Waiting for Teddy Williams Page 20

  True, the Sox were somehow currently head-to-head with the Yankees in a battle for the lead in the Eastern Division race, largely because of the Legendary Spence’s brilliant managing. Through a stroke of evil genius, Maynard had brought up Ted Williams’s son, John Henry, who had played several undistinguished innings in a minor-league game in Florida, and insisted that Spence start him in left field. After a long session with Spence in the batting cage before the game, John Henry went 4–5 and belted two balls over the Green Monster. Thus far, that was the way the summer was going. The manager used every Spencerian trick for which he was famous and some no one had ever seen before. To enrage crowds at away games and whip up his own players, he’d patrol the perimeter of the diamond carrying a stick with a nail in the end. The boos descended on him along with the debris thrown out of the stands. “We do not need Mr. Spencer to pick up after the fans of Comiskey Park,” the Sun-Times wrote. Never one to go by the book, Spence signaled notoriously slow runners to steal home, called for the double steal with two outs, started coaching third base himself, and routinely gave runners the green light to try to stretch singles into doubles and doubles into triples, often catching his opponents flat-footed.

  Late one afternoon before a night game at the Fen with New York, a tall man, graying at the temples, walked into the clubhouse office carrying a thick book called Einstein's Theory of Relativity and the Mechanics of Pitching, of which he was the author.

  He opened this tome to chapter five. “Did you know, Spence, that if we could attain enough speed, we could go back to ’seventy-eight?”

  “What the deuce for?” Spence said.

  “To play that winner-take-all game with New York over again. Throw Dent something else, an eephus pitch maybe. Or,” the tall man continued, “back to 1920 and persuade Frazee to hold on to Ruth.”

  “I’d have to rename my parrot here,” Spence said. “There wouldn’t be any Curse of the Bambino.”

  “Macaw,” the bird said indignantly. “Not parrot.”

  “With a little time travel,” the author said, “think of the team we could put together. Myself, Yaz, Teddy Ballgame. In the meantime, Stan sent me down to help you out.”

  “I like the team we’re putting together, Alien. I’m glad to see you. You feel like killing some Yankees tonight?”

  That night the Alien Man, having come out of retirement after more than a decade, beat New York 8–4, throwing a five-hitter.

  The lummox wasn’t about to panic. He’d seen the Sox on the brink of success before, and he knew it would come to a screeching halt with the turn of the season and the first cool days and nights of fall. The boys of October the Red Sox were not. Nor had they been since 1918. Nor would they ever be, world without end, amen. Maynard E. Flynn Junior, B.A., M.A., and soon-to-be Ph.D., would see to that.

  But shipping the team off to Hollywood was not all the lummox had in mind. By the time the snow flew, as his father used to say, he would have another surprise for the good people of Boston. Because immediately after the last game of the season at Fenway, the new owner intended to convert their “lyric little bandbox” to a museum dedicated to the abject failures of the Sox to win a Series.

  In the foyer of this unique sports edifice would be, of course, a life-size effigy of Bucky Dent slapping his three-run homer off feckless Mike Torrez. The rest of the museum would consist of a replica of Fenway Park. Around this diamond the paying public—and if the lummox knew Boston, there would be no shortage of people willing to pay through the nose to see the Red Sox Century of Failure and Despair Museum—could stroll at their leisure. The tall figure of Bill Buckner would be off the grass at first base, stooped low, but not low enough, as the ground ball that should have ended the ’86 Series with a championship for Boston scooted between his sore, aging legs. That this had actually happened in Shea Stadium was not a problem to the lummox; a little magic realism would not hurt the tableau he had in mind. From that same fateful Series he’d have young Calvin Schiraldi on the mound, glove on top of his head, an eternal, agonized wince on his face, having just given up a third consecutive base hit with victory one unattainable out away. And who was this but Teddy Ballgame, frozen in transparent blue-green ice inside a cryogenic tank in the on-deck circle, making an ungracious gesture at the press box. Don Zimmer, one foot on the dugout steps, rubbed the gleaming metal plate in his head that doubtless contributed to his decision to leave Torrez in to get shelled even after Dent’s homer. The psychologically challenged Jimmy Piersall capered buck-naked in the outfield, his fingers wagging from his ears. Yaz stood at the plate, eternally popping out weakly to end everything in ’78. And there would be more, much more, including a darkened night scene of the four-time Cy Young Award winner, All-Star shortstop, American League MVP, and Triple Crown-winning left-fielder, in tatters and chains, being ferried in a skiff along a dark stream by two evil-looking men in Confederate military caps, entitled SOLD DOWN THE RIVER.

  The pièce de resistance was already completed. It stood a few feet away from the lummox’s desk, covered with a white sheet. Maynard could scarcely wait to reveal it to Spence, whose clacking spikes he could hear, even now, approaching the door.

  Spence gave his cheery shave-and-a-haircut, two-bits knock and stepped inside, the Curse on his shoulder. Maynard pretended to be hard at work on his ever-evolving thesis.

  “Well, Junior,” the manager said. “Still studying, I see.”

  “A student studies,” the lummox said. “It’s what we do. And kindly don’t call me Junior. I believe that we’ve discussed that on prior occasions.”

  The lummox worked his hand flexer and gave Spence and the Curse of the Bambino his fishy stare. Spence wondered what the boy had concealed under the white sheet. Some new weightlifting apparatus, no doubt. He wished the lummox would quit knuckle-punching him and his players in the arm. Awkward though he was, he had a nasty way of catching you right on the muscle, making it smart like a bumblebee sting for twenty minutes afterward.

  Junior’s father had been a worthy adversary and sometime friend to Spence. Often, after an exciting win, Spence and the macaw had joined the old owner in his office where, with their good friend Jack Daniel, they would visit and reminisce. The old man would shed real tears and say baseball wasn’t what it used to be and get so drunk Spence would have to drive him home to Revere. One night, as Maynard Senior staggered through the door, he out and peed all over the boy’s mama’s twelve-thousand-dollar Turkish living room carpet, while the mama shrieked steadily and Spence and the child lummox looked on.

  “Looky here, Junior,” Spence began.

  The lummox let out a great sigh. “I am growing so weary of requesting that you not call me by that detestable cognomen.”

  “Look, Maynard,” Spence said, though that didn’t sound right, either, “last night we lost another pitcher for the season. Torn rotator cuff and that’s all she wrote. I’m down to three starters, counting the Alien. What I need here, I need me two, three more arms, we’re going to make a run at the division, much less do anything in post-season.”

  “What earthly reason is there to suppose that even with thirty more arms, a ragtag assortment of has-beens, never-was’s and never-will-be’s like your so-called team could possibly ‘do anything in post-season’?”

  “Well,” Spence said, “the boys are on a roll, see? Say we take the pennant again. Say we take the Serious. Why, then you wouldn’t need to sell the team. Plus you’d get the credit for bringing the championship to Boston. The thing is, we need to move right now, before the no-trade deadline. After that we can’t bring no more new players on board.”

  The lummox put his fingers together, making his little church steeple. “I am well aware of when we cannot sign additional players. Therefore I will give you thirty thousand dollars to use as you see fit. You may buy one thirty-thousand-dollar arm or three ten-thousand-dollar arms. The cash is yours to do with as you wish. A most handsome offer, I should say.”

  Spence stared
at him, unable to formulate an appropriate reply. The lummox stood up and walked over to the sheet draped over the weight machine or whatever it was. Whipping it off with a flourish, he said, “Don’t you think I’ve just made Mr. Spencer a handsome offer, pater?”

  Before Spence’s astonished eyes stood the stuffed figure—he supposed it must be stuffed—of Maynard E. Flynn Senior himself. He was wearing a three-piece suit and his Red Sox cap, and his recriminating index finger was thrust out at Spence as it had been a thousand times when the old man was alive. Spence’s first clear thought was that the taxidermist had done a terrible job. The old man’s nose overhung his lower face by three or four inches, and the eyes were as yellow and feral as those of a caged leopard.

  “Wax,” the lummox said. “For my museum.”

  Spence felt a tiny wave of relief. Wax was better than stuffed.

  “Oh, there’ll be one of you, too,” the lummox said. “Dancing the hornpipe, or something along those lines.”

  Spence stared at the lummox. Then Maynard had another inspiration. He reached for the phone on his desk. “Get me my attorney,” he told his receptionist.

  With the famous Flynn sneer playing over his lips, he said, “I’m going to make you a sporting proposition, Mr. Spencer. If you can win the World Series this year, I’ll sell the team to the local group. Otherwise, the whole operation, you and your overpriced contract included, will be heading west.”

  “If I win the Series you’ll keep the team in Boston?”

  “That’s what I said. We’ll finalize it with my solicitor and we’ll make it public. Give those lowly journalists something to write about.”

  The lummox put down his flexer and placed the tips of his fingers together. “Here’s the church,” he said. “Here’s the steeple. Here’s Fenway.” He opened up his locked fingers to show nothing but his palms. “Where are all the Faithful?”

  So when Spence took three quick steps toward him, thrust out his hand, and said, “You got a deal, Maynard,” the lummox was almost too surprised to knuckle-punch him on the arm, though not quite.

  35

  RECENTLY LOUISIANNE had been running with E.A. before his daily workouts with Stan. One morning, just back from a five-mile circuit to Kingdom Landing, they sat on the Colonel’s pedestal on the village green, watching the sun come up over Allen Mountain, lighting up the Green Monster atop the baseball bat factory where Moonface was posting last night’s Sox score. Boston had been in Montreal, looking for a sweep of a three-game series with the Expos in the last interleague contest of the season.

  Louisianne wore bright red running shoes and red shorts with a matching halter top, her long, dark brown hair tied back with a red ribbon. As they waited for the score to go up, E.A. told her about the WYSOTT Allens’ longtime feud with Devil Dan and Dan’s threats to dozer down Gran’s barn and house. But he couldn’t stop staring at her slender, coffee-with-cream-colored legs. Although Louisianne seemed interested in the feud, finally she kicked E.A.’s sneaker and said, in a perfect imitation of her father’s Cajun accent, “What you looking at, boy?”

  E.A. turned as red as Louisianne’s running outfit. She laughed and told him in her own voice to be careful or she’d make him disappear. As Moon put up the score, Boston 7 Montreal 3, she said, “Actually, Ethan, it’s a lot harder to make someone appear than disappear.”

  “Who’s going to appear?” he said.

  She glanced up at the courthouse clocktower. “Stick around for a few minutes. You might be surprised.” Then she jumped down off the pedestal and jogged back over to the hotel, where she and Stan were staying.

  “Hook, line, and sinker,” the Colonel said, as E.A. continued to ogle her bobbing dark ponytail and pretty legs. “I just hope she doesn’t break your heart in the end is all. I don’t mean to interfere. But you might better know now than later that women will generally do that to you. They will break your heart, or your spirit, or both.”

  “I’ll thank you to keep your advice to yourself,” E.A. said.

  “Time was when you were happy enough to receive it,” the Colonel snapped back. “I see those days are long—well, look at that, will you.”

  A dark, expensive-looking car was pulling up to the hotel. It stopped directly in front of the porch just as Cajun Stan, dressed in white as usual, came out and waved. The driver, a heavyset man in his sixties, built as solid as the brick shopping block, got out and nodded to Stan, then looked around the village, his gaze stopping on the Green Monster atop the factory with last night’s score posted on it. He wore a Red Sox windbreaker and a Sox cap, and on his shoulder sat a large, multicolored bird.

  As word began to spread that the Legendary Spence had appeared in the village, a steady stream of Sox fans appeared to get a look at him, get an autograph, take a snapshot, or just say hello. People like Gypsy and Gran and Bill and Frenchy LaMott, who ran the commission sales, and even Old Lady Benton, who probably wouldn’t have walked across the street to meet the president of the United States, were eager that August morning to see the famous Spence in person as he and Stan walked down the common toward the baseball diamond. E.A. was already warming up with Teddy, who’d appeared with their gloves and a ball just after Spence arrived. The elderly bat boys, sitting out on the hotel porch in the morning sunshine, did not walk over to the diamond. That would have been beneath their dignity. But Fletch and Early and Late leaned forward in their folding chairs and watched attentively as Stan and Spence headed down the green past the statue.

  “It’s a nice pastime, Stanley,” Spence was telling his old bud. “It’s a very nice pastime when they can sell your franchise right out from under you the season after you’ve put an American League pennant banner over your home grounds and gotten to the last game of the Serious, not to mention we’re leading the AL East by a game as we speak. Is that the kid?”

  “That him,” Stan said.

  “He ain’t too big, is he?” Spence said.

  “You gone be surprised,” Stan said.

  “I doubt it,” Spence said.

  E.A., warming up on the mound, felt good. A little nervous, but ready.

  “Okay?” Teddy said.

  “Okay,” E.A. said and threw a fastball, up and in on a right handed batter.

  “You go, E.A.!” Gypsy shouted.

  “Ninety-four, ninety-five miles an hour,” Stan said to Spence. “Hard to get a bat on.”

  “Any pitch five inches inside is hard to get a bat on,” Spence said. “Tell him he’s supposed to hit the glove.”

  “He sending the hitter a message,” Stan said.

  “The umpire will send him a message,” Spence said. “Ball one.”

  “You’re down on the count, kid,” he said to E.A. “I don’t like my pitchers getting down on the count. I don’t like leadoff walks. A pitcher wants to stay on my right side, he better stay up on the count and not be walking no leadoff batters.”

  For the next ten minutes Spence watched E.A. throw. In only one instance—when a slider hit the dirt beside the plate—did Teddy have to move his mitt more than an inch or two.

  The crowd of villagers, at least fifty strong now, was quiet. Everyone’s eyes were on Spence, to see how he was reacting. The Colonel, away up the common in deepest center field, seemed to be leaning forward, holding his broken-off sword at an expectant angle, waiting to hear the verdict. Even Gran seemed to be holding her breath.

  Spence stood near the pitcher’s mound, wondering what exquisite new possibilities for disappointment this Vermont development offered. The night before, when he’d gotten back to his hotel in Montreal, a town where they didn’t even speak English as their first language and they played hockey as their main sport, something had made him pick up the phone and call Stan. And Stan had somehow talked him into renting a car and driving down to see the kid this morning, leaving his team to fly back to Boston on their own. Now he found himself wishing he’d gone with them, not because he wasn’t impressed with E.A. but because he simply didn’t
know how much more heartbreak he could take in a single season.

  “Well,” Stan said, “he can throw, him, yeah?”

  “Oh, he can throw, all right,” Spence said. “I’m desperate for pitchers and he can throw. Now”—reaching reluctantly for the contract in his back pocket—“we’re going to find out whether he can pitch.”

  36

  “I EVER TELL YOU folks about my all-time favorite baseball con?” Stan was saying. “When I con old George Steinbrenner out of his lemonzene?”

  It was early in the evening. E.A. would be leaving for Boston the next morning, and Stan and Louisianne were departing that night in Stan’s old pink limousine for a fair in upstate New York. The Paiges and Gypsy and Teddy and Gran and Bill and E.A. were gathered around Gran’s kitchen table for a celebratory dinner of out-of-season venison and trout, woodchuck, Bill’s dandelion wine, and a store-bought white cake on which Gypsy had inscribed, with chocolate frosting:

  Congrats to Ethan Allen,

  a Member of the Boston Red Sox

  “If it hadn’t been for Steinbrenner,” Gran said, “Bucky Dent never would have put on pinstripes, and I’d be going dancing tonight instead of confined to a wheelchair.”

  Gypsy cut her eyes at E.A. and he grinned.

  “Steinbrenner a bad one, all right,” Stan agreed. “Mr. Moneybags. What wrong with baseball today, you ast me. For years it be my dream to con that man. Finally it come to me how.

  “It spring training, back seven, eight years ago. Every morning, old George come to the ball park in a long, black lemonzene. That automobile most as long as a city block. You want the truth, I had my eye on it for a long while. So I go down by the entrance of the park with a big old valise in my hand, got the word dirt wrote on it in red letters. And when George go by I hold up that valise, make sure he get a good look at it. About the third morning, that lemonzene stop. Driver says, ‘What you got in the suitcase, brother?’ I say, ‘Dirt.’ ‘Dirt?’ ‘That right. Dirt on all the big players on Mr. Steinbrenner team, the World Champion New York Yankees.’