Chapter 9

Shiggie was delighted with Fenway Park -- the oldest ballpark still in use in the major leagues. It was small, misshapen and extremely short -- both in left and along the right-field line.

But Shiggie was an appreciator of baseball history -- even American baseball history -- and he recognized Fenway for what it was. A shrine.

Still, we did our best to desecrate the shrine that weekend. We swept the Red Sox at home -- all three games with capacity crowds of screaming Bosox fans -- and left for New York just a game and a half behind the Goddamned Yankees. Shiggie picked up his third win in four starts in the Sunday game, whipping Boston 5-3.

Increasingly, Paul Warren and our pitching coach, Arlie Stone, were gaining confidence that Shiggie could do the job. He'd been our most reliable starter since he'd joined the club on the West Coast.

We were starting to feel like real contenders.

Shiggie got his first look at Yankee Stadium on Monday. We had a scheduled two-game series with the Yankees, starting that night, but a rainout caused us to have to play a twi-night doubleheader on Tuesday -- the getaway day.

The Players Union contract would have allowed us, as the visiting team, to refuse to play a makeup doubleheader on a travel day, but the Orioles players quickly voted to play both games anyway. We knew we were hot, and we wanted to take on the Yankees while we were feeling our oats.

But nothing was going right for us on Tuesday afternoon. Our starter, Gene Holtz, got hit square in the forehead by a batted ball in the first inning, and I was suddenly on the griddle, with one on and nobody out for the Yankees in the bottom of the first.

Rags to riches. I'd been ignored for a week in Toronto and Boston, and now here I was in Yankee Stadium, 50,000 Yankee fans going apeshit in the stands, and Paul Warren hoping I could hang around for at least five or six innings.

Well, I got lucky and got out of the inning without allowing a run. It wasn't anything I did, but Melvin Mora started a spectacular double play on a ball that should have been a clean double down the line, and Matos -- our centerfielder, plucked a very deep fly ball off the center field wall to save my bacon.

I figured it was going to be one of those days when everything went right, and by God, it was! The Yankees were ripping at every soft toss I threw up there, but my guys were pretending to be seven Brooks Robinson clones behind me, and were sucking up ground balls and long flies like a squadron of industrial-strength vacuum cleaners.

Before I knew it, I had two outs in the Yankee seventh and we were leading, 8-0.

Paul Warren came out to get me when Cookie Ramirez, the young Yankee right fielder, came up in the seventh. Without asking me how I felt, he took the ball out of my hand, slapped me hard on the butt, and sent me on my way.

My departure prompted a small Yankee uprising in the seventh and eighth innings, but we held them off and won it, 8-4. My second big-league win! I'd never been hit so hard in my entire life, but everything they hit was right at somebody, or else one of our guys ran it down with a superhuman effort.

It's way better to be lucky than good. I wondered if I'd been lucky enough that this would put me in the starting rotation until Holtz came back. When they carried him off, it looked like he'd be on the 15-day disabled list at a minimum!

That night's separate-admission second game also featured 50,000 nutjob Yankee fans -- SOP in the Bronx. Ernie Borowski started the game for us and did reasonably well until the sixth, but we ended up parading five relievers out there before winning it, 3-2 in the 11th. The Yankee fans were pissed, and they had a right to be, because the umpires made a couple of terrible calls that hurt them at just the wrong times.

Fuck em! They've been on top most of the time for more than a century now. It's just simple justice that they'd finally get a couple of back-to-back bad calls!

Twenty-one wins, 15 losses, and on top of the Division in first place! Sure, the whole division (except Tampa Bay) was bunched up together with only three games separating first and fourth place. Didn't matter. The Orioles were in first place -- and going home!

We got back to the house in Baltimore very late and very tired, and all three of us barely said good night as we eagerly fell into our respective beds. Doubleheaders are rare in modern baseball -- even separate-admission doubleheaders. Shiggie hadn't pitched at all that day, but it was a long day, even for the bench-sitters, and we'd been on the road for nine days.

We were pooped.

I didn't even dream of Amy that night. Just slept a dreamless night of physical and emotional recovery.

Tampa Bay was in for a Wednesday-Thursday quickie series, and Amy called ahead to arrange for Ford to meet us at the Italian Hole-in-the-Wall place near the Inner Harbor after the Wednesday night game. It was my favorite place in town and I was in a pasta-scarfing mood. It was one of the few restaurants in the city that remained open late enough on week nights for post-game dining.

She laughingly translated for Shiggie as he related, to Ford, his version of my amazing victory over the Bronx Bombers. Even before Amy's translation, I was getting the gist of it -- much gesturing of long fly balls, bombs bursting in air, etc. -- making the general point that seldom had so many outfielders done so much -- defensively -- for one soft-tossing rookie pitcher.

Hell, I was laughing too. Everything he said was absolutely true. (I had struck out one Yankee -- Derek Jeter, no less -- but the third strike (so-called by the umpire) was so far outside that our catcher had to dive for it.

The Ump still gave me the call. Jeter went crazy and almost got thrown out for protesting. But he didn't, because by that time, the home plate umpire realized how badly he'd botched the call.

Jeter was still just as out, though.

I knew I'd be reliving that strange, wonderful game for years to come.

After our very late dinner, Ford followed us back to the house. He came inside, and, without comment, he and Shiggie went upstairs.

Evidently, Ford was spending the night.

Amy and I shared a few quiet moments out on the front porch swing, relishing the prospect of seven more days at home before the next long road trip. She asked me if I minded that Ford was spending the night. I told her I didn't mind.

Amy kissed me gently on the cheek, rubbed her hand on my face briefly, and walked inside, heading up to bed.

It was 1:30 a.m. and I could sleep late in the morning. I sat there awhile in the dark, watching my neighbors' darkened houses. Thinking about Amy.

There was still no sign that Amy and I were going to become lovers. I reflected, briefly, on the fact that I hadn't slept with a woman since I'd had a one-night stand with a friendly barmaid on North Miami Beach back in spring training. Must have been around March 10. That was well over two months ago -- and me, a growing boy -- with needs.

But I'd seldom been more content that I felt that night. The woman I already was beginning to think of as perhaps the love of my life was upstairs, preparing for bed. Every time I'd ever touched her, it had been at her instigation. Every kiss had been tender, and brief, and almost sister-like in innocence.