Chapter 21

When I got to my door with a suitcase full of dirty clothes, I remembered that I did not have a key. I rang the bell and hoped Jim was home. Lucy answered and stood there smiling at me in the fading light.

"Hi," she said, "that was a pretty good road trip except for, well, you know, the last few days."

"Hi," I said, stupefied, "what are you doing here."

"We're making pizzas, little ones," she said, waving a large wooden spoon at me. "Come on in. I figured out when you guys would be getting back."

"Hi Dad," said my smiling son who had a towel tucked in the front of his Levis. He evidently was working on the salad. "You look like you could use a beer."

I sat and relaxed, ignoring the twinges in my elbow, and we soon were at my Formica-topped table eating crusty pizza and enjoying ourselves. Lucy had even gotten some bread sticks and a shaker of Parmesan cheese.

"I visited the high school, Montgomery Blair," Jim said, licking his fingers. "It's pretty neat, great labs, big library. They started last week. And I saw a boy's school called Landon that looks like an old farm, but a very rich old farm these days, and another prep school out on what they call the Pike. They've even got a golf course."

"And?" I said, helping myself to another slice of pepperoni pizza.

"I've been thinking more about going back to finish my senior year up in Connecticut. They get going next Monday." He looked at me with a question in his eyes. "That OK with you?"

"Lucy," I asked, "do you know what we're talking about?"

She nodded. "I'd hate to go into any new school as a senior, not knowing anybody."

After supper, she insisted on loading the dishwasher while we talked some more about schools. Jim had also visited the campus of The American University, and he and Lucy had driven out to Towson at her suggestion and in her Celica.

"Got my first crab cake sandwich at the Inner Harbor in Baltimore," Jim said. He seemed to be smiling an awful lot.

"I went there for a year, to Towson," Lucy said, "before I needed a job and Mrs. Jepperson hired me. We drove by Hopkins too. That's a pretty campus. Oh, and St. John's and the Naval Academy."

"Why did you quit?" I asked her rather stupidly.

"Bankruptcy." She sighed. "My father's business went belly up. I've got to go."

I thanked her, and Jim saw her to the door. I have no idea whether or not they kissed, and I certainly did not ask.

"Do you know what boarding up there costs?" I asked him when he sat again, still smiling in a rather goofy manner.

He shook his head. "About fifteen, twenty thousand I'd guess, maybe a little more this year."

"We'd better win the rest of these games," I said.

My son packed what he wanted to take with him, and I got him down to National Airport and on a shuttle to New York the next morning. He hugged me and wished me well. I shook his hand and smiled at him.

With six games left to play the inept Nats and the stumbling Marlins were dead even after the Florida team dropped three straight. Our advantage, and I considered it a real one, was that they were on the road, and we were at home.

I plotted out our pitching rotation as best I could and assumed that Amberson would be ready to go in a day or two. He had missed a turn during the Dodger debacle which was probably a good thing. The trainer stuck him in one of the whirlpools as soon as he saw him. His bruised leg was not pretty.

Just before the game I had a visit from a representative of the Hillerich & Bradsby Company who told me that their records showed I had not ordered any bats for myself. The idea of having a Louisville Slugger with my name on it was so funny, I thanked the man for his compliment and told him I would see him at training camp the next spring. For the season so far I was zero for twenty at-bats, but I had made four sacrifice bunts and walked once. I often wondered if the poor guy that walked me got himself fined for that mistake.

Young Powers started against the Mets on Tuesday night and pitched a good game, the highlight of which would have been our success with a seventh-inning suicide squeeze if we had won. Unfortunately we lost in the ninth, and the Marlins beat the Phillies. One of the best things about baseball is that there is almost always a game tomorrow.

Wednesday I had George Gregory on the mound, and I would have penciled in Gene Zabdev but he had never really learned to catch the knuckle baller so Bigger got the job, as usual. Hard working Gregory was far from brilliant, but they were hitting his first throw a lot, and he tossed a complete game using only 96 pitches, including just two he called fast balls. Everything the New Yorkers hit was right at somebody, and we won 3-1 and watched the scoreboard off and on as Philadelphia skunked the Marlins. We were again tied for last place. We both had lost 98 games with four left to play. We were not going to lose a hundred if I could prevent it.

I watched Raleigh Amberson warm up on a cool Thursday evening with the threat of rain in the sky. Enos, Marvin and I conferred, and we decided to start the kid. It was a good decision. Except for a scratch single in the fifth and a home run in the eighth, the Mets looked futile against the youngster, and we won easily as their bull pen let them down. Zabdev caught a good game and hit his second homer, right down the line in left.

The Phillies and Marlins went into extra innings. Florida got three runs in the top of the tenth, which was very discouraging, but Philadelphia came back to tie it up again. Our clubhouse was filled with Phillies' fanatics. But Florida won in the twelfth inning 9-8 on walks and errors. We were still tied for the cellar, and to me, it felt like a pennant race in reverse.

The Marlins came to town angry, convinced they had been robbed on several close calls at first base in the City of Brotherly Love. I saw some of the replays, and I think they had a legitimate gripe, but I found it difficult to feel sorry for them.