Chapter 2

I had to get pushed down to the cafeteria in a wheelchair, but we found one readily enough in the hallway and appropriated it for the duration. Nolan wanted to ride, too, so Maureen, tiny as she was, had her hands full pushing us in and out of the elevator and down the crowded corridor to the cafeteria.

We had responsibly left messages at our respective wards as to our whereabouts. I wasn't overly concerned that the Orioles' team physician would arrive before the later hours of the morning, but if he did, my absence wouldn't be a mystery.

Nolan turned out to be right. The scrambled eggs with cheese were superb. It was just steam table fare, and probably our eggs had been congealing over heat for an hour or more, but for some foods (like eggs and cheese) that kind of abuse just seemed to make them better.

I had to do most of the talking, because Nolan had a zillion questions about the Orioles, the ballpark, the individual players, the players' children, you name it.

Being a newbie and a fringe guy on the team, there was plenty I didn't know, but naturally I had enough good clubhouse stories to keep a nine-year-old kid entertained for the duration of a lengthy breakfast.

Finally we all trooped back upstairs, with Maureen dropping her son off at his own hospital room before wheeling me back up another two floors to mine. Before I left him, I'd promised to get Zeke Taylor's and our third baseman, Bob Crandall's, autographs for him and to mail them to him at the hospital.

"I'm going to be here for three more weeks," Nolan told me. "Then I get to go home again. Maybe."

I offered to wheel myself back to my floor but Maureen shrugged it off. "The nurses want to be alone with Nolan now," she said. "I know the drill. I knew when he needed to be back in the ward and what's up for him this morning and this afternoon. He's okay. He knows, too. He's accustomed to it. All of it."

"How long's he been here? In the hospital full-time?"

"This time --it isn't the first -- he's been here for four weeks. As he said, there are three more weeks to go, although that could change. It's a difficult, almost brutal process, trying to deal with his disease. It's not experimental, exactly -- the treatment I mean -- but it's new and really rough on kids. The good part is, sometimes it seems to really work."

"How long has he ... did your husband know about Nolan's cancer, before he..."

"No. No, thank God, he didn't. It hadn't happened yet, when Ray died ... But it wasn't long after."

"Tough on you, too. All of it."

"Yeah. You know, after awhile, it gets to seem like ... like the natural order of things. I've quit working. I'm back living with my folks again, ever since shortly after Nolan was diagnosed. I don't live with them, really. I live off them. Mom and Dad give me a bed to sleep in and food to eat. Dad keeps gas in my car. I come here, every day, and spend the time with Nolan."

I didn't know how to respond. What do you say? The elevator came, already crowded with people, and Maureen was occupied with maneuvering me into the available space and getting herself turned around for our later exit.

Back in the corridor on my floor, she thanked me for talking to Nolan. "He was so excited!" she said, smiling. "A real live Baltimore Oriole! You made his month!"

"Too bad he couldn't have drawn a more auspicious Bird," I said. "He was star-struck when I mentioned having spoken to Zeke Taylor about visiting kids in the hospital."

"Forgot all about meeting you when he heard the name, 'Zeke Taylor, ' hmmm?"

"Wasn't like that," I assured her. "He was just ... interested in Zeke. It's natural. I didn't take it as a put-down."

"Good. I try to teach him a little something about ... manners. And people's feelings. I mean, Nolan's had some tough breaks, and all, but even a nine-year-old cancer patient has to learn that he's not the only person in the world."

"But he's the only person in the world to you, isn't he?" I said.

My wheelchair stopped rolling at that point, and I heard a momentary sniffle behind me. She then unceremoniously blew her nose, put away her handkerchief, and resumed pushing the chair. It was only a short distance now to my own assigned room.

A nurse saw me and walked over while we were still in the hallway opposite the nurses' station nearest to my room. "Dr. Morrow has been around looking for you, Mr. Dushay. She's gone now, but she said to tell you she'd be back here in an hour or so. She needs to examine you and to consult with Dr. Powell before you can be released."

"Okay. Sorry I missed her. I'll stick close to the room now."

"I'm going back down now," Maureen O'Conner said. "Thank you again for spending some time with Nolan. It really brightened him up. I appreciate it."

"He's a great kid," I said. "I know you're proud of him."

"Yes," she said. "I am. Every day." Her face was clouding up again, but if she wanted to say more, she thought better of it. She just smiled and said, "Try not to forget about mailing Nolan that autograph -- from Mr. Taylor?"

"I won't forget," I said. "And I'll get Bob Crandall's, too. Nolan seemed almost as excited about Crandall as he was about Zeke."

"That's because Nolan's a third baseman, like Crandall," she said.

"Good to know. I'll ask Bob to give him a little note mentioning that ... Hey, do you know we've got a guy on our club named Theodore Samuel Williams?"

That drew a blank from Maureen. Evidently her knowledge of baseball names was more or less limited to those she'd heard about from her son.

"Williams -- Ted Williams -- was a great player from the 1940s and 50s," I explained. "Hall of Famer. And we've got this guy, his parents gave him the exact same name!"

"That must be something of a burden," she said. "If the original man was so famous."

I laughed. "Oh, yes, it's a burden. So much so that our Ted Williams does his best to hide his name. Calls himself 'T.S. Williams.'"

"Does it help?" she asked.

"Yes and no," I told her. "Like most players, he has a nickname over which he has no power at all. I won't tell you what his is, because it's vulgar. But it's not a name he'd have chosen."

"Men -- playing a boy's game -- and acting like boys," she said. But it wasn't said in a disparaging way. I could tell Maureen O'Conner wasn't putting me down -- not me, or ballplayers in general.

" ... What about you?" she said then. "Do you have a nickname, too?"

"I do," I said. "But like Williams', mine is kind of -- disparaging. Once again, a fellow doesn't get much of a shot at coming up with a flattering nickname."

"I won't ask," she said.

"It won't help to go and ask Nolan," I told her. "He's not likely to have heard about it. My clubhouse name isn't the sort that gets mentioned to fans much by the commentators on BirdSports Network. It's kind of an inside joke ... And I'd just as soon keep it that way."

Maureen O'Conner wished me an early release and waved her goodbyes.

She was a nice woman. I'd felt a little stirring of interest from the moment she'd arrived in my room that morning, looking for her wandering son. But it was only the mildest kind of interest. Meeting a young war widow with a nine-year-old son who's undergoing cancer treatment isn't exactly a prime formula for romance.

More like she had this big neon sign flashing over her head saying "STAY AWAY."

Dr. Morrow, the Orioles' team physician, turned out to be a tall, magnificent, very female redhead who, I estimated, was about my age and who wasn't wearing any wedding bands.

Wow. Now here's a woman I could go for.

She was cheerful and upbeat and, after examining my ankle with some care, she sat down beside my bed and said, "This is going to hamper your mobility for as much as ten days. But fortunately, no additional surgical procedures are going to be required. You'll be all right and ready to play again in about that much time."

We discussed an exercise regimen that wouldn't interfere with the healing process, and she told me Paul Warren would hear directly from her with a full assessment of my condition. Probably today.

"So when can I leave the hospital?" I asked.

"This afternoon," she said. "But I'm going to leave the cast on your ankle and foot for three or four days more. Please come to my office Wednesday afternoon so that I can have another look, and we'll decide about the cast then."

We agreed that a wheelchair would not be essential if I would make a conscious effort to stay off the foot as much as possible. That was excellent news because I lived alone in a handicap-inaccessible apartment. A wheelchair would have been a major drag.

"I'll let them know out at the desk that you're free to go as far as I'm concerned. No doubt you'll have to be examined by the resident physician as well ... Say, Todd, do you know Billy Gustafsen?"

"Know him? Ahh ... no. I've never met him, but I..."

"Yes, I know he's the player the Orioles traded to Seattle to acquire your contract," she said.

Well. Not exactly. Billy Gustafsen was a front-line infielder acquired by the Orioles a year earlier from the Chicago Cubs. Baltimore reluctantly traded him to Seattle in order to acquire a highly regarded pitcher from the Mariners.

I had been just a throw-in on the deal. It had been clear at the time that if I made the big-league club's roster at all, some other infielder would fill in for Gustafsen while I warmed the dugout bench.

Dr. Morrow probably was aware of all that, but her shorthand version was accurate in its essence. I had been traded to the Orioles for Gustafsen.

I wondered why she'd brought it up.

"Billy and I were in high school together," she volunteered. "Last year while he was here. Well, we became close."

Hmmm. Okay, the thought crossed my mind. Maybe the lady needed a new infielder.

"We're getting married this winter, after the season's over," she said.

Whoops. I guess Dr. Morrow wasn't in the market for a backup.

"That's great!" I said. "I've never met Billy, but I know he's a great ballplayer and that he has a wonderful reputation in the game."

"He's a wonderful man," she said.

"Sorry about the trade, and all," I said, lamely.

She smiled. "Well, it's not like it was your personal fault!" she said.

I got wheeled to the curb at 1:30 p.m., and the taxi I had called was waiting for me there. With crutches rented from the hospital's supply contractor, I was off for home for my week of forced inactivity. My so-called rehabilitation program was -- for the next several days at least -- extraordinarily modest and would not involve my leaving the apartment. A physical therapist was going to visit me there every other day.

Paul Warren called me again that night and repeated some of the stuff Dr. Morrow had already told me. At least she was telling us both the same story. He said the club had put me on the fifteen-day disabled list and had brought up the Cassidy kid from Bowie.

I was to behave myself, do what the doctor said, and let him know if there were any complications. I told him I thought there would be no complications. "You know about the rumor about Cassidy, right?" I said.

"Cassidy? ... What rumor?"

"That he's a child molester? Possibly an ax murderer and serial killer as well, although the evidence isn't all in yet about those latter things."

"Relax, Todd," Warren said. "I know you've heard Cassidy is some kind of miracle worker around second base, but he's only a kid. We have no plans for bringing him up to stay this year. Your job will still be there when you get well."

"I hope so, Paul. I'm tired of being Triple-A Dushay."

"Todd, you're hitting .250 and you can play three infield positions. Hell, you could play first base if somebody needed you to! I mean, Josh Brennan's set the bar over there pretty low on defense, y'know?"

I appreciated Paul Warren's encouraging words, and he still wasn't finished. " ... Hey, do you know how many times in my big league career that I hit .250?" he said. "Don't ask, that's how many! Just take care of yourself and keep in touch. The club will be back in town for the Tampa series on Friday."