Chapter 85

The drive back from Erie to Cleveland began in silence. Meredith was pondering the parting statement that Chastity had left Brock with. Brock was trying to keep his eyes open. The only sleep he'd had in close to 40 hours had been on a plane and a 30-minute nap at the hotel.

He was startled when Meredith spoke.

"Do you want me to drive?" she asked. "I promise to be careful."

Brock blinked hard.

"We'll stop at the Welcome Center," Brock said, knowing there were few places to stop along the Pennsylvania highways.

"I checked the voicemail on my phone," Meredith continued after she nodded. "The network is going to run the piece on you whether you comment or not. They're going to run it Sunday night or Tuesday night."

She shifted in her seat.

"I've been thinking," she continued. "Maybe you should talk to them. I'm worried that they'll do some hatchet job on you because you stonewalled them."

"So what?" Brock asked. "It won't be the first time. Besides, I'm not sure they can do much. The facts are pretty clear. They can't change those. If they try, well, I'll own a network by the time I'm done. If you have other reasons, I'll listen to them. But that one isn't one I'm concerned about."

Meredith was quiet for a moment.

"I think I'm more worried about how the people in Wilkins will come across," Meredith admitted. "There is still a lot of hostility down there. I think my biggest concern is that the network will play up the property tax increase, the drop in school taxes because of decreased enrollment. That's about the only thing that people can point to as, I don't know, excessive. I know they will have to tilt the facts but I'm sure they could do it that way without it being actionable."

"Excessive?" Brock asked.

"I said it could be painted that way," Meredith clarified. "I didn't say it was accurate. But without you to put it into context, it could be misconstrued. I mean, if they get some poor woman who lost her house because of the tax hikes or some kid who didn't get to be on the debate team because the school dropped it. It could be bad."

Brock was quiet until they pulled off the highway into the Welcome Center. When they switched places, Brock tilted his head backward and looked at the roof liner.

"So you think I should sit down with that woman?" he asked.

"No," Meredith said. "Not her. And not that idiot who they send to the press conferences. Maybe with one of the baseball guys. Make it a condition of the interview. I think the network will give in. They've called 50 times."

"The baseball guys aren't real journalists," Brock stated. "I mean, they don't really do interviews. They know the game and the players. But they don't really do the nuts and bolts of sitting down and doing real in-depth stuff."

"Good," Meredith said. "That means there is no agenda. You'll talk about it with a guy who isn't pushing a specific point. I think it will also keep it from creeping up on you again. Next year or the year after, if they come back, you point them to what's already on the record."

"They could do it with Tara's interview," Brock said helpfully.

Meredith shook her head.

"She holds the copyright and she won't release it for use by the network," she answered. "She told them that at the start. They would never be able to dub it and edit it. Besides, I've seen it. You look a lot younger. It would be obvious that it was from years before. If you don't want to do it, I won't say anything else. I just wanted you to know what I was thinking."

"I understand," Brock answered as he reached across the small vehicle and put his hand on Meredith's knee. "I'll think about it and let you know in the morning. Do you have a number to contact the network?"

"I have it," Meredith said. "Like I said, this is the last time I'll bring it up. I know it bothers you."

"I don't mind talking about it with you," Brock replied. "I never have. It's just that I don't like talking about it with strangers. I was OK with Tara because I'm comfortable talking to her. But I don't want a confrontational session with a stranger. It's not just about my Mom or the things I saw in prison. It's about all of it."

"I understand," Meredith said, although she probably didn't. "Whatever you decide, I won't second guess."

The Indians put on an extravaganza for the opening night in their home park. Several Dodgers slipped into the clubhouse to stretch during the prolonged introduction of dignitaries in attendance – including the President of the United States, who decided to kill two birds with one stone. He got to campaign in Ohio by showing up to a game in Cleveland and make his pitch to Californians by wearing a Dodgers cap. Brock figured the guy should have just gone all out and worn an Indians cap. Ohio was a battleground state in the election – only a few days away – and California was essentially a one-party state and would vote Democrat no matter who ran on the ticket.

Cynthia Lu had permitted the president to visit with the team before the game but Brock made sure he was somewhere else during that time. He wasn't going to give the guy a photo op but it would have been bad form to ignore him in the clubhouse. So Brock slipped away and hid in the trainer's room.

The temperature was in the mid-40s when the teams took the field. Some of the Dodgers players were bundled up as though they were playing in Antarctica. A few of the Indians players had on long-sleeved turtlenecks beneath their jerseys and a few wore sweatshirts.

The Dodgers locker room resembled a clothing store with all the cold-weather gear on display. Brock had spent an early season in Buffalo so he thought he knew what to expect. Still, when the wind blew in from the North, he was a little colder than what he'd expected he would be.

It was a problem mainly during at-bats. A foul ball might leave your hands stinging for the next five minutes. Another problem could have been periods of extended inactivity in the field. Thankfully Wilkie Sarver wasn't known for strikeouts, so the fielders kept active.

Sarver was opposed by Shinobu Hiroshi, a player signed from Japan two years earlier and picked up in a deal from the Angels. Hiroshi was a left-handed version of Udo Jergens. He kept the ball down in the strike zone and relied upon guile more than talent.

Playing in an American League park, the designated hitter rule was in effect. Danys was back behind the plate, so LaCross started DeLeon in center field and made Al his DH. Brock started at shortstop, with Driesbach taking a seat on the bench.

The teams entered the game with differing philosophies. The Dodgers took pitches until after the first strike, forcing Hiroshi to demonstrate command. They worked deep into the count and frustrated the pitcher by refusing to nibble at his offerings that were just out of the zone.

The Indians came out hacking. The scouting report on Sarver was that he tended to be "wild in the strike zone" after periods of long rest, leaving pitches in the areas where hitters could drive them. It had been six days since his last start so the Cleveland hitters expected pitches in the strike zone but not necessarily where Sarver wanted to place them.

Each team scored once in the first inning and the game remained tied 1-1 until the home half of the fourth. Cleveland's right fielder reached on Brock's throwing error and scored on a double by the designated hitter.

Brock slammed his glove down when he returned to the dugout.

"We'll get it back," Fred told him.

He was wrong. The Indians tacked on a third run in the seventh and walked away with a 3-1 win and a 2-1 lead in the series.

Brock sat in the dugout for a few minutes after the final out of Game 3 was recorded. His teammates stopped to slap him on the back but he still felt like shit.

When he made his way out of the dugout, he faced a session with the media, along with two other players, Danys Sanchez and Tony DeLeon. He had waited too long for an early shower and was ushered into the session in his uniform pants and his undershirt. The questions started as soon as he sat down.

"Was your lack of a sweatshirt the cause of the error in the fourth?" a woman asked.

"No," Brock replied.

The group waited for more but nothing more was coming.

"What caused the error then?" the woman tried.

Brock stared at her for a moment.

"What caused the error?" he repeated. "Is that an existential question? You know, why do bad things happen to good people and all that?"

"No, it's a serious inquiry?" the woman said. "What caused the error?"

"A bad throw," Brock replied. "I would have thought that was evident. Did you watch the game?"

"I watched the game," the woman said indignantly.

"Then you know what caused the error," Brock told her.

"Did the weather affect you in any way?" a new voice inquired.

"No," Brock said.

"Let's go back to the fourth inning," a voice said. "What happened there? Should Wade Watson have fielded the ball?"

Brock let out a long sigh.

"That's a play that happens a thousand times," Brock said. "Nine-hundred-ninety of those times, that play is an out. The other 10 times, it's an error. Sometimes I might bobble the ball when I field it. Other times I might throw the ball low or into the stands. It was an error. It wasn't the first one I've made. It isn't the last one I'll make. It's probably the biggest one I've made so far. Wade Watson keeps me from making an error on bad throws nine times out of 10. On those rare times when he can't, it's not his fault. It was a bad throw. If he had pulled the ball out, it would have been a great play. He couldn't this time and that's not his fault. The blame goes to me, not him."

"What do you have to do tomorrow to even the series?" a man asked.

"Hit the damned ball," Brock answered. "We didn't hit the ball tonight. It had nothing to do with the weather. It had nothing to do with the lights. It had nothing to do with anything but how well Shinobu pitched and how badly we hit."

"The Dodgers haven't hit the ball well during the Series," a man said. "What will you do differently tomorrow?"

"Nothing," Brock answered. "We've won this way all season. We knew we would be facing solid pitching in this series. We knew that Cleveland's starting staff is among the best in the league. We understood that we would struggle to put runs on the board. We knew this would be a close Series from the outset. We knew we would have to play solid defense. Tonight, I committed a mistake and it cost us the game. Tomorrow, that is the only thing I hope is different."

Brock took a seat after his shower.

"Don't let it bother you," Al advised. "We've all been there."

"Really?" Brock asked facetiously. "So, tell me, when was the last time you cost your team a game in the World Series?"

"Tonight," Al answered instantly. "I was 0-for-4 with two strikeouts. I was the DH. I'm supposed to hit. I didn't hit. My failure is just as glaring as yours. Everyone is at fault. Yeah, you made a bad throw. It happens so rarely that it's a big deal. It'll be different tomorrow."

"J.C. is back on the mound tomorrow," Brock replied.

"And we beat him in Game 1," Al said with a shrug. "Every game has turned on one or two plays. J.C. lost because of one or two plays. Javier lost because of one or two plays. We're evenly matched. That's no surprise. We're built differently but we're both really good teams. So tomorrow it might be Chavez who throws one away. Maybe it's Alby Schexnayder who whiffs four times."

Brock's frown didn't leave but he nodded.

"It's why you have teammates," Al continued. "You're quick to share the credit when things go right. Well, we all have to share the blame when they don't."

It was after 1 a.m. by the time Brock made it the few blocks to the team hotel.

"Hungry?" Meredith wondered when he came in and sat down. He shook his head. "Are you going to shake this off before tomorrow?"

"I hope so," Brock relied. "I know it's only one game but, Jesus, to make an error in the game's biggest stage is not something I've ever dreamed about."

"Think about all the players who are sitting at home wishing they had the chance to make a mistake like that," Meredith replied. "Who was that guy from the Cubs? He's called the best player never to play in a World Series."

"Ernie Banks," Brock answered.

"Think what he'd give for just the chance to make an error in the World Series," Meredith told him as she sat beside him. She was too short to put her arm around his shoulder so she snuggled in on his chest. "He'd take the error just to get the chance to make up for it the next game. This series isn't over."

"Yeah, I know," Brock admitted. "It's sort of the whole last month. I haven't played well since I came off the DL. My batting average is in the .220s and my defense has been erratic. Yet LaCross keeps trotting me out there every day and putting either Fred or Matt on the pine."

"That's his decision to make, Brock," Meredith replied, sitting up to look him in the eye regardless of how much she would have preferred to stay closer to him. "Yeah, you struggled early when you got back. You had a rough patch at the start of the playoffs. But the middle – when the team needed it – you were great. You hit 10 homers in 14 games."

"And I've committed six errors in 40 games since I've been back," Brock said. "And that's only the ones I've been charged with. I could have easily had 10 errors if the official scorer wanted to look at things that way. Almost all of them have been throwing errors, too. I only had six throwing errors all of last season. I could live with hitting like shit if I was helping in other ways. But I'm not."

Meredith chuckled to herself.

"What's the team's record since you got back?" she asked.

"I don't know," Brock said. "I mean, we won something like 22 of 25 to end the year. We swept St. Louis in three games. We won four out of six from Washington. We're one and two against Cleveland."

Meredith could see Brock was counting it up in his head and she saved him the trouble.

"You've won 30 and lost 7 since you came off the DL," she told him. "Jen said that's better than a .800 winning percentage. Over the course of a full season, you would win 130 games."

"A pace like that couldn't be sustained for a full season," Brock said with a shrug.

"And you shouldn't have been able to sustain it for a quarter of a season either," Meredith said. "But the team has. They played eight games over .500 while you were out. You were three games under .500 with Al and John gone. So John and Al together are worth 11 games. You're worth 15. Your wins-above-replacement (WAR) is higher than 7.0 and you were replaced by some damned good players."

"How do you know that?" Brock asked. "I mean, not the good players thing. The rest of it. I don't even know how they figure it out."

Wins Above Replacement is a relatively new statistic that measures how many more games a team wins with an individual player in the lineup.

"Jen and Ryan got into a discussion about it the last time he was in Los Angeles," Meredith explained. "He explained the concept and showed Jen how to calculate all the stuff that goes into it. She's decided to do her doctoral thesis on baseball statistics in relationship to salary arbitration offers. Her adviser is excited. Not only does it cross traditional gender lines but it also gives a real-life application to the theory behind the concepts. She's been updating your stats on a daily basis along with about a dozen other arbitration eligible players. Her goal is to be able to create a formula that will predict the upcoming team offers using Sabermetrics."

"That's all great but what does it have to do with what we're talking about?" Brock wondered.

"Do you know what the highest single-season WAR in the modern era is?" she asked.

"I have no idea," Brock said in exasperation.

"Twelve," Meredith announced. "That was in the late 1960s by a guy who won the Triple Crown."

"Yaz," Brock replied absently, "Carl Yastrzemski."

"Him," Meredith confirmed. "You're talking about a statistic that compares with some of the all-time greats when you talk about what you add to the team. But it's not just numbers. Look at those guys. They're a winning team without you in the lineup. But they're a World Series team because you're there. If you don't believe me, listen to them sometime. Right now, they're all in the rooms kicking themselves because they didn't pick you up later in the game. They feel like they let you down."

"That's silly," Brock interrupted.

"It is," Meredith agreed. "But it doesn't mean I'm wrong. What did Wilkie say to you after the game?"

"'Shit happens'," Brock quoted.

"He told you not to worry about it because if he started to keep track of runs saved versus runs cost, he would come up looking like an idiot if he blamed you," Meredith put forth.

"Uh, yeah," Brock replied, wondering how she knew what the pitcher had told him in the dugout after the game.

"It's exactly what he told the reporters after the game," Meredith said, answering his unasked question. "It's how all of them feel. If you go in there tomorrow without forgetting about tonight, they'll feel pressure and they won't perform up to their capabilities. You have to let them know in the locker room that tonight is over and tomorrow is a new game."

"I'm not much of a rah-rah guy," he said with a frown.

"I'm not saying that you should tell them," Meredith said. "You show them. You walk in there tomorrow afternoon with the confidence of knowing you're one of the best players in the game. You walk in there knowing you beat J.C. Michaels at his best last time and, by God, you're going to do it again. If you do that, the guys in the locker room will respond."

Brock's frown deepened. He knew Meredith had a degree in psychology. He knew she had been around the team for the past year and half. But he still thought she was full of shit.

"You're one of their leaders," Meredith said, interpreting his thoughts from his expression. "They look up to you. You set the tone for how this team plays. When you were gone, they won because they were better than the teams they were playing. You're not better than the Indians. You're just as good though. So now you have to win with more than talent. You have to win with heart and you have to win with desire. That's you. If you go in there tomorrow still thinking about today and worrying that you might make another mistake, you'll lessen your chances at success."

The most difficult thing for Brock on the Saturday of Game 4 wasn't pretending he wasn't disappointed about his performance in Game 3. It was sitting down with Mike Carver to talk about life in Wilkins. Brock had considered what Meredith had said to him and had come to agree. So he had her make the call to the network and let them know he'd agree but with caveats: Brett Corday wouldn't get an exclusive; Brock was willing to talk to a baseball guy.

Mike Carver had been retired from baseball for almost 25 years. He wasn't a journalist. He wasn't an interviewer. He analyzed one specific thing: baseball. He carried a clipboard that Brock was certain held questions Brett Corday wanted answers to. Brock was also pretty certain that the woman would be disappointed.

The men shook hands and both took seats in chairs opposite the other.

"I'm a little surprised you agreed to this," Carver said before the cameras were rolling. "Your camp was pretty adamant."

"You forced us," Brock said with a hint of bitterness. "You told us it was going to run with or without comment. I talked to some people and came to realize that you people were going to force me to be distracted by this. I could either do it before it aired or spend time afterward correcting all the mistakes in your segment. But, rest assured, I'm not talking to you because I want to. I'm doing it because it will be easier to set things right before I let you dick them up."