The Legend of Mickey Tussler

by Nappi, Frank;

  “Cat, Mr. Murphy? No, no cats. Oscar’s a pig. I don’t got no—”

  Arthur steadied himself with a long, purposeful breath. “It’s just an expression Mick. That’s all.”

  They rode the rest of the way in relative silence. Arthur was ruminating over everything that was just plain wrong. His anxiety became indissoluble. He lamented that he always seemed to submit to the feckless desires of others, especially of those for whom he held unmitigated disdain. He was always dancing around Dennison, fearful of castigation.

  Be a crying shame if one or two bad decisions messed things up for you, he recalled bitterly. Dennison’s words echoed in his ears. Christ, he was such a smug, pompous asshole.

  “Go fuck yourself, Warren,” he always wanted to say. Just once, so Dennison would know that he was aware of what a shithead he was. Those words, however, could never pass his lips. They always got stuck, it seemed, somewhere in his throat, where they struggled and burned and festered for a while before he chewed the inside of his cheek, hung his head, and simply swallowed them until the next time. He fantasized wildly that his message would be delivered through some other medium—so that these elusive words would never have to meet the air. He considered this as he looked to his right and saw Mickey.

  They arrived at the ballpark in plenty of time. It was a beautiful day for baseball; temperate breezes pushed a smattering of cottonlike clouds across a pale blue canvas. The sun was playing hide-and-seek for most of the early day, splashing the field at intervals with warm wrinkles of happiness. All around the tiny stadium were the sounds of the pregame euphoria—tractors grinding, coaches hollering, reporters snooping, and turnstiles clicking. This frenzy of anticipation would build to the crescendo that came only by way of that magical incantation “Play ball!” Once those words punctuated the air, the place went still, as if placed beneath a glass bowl, and all that could be heard was the traditional hymn to America, played on a C melody saxophone, and the erratic breathing of eager worshippers.

  Lefty took the ball for the Brewers. He had been sparkling in his last three outings—won all three contests, allowing just nine hits and four earned runs while fanning a mind-boggling thirty-two batters. His run of good stuff continued against the Tulsa Beavers, as he set down the first nine men to step to the plate, five on punch-outs. “I’m rolling, fellas,” he boasted. “Everyone hitch your wagons.” His bluster continued to soar after he fanned the next three Beavers, and in the Brewers’ half of the fourth, Woody Danvers launched a threerun rocket over the left-field wall, giving the Brewers and Lefty what figured to be all they would need.

  The weather, however, turned unexpectedly, and out of the frowning face of the sky, a light rain began to fall. Initially it made a whisper and then a soft murmur, like voices conversing in a closed room. It seemed to be a passing shower. But soon after, it began pounding the earth with thunderous blows, like a herd of self-indulgent colts charging through a clay pan canyon.

  Arthur and the others watched from the dugout steps as the water hammered the infield dirt, creating syrupy, glasslike puddles that swelled and bubbled before sprawling across the entire diamond.

  “Great Caesar’s ghost!” Matheson lamented while scratching his head. “You better get comfortable, boys. Looks like we’re gonna be here awhile.”

  During the rain delay, the players busied themselves with a variety of activities. The scene was like some sort of vaudeville spectacular gone wrong.

  “Hey, guys,” Jimmy Llamas announced proudly to his outfield cohorts, Buck Faber and Amos Ruffings. “Check this out.” The quirky Llamas, known for his uproarious histrionics, produced from behind his back three rolled-up pairs of stirrups, which he held out ceremoniously, kissed, and then, with much fanfare and self-promotion, juggled to the delight of the others.

  “Hot damn!” Faber roared. “He’s a regular freak show.”

  On the other side of the clubhouse, Woody Danvers was dealing blackjack to lanky first baseman Clem Finster, Butch Sanders, and Larry, the equipment boy. It was just for fun, but tempers were high nonetheless.

  “Hey, Danvers, that’s the third blackjack you dealt yourself in the last five hands,” Finster complained. “Lemme see that deck.”

  “Eat shit, Finny,” Danvers fired back. “It’s all good. Ain’t my fault the gods are smiling on me and crapping on the rest of you losers.”

  “Enough bullshit. Let’s play. But just make sure, Danvers, that those cards of yours ain’t something you pulled from Pee Wee’s bag of tricks,” Sanders added. “I ain’t no patsy, Woody.”

  Danvers just smiled.

  Pee Wee McGinty had his own thing going. He was the team magician, always ready to entertain on a moment’s notice. He loved these delays more than anyone. With a trainer’s table doubling as his stage, he set up shop, littering the tabletop with all kinds of gadgets, bells, and whistles. Mickey and Arky Fries stopped banging out their cleats and pulled up to watch.

  “Ladies and gentlemen!” the tiny, self-proclaimed wizard announced happily. “The Great McGinty will now amaze you by making this baseball glove disappear, right before your eyes.” Mickey and Fries both smiled.

  Boxcar looked up from his crossword puzzle just long enough to catch the bewildered look on Mickey’s face. He made a face of his own, annoyed by McGinty’s outburst, and exchanged a quick glance with Lefty, who was by himself in the far corner, working the callus on his pitching hand with a thin slab of brick that had broken free from the dugout wall. Eager to complete what he had started, Boxcar looked back at the paper on his lap but winced and sighed as the hard laughter from Faber and Ruffings slid into a dizzying coughing fit.

  “Hey, shut up over there!” the ornery backstop thundered, frustrated by the eight-letter word he had yet to decipher. “I can’t hear myself think.” His mouth twitched a little. It slid to the left, then back over to the right. His stare narrowed, revealing with more detail the deep lines around his eyes. Then, tapping a pencil softly against his chin, he continued his assault on the puzzle, only to be thwarted once again.

  “Hey, Box, got a minute?” Murph asked. “I think I have an idea.”

  Murph put his hand to his head and felt his hair, wet and sparse. He frowned, then pulled his cap over the damp mess, mumbling something about the way things used to be. He laughed at himself sometimes, a senseless mocking that vacillated between whimsy and self-loathing. What was he still doing in this game? Hadn’t it all just passed him right by? He thought about farming, about all the opportunities he had passed up just to remain close to it all. For what? Corn and chickens were a tangible, hands-on validation of effort. At the end of the day, you could trace your steps and lie down easily, having tasted the fruits of your labor. After all, what exactly did he have? The rain, strong and steady against the clubhouse roof, shook him from the contemplation.

  “Let me see your glove a minute,” he finally asked.

  With the passing of the final shower, and under a blazing sun that seemed to lift the deluge with impatient hands, the players, one by one, began filtering out of the clubhouse and onto the field like ants intoxicated with the expectation of picnic remnants. The ground sank beneath their eager feet, and a few of them groaned when some of the runoff found its way into their shoes.

  “Holy shit!” Lefty complained. “You guys actually gonna play in this crap?” Then he spit tobacco juice from the space between his front teeth and shook his head. “Won’t catch me out there. You know how many careers were ruined on days like today?”

  The field was a mess—a quagmire of woeful turf bowed by the deluge and streaked here and there by intermittent tinges of ocher courtesy of the encroaching swirls of mud. It looked like a child’s finger painting. The sun’s hands, however, were fast at work, and after almost two hours, eleven bags of sand, and several artful strokes with some metal rakes, the diamond was asparkle again and ready for play.

  “Hey, Larry,” Arthur ordered. “Lefty is done. Been sitting too long to finish. Do
n’t want that arm of his tightening up. Take Mickey down the right-field line and warm him up.”

  The players from both sides stretched and ran and played pepper, trying to shake off the ill effects of their idle endeavors. And when the final fungo was hit, and the few spectators who had braved the soaking showers settled back in their seats, a tiny roar could be heard as Mickey and the rest of the beloved Brew Crew took the field.

  The sun, fully exposed once again in a pale blue sky, bathed the players in golden hues. Mickey stood tall on the mound, like a tiny mountain. The nervousness that had befallen him in his first outing was gone, replaced somehow by a quiet confidence that spilled out of his tattered jersey.

  “Come on now, big boy!” Boxcar encouraged. “Just like warmups before. Put her right here.” Nausea began to work in the catcher’s stomach, an uneasiness for the hulking farm boy, as the first batter approached the plate, swung twice, and dug himself into the sandy muck that just hours before was the batter’s box.

  With the umpire crouched expectantly behind him, Boxcar set the target just as he always did—high and inside. It was his calling card—hard stuff in, junk away. The entire field knew his way, so they always made the defensive adjustments accordingly. They had watched Boxcar from their positions for years. But on this most unusual day, a curiosity emerged from the yawning cowhide—a bright red sphere of sorts imprinted right in the center of the pocket.

  “What the hell is that?” Danvers whispered to McGinty, as both infielders peered in incredulously. “Is that a goddamned apple painted in his glove?”

  Pee Wee liked Mickey and would have done anything to help the boy. But he questioned Murph’s vision. He scowled, dimpling his smooth, ruddy cheeks. His eyes fluttered, and Danvers lamented under his breath about the “bush league” appearance the team had seemed to suddenly embrace, just as Mickey rolled his arms, reared back, and fired. The pop was thunderous and separated all of them from their cynical thoughts.

  “Steerike one!” the umpire shrieked.

  A spring wind, which carried on it a mixture of oohs and aahs, blew across the diamond. Boxcar smiled from behind his mask and returned the ball to Mickey. Then the enigmatic pitcher cupped the ball with his right hand, buried it inside his glove, rolled his arms, and fired once again.

  “Two!” screamed the umpire. “On the corner.”

  The batter never even flinched. It was past him almost instantly. Perplexed, he stepped out of the box and banged his spikes with the knob of the bat, trying to figure out how it was possible to hear the ball behind him before ever really seeing it.

  Mickey was cool. He caught Boxcar’s toss and stepped back on the rubber, impervious to the gaping mouths and incredulous stares aimed at him. It was as if he were back on the farm, tossing apples. Everything around him seemed to just melt away, so that all he saw was the eleven-inch leather frame sixty feet away from him.

  The batter returned to the batter’s box. He held his right hand up behind him as he dug in with his back foot. Mickey just waited. Then, after a few practice passes with his Louisville Slugger, the batter was ready. Mickey rolled his arms again, uncorking a tiny white meteor whose trajectory was true. The batter grit his teeth. He was determined to make contact this time. As the ball streaked toward home plate, he began his swing, a violent, spasmodic explosion whose force buckled his knees and drove him to the ground in ignominious defeat.

  “Steerike three!” the umpire thundered. The batter kicked the dirt and cursed his fate.

  “Shake it off, Rumson,” the Beavers’ skipper screamed from the dugout. “He got lucky.”

  And then it happened again. And again, and again, and again. Mickey buzzed through the entire Beavers lineup, sitting down one discouraged batter after another. The crowd was electrified. All of their own hopes and dreams and wild aspirations rose to the surface, a molten energy that fixed itself to this episode so remote, so absurdly improbable. Something about the whole scene was supernatural—this misfit farm boy, with all his quirkiness, mowing down batter after batter. Just to be a part of it, even from a distance, was intoxicating. Upon the eradication of each batter, the crowd stood up, in unison, and saluted the unlikely icon by placing their right hands in their left and rolling their arms breathlessly, all the while chanting at fever pitch, “Mickey! Mickey! Mickey!”

  “Have you ever seen anything like this?” Murph said to Matheson. Murph couldn’t help but chuckle. Things never went this well for him. He, along with everyone else in the park, was swept away by what looked like the simultaneous spreading of wings by a frenzied flock of seagulls.

  Not everyone was amused. Some took exception to all the attention.

  “What the hell is Murph thinking?” Finster complained in between innings. “Is this a baseball game or some cheesy, two-bit publicity stunt?”

  Buck Faber nodded. Something irreducibly human, or maybe just male, threatened the order of their world. “Something needs to be done, Finny,” he said gravely. “This is bullshit.”

  The crowd, however, continued its celebration. With each strikeout, the Brewer faithful exploded from their seats like champagne, roared their approval, then lapsed into this bizarre choreography of rolling arms that spilled across each section of the stands like an ocean wave. Of the fifteen Beavers Mickey had faced, he’d fanned ten and retired the other five on weak ground balls to the infield.

  When the final out was recorded, on a 2-2 fastball that shaved the inside corner, and a small group of Brewers, lead by Murph, charged the mound in celebration, Mickey was overwhelmed. Stampedes were never good. His first impulse was to run. Pee Wee saw the panic and thought he heard Mickey call for his mama as he darted in the other direction. But the shortstop was able to arrest Mickey’s flight with what started as a bear hug but ended up looking more like a little boy hanging on to his father’s leg.

  “You done real good, Mickey,” Murph said, smiling. “Real good.”

  “Like peaches and cream,” Matheson added. “Peaches and cream.”

  Mickey was still unsettled but smiled back. The crowd remained on its feet, chanting Mickey’s name and saluting him with the reverent impersonation of their newest hero’s delivery.

  “They love him, Murph,” Boxcar said, as the three of them lingered on the field. “They ain’t never seen anything like it before.”

  Murph looked up at the crowd one last time, animated by a new certainty. “You got that right, Box,” he said, shedding any previous trepidation. “Things are sure looking up.”

  SUMMER—1948

  News of Mickey’s Herculean exploits vibrated in sweeping circles. It was all anyone could think about. In every barbershop, saloon, factory, and schoolyard, talk of the “fireballing phenom” insinuated itself into even the most banal conversations. Casual discourse that included such mundane topics as the Republican Party and the gross national product, and issues of a more whimsical nature, such as the latest weather patterns, dance music, or the recipe for Aunt Mabel’s sweet-potato pie, somehow always made its way back to the local baseball scene. The fervor knew no boundaries. Young. Old. Male. Female. Sports enthusiast and occasional observer. It was of little consequence. Talk of Mickey and the Brewers was on everyone’s lips.

  Perhaps it was the fantastic headlines that adorned the local paper every fifth day:

  “Brew Crew’s Fireballer Brands Colts.”

  “Mickey Gases Rangers.”

  “Baby Bazooka Shoots Down Bears.”

  Of course, it could have been the mythological stories, turgid tales of superhuman physical feats that seemed to swell in proportion with every outing Mickey had.

  “Hey, Pop,” a little boy asked his father after having just seen Mickey pitch a game, “do you know that Mickey once threw a ball one hundred ten miles per hour? Threw it so hard that it tore the glove and three fingers right off the catcher’s hand?”

  “Don’t be silly, Son,” the father admonished, rubbing his son’s head playfully. “One hundred ten miles per
hour?” The man chuckled, brought his index finger to his temple, and scratched gently. “I don’t think it could have been any more than one hundred. Don’t believe everything you hear, boy.” Then he smiled at his son’s naïveté before continuing, “Besides, it was only one finger, not three.”

  Or maybe it was just a natural reaction to unnatural happenings, the universe’s logical response when something spectacular suddenly lights up the gloomy face of the daily grind. Whatever it was, Mickey had created quite a stir.

  Despite some of the rumblings, the entire team was inspired by all the attention. With the exception of Lefty, the long faces and slumping shoulders were replaced by laughter, unbridled enthusiasm, and boyish antics. Brewer baseball was fun again. Nothing screamed this enjoyment more than the off-the-field high jinks. They roared when someone filled Jimmy Llamas’s jockstrap with liniment—and when Woody opened his locker only to discover that his favorite bat had been painted pink. Boxcar got a cap full of shaving cream, the fingers in Pee Wee’s glove were stuffed with hot dogs, and Lefty received a hot foot that burned his spikes so badly it took three of them to put the fire out.

  “You guys are a bunch of assholes,” he complained. “You know that? A bunch of fucking assholes.”

  “What’s your problem, Lefty?” Boxcar teased. “I thought you loved smoking.”

  Boxcar’s sarcasm sent Lefty’s blood rushing to his temples. “Hilarious, Box,” he fired back. “You’re a regular Jack Benny. You don’t screw with a pitcher’s feet. Jesus, how goddamned stupid are you?” Then he looked around awkwardly and folded his arms close to his chest, trying to cradle his wounded ego. “You wouldn’t do that to Mickey now, would you?”

  Boxcar scratched his chin in mock rumination, his face now hardened and grave. “Shit no! Do that to Mickey? No way. Now that would be stupid.”

  The pitcher did not appreciate Boxcar’s flippancy. Lefty had a nasty temper and unreasonable resentments. He paced for hours afterward, trying to exercise muscles that had tightened in his jaw and all around his other joints. All he could think about was his career, and the disastrous course it had suddenly taken at the hands of this novelty act. He stretched and threw and ran but just couldn’t shake the suffocation. He was still seething the next day.