Chapter 13: Whoops

We were doing very well indeed -- both on the field and off, as August wore on. We'd come back from the brief New York and Boston road trip 4-2, and after sweeping Toronto three games at home we were gone again -- this time to Kansas City and St. Louis. We were completing the season series with the Royals, and we had to make up two rained-out interleague games with the Cardinals -- postponements from much earlier in the season. The only available makeup date had been that Thursday in late August.

We played very few doubleheaders anymore (Thank God!) and St. Louis in August isn't the ideal place to play one. But we were eager to match up with the Cardinals, who were probably the best team in the National League, and the two games were to be separate-admission, and separated by a four-hour break, so we'd maybe survive.

Kansas City took us two out of three at home. That pissed us off because the Royals were lousy-as-usual, but not right then, when we needed them to be.

Now we'd go into St. Louis against a very strong club, and we had only a 11⁄2 game margin over the Yankees in our Division.

We lost both games to the Cardinals, and we lost 'em real bad. The scores were 12-4 and 17-2, and Paul Warren was so angry with his pitching staff that if somebody had handed him a machete, he'd have probably severed a few arms. You could tell he was fuming, all the way to the airport and even after we were on the plane, heading for home.

If we made the post-season -- if, finally, this was the Paul Warren team that would go all the way to the World Series -- the Cardinals would very likely be the club we would meet there.

If today had been any indication, they completely outclassed us!

When we got back home, I called Maria but got her roommate, instead. I'd never met the roommate -- Maria and I were too scared she'd recognize me. But I'd spoken to her, several times, on the phone. Maria had gone to College Park for some kind of pre-registration doings at the University, and Roomy didn't know when to expect her.

I was kinda hoping that Maria might be at my apartment when I got there, but I didn't try to phone her there, I just headed home.

When I got home, I saw that she'd left a message on my answering machine. She was staying over with a friend in College Park -- "not Chuck," she said -- and wouldn't finish up her chores at the University until late the following morning. She suggested I meet her for lunch at a restaurant we both liked near Columbia, Maryland. She promised to call back in the morning to confirm.

I was disappointed that, after losing four out of five games on the road trip, I was back in Baltimore, sleeping alone in this scuzzy apartment. But I was too tired to worry, and I was soon asleep.

We met at the restaurant at 12:30 and I got a big wet kiss, right off the bat. Usually, we were somewhat more discreet than that in public, but we hadn't seen one another in several days, and, as Maria whispered to me, she was "horny."

During the clinch, she might have picked up a strong hint that I was horny, too.

It was a family kind of restaurant, and there were an assortment of kids in the place, some of them pre-teen boys. A couple of them were looking as if they thought they recognized me and, after much staring, they eventually got up their courage and came by our booth to ask for my autograph.

I was still more than pleased to provide autographs to fans on request. After all, I'd come extremely close, only a few months back, to becoming Joe Blow, account executive, or insurance salesman, or whatever job I might have landed after finally giving up the Game. If a kid wanted my autograph, he got it -- even if my mashed potatoes got cold during the transaction. I knew I would recede back into obscurity soon enough.

The two boys left happy, but their visit had attracted the attention of other customers. Soon, I was signing a series of scraps of paper for an assortment of kids, and for a couple of adult males who wanted my autograph "for my kid."

"Hi Maria!" one of the adult visitors -- a youngish woman -- said. Maria looked up and recognized the woman at once.

"Cynthia! Hello!"

Cynthia turned out to be a neighbor of the Warrens from just down their street in Bowie.

We hadn't yet been introduced, but Cynthia addressed me anyway: "My husband and I have known Maria since she was -- oh, what, Maria? Fourteen? Fifteen? She used to baby-sit for us!"

Maria was being more than polite to Cynthia and family, but she was "forgetting" to introduce me to her former neighbors. But it was no good. Cynthia kept looking at me and then looking at Maria, and it got more and more obvious that Maria had no choice in the matter.

"Oh, Cynthia -- and Albert? This is my friend, Alex Osborn."

I half-rose to shake Albert's hand when he suddenly connected the name and his (probably vague) recollection of my face on some sports page somewhere. "Alex Osborn," he said. You're on the team -- right?"

"Sir?"

"You're a player -- a pitcher. Right?"

"That's right," I said, finally. What could I do? Deny it?

Cynthia was immediately enthralled. "Oh, my goodness!" she said. "You were the one who spoke to the Boosters -- back in -- April, was it?"

"Are you a Booster, Mrs. -- uh..."

"Perkins!" Cynthia supplied. "We're Albert and Cynthia Perkins! And, yes, we're big Oriole Boosters! Ever since we met Orlie and Paul Warren -- oh, we're big!"

"That's... nice."

Cynthia Perkins turned her guns on Maria. "Oh, Maria! Are you and -- Alex. Are you and Alex -- uh -- together?"

Maybe Marie ought to just tell them we're good friends, I thought.

"We're just good friends," Maria said, giving the Perkins' her Class A phony smile.