Faithful Read online

  No matter. On to the important stuff. Baseball is a great game because you can multitask in so many ways and never miss a single pitch. I find I can read two pages of a book during each commercial break, for instance, which adds up to four an inning—more if there’s a pitching change. Thus it’s sometimes possible to read as many as forty pages a game, although it’s usually less, because there are always bathroom breaks and fridge runs.

  Then there’s the Face Game. I play this by keeping an eye on the faces of the spectators behind home plate. Some nights I’ll run a ten-point Nose-Picking Competition, which can be played solitaire or with a friend (you get the odd innings, your friend the even ones). Ten is a good number to play to in this game, I’ve found, but when playing Cell Phone, you have to play to at least twenty-one, because these days almost everyone has one of those annoying little puppies. (“Hi, hon, I’m at the ballpark…. What? Oh, not much, Rays are down by three…I hear people whispering ‘Dead team walking’ under their breath… it’s a little spooky… Bring home a quart of milk?… sure, okay, call you later… gotta pick my nose on national TV first… okay, love you too… bye.”) And last night—remember, I never lost the thread of the game during this, that’s the beauty of baseball—I had this wonderful idea for a story. What if a guy watches a lot of baseball games on TV, maybe because he’s a shut-in or an invalid (or maybe because he’s doing a book on the subject, poor schmuck), and one night he sees his best friend from childhood, who was killed in a car crash, sitting in one of the seats behind the backstop? Yow! And the kid is still ten! He never claps or cheers (never picks his nose or talks on his cell phone, for that matter), just sits there and watches the game…or maybe he’s watching the main character of the story, right through the TV. After that the protagonist sees him every night at every game, sometimes at Fenway, sometimes at Camden Yards, sometimes at the CreepyDome up in Toronto, but every time there are more people the poor freaked-out guy knew, sitting all around him: this guy’s dead friends and relatives, all sitting in the background at the ballpark. I could call the story “Spectators.” I think it’s a very nasty little idea.

  Meanwhile, Derek Lowe goes for us tonight, and here is an interesting little factoid: the hapless Devil Rays are almost forty games into the baseballseason and haven’t yet won two games in a row. Lou Piniella must be finished with his liver and thinking of moving on to his kidneys. It’s a shame, but we’ve got a job to do here, and hopefully Dee-Lowe will do his part.

  For the final game in Tampa it’s Lowe versus Victor Zambrano, a decent matchup, at least until they take the mound. Zambrano has a weird first, alternately walking and striking out hitters, finally getting Tek looking to leave the bases loaded. Lowe responds by giving up a single through the middle to former option QB Carl Crawford, then letting him steal second and third. With one out, the infield’s back, and another grounder scores him.

  Both pitchers settle down in the second, but in the third, with one down, Lowe gives up a single to Brook Fordyce. Then, on 0-2, he leaves a pitch up to Crawford, who doubles down the line. With the infield in, Baldelli bounces one through the middle. 3–0 Tampa Bay. Huff nearly skulls Lowe with a line single, then Tino singles on a pitch above the waist. 4–0. Dave Wallace visits, meaning we’re going to leave him in. It’s a mistake. Jose Cruz Jr., who’s hitting under .200, doubles to left-center. 6–0. Lenny DiNardo’s warming, but Francona can’t get him in quick enough, as little Julio Lugo takes Lowe off the wall in left for the seventh straight hit. 7–0 D-Rays, and that’s it for D-Lowe.

  Zambrano follows with his own nightmare inning, loading the bases with nobody out and giving up three runs. In the fifth, Tek puts one on a catwalk and Johnny doubles in two more.

  That’s as close as we get. Timlin and Jamie Brown conspire to give up two runs, putting it out of reach. The D-Rays’ pitchers walked 10, but they also struck out 15, including Manny four times, while the only pitcher of ours who had any success was DiNardo. A complete mess, cancelling out Schilling’s easy win last night. A bigger worry: Lowe, supposedly the best number three starter in baseball, hasn’t won this month.

  May 21st

  It’s the revenge of the header: MUSSINA LEADS YANKS PAST ANGELS, 6–2. We lose ugly to a last-place club while they beat the team with the best record in baseball (and on top of that, beat their ace, Colon). At least the O’s lost; otherwise it would be a total wipeout.

  I’m trying to be optimistic and look ahead, but tonight it’s Arroyo versus Halladay. Our travel day knocked the two rotations out of sync, so Pedro’s facing the lefty Lilly tomorrow. On Sunday, the game we’ll be at, we get the far less interesting Wake versus Miguel Batista. We need two out of three from these guys, but right now the pitching matchups are in Toronto’s favor. Halladay’s stronger than Arroyo, and we have trouble against lefties and historically don’t give Pedro much run support. Wake-Batista’s a toss-up.

  Maybe it’s just last night’s game that’s bothering me. If Arroyo can match Halladay and get us to their pen, we should win, and Pedro’s flat-out better than Lilly. Batista’s ERA’s around 5 and, like Zambrano, he walks a lot of batters. If we hit and Wake has the knuckler fluttering, we could sweep.

  The off-field news is that Johnny’s shaving his beard for a literacy program at the Boston Public Library. Gillette’s sponsoring the event to kick off their new line of razors. A crowd gathers on the plaza by the Prudential Center to watch some hot models lather him up. He sits still while they take the blades to his face, but in the end he finishes the tricky spots himself. He looks younger, baby-faced, and with his long mane he’s got the Elvis-as-Indian-brave thing going on.

  Dee-Lowe was dee-readful, but tonight the Red Sox are back at the Fens, and for the first time this year I’m in the house. It’s a beautiful night for baseball, too, sixty-nine degrees at game time.

  Ray Slyman, who works for Commonwealth Limousine and has been driving me and my family to Red Sox games ever since the kids were small, is usually an optimist about Boston’s chances, so I’m surprised—no, I’m shocked—to find him sounding downbeat tonight, even though last night’s loss coupled with the Yankees’ win on the West Coast has left us only half a game out of first. It makes me uneasy, too. Partly because Ray’s in the car all day and listens to all the radio sports shows (discounting the crazies who call in as a matter of course); thus he’s hip to all the current gossip. Mostly because Ray’s one smart cookie. It’s from Ray that I first hear the idea that Nomar should be back right now, and DH-ing. It’s also from Ray that I hear a lot of fans are beginning to lose patience with Nomar; once the season begins, major league baseball quickly becomes a game of what-have-you-done-for-me-lately, and in Boston, cries of “Play him or trade him!” are beginning to be heard.

  Coming into the ballpark, lots of folks tell me hi. Most call me Steve.One woman tells her boyfriend, “Look, there’s Steven Spielberg!” This is more common than you might think, and I sometimes wonder if people point at the famous director and tell each other that it’s Stephen King. The guy selling programs just outside Gate A pauses just long enough in his spiel to ask me how I’m feeling. I tell him I’m feeling fine. He says, “Do you thank God?” I tell him, “Every day.” He says, “Right on, brutha,” and goes back to telling people how much they need a program, how much they need a scorecard, just two dollars unless you’re a Yankee fan, then you pay four.

  Do you thank God?

  Every day.

  Yes indeed I do. I’m blessed to be alive at all, and have the sense to know it. It’s especially easy to give thanks walking into Fenway Park under my own power on a beautiful spring night in May. (“We’re inside the TV,” I once heard a wondering child say after getting his first look at all that green.) I’m still considering the novel idea of Nomar Garciaparra as the designated hitter when a woman cardiologist throws out the first pitch. She may be a hell of a doc, but she still throws like a girl. We all give her a big hand, and we give the Red Sox a bigger one when they hit the fi
eld in their fine white home uniforms. I feel the same thrill I did when I saw them go out there for the first time, at the age of eleven or twelve, on an afternoon when the Tigers were their opponents and Al Kaline was still playing for them, and my arms prickle when John Fogerty starts singing “Centerfield” over the PA. They prickle again at the end when the Red Sox put away the Jays, 11–5, and the crowd starts out with the Standells singing “Dirty Water.”

  Every ballpark has its eccentricities. One of my Fenway faves—many fans hate it—is the late-inning playing of Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline.” I have no idea when this started or why fans took it to their hearts (it’s such a forgettable song), but there you are; it’s just a Fenway Thing, like The Wave. [14] The first notes of this song cause great excitement.When Neil sings “Sweeeeet Car-o-line!” in the chorus, thirty thousand people respond at once (and with no apparent prompting), “WHOAHO-HO!” at the top of their voices. And when he adds, “Good times never seemed so good!” the crowd responds, “So good! So good! So good!” How do these things get started? There’s simply no telling, but such things—which occur when the TV-watching world is stuck with yet another “Meet me at Foxwoods” jingle—are very much a part of not just the ballpark experience but your ballpark experience: what makes home home.

  Man, I had a great time tonight. Manny Ramirez hit a moonshot, Mike “The Hardest Workin’ Man in Showbiz” Timlin got the win, and I was there to see it all with my friend Ray. Oh, and Kevin Youkilis, aka The Greek God of Walks, was up to his old tricks. In the bottom of the second inning, after getting behind 0-2, he fouled off a bunch of pitches from Roy Halladay, last year’s Cy Young winner, and finally worked a walk. He scored. Later, in the eighth, he walked and scored again.

  It’s an OBPC thing: on-base per centage.

  May 22nd

  When they don’t announce the game-time temperature at Fenway, you know you’re in trouble, and tonight they didn’t. It was overcast and raw at 7:05 P.M., when the game started; raw and downright cold [15] when it ended at about ten past ten. I still haven’t warmed up. At 10:45, I’m typing this with hands that feel like clubs. Tingly clubs. Still, it’s all good. We won, the Yankees lost down in Texas, and all at once there’s a tiny bit of daylight (a game and a half) between us and second place.

  Ted Lilly pitched extremely well for the Blue Jays tonight, and had a two-run lead going into the sixth inning. That was when Manny Ramirez launched his second home run in the last two games over the left-field wall and into the night. It’s the big dinger that’ll get the ink in the newspapers tomorrow, but the key hit of the inning—and probably the key to the whole game—was Mark Bellhorn’s infield single in the sixth, which caromed off Lilly’s shin, hurried him from the game, and thus got us into Toronto’s less than reliable bullpen. Without Bellhorn on first, no chance for Manny to tie things up; QED. And an inning later, Youkilis, the rookiewith the big on-base-average reputation, led off with a single and scored what proved to be the winning run. Keith Foulke was once more lights-out in the ninth—nine saves in nine opportunities—and I’m two for two this year at Fenway Park.

  And my hands are finally starting to warm up. See? It’s all good.

  May 23rd

  It’s Vermont Day at Fenway, and we’re the first ones in Gate E. Last time out I was discouraged by my net play, and the usher in Section 163 told me not to give up. He’s glad to see me back, and I’m glad for the support. Steph thinks I’m nuts.

  We get the good spot on the corner, but there’s a portable screen set up at third base so only a hooking liner can reach us. And the security guy says I can’t go after any balls in fair territory, a rule which seems arbitrary to me.

  The only balls I’ll have a shot at will be liners that bounce off the Monster and back along the wall, and about ten minutes in, that’s exactly what Nomar hits. The ball rolls to a stop twenty feet behind us. No one can reach it from the high wall there, but I should be able to drag it closer and scoop it. I climb over the seats and section dividers until I’m in position above it. I can’t quite reach it, and stretch as far as I can with one hand, just nudging and then covering the ball—and drop the net.

  It lies ten feet below me across the foul line.

  What an idiot. Steph, I’m sure, is pretending he doesn’t know me. I figure the security guy will come out and confiscate it; at best, he’ll give me a lecture.

  Gabe Kapler’s witnessed my embarrassment, and saunters over, shaking his head. I think he’s going to take the ball from under the net and toss it to someone more deserving to teach me a lesson, but he throws it right to me. Then he takes the net and jogs back out to left with it.

  “He could have used it last night,” someone says.

  For a while Gabe keeps his glove on and holds the net with one hand, but then he says the hell with it and tosses the glove. Manny and Nomar are up, spraying the ball around. When a Manny liner bounces to the side of him, he stabs at it and misses cleanly. See, it’s not as easy as it looks. After about five minutes of just standing there with the net, he brings it back over. I get a picture of him—proof for Trudy.

  Another guy comes by and asks if that was me he saw up on the Monster a few weeks ago, and I find that I like this minor celebrity. Steph says a Sox photographer just took a picture of me.

  We’re also visited by Chip Ainsworth, the reporter who interviewed me the first time I brought the net. He says we should see a game together from the press box. I worry a little about that blurry line between journalist and fan, but then I think: man, the press box!

  Steve arrives in his YANKEES HATER cap, and I go over to hang out with him and Steph. On the endpages of the John Sandford novel he’s reading, he’s scored the last two games. It’s been a while, and we fall to talking, interrupted from time to time by folks who want to take a picture of him.

  We’re sitting there discussing Manny’s hot streak and Wake’s last few starts when one of the Sox comes out and signs along the wall two sections down. From the inch-high brush cut, it can only be Tek. It’s his day off, with Mirabelli catching Wake. I excuse myself and climb over the section dividers and then wait in the crush. “Go ahead and take the sweet spot,” I tell him. “It’s all yours.”

  Tek’s signature is neat and readable. Thanks to eBay, I’ve seen it dozens of times, both authentic versions and fakes. He never finishes the final kick of the k, so it reads J Varitel, #33. On the pearl it looks superclean, and I thank him and carry it by the seams like some weird breaking ball, making sure not to smudge the ink.

  “I got a shot of you,” Steph says.

  “Yeah,” Steve says, “we got a picture of you pushing those little kids out of the way.”

  “Hey, they were pushing me.”

  Wake looks good in the first, striking out his first two batters. Batista looks awful, walking Johnny on four pitches around his ankles. Orlando Hudson doesn’t help him, booting Bellhorn’s easy grounder, and David Ortiz scorches a ground-rule double into the seats just past the Pesky Pole. 1–0 Sox. Manny Ks chasing a 3-2 pitch, Dauber walks, then Millar walks in a run. Batista’s thrown 25 pitches, only 7 for strikes.

  After Youkilis strikes out, Mirabelli comes up with bases loaded and fouls one behind him, high off the facade of the .406 Club. Last year, a ball hit in that same spot ricocheted off the glass at an angle and landed in the row behind us. I turn, keeping my eye on it, and here it comes, right at me (Steph thinks I think this about every ball). The sun is blinding, and I’m not wearing shades, so all I see as it falls is a tiny black dot surrounded by white light. It’s going to be just short, and I reach above everyone. I feel it hit, then feel nothing, and I think it’s gone, that I’ve missed it—then look down, and there it is in my glove. Maybe because it’s the first inning, or because it was a crazy angle, or because the bases are loaded and we’re up two runs, but the crowd goes nuts. I hold my glove up and take in the applause—unexpected and exhilarating—and slap hands with Steph and Steve. When I sit down, my heart’s
pounding and I’m shivery inside my skin. I thought I’d missed it, so it’s a guilty thrill—a freak accomplishment I doubt even now.

  I don’t have time to think about it, because Mirabelli fouls off the next pitch the exact same way—caroming off the same pane of glass and dropping two rows behind Steve. I’m up and ready in case it bounces my way, but it’s smothered and picked up.

  Batista gets Mirabelli and gets out of it. In the second he has to strike out Dauber to leave them loaded again.

  “This guy’s terrible,” I say. “We should be up at least four nothing.”

  “We’re not hitting with men on,” Steve complains, and Mason, a neighbor in the front row, shows us a thirty-page stat sheet that has the season completely broken down. So far with the bases loaded, we’ve hit two doubles and twelve singles. Johnny and Pokey have the doubles. Johnny and Pokey also have the most hits with bases loaded, three each. Kapler and Bill Mueller are 0-4, Ortiz, Dauber and Crespo 0-3.

  Wake throws an easy third, and we finally cash in on Batista, scoring four. Ortiz has the big hit, a two-out, two-run double, making him 3 for 3 with 3 RBIs. It’s 6–0 and Batista’s thrown 90 pitches.