Third Strike

by Philip R. Craig

  “Noon is great,” I said. “I’ll shut down the office. Nothing much going on in Boston law offices and courtrooms on Fridays in August anyway. Julie will be thrilled to get away from the office for a long weekend.”

  “You gonna need a car? What about a bed?”

  “I hadn’t gotten that far,” I said. “But, yes, I’ll definitely need a car. I suppose I’ll stay with Larry. I’ll figure that out when I get there, I guess.”

  “Larry being your client?”

  “Larry Bucyck. Know him?” J.W. didn’t say anything for a minute. “I’m sure I don’t know him, but the name definitely rings a bell. Lives in Menemsha, you said?”

  “He used to pitch for the Red Sox.”

  “Not the guy who—?”

  “That’s him. The ninety-one playoffs.”

  “Larry Bucyck,” said J.W. “Wow. A name to be reckoned with. Right up there with Bill Buckner and Bucky Dent. Haven’t heard that name in years. So Bucyck’s down here on the island, huh?”

  “Has been for the past fourteen or fifteen years. Lives pretty much like a hermit.”

  “Don’t blame him,” said J.W. “If I was him, I guess I’d want to crawl into a cave and never come out. So he’s your client?”

  “I negotiated his contract, and later on I did his divorce. I guess that makes me his lawyer. He seems to think so.”

  “So what’s so important he’s dragging you down here in the middle of a damn ferry strike?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, “and if I did know, I couldn’t tell you. All I know is, he says he’s in trouble, he sounds scared, he’s got something he wants to show me, and I told him I’d be there.”

  “Heigh-ho, Silver,” said J.W.

  “Aw, you’re worse than Evie. I’m just a lawyer doing my job.”

  “I’ll see you at the dock in Woods Hole, noon tomorrow,” he said. “We’ll have a nice sail, go to the house, have a beer, visit with Zee and the kids. You can use Zee’s Wrangler for as long as you need it.”

  “I appreciate it,” I said. “Thank you.”

  “Finish up with Mr. Bucyck,” he said, “we can sneak over to Cape Pogue, catch us a mess of bluefish.”

  “That,” I said, “is an incentive to finish up with Mr. Bucyck. See you tomorrow.”

  When I put the phone down, I caught Evie frowning at me.

  “What’s the matter?” I said.

  “You better tell me who Larry whats-his-name is.”

  “If you’re a true-blue Red Sox fan, you’d know.”

  “I’ve only been a Red Sox fan since I met you,” she said.

  “You’ve missed most of the angst, then,” I said. “This was back in ninety-one. The Sox made up four or five games in the standings in September, didn’t nail down the wild-card spot till the last day of the season. The media were resurrecting old Red Sox phrases like Cardiac Kids and Impossible Dream. It was pretty thrilling. Anyway, they called Larry Bucyck up from Double A in the middle of August. He was a right-hander, a power pitcher. Major-league fastball, nice quick-breaking little slider, decent control. Local kid, grew up in Waltham, pitched for B.C. Made second-team All NCAA, pretty obvious he was going to get drafted early, so my old buddy Charlie McDevitt, he was a friend of the Bucyck family, he recommended me. To handle Larry’s contract.”

  “Like a sports agent?” said Evie.

  I shrugged. “Larry was drafted in the third round. The contract was pretty much boilerplate except for the specific numbers. It was all routine, but I think Larry and his folks felt good, having me help out. So anyway, he spent two and a half years working his way up through the minors, getting people out at every level, and when the Sox called him up, everybody in New England was pretty excited about it. Local boy makes good, you know?”

  Evie smiled. “What about you? Were you pretty excited?”

  “Sure,” I said. “I get excited by the Red Sox anyway. But this kid was my client. That was very cool. So like I said, this was the middle of August, and the Sox were in second place, chasing the Yankees as usual, still in the hunt for a playoff spot. Larry pitched pretty decent in long relief, the Sox had that great September, and they put him on the playoff roster. He was the last man on the depth chart, didn’t figure to get into a game unless it was already one-sided, just there to maybe absorb some innings, save the other arms on the staff. Lo and behold, the Sox kept playing well, winning playoff games, and they made it to the American League Championship. So it comes down to the seventh game. They’re playing the Angels in Anaheim, and by game seven both pitching staffs are used up. So wouldn’t you know, the game goes into extra innings. It’s after our bedtime back in Boston, but of course all of New England’s watching. So finally, the top of the fourteenth inning, the Sox manage to eke out two runs, and all they’ve got to do is get three outs and it’s on to the World Series. Whoever they had in there pitching, can’t remember his name, he goes back out there in the bottom of the fourteenth and promptly gives up a hit and then a walk to the first two Angels. Tying runs on base, nobody out. You look out to the bullpen, there’s only one arm left out there.”

  “Larry Bucyck,” said Evie.

  “Pink-cheeked rookie Larry Bucyck himself,” I said. “Our manager goes out, talks with the pitcher. I’m watching on TV—it’s about three o’clock in the morning, the game out there on the West Coast—and I can see the manager and the pitcher both shaking their heads. So they bring in Bucyck. All the hopes and dreams of Red Sox Nation—don’t forget, 2004 hasn’t happened yet, the Curse of the Bambino’s still a big black cloud of doom hanging over us—everything resting on young Larry Bucyck. Kid looks about twelve years old, and when the TV camera zooms in on him, he looks so scared he might puke.”

  “Your client,” said Evie.

  “I was so nervous,” I said, “I thought I might puke myself. It was nerve-racking, but pretty cool, too, having this kid I worked with, my client—seeing him out there in this situation.”

  “That doesn’t seem fair,” said Evie, “bringing an inexperienced boy into a situation like that.”

  “Fair, schmair,” I said. “He’s all they’ve got. Anyway, look, he’s a professional. He’s got a job to do. Get three outs before they score two runs. Shouldn’t be that hard. So, first guy, Larry strikes him out, good fastball in on his hands. Next guy hits a two-hopper to the shortstop, easy double-play ball, ballgame over, on to the World Series. Except the second baseman has trouble with the relay, can’t get it out of his glove. We got the out at second, but the batter beats it out at first, so the Angels are still alive. By all rights, Larry Bucyck should be the hero, but instead there’s runners on first and third and he’s still gotta get one more out. The manager goes strolling out to the mound, talks to the kid, pats him on the ass, tells him he’s doing great, don’t worry about it, whatever. So the next batter, strike one, strike two, like that. All we need is that third strike and it’s all over. But then the youngster makes the oh-two pitch too fat, typical rookie mistake, and the batter smacks a line shot to left, clean single. The Angel scores from third. Now we’ve just got a one-run lead. But still two outs. I’m watching on TV, I want to cover my eyes. I’m seeing Larry’s body language, and I don’t like it. So, sure enough, he walks the next guy, four pitches, not even close. Now they got the bases loaded. And, not to drag it out, four more pitches, he walks the next guy, too. Now the game’s tied up. The TV camera pans on the Sox bullpen. Nobody’s up and throwing, which the manager was gonna keep hearing about until he got fired two years later, but the fact was, they didn’t have anybody, and the manager already made his allotted trip to the mound, so he can’t even go out there and give the kid a pep talk. So anyway, to spare you the agony of it, Larry walks the next guy, too, four straight pitches not even close to being strikes, and the game’s over.”

  Evie was smiling at me. “That was all those years ago, and you remember every detail.”

  “How could I forget? For a while, nobody forgot. Twelve straight pitches ou
t of the strike zone.” I shook my head. “Actually, I left out a lot of details, figured they’d bore you. That was the abridged version.”

  “I’m not sure I followed it all,” she said, “but it sounds like Larry Bucyck choked.”

  “Oh, absolutely,” I said. “You hate to say it, hate to accuse anybody of choking. But twelve straight balls? Walk in the tying and winning runs? That was awful. Worst thing you can do in that situation is not throw strikes. He coughed it up, just gave them the game. No doubt about it. Larry Bucyck shit the bed big time.”

  “I bet the media and everybody were pretty hard on him.”

  “Less than you might think, actually,” I said. “They were a lot harder on the manager for putting himself in a situation where he had to bring Larry in with the game on the line, and they were pretty critical of the veteran second baseman for botching the double play. There was a shitload of analysis of that inning, needless to say. The manager—I can’t even remember who it was, we had a whole string of unmemorable managers back then—he made a couple moves back in the eighth and ninth innings that were rightfully second-guessed. But, see, the subtext of it all was, Larry Bucyck wasn’t good enough, over his head, never should’ve been in there in the first place, which wasn’t exactly great for the kid’s confidence. Anyway, none of that mattered, because Larry was harder on himself than all the fans and media put together ever could have been. It was like his whole image of himself had been destroyed in fifteen minutes on a September night in Anaheim.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “They started him off back in Double A the following spring, trying to keep the pressure off him, let him find his groove again. He had a good arm, a good history, and they figured, give him more seasoning, he’d be a decent big-league pitcher. But after a few months down in Scranton or Wilkes-Barre or wherever he was, he couldn’t get anybody out, so he went down to Single A, and after that they sent him down to an instructional league in Florida so they could work on his mechanics. But, of course, his problems had nothing to do with the mechanics of his arm and everything to do with the mechanics of his head.”

  “He was washed up, huh?” said Evie.

  I nodded. “It’s a pretty sad story. Kind of the opposite of the American Dream. A year after Larry Bucyck walked in the winning run in Anaheim, the Sox let him go, and nobody picked him up. I talked to him about pitching in Mexico or Japan, maybe, but he was cooked, and he knew it. He didn’t even want to try it.” I shook my head. “Fact is, he was relieved. He hated baseball. Then a year or so after he left baseball, I did his divorce for him. His wife got custody of the two kids, the house in Sudbury, their investments, and Larry got the shack in Menemsha. I could’ve done better for him, but that’s how he wanted it.”

  “Guilt, huh?” said Evie.

  “Guilt, self-loathing, you name it. I was pretty worried about him. Whenever I was on the Vineyard after that, I’d make a point of dropping in on Larry, but it was pretty clear all he really wanted was to be left alone. He was trying to simplify his life, which I certainly respect, had no need for a lawyer, didn’t seem to want a friend, even, or at least a friend who remembered that game against the Angels in ninety-one. After a while, well, a man who seems uncomfortable around you, you don’t hear from him for a while…”

  “You stop worrying about him,” Evie said. “When did you last see him?”

  “I would’ve said a couple years ago, but I guess it’s closer to five or six. One summer when I was down fishing with J.W. It was pretty clear to me that I made Larry uncomfortable. He couldn’t wait for me to leave.”

  “What happened to his wife and kids?”

  “Far as I know, he hasn’t seen them since the divorce. He has visitation rights, I made sure of that, but he just went to the Vineyard and stayed there. Last I heard, Marcia—that was his wife’s name—she’d remarried and moved to Vermont. I guess the kids—there was a boy and a girl—would both be out of high school by now.”

  “That’s harsh,” said Evie, “giving up your kids like that.”

  “I argued with him, of course,” I said, “but it’s how he wanted it. Larry figured when they got old enough to understand, they’d hate him as much as he hated himself. He thought they’d be better off if nobody, including themselves, connected them to the choke artist who gave away the ninety-one playoffs.”

  Evie shook her head. “That’s terrible. It was only a stupid baseball game.”

  “Try telling that to a Red Sox fan.”

  Chapter Three

  J.W.

  Early that afternoon, while Joshua and his pal Jim were scrambling around the tree house, I walked up to the box at the end of the driveway and got the day’s mail, which didn’t amount to much but did include the week’s edition of the Vineyard Times, which comes out on Thursdays. I wanted to get the Times’s take on the explosion, but the accident had happened too late the previous night for the story to make the paper. This meant that the Vineyard Gazette, which came out on Friday, and whose editorials almost always supported positions opposite those of the Times, would get the scoop and a temporary edge in the ongoing Vineyard newspaper duel.

  I walked back down to the house, checked to see if both boys were still intact in spite of their swinging around in the big beech tree, and reread the strike stories in earlier editions of both island papers. Some of these reviewed the reasons for the strike, none of which were unusual: wages, job security, working conditions, benefits, and the like. Other stories were nostalgic recollections of the last ferry strike, in the spring of 1960, which I remembered hazily as a time of high adventure because it had been my first time across Vineyard Sound on a fishing boat. Other stories focused on the effects the strike was having on the local citizens and visitors. Some of these stories were comic, some were maddening, and some were quixotic. The editorials of both papers attempted to take the high ground, expressing sympathy for all involved and offering unctuous hopes that a just and rational solution to the conflicts would be quickly found.

  As usual, the letters to the editors ranged politically from the hysterical, union-hating, right wing, to the hysterical, union-loving, left, with much pontificating on both sides, but little light to shed on the causes of the strike and few sensible proposals for its resolution. These letters seemed to bear out a study that I’d read about that indicated pretty clearly that partisans, no matter how intelligent they might otherwise be, responded to political issues emotionally and not rationally.

  No surprise there. The only new information I had gotten from the study was that emotion was reflected by activity in one area of the brain, and reason was reflected in another area. I’d wondered if that meant, as I sometimes suspected, that free will is an illusion and that we are wired to act the way we do. It was a concept I didn’t like at all, and refused to accept, even in the face of evidence that I might be wrong.

  Was my refusal a choice? Or was I wired to refuse?

  Did the editorial and letter writers have a choice about their views, or were they just writing what they were biologically predestined to write?

  It was the old free-will issue that I’d never resolved to my satisfaction. Facing this dilemma, I’d decided to act as though I had a choice in my actions even if I in fact had no choice but to decide I had a choice.

  There madness lay, but I ignored it.

  By and large, both papers seemed glad that so many private boats had come to the island’s rescue, even as both recognized that in the long run the Steamship Authority offered the only viable lifeline between the Vineyard and America. Reflecting classic island xenophobia, both editors also wanted to keep the Commonwealth of Massachusetts out of the matter. Better to sink beneath the sea than trust Beacon Hill to act responsibly.

  I saw no solution to the strike other than whatever would be hammered out during the endless meetings between management and labor. Sooner or later, I was sure, a new agreement would be reached, and when it was, it would have both supporters and detractors
venting their opinions in the island papers.

  Meanwhile, an explosion had nearly sunk one boat, and a man was dead.

  I put aside the newspapers, got a Sam Adams out of the fridge, and went outside to a lawn chair. The August sun was hot, and the beer tasted just right.

  Joshua and Jim were crouching on the rope bridge between the beech and the oak, shooting make-believe arrows at make-believe enemies, apparently playing Tarzan and the Leopard Woman. It was a good game—much better than pushing buttons on some electronic gadget.

  As I was finishing my beer, Zee’s little Jeep came down the driveway and parked beside the Land Cruiser. Zee and Diana got out, both looking unhappy. Zee pointed at the boys in the tree, and Diana seemed to cheer up a bit.

  “Stay where you are, Jeff,” said Zee. “We’ll be right back.”

  They went into the house and a few minutes later came out again. Diana headed for the tree house, and Zee, carrying two bottles of Sam, came over and sat on the lawn chair next to mine. She gave me one of the bottles and took a drink from the other.

  “I invited Mary over to play with Diana,” she said, turning her bottle in her hands, “but Mary didn’t want to leave her mother. Gloria is almost hysterical. She can’t believe that Eduardo is dead. She says he would never use violence of any kind. She says something terribly wrong happened to him.”

  I thought that wives don’t always know as much about their husbands as they think, and vice versa.

  “How’s the little girl?” I asked.

  Zee looked down into her bottle, then took a sip. “She’s afraid to leave her mother because something might happen to her, too. Her father left the house and now he’s dead. She’s afraid that will happen to her mother if she leaves her.”

  I thought about how I’d felt when my mother died. I was four and my sister Margarite was two. Later I learned that my mother had been the victim of a fast-moving cancer, but at the time all I’d known was that she was gone and wasn’t ever going to come back. I’d been lonely and nervous for a long time, even though my father, suffering even more than we children were, and destined never to remarry, had made a deal with the fire department so he could stay home with us for a while.