The Legend of Mickey Tussler

by Nappi, Frank;

  He began the seventh inning by walking the first batter on balls that were up and well out of the strike zone. It was a sure sign that he was tiring, something that Murph had not anticipated—especially the way Mickey had cruised through the first six. But in a heartbeat, the team’s fortunes had changed. Murph saw his chances slipping away, and was alarmed over his lack of remedy.

  “Hooper,” he screamed desperately. “Start getting loose.”

  While Gabby Hooper trotted down to the pen, the Sidewinders began hitting Mickey hard. Lumber was cracking like logs on a raging fire. First a single. Next came a ringing double off the base of the center-field wall. Then another single. Another walk moved the runners from one station to another. The merry-go-round was in full swing.

  Mickey was pale, with dark shadows under his eyes. He looked around, desperate and forlorn, mopping his sweating face on his sleeve. His lips moved deliberately, forming words that nobody could really hear or understand.

  “ ‘A harvest mouse goes scampering by, with silver claws, and a silver eye.’”

  Murph recognized with alarm the boy’s withdrawal. “Time,” he called, emerging from the dugout for the long trip to the mound. He had hoped that Mickey would be able to get through the inning— that he would not have to yank him prematurely—but trailing 4–0 late in the game, he was left with little choice.

  “You did good, Mick,” he said, holding his hand out for the ball.

  “Really. You kept us in this thing. Gave the fans a real thrill. It just wasn’t meant to be today.”

  Mickey’s head sagged. He had all but collapsed.

  “Hey, don’t sweat it, Mickey,” Boxcar added, joining the conference on the mound. “You did good for your first time back.”

  The wounded pitcher chewed the inside of his cheek and balanced idly on the edge of the rubber. “Gee, I’m sorry, Mr. Murphy,” he said, erupting in tears that shimmered in the glow of the late-afternoon sun. “Honest. Mickey is real sorry.”

  Murph’s face was pained as well. “You got nothing to be sorry about, boy.” Murph waved a finger before Mickey’s face. “You did just fine. Fine, ya hear? And if you don’t believe me, listen to the crowd when you walk off this field.” With that, Murph took the ball from Mickey’s sweaty palm and nudged him off the mound. Mickey’s first steps were tentative, like those of a foal venturing from its mother’s protective gaze for the first time. He was moodily silent, his cleats scarring across the green carpet.

  Somewhere between the mound and the dugout steps, however, the thunderous, rhythmic rumble of the crowd pierced his impenetrable veneer, reaching into his bones and jolting him from his stupor.

  “Mickey! Mickey! Mickey!”

  The entire ballpark was on its feet, clapping and chanting for him. He walked a little lighter now, the sound gloriously potent; it carried him all the way to the dugout, where he found a seat on the bench and watched, his heart much lighter now, as Gabby Hooper took the reins.

  But Murph was still distraught. He had rolled the dice starting Mickey, and they had come up snake eyes. It was a long shot, he told himself, a dream he was ill-advised to entertain. How could he have expected anything more from Mickey? After what he had gone through? And Murph himself? That story was already written. He was always going to come up short. That’s just the way his stars aligned. He sighed and shook his head, the reality of yet another failure sinking in his stomach like a lead ball.

  Hooper did, however, get out of the seventh with no more damage and escaped the eighth and ninth unscathed. He had stopped the bleeding, but as the Brewers faced their final three outs, they found themselves trailing 4–0 and teetering precariously on the precipice of postseason extinction.

  Pee Wee’s name was announced to begin the last of the ninth. The words echoed loudly, as if having been uttered in a hollow canyon. The crowd had capitulated, resigned to the grim recognition that Murph and the beloved Brew Crew had made a valiant effort but had regrettably come up, once again, short.

  Pee Wee served the first pitch he saw softly to right field for a leadoff single. However, half of the disillusioned crowd had all but reached the exits just as Arky Fries stepped in the box. The first pitch to the Brewer second baseman was in the dirt, a sharp slider that rattled off the catcher’s shin guards, skipping off to the side. Pee Wee advanced to second with little trouble. The next three pitches missed the mark as well, putting Fries on first and arresting the flight of the rest of the crowd, at least temporarily.

  With the first two men on base, and the heart of the order looming, ripples of guarded expectation slithered through the ballpark. It began as a murmur, faint but audible, then swelled in strength after a sharp single to left off the bat of Woody Danvers, loading the bases with nobody out.

  Murph leaned against the dugout wall, stomach burning, wondering how much of what was transpiring he should believe. It was the strange thing about baseball. You just never knew. Fickle fortunes he called them, each moment flickering like a candle in the wind. A bad hop. Windblown double. A line drive that just tickles the chalk. The proverbial game of inches. So many great ones before him had tried in vain to figure it out. It was all so fucking inscrutable. What looked like a certain victory often melted into a pool of defeat, seemingly willed by a higher power, while many a loss was averted by that very same force just as the crushing jaws of setback were ready to close. Fickle fortune could certainly humble you.

  Clem Finster strode to the plate with a chance to do some real damage. Murph watched as the power-hitting first baseman lined up his knuckles and cocked the bat behind his head. The anxious manager entertained all sorts of scenarios in his head. A sharp single to drive in two. A bases-clearing gapper. A grand salami to tie the game. God, his imagination was ravenous. What an opportunity. He tried to supplant the urge to count the runs before they had even crossed the plate. He had been seduced far too many times before. But, shit, bases juiced with nobody out. Surely they would come away with something. The odds were with him. Unless of course Finster buckled under the pressure and whiffed. Or worse still, hit into a double play. That would certainly kill the rally. Fucking baseball. The game could tear your heart out.

  Murph chewed his fingers as the Sidewinders’ right-hander delivered ball one. He exhaled loudly and spit out fragments of fingernail and skin. The next pitch was a sweeping curveball that broke around the plate for ball two. Finster stepped out, reveling in the advantageous count.

  “Hey, now, Finny,” Murph called out, unable to suppress the nervous energy bubbling in his stomach. “Hitter’s count. Selective now. Be selective. Zone up in there. Aggressive, but smart. No help now. Selective. Here we go, Finny.”

  Finster nodded in the direction of Murph’s voice, then set himself deep in the box. He was trying hard not to smile, certain that he was in the catbird seat, sitting on a fat fastball. There was no way the pitcher wanted to go 3-0. And he knew it. What a glorious spot. It was every little boy’s dream—to be up in the big spot, game on the line. He closed his eyes for a moment and remembered.

  He was so lost in the fantasy that he never even saw the pitcher release the ball. As it traveled toward the plate, Finster caught sight of the white flash at the last second and shivered with pleasure. He swung from his heels, whirling the bat through the hitting zone like a sword. The ball broke a good three inches off the plate and skipped with one hop into the catcher’s glove. The bat caught nothing but air, leaving Finster in a crumpled heap next to home plate.

  “Finster, goddammit!” Murph roared from the top step. “What the hell kind of swing is that on two and oh? Jesus Christ! What did we just say?” Finster stepped out and tried to regroup, arching his neck back and rolling his shoulders. He rolled his eyes in disgust.

  “Remember now, Finny,” Murph screamed. “No help here. Wait for your pitch!”

  His zealousness slightly dulled, Finster watched as another fastball in the dirt made the count 3-1. He breathed a little easier now. He licked his lips i
n anticipation, mindful that the pitcher had crippled himself once again and would have to deal something right down the chute. This was it. With Murph screaming something about “zoning up,” he dug in and watched dutifully as the Sidewinders’ hurler came set, raised his leg, and fired. The ball’s trajectory was perfect—a flat fastball heading right for the heart of the plate. His eyes widened. Bathed in sweat, and with a rush of adrenaline coursing through his body, his hands hitched and his front foot rose in simultaneous choreography. Everything was in sync. As he began to move the bat head through the hitting zone, the flight of the ball betrayed him, rising up and away, missing the mark completely.

  “Ball four! Take your base.” Finster flung the bat away with gnawing ambivalence and trotted to first base while the crowd screamed wildly as Pee Wee crossed home plate with the Brewers’ first run of the game.

  Boxcar was next. His walk from the on-deck circle to the batter’s box was greeted with more screaming and thunderous applause. Mickey notwithstanding, the veteran catcher remained the crowd favorite. So many times in the past they’d watched as the brawny warrior put the entire team on his back and carried them. Now here he was again, with another opportunity to pull them from the brink of disaster.

  The Sidewinders’ pitcher was rattled. Boxcar’s was the last face he wanted to see; it was a nightmarish visage, complete with square jaw and furrowed brow seemingly chiseled out of stone. The man was all business—a baseball machine. But the pitcher had no place to put him. There was only one chance—he had to outthink him. He had missed with four of the last five balls. Boxcar was smart. He would be taking the first one. If the pitcher could slip a fastball by him to start, then he could go to the breaking ball, perhaps get him out in front and induce a double play to kill the rally. That was his last thought as he unleashed a four-seam bullet right down Broadway.

  The one pitch was all Boxcar would see. It seemed that the pitcher’s ruminations, as calculated and deliberate as they were, somehow echoed in Boxcar’s mind. He’s gonna try and get ahead, he told himself. First-ball fastball.

  Boxcar strode into the pitch and plastered the ball. With the crack of the bat, everything seemed to grind to a series of slowmotion frames. The pitcher winced, then hung his head. Boxcar glanced to the heavens, laid his bat down quietly, and admired the flight of his handiwork. All around the ballpark, eyes widened and mouths hung open vacantly, void of sound. Murph removed his cap and jumped up on the dugout’s top step for a better look, the imp of expectation leaping from his heart. Each fan was also pushed into motion, springing from his seat as the little white sphere rose high in the sky like a midsummer sun. The ball soared higher and higher, a prodigious blast that seemed to scrape the clouds before touching down somewhere beyond the light stanchions in center field.

  Then, Borchert Field erupted into a mêleé. Waves of ardent fans spilled over the railings and rushed onto the field to join their team in the riotous celebration at home plate—a head-rubbing, backpatting fracas that lasted long after the game had ended, fueled in part by news of the Rangers’ loss, which placed the Brewers just one game behind the leaders with six left to play.

  STILL RACING

  Several days had passed since the last telephone conversation between Molly and Murph. Looking out his bedroom window, he thought about what he had told her and remembered her pointed reaction. There wasn’t much he could do. She would have to decide for herself if she wanted to change her life. Slowly, helplessly, he dropped his eyes from the tops of the distant pines, down, way down, until they came to rest upon a tiny patch of ground at the foot of his lamppost.

  From the morning shadows up the road, a large, steady figure emerged and passed into the lamplight in front of his house, then turned its boots up the narrow gravel walkway and onto his front porch. Murph watched from the window as the figure stood silently in front of the door, its hurried breath clouding the unseasonably cool air, until it finally formed a tight fist and dealt the paneled wood a series of short, hard blows.

  “Boxcar, what brings you around so early?” Murph asked, wrinkling his nose at the morning chill. “Everything okay?”

  “Everything’s fine,” Boxcar answered, stepping inside. “Is it a good time?”

  “Sure.” Murph pointed to the kitchen. “I was just about to pour myself a cup of joe and have some breakfast. I’ll set another place.”

  Boxcar pulled a chair out, sat, and stretched his legs. “Mickey up yet?” he asked quietly.

  “Nope. Still sleeping. We didn’t hit the hay until late last night.”

  “He feeling okay?”

  “Sure. I mean, I guess he is.” Murph took out a glass plate with an assortment of confections. “You like doughnuts?” he asked, sliding the plate in front of Boxcar.

  “Love ’em,” the ravenous catcher said, groping for one of the white-powdered circles.

  Murph filled Boxcar’s cup, then his own. He sat across from his catcher, vaguely disquieted by the unexpected visit. “So what’s wrong, Box? I’ve known you a long time. You ain’t exactly the visiting kind.”

  Boxcar sat uneasily on his chair, squeezing an invisible ball in his right hand while the distant sounds of waking birds punctuated the morning air. “Nothing’s wrong Murph,” Boxcar said, rolling the edges of a napkin between his fingers. “I was just doing a lot of thinking last night.”

  A brisk wind coming through the window over the sink slipped up Murph’s back and made him shudder. He looked at Boxcar with a long, penetrating stare, clasping and unclasping his hands nervously.

  “Don’t bullshit me, Box,” he said, raising his eyebrows. “If nothing’s wrong, then why are you here?”

  Boxcar felt a knocking in his gut. He dismissed it as just the coffee and the heaviness of the doughnut expanding in his stomach. He stood up and moved away from his chair, trying to escape from the tightening of his middle. Then, blushing a little, he looked at Murph sitting there unchanged.

  “Look, Murph, I don’t want to make waves or anything. I don’t. But I think we have a chance—a real chance to win this thing.”

  “Yeah, I think we do too,” Murph said, smiling. “I guess now would be the appropriate time to thank you for yesterday. You were clutch, as always.”

  “That’s not what I’m looking for. The thing of it is, I don’t know how many more shots I’m gonna get, Murph. Look at me. Failing knees. Graying temples. It takes me almost a whole goddamned hour every morning just to straighten up. I ain’t getting any younger.”

  Murph scratched his head and folded his arms tightly to his chest. “What are you trying to say, Box?” Murph asked with a palpable abruptness. “Quit beating the devil around the stump and just spit it out.”

  The sky outside grew overcast and a vast, discouraging light poured down onto the dirt road and gravel walkway and into the kitchen.

  “It’s Mickey, Murph. I don’t know. The kid’s been through a lot, ya know? Maybe this is all just too much to handle. I mean, he’s done okay since he’s been back. But you saw him out there. He wasn’t himself. I’m not suggesting we cut him loose or anything like that. Shit, I love the kid. We all do. But maybe we need to rethink just how much a part of these next six games he should be.”

  Had this been the week before, even a few days before, Murph would have been inclined to agree. The kid really seemed to be struggling and was of no use to them on the field. But now—now it all felt different. There was something there. He could feel it. And it wasn’t just a romantic delusion, colored by his personal feelings for both the boy and Molly.

  “That kid, Boxcar, is the main reason why we’re even able to have this conversation. He’s our heart and soul. Look at how this place has changed since he’s been here. All he has to do is show up and the whole place is ignited. The fans, our guys, the whole godforsaken town, for Christ sakes. Now you can’t sit there and tell me that you don’t know that.”

  Boxcar shook his head ambivalently. “I know all of that, Murph,” he pleaded. �
��But that excitement you’re talking about—that energy— all that only works to our benefit if Mickey succeeds. That’s the rush.”

  Murph fiddled with the top button on his shirt. Anxiety arrived in one sudden thrust. “What are you saying here, Box?”

  Boxcar’s eyes dilated with trepidation. “Just think how devastating it would be, for all of us, if Mickey started one of these pivotal games and went into the tank. Emotionally? Psychologically? It would be a fucking disaster. We would never recover.”

  Murph scowled. All of a sudden he was a man with two minds. With one, he was right there. Focused on the moment. With the other, he was someplace else. Only when Boxcar moved closer to him and apologized for questioning his plan did Murph become one again.

  “Listen, Box. None of us knows for sure what the future holds. Immediate or otherwise. God knows, I’m living proof of that. But every baseball man must live and die by a credo. You know, a philosophy by which he makes those impossible decisions. It’s the only way. For me, it’s always been simple. Not the results, naturally. But the decision. You dance with the girl you brought to the prom. It’s the only way. That’s it, Box. That’s me. Understand? All of you, together, are what make us who we are. All of you. That includes Mickey. He is our guy. The spark in our engine. The wind in our sail. So, win or lose, for better or worse, we do this thing together— with him. Same way we’ve been doing all year.”

  Boxcar sat quietly, digesting the morsels of wisdom. For an instant, some filament, light and ethereal, spun itself out between his soul and Murph’s, so that both of their lives, at that moment, were kindred, a part of each other, and the contention and angst about them vanished.

  “I hear ya, Murph. I do. I just wish there was something we could do to help him relax a little.”