Chapter 7

The Fenway fans were their normal frenetic selves for our four-games-in-three-days set with the Red Sox.

You couldn't ask for much more. Last season the Sox had gotten edged out by the hated Yankees for the Division title. The Orioles had finished third and had never really been in it.

This year, the Yankees were already eliminated and the Orioles and Sox were engaged in a free-for-all for the AL East.

Some, but not all of the drama was removed by the fact that both clubs looked good for making the post-season. Oakland, second in the AL West, still had a shot at the Wild Card, but only if either Baltimore or Boston faded dramatically in the season's final week.

If we were to split the four games and leave Boston still tied in the standings, everything would depend on how we made out in New Yankee Stadium, and how the Red Sox fared in their final three games against Tampa Bay.

The make-up game was scheduled for Monday, the opening day of the series. The schedulers knew that in late September in Boston, weather could be a chancy proposition. If we encountered problems playing two on Monday, there would still be two more days left to squeeze the extra game in.

As it turned out, the day-night Monday doubleheader went off without a hitch -- except that the Red Sox won them both, putting us two games behind in the standings.

Maureen called me minutes after the night game ended. Nolan was long-since asleep, and we talked about whether Patrick's VCR recordings of that day's two losing games ought to be shown to him at all.

"I'm not certain he's paying much attention anymore," she told me. "He's sleeping now most of the time. He's not just on painkillers now, he's being sedated in earnest. It's starting to look very bad, Todd. He's awake and talking to me only for half-hour stretches, all day long."

"I'm starting at second base tomorrow," I said. "Let him know about it if you can."

"Maybe we'll listen to tomorrow night's game on the radio," she said. "The difference for Nolan between day and night doesn't have much meaning anymore. If he's awake in the evening, I'll put the game on and talk about it with him and see if it holds his attention."

"Let me talk to him during the day tomorrow if he's up for it," I said.

"I will," she said. "He loves talking to you. And he's still excited about the pennant race -- whenever he's awake."

But there wasn't any call during the day on Tuesday.

We clobbered the Sox that night, nine-zip, scoring four runs in the opening inning and never giving them a smell. It had to have been frustrating for the overflow crowd there to witness their ball club take a three-game lead over us with four to play.

Instead, we were back to within one.

Closing out the series on Wednesday night, we won 4-3 in eleven innings in a real nail-biter.

We had done it the hard way, but the split of the four games was really more or less what both clubs had expected. We were through with the Sox for the regular season, and now everything would depend on how they dealt with the rejuvenated Tampa Bay Rays, and how we did against the Yankees.

Neither assignment was a welcome one. The Rays were strong now and actually had a one-game edge over the Red Sox in the season series so far. We had dominated the Yankees during the year, but now we were playing them in their park and they, unlike the Orioles, were loosie-goosie and eager to play the role of spoiler.

I'd gotten my isolated start in that single game in Boston and hadn't played on Wednesday.

Paul Warren came to me before the first game in New York and told me I was starting at third base. That was scary on several counts. Third was perhaps my weakest defensive position. Additionally, we were starting our rookie leftie, Marty Bausch, which meant the Yankees would load up on right-handed hitters, most of whom had a tendency to pound screamers down the third-base line.

Was I "afraid" to play under those conditions? No. Afraid was far too strong a word.

But let's try "under-eager."

Hitting ninth as usual, I became the first Oriole baserunner of the game in the third inning with two out. It was a double but the Yankee right fielder kicked it around long enough to let me make it to third standing up.

Josh Brennan brought me home on one of his patented bloop singles over the infield, and we led, one-zip.

It stayed that way until the seventh inning, with young Bausch pitching a three-hitter and walking nobody. But the Orioles weren't hitting either, so it only took a minor Yankee uprising in their half of the seventh to put them back in it, taking over a 2-1 lead.

I got another hit -- a single -- with nobody out in our eighth, and damned if Tough Shit Williams didn't launch one, putting us ahead to stay, 3-2.

I was thrilled to have survived the game errorless at third, and when I talked to Maureen afterward, she reported that Nolan had been thrilled by my early double that had eventually scored our go-ahead run.

"But he slept through the rest," she said. "We've stopped recording the games at home. It's no use. He's never awake long enough to see a whole game. He's even stopped asking."

"I'll be home Sunday," I told her. "The Division Series won't start until Tuesday. If we win the East, it'll open in Baltimore against the Twins. If the Red Sox beat us out, we'll have to fly to Los Angeles to play the Angels."

"Boston beat Tampa today," she said.

"I heard."

What happens if, after the final games, it's a tie?" she asked.

"It won't be."

It wasn't. We won two out of three in New York, and the Sox lost their last two in Tampa. Baltimore was the East champion, and the Red Sox would be the ones who had to start their series in California as the Wild Card.

Back in Baltimore on Sunday, I drove directly to Johns Hopkins from the airport. I had an "AL East Champions" baseball cap to place on Nolan Ryan O'Conner's bald head.

The cap was adjustable, but it still didn't fit. I was alarmed and enormously discouraged by the boy's physical appearance. I put up a good front for Nolan, but probably didn't do a very good job of disguising my reaction from Maureen.

After a brief flurry of excitement at my presence, Nolan was asleep again. Maureen left his side with me and we settled gratefully in a comfortable visitor's lounge off the elevator lobby.

"He's not going to make it," she said. "I knew it -- I could see it for myself these last few days -- but yesterday, the doctor told me himself. They've done all they can do. He can't take any more of these radical injections, and there's nothing left for them to try. Both of them told me -- Nolan's own doctor and the specialist here who's running the program."

"Maybe he'll fool them," I said. "Sometimes they're wrong. Sometimes there's a remission."

"No. They're not wrong. I know it. Nolan knows it, too. I can see it when he looks at me."

"He's bound to be scared. It's just fear of the unknown you're seeing."

"No. Doctor says the tumor is out of control. Growing very quickly. He says all they can do now is make him comfortable. And I hate it, because the drugs mean he's out of it all the time -- hardly even aware that we're here with him. It's like he's already gone!"

"He recognized me today. He was happy about the cap."

"For minutes. Minutes! ... A few days ago, he'd stay awake, talk to me for a half-hour, anyway. Now it's goddamned minutes!"

We held hands, there, in the sunny, cheerful visitors' lounge. After a long while, she stood up, walked back down the hall and into Nolan's room, and sat beside his bed. I followed along behind her.

"Go home, clean up, have dinner, and come back," she said. "Don't worry. He won't wake up again for hours. Maybe not until morning, even."

"Why don't you come back with me?" I said. "You could shower, freshen up."

"I can't leave here."

"You just said -- you know -- he won't wake up for hours."

"He could, though."

"All right. I'll be back in two hours. We'll eat in the cafeteria. Together."

"All right. My dad will be here by then to sit with Nolan."

The Divisional Series was anticlimactic. We swept the Twins, finishing up in their park. We hurried back to Baltimore and waited for Boston's series with the Angels to conclude. Bad weather in Boston was delaying the finish, and the Orioles engaged in listless workouts at Camden Yards and waited.

I couldn't decide whether I'd prefer freezing in Boston against the Red Sox or going through the lengthy, agonizing cross-country flights to play the League Championship Series against the Angels.

Either way, we'd have home field advantage in the seven-game set.

I had dreamed of the excitement our making the playoffs would engender for Nolan. But the little guy was barely aware of the fact that we'd finally won the Division. We had conversations whenever he was awake, but it wasn't clear to me whether he had even registered the fact that we'd already won in the first playoff round.

Finally the Angels managed to finish off the Red Sox in the deciding game of their series, and we were slated to open the ALCS in Baltimore on a Tuesday. Weather had set the World Series' opener back by several days. It was now well into October, and Baltimore wasn't much warmer than Boston had been the week before. The season was far too long, but nobody ever talked about that until there was a mid-October series in a northern city.

In the National League, Atlanta had taken their annual October dive and it was going to be Cubs versus Dodgers in the NLCS. The national press considered any championship series involving the Cubs as far sexier than one involving Baltimore and Anaheim -- both of whom had been to the playoffs much more recently (and more successfully) than had the Cubbies.

The Dodgers, too, were a glamour club in a large market, and the now-ancient Joe Torre was still running the club and finally taking Los Angeles to the post-season for his first time.

For good and sufficient reason, then, the National League was getting far more press attention than we were. Baltimore and the Angels were being largely overlooked except in our own home areas.