The American Pastime

Charlotte Warren

E llen told me about Mickey Owen, the Brooklyn Dodgers . It was the of 1941, Dodgers vs. Yankees, bottom of the ninth. The Dodgers were ahead; there were two outs, two strikes, and Owen was behind the plate. And then there was a third strike, and the Dodgers had won ... well, would have won, except Owen dropped the ball. You drop the called third strike, and the batter runs. He did, and he was safe at first, and the Yankees proceeded to rally and win the game, and then the Series. All because of Owen's dropped third strike. “Could you imagine being Mickey Owen?" she asked me. "Could you imagine it?" I thought a moment. I was a catcher, but no. "No, I couldn't," I said. I used to play , used to dream o f the day would say, "... and starting for the Mets, Al Geraldson, catcher." I know, I know, every little boy dreams that dream, even Ellen dreamed it as a girl; but still, I was good. Time goes by now though, and I grow older. When I was eighteen, I observed that Boris Becker had won Wimbledon at eighteen the year before. At nineteen, that won Rookie o f the Year pitching for the Mets when he was nineteen. Shaquille O'Neal was only twenty in his debut year in the NBA, and me, well, I'm older than twenty now. But that's not my story, not what I'm talking about. It's not my point. Baseball has gone on strike again, and I lie on my bed thinking maybe I should try out, maybe I could play for the Mets ... It was my freshman year o f college, we were playing whiffle ball, and Ellen was pitching and striking out every guy that came up. She was the only girl playing. It wasn't a serious game, no teams or anything. Just a bunch o f guys on a sunny spring day outside our dorm taking swings. As Ellen got hot, and the guys got fewer and fewer hits off her, more and more guys joined. 'Let me take a swing,” they said. They got hits here and there, scattered, but nothing solid. She just smiled, and shrugged. "C'mon Jerry,” she said; she always called me Jerry, for Jerry Grote, she explained. “C'm on.” So I went up to bat. I swung and missed the first one, and I saw her dark brown eyes light up in a big grin. She said, "Curve orfastball?” "Whatever," I said, so she threw another curve, and I took it downtown. Well, as far as it would go until it the top floor of our dorm with a smack and came back down to earth with a giant bounce. "He's on the baseball team," I heard someone say. Ellen looked at me and shrugged. I shrugged back. "Can I hit now?" she asked. The guys let her up to hit, and after two strikes, she rapped off three of the most solid hits after mine that we'd seen. I was just sitting on the sidelines. "The girl can hit too," another guy said. She shrugged again when she was finished and left to go inside. “Wanna come over?" I asked, and she followed me into my room. I turned on the TV. "Mets are doing pretty well so far," she said, sitting down against the wall. We only had one chair and I was sitting in it. A few months before, I'd tried to kiss her. I know she wanted it, why else would she always sit next to me at dinner, have separate conversations with me when we were in groups, punch me like in play? Everyone knew she liked me, it was written all over her face, but I don't know. I guess she knew me better than to do anything then. She never said anything about it. “," she said, looking towards the TV where a Red Sox game was playing. "They get lucky every year. I swear, they always have a new who totally dominates." It was May, the end o f the year. We were all kind o f studying for finals, more just hanging out. Baseball was over for me that year. I'd made varsity, started at third, because the catcher was a senior. "How'd you end up?" she asked. "Ok. That against Yale, of course. Batted .406, couple other dingers." You always bat better in college than anyone in the majors, of course, up fewer times. "I wish I'd made the softball team," she said. I was surprised she hadn't. When we tossed a ball around, she seemed good, but I guess that others were better. I went to her room after she found out, and she was curled up in a ball on her bed, crying. "I know you're good," I said, and she just wiped her nose with her arm and looked at me. Her face was all puffy and wet. Untouchable. "Maybe you could talk to the ," I said, and then, because she just stared at me not saying a word, I sat down next to her and patted my lap. She laid her head in it, so I could only see and feel her hair, which felt wet too. We sat like that until her tears were gone, she curled up leaning on me, sniffing, shaking, and biting on her thumb, I with my arm around her, barely touching her, patting her head, petting her hair. Her body felt ok. She cried again when I went up to her room to say good-bye at the end of May. We hugged, and I looked at her, and there were tears. "Don't cry," I said. She shrugged. We were always shrugging with each other. That's what she did when she rejected me. It was almost two months after she'd been cut, the night of the Academy Awards, and a bunch o f us were hanging out watching. I followed her into her bedroom when they were over, and picked out a tape o f hers to play. It was a collection, made from the radio, so it was complete with missing first lines, and snaps o f the dj's voices. "Prediction for the Mets," I said, settling myself on her bed next to her. She seemed to notice me there, but didn't do anything. It was as if she observed my presence, while she remained far away, not part o f the action. "Well," she said, her back up against the wall, her knees bent, "they should win it. They have all the parts, the pitching, assuming Doc's back in form, the hitting, Keith and Carter still should hold it, and maybe this year Strawberry will finally live up to his potential." "I think he's reached it," I said. "Loserberry is what me and my brother call him." Her brother. She often mentioned her brother. He was only twelve, and she was very attached to him. He got a new glove, and she asked me the best ways to break it in. He could bat from both sides, but the coach only wanted him to swing righty, so she asked me my opinion. When he visited, she introduced me to him as the guy who would play for the Mets one day. I showed him my batting stance. The songs on her tape played on jerkily until I had to flip it, and still I'd had no sign, no response from her. I sat to her after changing the tape, and began tentatively to poke her. Her flesh felt good as her shirt rode up and I felt skin. This could be all right. She looked straight ahead, never turned to me to look into my eyes. "You ticklish?" I asked, squeezing the side of her soft belly, brushing lightly over soft hairs. She squirmed and smiled in answer, and I knew she was. She tried to tickle back, but I'm not at all ticklish. "That's no fair," she said. "Stop." I told her what was happening in baseball so far. We'd had in for spring break, and now that that was over, the season was beginning. She asked me when we played Yale and said she'd go visit her sister that week-end. I wormed my hand back to her side and lightly squeezed. She laughed. Her hands were on her leg, and she was looking intently ahead at her fingers. The tape ended, and she sat up and so did I. We sat on the edge of her bed, and I looked into her eyes. She looked up at me, scared almost, and I leaned forward, and began kissing her lips. I felt her hesitate. Then respond, and she could kiss fine. But then I felt her turn her head. It touched my shoulder and then pulled back. "Jerry." I looked down at her. I stared into her eyes, and she looked into mine. I saw want there. Longing. They were big and brown, gazing up at me, asking me for something I couldn't give. ‘You sure," I said. She just looked at me. I didn't want to miss out, so I still looked intently at her. And then she shrugged. "No, not good,' there was a big space with another shrug as she looked away and quietly repeated, "not good.” ‘Are you mad?" I asked her, and she shook her head, staring down at the floor. I told her I wasn't either. I wasn't, but I thought I was doing her a favor, she wanted it. I stood up to leave the room. "Still friends?" She lifted her eyes to me, imploring almost. I smiled and nodded at her. "If you ever want to, though," I shrugged, "the offer's always open." In the summer of 1985 when I turned sixteen, my little brother and I were outside playing ball every day. At night, I was with the girls. "Gooden pitching," he would say. "Man on third, two outs, bottom o f the ninth, up by one. Count 3 and 1." "," I'd say. "Schmidt batting, dead fastball hitter." "Fastball." He'd pitch it in, even though he couldn't pitch the way I could catch. "Strike 2. Now what do you call?" he said. "Another fastball." 'He's expecting it." "Doesn't matter. In this situation, it doesn't matter who's batting, Gooden'll blast it by them." Now I would never have called the same pitches for Gooden. His fastball's lost its pop, but back in 1985, when he was 21 and 3, he was unbeatable. I was the baseball star of my little Minnesotan town when I was in high school. I had any girl I wanted, or didn't want. My team won the World Series nationwide. We played in the Metrodome. Then we went to Japan. I ate sushi thinking it was candy, and almost spit it back out when I realized it wasn't. I met Japanese girls. I won the MVP, and scouts looked at me. I had offers from four teams, one of them the Mets. That's what impressed Ellen. I could've been drafted, but I went to college instead. Or maybe that's what impressed her. She always knew I would make it. "You have to play on the Mets," she said. "And catch Darling. Then it would be, Yale man to Harvard man." O f course I dreamed about that. What American male hasn't? "Here's the play at the plate. Geraldson is standing firm, he's got the ball, he's down, been bowled over, but wait, he's holding on, and Gwynn is out, and the Mets win it. Geraldson held onto the ball." Or, "al Geraldson, stepping back into the box for the Mets. The count is 2 and 2, the score tied at 2." And so on and so on. Ellen couldn't believe I'd first done it at fourteen. She told me it was too young. She laughed to find out my girlfriend from home was trying to be a model. I told her they called us Barbie and Ken in school, and she thought that was the funniest thing. "At least they called you something," she said. "No one ever noticed me." She laughed at my Minnesotan intonations, and I laughed at her New York ones. Queens, she said they were. She was a virgin, I knew. She didn't make any bones about it. "Ifyou'd seen the guys in my high school," she said. Ellen came to see me play when we went to Yale. She visited her sister that week-end, and it was cold and windy for our , and they were late, but in the end, she dragged her sister down. I got up to bat, and I could hear her voice, blowing deep against the wind, "Go Jerry, go." I booted two balls at third, but I was hitting. She saw me get a single; she saw me get a , but it was cold. Cold and rainy. I chatted with her between the games. "I don't think we can stay too much longer," she said, her words loud, caught in a gust of wind. "It's freezing. My sister wants to go," and she was shivering as she said it. "Don't," I said. "Don't freeze." So she left, and then I hit my grand slam in the next game. "I can't believe we left," she said when I told her on Monday. She looked away from me and down to the floor and shook her head. "I'm gonna kill my sister." We had a class together that spring, and we used to sit next to each other, writing notes. One day we filled my page with names of Mets from the early eighties, from when they couldn't win a game. John Steams, Ellis Valentine, Steve Henderson, , , , , , Neil Allen. Men who'd made it, played in the big leagues, but were never heard from again, or remembered, except by people like us. Since I was little, my brother and father and I watched whatever games came on TV, the Twins locally, and then national games every Sunday. I'd sit and call each pitch. “You gotta learn every batter's strengths and weaknesses in every situation," my father told me. 'I know, I am." We subscribed to the Sporting News so I could keep track of all the box scores nationwide, look for who to watch in the future when I got there. And we got Sports Illustrated for its yearly swimsuit issue. Ellen told me how her sister and she spent the entire summer of 1980 taking care of their little brother and watching the Mets on their little black and white TV. They joined the Mets fan club, and went to seven games a season until they started winning in '84. Then the fan club was eliminated, because then they had fans. She told me how their summer was ruined in '81 because o f the strike, "although we were rooting for the players o f course. The owners totally take advantage of them." I wonder what she's thinking now. It was the spring o f 1988 when we finished our freshman year. We hugged good-bye as I went home to Minnesota, and she to , and she cried. We were from different places, had different pasts, and different futures. The Mets came in first in '88 in the beginning of our sophomore year when we were living on opposite ends of campus. I saw Ellen in the beginning of school. "How 'bout those Mets?" she said to me. Then, "I miss you guys. You should be living closer to us." The Mets lost in the play-offs of course. I didn't see her during that time, and we became busy in our new lives. There were parties to go to, new girls to meet each night. And so I don't know what she thought of their loss. But her earlier observations were right; Cone was great that season. And then I injured my shoulder. Maybe I didn't stretch out enough when spring training broke; maybe I'd rested it too much over the winter and it wasn't as strong as I thought. Or maybe I just had thrown too many balls back to the pitcher in my lifetime. I don't know, but in the beginning of the season in my sophomore year, I started to feel an intense pain in my right shoulder after every game, a driving pain like someone was hitting a pressure point with the tip o f a screwdriver. I ignored it, but it didn't go away, and then it started to bother me during games, so then I rested, didn't play a couple in a row, but still it stayed. I tried playing some more, and then I felt it when I lifted my arm above my head. March turned to April and then I felt it all the time, when I was sitting in class, when I was eating, sleeping, even when I was having sex, and then I had to stop playing baseball. I couldn't do what a catcher has to do; I couldn't throw the ball. I had my shoulder operated on after sophomore year and tried to come back and play junior year. All summer and winter I did strengthening exercises. I screamed in pain, but daily I lifted my arm higher, because I had to play. I lifted weights once normal strength returned, and in February I was back in the gym for the beginning of the baseball season. The coach had me only throw lightly to build up my strength. I swung the bat and felt good. We were still inside since it was cold and rainy in Cambridge, and so I made just a few simulated throws to second, but nothing too strenuous. I caught , and rolled the ball back to them. They were throwing at full speed. Their arms felt fine, and they were throwing much harder, faster than I was. But mine hurt. It ached. We went outside in March, and began making plays, and I had to throw to second. I had to throw every pitch back to the pitcher, and I couldn't do it. It hurt, and I knew the coach was looking at me, but I didn't say anything. "You all right, Al?" he asked, and I said yes, and so he let me play a game. It was the first game o f the season. With every throw back to the mound, I felt the shoulder, but I was calling the game good, and not many were getting on base. But then their lead-off batter got on, and he stole. I jumped up to throw; I pulled my arm back and then forward as I let go the ball. And my shoulder snapped. The ball dribbled on the ground, and I fell in front of the plate, clutching my shoulder, clenching my teeth. Play stopped as I scrunched myself into a ball and stared hard at the dirt below me. Everyone stayed back as the trainer came over to me. He asked if I could stand, and I nodded, so he held me as I stood, and with his arm around my waist, he escorted me off the field. As the season dawned for the Mets a few weeks later, I lay on my bed thinking of myself curled up on the ground in pain, and I thought o f John Steams. He was Ellen's favorite Met, their catcher from our childhood. She told me that she hated Dave Concepcion, because he ruined Steams's career in 1980, when he hit a foul ball off Steams's index finger. She told me how she was watching the game on TV, and she could feel Steams's pain, because the moment the ball flew off his finger, he was knocked back, and then he thrashed around on the ground, holding the finger, screaming. No one could touch him because he was writhing so much. "That's when he became my favorite player," she said. "It was so sad. He was in so much pain. He came back the next year, but was never the same." I hadn't seen Ellen for a couple o f months, and I was lonely, frustrated, so I called her up and asked her if I could come over. "Sure, 's h e said, and she was looking better than she had freshman year. Her hair had grown a lot, was thicker and I wanted to my hands through it, to hold her just to hold someone. If I couldn't play, at least I could still fuck. "Wanna see my scar?" I asked, and she nodded. I pulled my shirt down my shoulder and showed her the small pink line that hadn't solved my problem. She looked at me. I could feel her looking towards me now instead o f away, and she reached over and touched it. “Can I have a drink o f water?" I asked, and she nodded again. Now she was barely speaking. She got me a cup, and I went into her bathroom. She stood and watched, and when she turned around when I came out, I reached my arms around to her stomach. She had lost weight since freshman year, I noticed as I rubbed her belly and whispered in her ear, "You better take me to your bedroom." She seemed to sink as she turned around in my grasp when I began kissing and she kissed me back. I pulled her tighter, and I could feel her breasts pressing against me. We rushed into her bed. "Do you want to?" I asked, pushing up against her. Muffled into my neck, a voice from faraway said, "I never have." "Only if it feels right," I whispered, blowing softly into her ear, caressing her hair, pushing myself almost inside her. "Only if it feels right," I repeated, as her body pushed back against mine, my hand running up and down her back. "Ok." I rolled over on top of her and held her. She gasped. "Tell me if it hurts," I whispered. "Tell m eifithurts." Rockingback and forth. In and out. The bases are loaded, the ball whizzing through the air, when with one flick o f the wrist, you connect and send it flying over the rightfield fence, and everything's ok. She was moaning and moving back and forth with me as I went faster, and heard more gasps before I came. I lay on my back as she curled up under my arm, her hand reaching up to graze over my hair, my eyes, my nose, and then my arms and chest, and she was talking. "You're very cute," she said. "And strong." Feeling my muscle. "You're going to try to play, aren't you? Do you think you can do it? You've got to. You've got to make the Mets." I shook my head at her, but she was talking non-stop, more than I'd ever heard her do before, as we lay tight together in her small bed, her fingers running over me, her breath on top o f me, heavy; we'd both had something to drink. "You'll make the Mets, and let me come in and see the locker room, won't you? You'll introduce me to them. You've got to make them soon, so I can meet them, ." I began kissing her again, and she still responded. I pulled her hand down so she could feel how hard I was. I went back on top of her and it went quickly. "You're falling asleep,” she said, her hand still running over my features. "Please hold me just a little. I think I'm going to have a terrible hangover in the morning. I think I love you." I held her, and she kept talking until I couldn't hear it anymore and was asleep. I woke her in the morning by rubbing up against her before I got dressed, kissed her head, and went back to my dorm. My girlfriend from home was coming in that day, and I was going to the airport with a diamond ring for her. Len Bias died of a heart attack after being drafted number one by the Boston Celtics. Everyone knows that. We all know that, in our collective unconscious. Len Bias, sure, he got unlucky. He was a fool. This'll keep kids off drugs, they said. Pelle Lindbergh crashes into a wall, destroying not only himself, but his brand new Lamborghini. This'll stop kids from driving drunk they said. But does it five years later. Only he doesn't get killed. He's playing ball again. "The accident hasn't changed my life," he says, but it does Bobby Ojeda's who cracks open his head, but survives the drunk-driving boat accident that kills two fellow Indian pitchers. Another former '86 Met. He spends a year fucked up in Europe, but he comes back to pitch in the Majors again. It's injuries that prevent you from playing, not anything else. It was a good thing I went to college, didn't try to go straight to A-ball. I knew you couldn't trust everything to baseball. You had to insure yourself for the future. My shoulder was so shot that I didn't even attempt to play ball my senior year. I still am a Mets fan, but they've sucked ever since 1988. They're not like Ellen's team from the early 80s, though, who sucked and everybody knew it, and that's why she liked them. People keep expecting them to win now, but they don't. Now Cone is gone, after being sued for masturbating in public. Gooden, Coleman, and Boston get accused o f rape. Hernandez, her Keith, and Carter were let go, and they lost Strawberry, which Ellen would've been happy about, I know. He's in a mess o f trouble with drugs, tax evasion, and skills that evaporate with age. Ronnie Darling o f course got traded, so even if I'd made it, they never would've had a Yalie pitching to a Harvard man on the Mets. The only one left from '86 is Gooden, and he's failed another drug test, so who knows if the Mets will want him back. Between him and Strawberry, when you have that kind of talent, it doesn't matter what you do because everyone always thinks you'll get it back. I lave just one more season I ike '85. So now he's out for '95, only it doesn't matter that much, because who knows if there'll even be a '95. And so long as he's not injured again, someone'll pick him up in '96. When my wife is out, I look at my High School World Series ring. I put it on my pinky, that's the only place it fits now, lie on my bed, and remember. "With the score tied, and two outs in the ninth, Al Geraldson pulled one over the leftfield fence.... This kid's really got a bright future. He batted over .600 in the Series, and he's got a bullet of an arm behind the plate.... Pitchers don't have to do much thinking with Geraldson catching them. Look to see more of him in the future." That's what they said, and more, and it was true. I controlled the game when I was behind the plate; I told the pitchers what to do, and if they did it, we got the batters out. The Crimson had an article about me freshman year, "The bright star on Harvard's baseball team. He'll be here for four years." I was, but they were wrong. My eyes close as I remember I am still young and fit. I am only twenty-five, the same age as Hundley, starting catcher for the Mets. And unlike him, I could hit. I would have been up in the Majors by now, the next . Maybe I could've caught Gooden before he blew his career. At least he had one. I can't even throw the ball now. I suppose I should just be happy I'm not Len Bias, dead from cocaine, but I can't be. He was a dream unfulfilled, but never spoiled. I am married, practicing law in Minneapolis, and Heather is pregnant with our first child. The Major Leaguers have gone on strike, and try-outs are being held for men like me. Men who never made it. I roll my shoulders and wonder if maybe I can throw again. If the years of rest have cured my shoulder, and maybe I'll still play in . What would Ellen say if she saw me on TV? I haven't spoken to her since a week before graduation. She came to find me the week after we did it. She didn't call; she just came over to my place, and fortunately I was out, because Heather was still there, proud and smiling with her diamond ring. We ran into Ellen as we came up from the elevator. Heather was licking an ice cream cone, and I looked at the two of them as Ellen got on the elevator. Ellen's hair was all messy, hanging in her face, and she was wearing just a sweatshirt and jeans, while Heather stood up straight, every hair in place, her clothes perfect, her face all made up. Just like a model. Ellen stopped still as I held the elevator for her. "I was just looking for you," she said slowly. I looked towards Heather, who was just licking the ice cream, not seeming to notice, and introduced them. "Any of the guys in?" I asked her, when Heather seemed to get a questioning look on her face, like Ellen would be looking for my roommates too. "I don't know," she said. "I left you a note to call." And then the elevator door closed and took her away. Heather didn't say anything, and when we got to my room, I took the note off and crumpled it up without looking at it. A year later, I found Ellen's note. It was in my baseball jacket pocket, and I pulled it out, not knowing what it was. I opened it, and it was like someone had just thrown me a spitball, something too hard to catch. All it said was, "Jerry, came by. Call me, Ellen." I shrugged and figured graduation was almost there, I would never see her again, so I might as well call her. Who knew? Maybe she'd want me to come over, and so I called her. "Ellen?" I said, and waited. You could hear the silence. "Jerry?" she asked, and I heard the familiar Queens emphasis on the last syllable. "Yes." Another pause, and I wondered what she was going to do. For a moment, I thought she was about to hang up, but she didn't. "You didn't play this year, did you?" and it was the old Ellen, back to baseball. "No." "Why didn't you play?" What did she think? "Because I can't," I said, honest. "I can't throw anymore." "That must depress you." "What?" "The fact that you won't ever make it now." "No," I said. "But you were going to be a Met." I didn't think about it, I can't, it's over. "So what are you going to do?" she asked me. "I'm going to law school." "Law, ah law. That's original." "What're you going to do, Ellen?" I asked. "And I thought you were different," she said. She was slurring a little the way she always did, but there was an angry attempt at enunciation, and I could understand her every word. "Congratulations on your impending marriage, Jerry." There was another awkward pause as I didn't know what to say, but then she continued. "You tell her what you did the week before you proposed?" I thought maybe it was time to end the conversation, but she had other things to say. "You really fucked things up," she said. "I thought you were like me, and maybe you are, but different, selfish ..." I murmured "mm" and let her ramble as she told me what a jerk I was, how I'd ruined a good friendship, and so on. It was all stuff I'd heard before, b u t... "The Mets are gonna suck this year," I said, pulling her back. "They've lost their heart," she said. It was an accurate insight; they don't play to win anymore. And then she hung up, a year after I'd done it to her, three years after our friendship, and that was the end. The score stood 5 to 4 with two outs in the bottom of the tenth in the . was , and the Red Sox were creeping up from the , about to celebrate the impossible. They hadn't won since 1918, since they'd sold a dream, since Babe Ruth became a Yankee. They were on the steps when the score was 5 to 3 with two outs and two strikes, and three batters later, they were still standing, and it was 5 to 4. You could almost feel them reaching out, trying to grasp the dream before it slipped away again, but Stanley threw the , and Mitchell, I believe it was, Ellen would know for sure, scored, tying it up, and it was gone. They stopped then, right there on the top step o f the dugout, and waited, held their breath as Mookie stepped back into the batter's box. He connected. He hit a blooper, a little bouncing ball down to first, to who at any other time in his life would've picked it up and easily tagged the bag. A soft grounder he'd handled thousands o f times. In any other game, at any other moment, he would've fielded it. But, as everyone knows, it bounced through his legs, his gimpy knees, and Mookie was safe at first, and motored around from second to score the winning run. The Mets were saved, and in the seventh game they won the Series. That was in 1986. My senior year o f high school when I was still a star. Before I ever went to Boston. Before I ever met Ellen. She told me about watching it, how she lay immobile on the couch in her living room, unable to move, to realize that the Mets, who were the best team in baseball that year, were about to lose it. When she was little they always lost, and now when they were winners, they were going to lose. She told me how she lay there paralyzed, her sister having left in disgust, her little brother sent to bed, when the wild pitch happened. How she called them downstairs, and together they all watched in disbelief. And she told me how she felt sad, though, sad for Bill Buckner who will be remembered forever in Boston as the goat, the one who let it get away, sad for them the way she was when she saw John Steams screaming in pain, and sad for them all after the seventh game when she saw their tears, their lost dream. But then she cried when she saw the Mets, watched them drunk with happiness, dousing each other left and right in champagne. It was a wild scene, she said, and she couldn't help herself from tearing up as the happiness bubbled over. "It was the best," she said. "The best. I wanted to be there. I want to play for the Mets."