Chapter 4

After I got back to the hotel from dinner alone that night, there was a message light on my telephone. When I called the front desk, they told me that Paul Warren wanted to see me. I was to call him whenever I got in.

It was late. I'd gone directly to the steak house from Fenway. I wasn't surprised that the manager wanted to talk to me. I knew that something along these lines would be happening.

But I had sort of expected it to happen in the morning. The club had a one o'clock road curfew, and although it was by then close to one, my road roomy, Phil Burkowitz, wasn't even back in the room when I got there.

Well, the message said to call when I came back, and it was still a little before one in the morning. I rang Warren's room.

He picked up immediately. "This Horton?"

"Yes, sir."

"You in the hotel?"

"Yes, sir. In my room."

"I'm in 728."

I went directly to Paul Warren's room after leaving a note for Burkowitz about where I'd be. It was unlikely that the Orioles' coaches were performing bed checks, but if they were, I didn't want to be AWOL. One offense a day was enough.

When I got to Warren's room, the pitching coach, Arlie Stone, was there as well. They each had a drink in hand but didn't offer me anything.

"Sit down," Warren said, gesturing to an empty couch across the room. "You cold-cocked Toby Marr tonight."

"Yes."

"All the reports we got from Oakland about you were positive. They told us you were one of the good guys. No clubhouse crap. No late nights or drinking. You were supposed to be the anti-Cory. We've had to contend with Cory Zane's crap for years, waiting for him to grow up. He never did. Now he's old and through, but right up 'til the end, he was still a goddamned kid between the ears.

"One of the reasons we picked you up was because we thought we'd found a grown-up this time. Maybe you've never even heard of it, Travis, but there used to be something called 'The Oriole Way.' Back when this club was good -- when it was really good, not just sometimes, like now, but every year -- that became kind of a way of life, y'know? ... The Oriole Way."

I wanted to say something. I wanted to be asked to say something. But I could tell Paul Warren was wound up tight and that I'd better just shut up and listen.

"I've been trying, now, for several years to bring that back," Warren said. "To re-create the way it was, back when this club was the best franchise in baseball. Not the richest. Not the one with the most fans or the best TV contract ... Just the best.

"One of the ways you do that, Travis, is to watch who you sign. You look for guys who can play, naturally, but you also look for guys who maybe have a little character to go with the skills ... Makes sense, doesn't it?"

Finally, he was asking me to open my mouth.

"Yes, sir," I said.

It wasn't much, but it was a start.

"So, what's the goddamned story?" Warren asked me. "Why did you sucker-punch that egotistical asshole and send him to an after-hours orthodontist?"

"He had it coming," I said.

"No doubt. But I hope it comes as no surprise to you that management frowns upon fighting in the clubhouse. Marr's supposed to start for us Saturday. Now we've got an outbreak of clubhouse politics to contend with and maybe a kid pitcher who thinks he's got a score to settle. I don't need any of this!"

"I tried to avoid the fight," I said.

"The way I hear it, there wasn't any fight until you slugged Marr," Arlie Stone said. "All the guys who were there said you threw the only punch."

"Sometimes there's more involved in starting a fight than throwing a punch," I said.

"Toby running his mouth?" Stone asked.

"That's right. And I took it calmly. For quite a long while."

"I understand it was about a woman." Stone said.

"Yes."

"Mutual acquaintance, I hear." The pitching coach obviously already had performed his own investigation of the matter.

"Someone Marr and I both knew, yes," I said.

"This was Franklin's daughter, Juniper?"

"That's right."

"And Marr insulted the girl, and she's somebody you know?"

"Obviously, the guys have already told you the whole story. What do you want from me? An apology? Well, I'll apologize to Paul, and to you, Arlie. But I won't apologize to that cretin, Toby Marr. He's a shit, pure and simple. You're not going to get any 'Oriole Way' going with a turd like him stinking up the proceedings."

I thought I saw a very brief quiver of a smile cross Paul Warren's face. But it might have been my imagination.

"We haven't got enough pitching," Warren told me, definitely not smiling now. "Nobody's ever got enough pitching, but for us, this year, it promises to be a serious -- a daunting problem. You're right about Marr -- he's an asshole. It's not news to me, or to Arlie either. But he's an asshole who's in our starting rotation for a reason. There isn't anybody better behind him, or down in Norfolk. At least nobody who's really ready."

"I didn't hurt his arm any," I said. "And I improved his mouth -- at least temporarily."

"That's the last incident of this kind that you'll be taking part in," Warren said. "The slightest additional thing involving physical violence, and you'll be waived right out of the league. I'll pass the word that you're a malcontent and a negative clubhouse influence. At that point, if you expect to get picked up on waivers -- by anybody -- you'd better be sporting a higher batting average than Josh Brennan."

"Oakland didn't steer you wrong about me," I told Warren. "This is the first time I've ever been involved in anything like this. It's not the way I am. And I have no intention -- at all -- of ever doing anything like that again.

"But you'd best tell Toby Marr to keep a civil tongue, because if he comes at me and starts up again about that young woman, I'll sure-to-God take him down all over again."

"I'll take care of Mr. Marr," Arlie Stone said. "Don't you worry about that. Why, after I talk to him, I doubt he'd say anything to you, even if he was on fire and you wuz standing next to him, drinking bottled water."

"Go get some sleep," Warren told me. "I think Tough Shit Williams is coming down with the flu or something. It's pretty likely you'll start for him tomorrow ... Tomorrow? Hell, it's today already. Go get some sleep."

Friday afternoon it was still chilly in Boston, but a lot more comfortable than Thursday night had been. It was a bright, clear day, and although another twenty degrees of temperature would have been nice, I knew we would bear up.

Fenway was packed to the gills with fans. I had always enjoyed playing on the east coast. The fans were always over the top -- in Boston and New York, especially -- and in recent times at least, the Baltimore fans had been almost as enthusiastic.

But Boston was unique. I swear they could schedule a game at Fenway for three a.m. and folks would show up and pack the place, just like always.

Saturday was my first regular-season game in the starting lineup, and I was nervous. The Green Monster was still there, and I still had little confidence about my ability to handle its peculiarities on defense. In addition, T.S. Williams, our ailing left fielder, was a known quantity -- a solid .280 hitter over the past two seasons, and with thirty-two dingers last year.

That was the kind of production I wasn't likely to equal over the long haul. But maybe I could trade for a while on my near-anonymity in the AL East. There was always the chance that I'd cop a few base hits before the opposing pitchers worked up a better book on me.

Paul had me hitting seventh, and I took an oh-for-four collar for the day. That left me with a .200 average, but I was not discouraged, because I'd been robbed blind all day at the plate.

Their kid center fielder had plucked one off the wall. I'd really creamed it, and one more foot would have been a homer, instead of just a sure thing for the ESPN highlight reel on Baseball Tonight. Next time up a sparkling defensive play by the Sox shortstop robbed me of what looked like a sure-fire single through the hole.

If those kinds of things evened out, I was due for a couple of lucky, undeserved base hits someday soon.

Anyway, I wasn't the only one who didn't hit. We took our first loss, 6-1. Davey Hooks homered in the fifth for our lone run, but that was about it for the Oriole offense on Friday.

I had seen -- from a distance -- the infamous Toby Marr in the clubhouse, before and after the game. He had made no moves in my direction and I had given him a wide berth. I was gratified to see that he had a visible fat lip.

I wondered whether I could actually take him in a fair fight. Probably not.

But maybe. He was, after all, a pitcher. You could never tell about pitchers. Lot of them were wimps, underneath.

Anyway, it looked as if there would be no fight. No nothing. Surprisingly, none of the other guys said anything at all about the Thursday night incident. I had gotten the definite impression that Toby the Mouth was unpopular with his teammates, and that very likely, there had been some degree of delight at his misfortune -- at least in some quarters.

Schadenfreude.

But if I was correct in that impression, nobody was speaking up to verify it.

I did go out for dinner with several of the guys, however, and that was fun. Day games were relatively uncommon but welcome, since they meant we could, as ballplayers, experience a rare "normal" evening doing the kinds of things that ordinary day workers could do -- like having a restaurant dinner at a decent hour.

I was with a group of players who'd been the quickest to come around and welcome me when I'd originally joined the club for spring training. My current roomy, Phil Burkowitz, and the other catcher -- our starter, Dave Hooks, were there. Also Sam Bailey, one of our top starting pitchers, along with Alex Osborn, the reliever.

Osborn was a relatively old guy. He'd spent most of the past two seasons recovering from a serious arm injury and threatened with involuntary retirement, but here he was, back for one more season against all odds. The story was that Osborn had spent a decade in the minors before getting a decent shot, and now he was loathe to call it a career any sooner than he had to.

The presence of Sam Bailey, younger but also a veteran Oriole, and Osborn at our dinner table was especially gratifying to me, since it suggested I wasn't being boycotted by the club's pitching staff.

It was a Friday evening and the season was young. Add to that the fact that Boston was a swinging town for young men with adequate funding and raging hormones. But, to a man, we were planning to head back to the hotel after dinner.