Chapter 20

Jim came down on the train the next day and arrived in time for most of the Friday night game thanks to the Metro subway system. He sat in the owner's box with Lucy and another of her well-groomed dates, ate peanuts, drank lemonade and cheered until he was hoarse as we absolutely destroyed the Cincinnati Reds for George Gregory. The calm knuckle-baller drove them crazy; Zabdev had only two passed balls and Rats Millerson got his first big league hit. They tossed the ball to me in the dugout, and I got it marked and saved it for him. He actually cried when I put it in his hand, sobbed on my chest; I guess from relief. Sometimes that first hit is the hardest one to get. Mac smiled at me like a proud father as I patted the boy's back.

I drove Jim home, elated at getting ten runs. When we got out of the Beltway traffic and started down rolling Colesville Road, we had both relaxed enough to engage in a conversation that was not just shouted bits and pieces. In the short time I had been driving the winding thing, I had learned to hate the 495-Beltway and all the lane-switchers and lead-footed tail-gaters that used it twenty-four hours a day.

"That guy with Lucy," my son said, "I don't think he even knows we won. He was doing business on the stupid phone all night. Can't figure how anyone could ignore her like that."

"How did you get her cell-phone number?"

"She gave it to me. She has a card, a business card, you know."

"Oh, I thought she was just a secretary."

He laughed. "I don't think there are any of them left, Dad. She's a staff assistant, something like that."

"You hungry?" I asked as we passed a fast-food place.

"Nope," he said. "Had two hot dogs. Do you know what they charge for hot dogs?"

"You thought about college?" I asked him.

"Yes, a lot. I don't think I want to go to one of those huge places like Maryland or a Big Ten school. I had been thinking about Wisconsin, but more people go to school there than live in Madison."

"Really?"

"Yeah, but they have a branch in Green Bay. And there's some good schools on the other coast, not just Staford."

"So? Write a list. We can go see some after the season's over, make a few weekend trips."

"I've still got a year of high school."

"Yeah," I said, "shame to have your senior year in a new school. Your grandma really bad off?"

"Fraid so. Probably heading down that Alzheimer's road. There were days she didn't know who I was."

"Blair's the local public school. Too far to walk. I checked on the Internet; you'd have been proud of me, clicking that mouse. It's a big school, more than three thousand kids."

"Can you afford one of the local private schools? That's what I'm used to. The prep school only graduated ninety boys this year."

"You want to go back up there, bed and board I mean? What's that cost?"

"I don't think so," he said as we turned up into the hilly Sligo Park. "Maybe, but I don't think so. I hadn't really considered that."

"If we can win more than we lose and get out of last place, I'll be able to afford almost any college." And I explained my contract to him.

At home, I had a beer and watched CNN. He went to bed. I felt very good, having my son in my home, very fortunate. My brain started pondering: when my ex-wife remarried, I would not have to send her any more money. I had paid off most of my bills, all of my credit-card debt and was working on the loans. Maybe I could afford a house except I didn't have any down-payment money. 'Not if you don't get out of the cellar, ' my tired head reminded me. I went to bed and dreamed of endlessly climbing up the stairs inside the Washington monument, almost nine hundred steps.

We finished our last August home stand in fine fashion, winning two out of three from the Reds. I put myself in as the closer in the Sunday afternoon, getaway game and gave up a home run to the first batter I faced. Since we were leading by five runs, I was able to smile at the waving towels and cries of "Get the hook" that came from our dugout. Out in the bullpen, two guys started throwing and waved at me when I looked that way. I got the next six in succession and even ended the game with a strike out on a really glorious let-up that ended up in the dirt. That one run nearly doubled my ERA and hurt my pride, but I was glad the team could laugh about it. That was an awfully good sign.

Jim declined to go on the long road trip to the West Coast, saying he wanted to check out a local few schools, so I gave him some money and the car keys and hoped for the best. I asked Tom Ambrose to check up on him now and then without being too obvious about it. I suspect that giving your kid the keys to your car is one of the more difficult things for a parent to do, and I had never faced it before. Funny feeling.

Our last road trip was a long one. It started in Atlanta and then we had three-game sets in Houston, San Diego and Los Angles. When we got back home, we would only have six games left to play.

We lost the first game at Turner Field, in fact we were shut out and the Braves pitchers got twelve K's, seven of them looking. As Lindale and I watched some of the TV replays the next day, I got madder and madder. Before the next game, I took out the line-up card instead of letting Bigger do it and thus became only the third manager I've heard about to get thrown out of a game before it began.

Al Majeski was the crew chief. I handed him the card and said, "Want to ask you a question."

He nodded after putting the two cards together, sticking them in his back pocket and extracting his counter.

"Yesterday," I said as calmly as I could, "Duffy there was calling the balls and strikes, and he called a couple of dozen pitches that were at least a half foot wide of the plate, called them strikes on my guys. They weren't but barely in the neighborhood of the plate." I scratched a stripe with my cleats beside home plate obliterating the side marking of the batter's box. "They were out here," I said, pointing. "He might have got more wrong than he did right. You planning to do the same thing for the Braves tonight, call that plate two-feet wide?"

He snorted and made a face. "You finished?" he asked.

The Atlanta manager stood nearby, smiling, arms folded.

"Ever since Maddox and that bunch got down here," I said, truing not to raise my voice, "you guys have been giving them a wide plate, like you were nothing but a bunch of Georgia crackers, all of you. Their catcher sets up behind the offside batter's box and..." He held up his hand to stop me, but I went right on, somewhat louder and with gestures. "It ain't a frigging strike just because it hits the glove, you know," I stepped right up to him. "How come you don't know that, Albert?"

"No more," Majeski said, pulling on his mask. "That's it; I've heard enough. Let's play ball."

"If we can't reach 'em, Albert," I said, moving up in his face as he tried to turn away, "damn it, they are not strikes." I was careful not to let my chest touch his.

He smiled at me, waved his arm in a windmill fashion, pointed toward our dugout and said, quite clearly, "You've out a'here. Take the day off, big mouth."

I might have kicked some dirt on his shoes as he and I suggested to each other the next things we ought to do. He yanked off his mask and sprayed me with his saliva as he yelled, "Get off the field so we can play the game, you showboat."

"You know I'm right. Call it right," I yelled at him as Bigger dragged me away.