have been another fastball, but what turned out to be the nastiest, dirtiest split-fingered fastball he had seen from any American Legion pitcher all season, which meant that it was the dirtiest splitter anybody had thrown him in his life.

  The ball ended up in the dirt in front of the Orlando catcher, but it didn’t matter because Hutch had swung right through the pitch. Forget about it, no chance.

  As the Orlando catcher came out of his crouch to throw the ball down to his third baseman, Hutch said, “How much did that thing break?”

  The kid lifted his mask, turned his head away from Hutch, grinned, and spat. “Enough,” he said.

  Hutch didn’t just feel bad about striking out, he felt bad about looking as bad as he knew he did striking out. And then he felt even worse about everything when Darryl—who’d obviously been paying close attention to old Julio from the on-deck circle—went the other way with the first splitter he saw, hitting a bullet into the right-field corner. When Hutch saw where the ball landed, he thought it would be a triple for sure. But Darryl, slowing down to check where the right fielder was with the ball, tripped over second base and nearly went down, and had to settle for a double.

  Hutch thought: It would have been an RBI double if I hadn’t been up there like I was swinging the wrong end of the bat.

  Darryl made it to third when Hank Harding grounded out to second, but stayed there when Chris ended the inning by flying out to short left.

  Game still tied, 2–2.

  Stayed that way through the bottom of the seventh and through the top of the eighth. Before they took the field for the bottom of the eighth, Mr. Cullen had them collect at the home-plate end of the dugout, leaned against the screen to talk to all of them.

  “Now we know we can play with these guys,” he said. “All that’s left is for us to beat them.”

  Chris Mahoney was still pitching. “I got this, Coach,” he said.

  Hutch said, “And we got you.”

  Then he said to everybody what he’d said to Darryl in the clubhouse:

  “Let’s do this.”

  When Hutch got out to second base, he looked around Roger Dean. He had been doing it all game long, just about every time there was any kind of break in the action. Checked out where his parents were still seated. Looked in behind home plate, trying to figure out which ones the scouts were. Not that he’d given them much to scout so far tonight, other than that one play in the first.

  He turned around then, gave a quick look to the outfield, saw some younger kids out there on The Berm, watching this game from where Hutch and Cody had watched big leaguers play in the spring.

  When he turned back around, watched Chris take his final warmup pitches, Hutch suddenly found himself hearing something Mr. Cullen would say on the bench during a close game:

  “It hasn’t happened yet.”

  He said it all the time in close games, and it always meant the same thing, that the play or the pitch or moment that would decide the game still hadn’t happened.

  In Hutch’s mind now it just meant that the best of the night was yet to come.

  Chris pitched a scoreless eighth for the Cardinals. Julio Ortiz did the same for Orlando in the top of the ninth. By then Pedro was warmed up and good to go, even in a tie game, ready to face the middle of the Orlando order. Usually Pedro was in there if they had the lead. Tonight he was supposed to keep the game tied and, somehow, get them to the top of the tenth.

  On his way out to right field Cody veered off and came over to where Hutch was standing near the second base bag.

  Cody said, “Do me a favor?”

  “Sure.”

  “Do something great.”

  “Got it.”

  Pedro walked the No. 3 hitter to start the inning. It was not the way any of the Cardinals wanted to start the bottom of the ninth—putt
ing the potential winning run on base.

  Hutch didn’t think the Astros would sacrifice with their cleanup guy, a lefty power hitter who played first, even if the guy on first—their center fielder—had great speed. But he was wrong. The sucker laid down a perfect bunt between Brett and Tripp, the ball rolling along the first-base line and nearly coming to a stop before Tripp grabbed it.

  His only play was to turn and throw to Hutch covering first.

  Winning run on second now, one out.

  The No. 5 hitter hit the first pitch he saw from Pedro Mota down the right-field line, and when it came off his bat, Hutch was worried that it might be too far away from Cody for him to catch up with it. Cody could catch anything he could get to, but he wasn’t fast and didn’t get the greatest jump in the world, not even during batting practice.

  Tonight he got a great jump, ran down the ball, and caught it in stride about five feet from the line.

  Two outs now, but the runner on second had tagged and gone to third.

  Hutch ran in to the mound, grinned at Pedro, and said, “You know our deal, right?”

  “Get this guy to hit it to you?”

  “There you go.”

  The Orlando catcher was built like a tree stump and Hutch knew by now that he had a short, dangerous, compact swing. He’d nearly driven one over Alex’s head—not so easy to do—in the second.

  But Pedro did as he was told, got the catcher to hit it to Hutch on a 1-2 pitch, throwing the kid a sinker of his own that was good enough—dirty enough—to have come spinning out of Julio’s long fingers.

  The best the kid could do was hit a high chopper toward Hutch at second.

  Hutch knew the catcher had no speed, that he didn’t have to charge the ball, that he could just wait on it.

  The way the ball was bouncing, he didn’t even need to use the old board move.

  Until he did.

  Until the ball hit the lip of the infield grass and went skidding across the dirt at a whole new speed, before Hutch had time to adjust and get his glove down in time.

  The glove wasn’t low enough and neither was he.