The DH

by John Feinstein

  “I’ll need some help—that’s for sure,” Alex said.

  “Well, you’ve got some, Goldie,” Alex heard a voice say behind him.

  Alex looked up and saw Bailey Warner standing behind him holding a tray in his hands.

  “Bailey!” he said. “What’s the deal?”

  “The deal is, I went back to the doctor yesterday,” Warner said. “The shots and the sling worked. He thinks I can start rehabbing right away. He cleared me to start throwing lightly today—before the game. If everything goes okay and I don’t feel any pain, I could pitch as soon as next Tuesday—at least for a couple innings.”

  Christine put her fork down and put her arms in the air for a second. “If you guys get Bailey and Matt back, you can still make a run at winning the conference,” she said.

  Bailey sat down. “Yeah, but those are still ifs, aren’t they?” he said. “I gotta pitch my way into shape, and Matt…” He shrugged. “Who knows—right?”

  Matt nodded. “Yeah, exactly,” he said. “Who knows.”

  When Alex walked to the mound that afternoon, he felt as if it had been months—not ten days—since he had pitched in a game. Which might have explained why he walked the bases full almost immediately. The third walk, on a 3–2 pitch, was a fastball that Alex thought had caught the corner.

  The umpire never moved—ball four.

  “Where was that?” Alex asked, frustrated he hadn’t gotten the call.

  “Low and outside,” the umpire replied. “Other than that, a perfect strike.”

  The second part of the comment made Alex angry. He walked off the mound in the direction of the umpire, who took his mask off and walked around the plate to meet him.

  “The pitch was a strike,” Alex said, pointing with his glove.

  “Other than being low and outside, you’re right,” the umpire said. “Now, you want to get yourself ejected when you’re already down a pitcher, or you want to play baseball?”

  Fortunately, Lucas Mann had followed the ump out and jumped in between him and his pitcher before Alex could tell the umpire it was none of his business what the status was of the Chester Heights pitching staff.

  “It’s okay, Mr. Umpire,” Mann said. “No one’s getting thrown out. Come on, Alex, let’s just get back on the mound and pitch.”

  Coach Birdy had arrived on the scene by now, and he put his arm around Alex and turned him back in the direction of the mound.

  “Alex, let’s focus on the next batter,” he said softly.

  “The guy’s a jerk,” Alex said between clenched teeth.

  “I know,” Coach Birdy said, nodding and smiling so that if the ump was watching, it would look like he was calming his pitcher down. “But you know what? He’s right. We can’t afford to have you get yourself thrown out. It was a close pitch—a good pitch. So now you’re going to be a hero for getting out of a bases-loaded, no-out jam in the first. Throw strike one to this next batter and you’ll be fine. He’ll be taking, waiting for you to throw a strike. Just get ahead of him.”

  Alex nodded. Coach Birdy jogged back to the dugout. Lincoln’s cleanup hitter was at least six foot four and weighed, Alex guessed, 225. He looked a lot like a Herman twin. If I throw this guy strike one, he thought, he may not take and he’ll hit it eight hundred feet.

  Mann signaled for a fastball. Alex shook him off. Mann signaled fastball again. Alex shook him off again. Mann called time, took off his mask, and jogged to the mound.

  “Myers, what are you doing?” he said. “You heard Coach—we gotta get ahead of this guy.”

  “I throw a fastball down the middle, he might hit it to New Jersey,” Alex said. “Let’s start him with a slider.”

  “Can you throw it for a strike?” Mann asked.

  “Yeah,” Alex said. “I can.”

  The umpire was on the mound now. “Fellas, there are no lights here,” he said. “We need to finish before dark.”

  What is this guy, a stand-up comic on the side? Alex thought.

  He said nothing. Mann went back behind the plate and put down three fingers—the universal sign for a slider. Alex threw it exactly where he wanted to, right on the corner. The ump hesitated a moment, then put up his hand, signaling strike one. Alex breathed a sigh of relief. He was okay now.

  Four pitches later, he was out of the inning. The cleanup hitter smashed a one-hop comebacker to him, and Alex turned it into a 1-2-3—pitcher to home to first—double play. Then the next hitter popped his first pitch up to Cardillo at shortstop.

  The Lions sprinted to the dugout, energized by the escape.

  “I told you that you were going to be a hero,” Coach Birdy said, giving him a high five as he reached the dugout steps. “Lot of guts throwing that slider. I’d have killed you if you’d missed with it.”

  “Goldie is all guts,” Matt Gordon said. He was seated in the dugout—in street clothes—allowed to do so, pending his appeal. If he lost it, he wouldn’t even be able to do that. He gave Alex a high five too, then walked to the end of the bench to get some water. Alex knew this was killing him. But still, he was there for his teammates.

  Even though at that moment he wasn’t part of the team.

  As it turned out, Lincoln’s first-inning threat was the only time Alex was in trouble all day. Having settled down thanks to the double play and the pop-up, he rolled through the next four innings, allowing just three singles, one more walk, and one run. In the meantime, the Lions were battering three Lincoln pitchers for eight runs. Alex, moved into the third spot in the batting order in Matt’s absence, had three straight doubles. He drove in three runs and scored three himself.

  As he came into the dugout after the fifth, he wasn’t surprised to see Coach Birdy waiting for him. Because of his wild first inning, Alex figured his pitch count was pretty high. “I’m going to let the bullpen finish this one for you,” Coach Birdy said. “You may have to pitch a lot the next few weeks, so let’s not push the envelope.”

  “How many pitches have I thrown?” Alex asked.

  “Eighty-nine,” Coach Birdy said. “That’s plenty.”

  Patton Gormley and Johnny Ellis each pitched an inning of shutout ball, and the final was 8–1. The win raised Chester Heights’ conference record to 2–1. There had still been no announcement about how the issue of the Haverford Station game was going to be resolved. Coach Birdy had told the players he suspected the conference was hoping it would have no meaning in the final standings and would just go in the books as “suspended.”

  “If either Haverford Station or Chester Heights has a chance to win the conference title, then they’ll have to do something,” Coach Birdy had said. “Let’s hope we put them in that position.”

  Without Matt, that was unlikely. Alex and everyone else understood that the win over Lincoln was hardly a big deal. The Presidents were 0–4 in the league, and it was easy to see why after playing against them.

  There was plenty of media coverage for the game, not surprising as it was the first the Lions had played since the Gordon-Twardzik catastrophe a week earlier. Naturally, most wanted to talk to Matt, but he politely explained that while his suspension was under appeal, he couldn’t really answer any questions. He did go on camera long enough—Alex saw it later that night—to say that he’d visited Billy Twardzik in the hospital and was very pleased to hear he was scheduled to go home the next day.

  “I hope to pitch against him later in the season,” he said. “I told him he’d better be ready because I would be throwing nothing but strikes.”

  That was, Alex thought, a smart way to handle the situation. He was pretty certain his dad had coached Matt on what to say to the media.

  Alex got a fair bit of attention himself, although there were a lot more Matt questions than Lincoln questions.

  “Alex, if Matt doesn’t play again this season, what do you think your team’s chances are to compete for a conference title?” was the opening question.

  Alex couldn’t resist being a little bit of a wi
se guy. “Yes, we’re all very happy that Billy’s doing so much better. Thanks for asking,” he said. “And yes, I agree, this was a good win for us after what went on last week.”

  He stopped. Some of the reporters laughed. The questioner, who was clearly a TV guy but not someone Alex recognized, didn’t.

  “Are you going to answer my question now?” he asked.

  “Sure,” Alex said. “I have no idea. Time will tell.”

  The answer was an honest one, but it was also Alex’s way of telling the TV guy what he thought of his question. Not that it was a bad question, it just seemed wrong to ask it without even a mention of Twardzik or the day’s game.

  “Alex,” someone else asked, “do you think the suspension is appropriate?”

  Alex had anticipated that one. “I’m biased,” he said. “Matt’s my friend and my teammate. I know he wasn’t trying to hurt Billy. But I also know he lost his temper. I think a couple of games—two, maybe three—would be fair. But the whole season? To me, that’s not fair.”

  “Do you think the conference took into account his PED use and suspension last fall?”

  This was the same TV guy again.

  Alex shrugged. “You’ll have to ask them. But I’m not sure what one has to do with the other,” he said.

  “What if it was ’roid rage that caused him to throw at Twardzik’s head?”

  Alex was getting angry, but he knew that was what the guy wanted. “You’d have to check with the conference for the exact number, but Matt has passed a lot of drug tests. If he was using any kind of drug at all, he would have tested positive.”

  And then he had one last thought. “That was a really stupid question,” he added. “I gotta go.”

  He walked away and was halfway to the locker room when he heard someone calling his name. It was Christine. She was smiling.

  “Way to go,” she said. “You just guaranteed you’ll be on every newscast in the city tonight.”

  Alex didn’t really care. “Who was that guy asking the dumb questions?”

  “He’s a freelance guy,” she said. “I think he was here for Fox today. Not sure, though.”

  “Well, he’s a dope,” Alex said. “I hope they all show me telling him his PED question was stupid, because it was.”

  “Of course it was,” Christine said. “The same guy asked Matt the same question five minutes earlier.”

  “Matt should have punched him.”

  “Yeah, that would have been smart.”

  “What did he do?”

  “He told the guy he’d been tested twice a week since early December—including last week—and he was clean.”

  “Well, that’s essentially what I said.”

  “Yeah, until you called him stupid.”

  Alex sighed. They had won the game easily, he had pitched well after the game’s first three batters, and he was walking into the locker room with a knot in his stomach because Christine was telling him he had somehow screwed up by calling someone stupid who was stupid.

  He decided to change the subject.

  “Would you like to go to a movie Saturday afternoon?”

  She shook her head. “No. My dad has tickets in the Inquirer/Daily News box for the Phillies game. You want to come with us?”

  Alex smiled. He felt the knot loosening.

  “Absolutely,” he said.

  He walked into the locker room with—he knew—a goofy grin on his face.

  As usual, Jonas picked up on the look right away.

  “I’m guessing that stupid smile has nothing to do with the game,” he said. “Christine, right?”

  “Yup,” Alex said, happy to share good news. “She invited me to go to the Phillies game Saturday with her dad.”

  “How romantic,” Jonas said, but his grin made it apparent he knew this was a good thing for Alex.

  The big question at Wednesday’s practice was who would be pitching Friday.

  Jonas told Alex, “Coach posted the lineup already. Ethan starts. No change in plan there. I guess everyone else except you has to be ready to pitch in.”

  “Pitch in?” Alex said.

  “Sorry, didn’t mean it that way,” Jonas said, grinning.

  Alex had been thinking about the game against Jefferson and how the pitching staff would get through it. None of the team’s three top pitchers were available: Matt was suspended, Bailey Warner would be hoping to throw forty pitches pain-free before the game began, and Alex had pitched on Tuesday.

  “I could probably go an inning if I had to,” he said.

  “Which would leave us where for Tuesday against Lansdowne?” Jonas said.

  Alex knew Jonas was right. The problem was, if they wanted to contend in the conference at all, they couldn’t afford any more losses. King of Prussia, with the Herman twins hitting balls into outer space, was already 4–0, and so was Chester. The two teams would play the following Tuesday, so only one would stay undefeated. Then again, without Matt, any thought of catching either of those teams was probably fantasy anyway.

  As it turned out, Jonas’s notion that everyone would have to pitch in against Jefferson was accurate. The Jeffs’ pitching wasn’t any better than the Lions’, and the game became a slugfest. Jeff Cardillo tied it in the top of the fourth with a three-run inside-the-park home run. And Ethan Sattler managed to last four innings but gave up six runs and left with the score tied, 6–6.

  It was 9–9 in the top of the seventh when Alex came up with one out and no one on. Jefferson’s pitcher promptly fell behind him 3–0, and Coach Birdy gave Alex the swing-away sign. Alex lined a grooved fastball into the right field corner and slid into third with a triple. Cardillo singled to left, and Alex jogged home with what proved to be the winning run. Don Warren walked two batters in the bottom of the inning, making everyone a little nervous, but then he struck out Jefferson’s cleanup hitter to end the game.

  “Big win—great win,” Coach Birdy said afterward. “That was the definition of a team effort. We needed everyone to contribute, and everyone did.”

  Matt had not made the trip to the game. He was allowed in the dugout in street clothes at home, but he couldn’t travel with the team to road games. When Alex turned on his phone on the bus trip home, he saw a text from Matt: Great win. My hearing is next Friday in Harrisburg. You guys have to get through two or three more without me.

  Alex knew that was probably optimistic. Matt was thinking that his father’s request that the suspension be reduced to time served—it would be four games by next Friday—would be accepted. Alex showed Jonas the text.

  Jonas shook his head. “I don’t see it that way,” he said. “I think we’ll be lucky if they reduce it to ten.”

  “If we could get him back for the last five, we might have a chance,” Alex said.

  Jonas shook his head. “You’ve seen King of Prussia. You think anyone’s beating them?”

  “Maybe Chester,” Alex said. “And if Matt pitches when we play them again…”

  “And if I grow ten inches by next basketball season, I can play center,” Jonas said, giving Alex a look.

  He was right. Alex knew he was right. But he didn’t want to think about it right now. He decided to think about going to the Phillies game with Christine and her dad instead.

  The Phillies lost, but Alex felt like he’d won big-time. Christine’s dad was nice, and it was pretty clear that Christine had told him good things about Alex. He even made a comment about his French accent.

  “Christine tells me you’re the only one in class with an accent as good as hers.”

  “No one’s accent is even close to being as good as Christine’s,” Alex answered, grinning.

  “She’s got you well trained, I see,” Mr. Whitford said.

  It was a good day.

  So was Tuesday.

  Alex was now starting to pitch with confidence, and it showed against Landsdowne. He actually retired the first nine hitters he faced before a walk and a single in the fourth led to Landsdowne scorin
g on a sacrifice fly. That was the only run he gave up in six innings.

  Meanwhile, Chester Heights pieced together single runs in the second, third, fourth, and sixth. Johnny Ellis pitched the seventh, and the Lions walked off with a 4–1 win.

  “Franklin’s awful,” Matt said as they all headed for the locker room. “You guys will beat them, and then we’ll be five-and-one—really, six-and-one, because we were up by five when the Haverford Station game was suspended. That means we’ll be tied with whoever loses the KOP-Chester game today, and only one game behind the other guys.”

  “You have it all pretty much figured out, don’t you, Matt?” Jonas said.

  Matt shrugged. “It’s not like I have much else to do with my free time these days. The point is, we’ve still got a chance.”

  “Why are you so sure your suspension’s going to be reduced?” Alex asked.

  Matt smiled. “I’ve got a great lawyer.”

  No one on the team had any idea what was going on at Matt’s hearing when they boarded the bus for the trip to Benjamin Franklin High School.

  The hearing had been scheduled to start at one o’clock to give Matt and his lawyer plenty of time to make the two-hour drive from Philadelphia to Harrisburg.

  “Your dad says the hearing will probably take about two hours,” Matt had told Alex. “They should have a decision by the middle of next week.”

  “So if they go with time served, you could—in theory—pitch against KOP next Friday.”

  “Can’t wait,” Matt had answered.

  Alex hadn’t seen his dad that morning, but the plan was for everyone to meet back in Philly after the game for dinner.

  “If you guys win, I’ll take you, Matt, Jonas, and Christine to the Palm,” Alex’s dad had said.

  “What if we lose?” Alex asked.

  “McDonald’s,” his father answered.

  Alex had eaten at the Palm with his parents in New York on trips there in the past. The thought of one of their steaks was a pretty good incentive—if an incentive was needed.

  There was important news for the team even without any word from Harrisburg, and that was the name of that day’s starting pitcher: Bailey Warner. He had thrown a pain-free seventy-five-pitch bullpen session on Monday and had pleaded with Coach Birdy to get him into the Landsdowne game for an inning. Coach Birdy had turned him down because he didn’t want him throwing two days in a row and also because he was thinking of starting him on Friday.