Chapter 14

Thomas Ambrose arrived at the MCI offices on Thursday morning looking like a successful banker, his lean frame moving within a well-tailored suit of dark gray flannel and his rep tie tightly knotted. His grip was firm and his smile was sincere. His worn leather briefcase bulged.

"If I knew the words of 'Oh Ain't We Glad to Be Out of the Wilderness' I surely would be singing them," he said when we met.

I told him I was very happy to see him and that I had made a list of things that I thought needed doing. "I didn't put it down as number one, but I sure could use some help with hitting. We've got the lowest team average in the league."

"I noticed," he said, "and some of the more arcane figures are even worse. You don't get hits when they really count. And you lead the division in both solo home runs and men left-on-base."

"Tell me about it," I said. "Anyhow the so-called hitting coach left with Buzzy."

"You remember Bill Magruder, big fellow, friend of Crowley over in Baltimore, retired two or three years ago when a new manager up in Toronto had his own man? Think he was a team-mate of Hargrove."

"That damn Hargrove," I said, smiling with the memory. "He got me thrown out of a game early in my career, fined too."

"Really." Ambrose said. "And I thought you were the gentle sort."

"You know how he stepped out after every pitch and went through his rigmarole?"

"The human rain delay," said Ambrose with a smile. "Worse than Garciaparra with all his toe taps."

"Well I yelled at him; he ignored me, and the third time he was up, I quick-pitched him and hit him in the ribs while he was still doing his gloves with one foot out of the box."

Ambrose laughed. "Bet you got a medal from the pitching fraternity."

"I remember Magruder too," I said. "A fine pinch-hitter some time back, reminded me of Dusty Rhodes. How's that for a memory stretcher?"

"Lives on the Eastern Shore now, Magruder does. I'll see if he's interested. And there is a young man at Stanford, an assistant out there who is doing some exciting things with TV tape and computers, very analytical. Modeling he calls it." He took a small PDA from his inside pocket and made a note for himself. "They were the college series again this year, Stanford."

Then we talked about trades and the payroll. I told him I thought we ought to get another starting pitcher, a left-hander if possible, and build up the bullpen. I also told him that while everyone was tradeable as far as I was concerned there were some men with no-trade options and a few I would like to keep. I put Bigger atop that list and Zabdev second. He said one of his goals would be to get payroll and income to balance out. We had not been drawing well, either at home or on the road.

"Old Connie Mack was right," Ambrose said. "Pitching comes first. I'll do what I can."

I took him into the other office and introduced him to Mrs. Jepperson who, as always, was on the phone. We decided that Mr. Ambrose should take over my office and that I would stay out at the ballpark.

"We'll get you a phone line and a computer linked to here," Ambrose said. "Networked."

"And somebody to show me how to work it," I said, grimacing but with my son's message in my mind.

"We use Macs," Andrea Jepperson said with a smile that would melt a bowling ball, "if I can learn so can you." So that was settled.

By the end of the week, I could actually get the tangerine-colored thing on my desk to run and learned to do e-mails. I fished out my son's message, found his Internet address and sent him a short message saying it was a test to see if I could actually do it. His response came in by the end of the night game. It just said, "You can do it."

We began having early practices for the young pitchers to work on their pick-off moves. I was full of plans and short on hours.

Toward the end of that long home stand, Andrea Jepperson called me to a meeting in her office at ten o'clock in the morning. She and Mr. Ambrose and I sipped good coffee, ate crunchy donut holes and kicked a number of things around.

"I am getting you one experienced pitcher, Mado–a, I think you know him, lefty, he was out with a elbow operation last season, plus two minor-league throwers for McGinty, who is willing to go along with the trade, but nobody wants Mumford, at least not yet. Salary's too big. So's his ego not to mention his earrings. You can pinch-hit him if you don't want to start him."

"That's great," I said, "How about a hitting coach?"

"Magruder, most people call him Mac, he's not interested unless you are willing to," and he ticked the items off on his fingers, "one, transport him here for the games, no Sundays, no away games, and take him back to his home after every game; two, pay him by the day, one thousand in cash, taxes paid so that's maybe fourteen hundred; and three, give him the number he wants, forty-eight I think it is. He really would rather not do it. And he absolutely will not travel out of town."

"Where does he live?" Andrea asked. "My husband has a helicopter and a pilot at his disposal."

"Snow Hill, over on the Shore," Ambrose said. "It's about a five hour drive, there and back."

"Less than an hour by chopper," she said. "I'll let you know by lunch time."

"How about the Stanford guy?" I asked.

"He's got a contract that runs until the first of July. Then he will come East for what he is making out there if we get him a place to live, a studio apartment will do, he says, and find him a good way to meet girls." Ambrose looked up from his notes.

"I beg your pardon?" said Andrea Jepperson, lifting both of her well-groomed eyebrows and sitting up very straight.

Ambrose laughed and covered his mouth. "He doesn't want you to set him up, just point him in the right direction. He's never been east of Sacramento."

Andrea nodded. "No problem. We can start with Lucy. She's been busily trolling."

"Now," Mr. Ambrose said, checking off an item on his yellow pad, pursing his lips and looking at me, "we come to a topic you may not like."

"Okay," I said, quickly examining my conscience.

"You are still an active player and taking up a spot on the roster. Are you going to be a player-manager?"

Andrea tapped the top of her big desk with her long red fingernails.

"Can't see why not," I said, feeling a sudden hunger. "F. Robby did fine."

"Make my job easier if you weren't, and Robinson did everything well, so did Lou Boudreau," Ambrose said. "Give me some roster flexibility. And it might be easier on you."

"Could I become active again if I wanted to?" I asked. "Or needed to?"

He nodded. "No problem, 24-hour notice."

I sighed. "Take me off the list. I don't think we have to announce that, do we?"

"It goes on the wire. Somebody will pick it up," Ambrose said.

"That reminds me," said Mrs. Jepperson, "Lucy has a sheaf of interview requests for you. See her before you leave."

I nodded, knowing it was part of the job but wishing it was not.

"My inside contact at Sports Illustrated says they have a long piece in the works," Ambrose said.

"You know what that means," I said, looking from one to the other. "All that drinking and wife abuse stuff will be coming out again."

"We can take it," said Mrs. Jepperson. "I hope you can too."

After I did hour-long, sit-down interviews with the beat reporters for both the dailies, I had a wire run up inside my shirt and sat through five or six separate TV one-on-one talks out on the field, answering the same questions over and over and reminding myself to smile and not to look right into the camera. Then, at her request, I set up a meeting with Donna Newby, the young woman from Sports Illustrated that I had met in the Pirates' locker room, the tall girl Bigger had kind of surprised with his out-sized equipment.

"Thanks for seeing me," she said when she came into my tiny office at the ballpark wearing a short white skirt and displaying calves and thighs designed by George Petty of pin-up fame. She sat, crossed her long legs, turned on her tape recorder and said, "You don't mind, do you?"

I shook my head and tried not to look at her legs. I right there and then realized I badly needed to get laid.

"Have you heard that we are planning a long, back-of-the-book piece on you and the team?" Her eyelashes fluttered. "Might even mean the cover."