Chapter 4

As planned, Dan Preston pulled up in front of the Stone house promptly at six p.m., ready to escort his blind date to dinner.

Susan had snuck a peek at Preston's baseball-capped portrait in Arlie's copy of the Oriole Media Guide and found him a square-jawed, typically athletic-looking specimen. She tried the Baltimore Sun's web site and managed to find a couple of additional shots that showed Preston throwing from the mound in what appeared to be a spring training venue.

Dan Preston was undeniably a handsome man. He looked to be the type to find it necessary to shave twice a day, and she wondered if his thick dark hair (visible only around the outer edges of the ball cap) was also visible on his back. A lot of these ballplayers seemed to be prematurely bald, Susan reflected, but the photographs offered her no conclusive evidence on that question.

Even if he did turn out to be bald, she figured she could have done worse. In fact, she had done worse, back at Penn.

Several times.

Their brief telephone conversation had suggested to her that this fellow could formulate a decent English sentence, but, as in the case of any blind date, Susan knew that one ought to reserve judgment. One must hope for the best, expect the worst, and be prepared for virtually anything.

She answered the door. Goodness! Preston was up there a ways. Six-three at least, to her five-six. Capless now, he seemed to have a full head of dark, unruly hair. He was impeccably dressed, and she knew instantly that the clothes he was wearing cost more than had her entire current dress-up wardrobe.

Well, we couldn't all be members of the Major League Players Association.

"Hi, Susan," he said, smiling through the screen door. "Are you ready?"

"Ready," she said, returning the smile. "But Arlie wants to say hello."

"He just wants to tell me to get you home before midnight, and in the condition in which I found you on my arrival," Dan said, as he noticed Arlie's advance toward them through the big central hallway.

"No warnings necessary," Arlie said. "If I didn't know you were at least reasonably trustworthy, I wouldn't have allowed Susan to get mixed up with you in the first place."

"Well," Susan said, smiling broadly, "trustworthy is nice, but I didn't order a Boy Scout."

"Hell, Susan," Arlie said, "the only reason I'd ask to have you home before midnight is that this guy may have to pitch tomorrow. He's an old fart, and he needs at least nine or ten hours of sleep."

On the way to the restaurant, Susan asked Dan questions designed to let him define himself a little. "You and Arlie seem pretty close," she said. "Have you been with the club for your whole career?"

"I've been here for four years," he said, "and I knew Arlie from before that, but of course I didn't get to know him well until I became an Oriole. My ex-wife and Arlie's wife were friendly. Even when I first arrived here, I was one of the older players, and an established pitcher, so it was natural that we'd have some social contact."

"Where were you before Baltimore?" she asked.

"In this era, few players are able to stick with one club through their entire career," Dan told her. "I started with Cincinnati in the other league. Spent four years in their minor league system and four with the big club.

"They traded me to Arizona and, after one season there, I went to Atlanta for most of five years before coming to Baltimore."

"All National League until you got here," Susan observed.

"I thought you said you were a casual fan only," he said.

"I think 'casual fan' fits. But I know a little something. Probably, some of it I've just picked up from my time being around Arlie. And Toby."

"Toby's a pill!" Dan said. "He reminds me of my boy. Sam is going to be fifteen this summer."

"Does your son live here?"

"No. He's in central New Jersey with his mother and her new husband. I get to see him pretty frequently, especially during the off-season, but he's still bigger and older-looking every time I do see him. That can get kind of depressing, in a way."

"I'm sorry."

"We were luckier than most divorced couples. No big hassles, no recriminations. And, lucky for me, she remarried well."

"So, no alimony to pay, either," Susan said.

"Not anymore. I've put aside money for Sam's college education, and I still happily contribute to his support, but that's about it, other than maybe making voluntary contributions to his welfare as this economy may require."

"You're the first baseball player -- aside from Arlie, I mean -- that I've had a chance to get to know a little."

"Arlie's management now," Dan said. "He was a player, but when you become a manager or a coach, your worldview changes a little."

"So then, you're saying you're my first ballplayer?"

"Probably. At least, I'm saying that Arlie sort of doesn't count. And you'll find we come in all varieties. You need to meet a starving minor leaguer, an eager rookie, an established superstar, the team flake, and maybe a few other representative types. There's also the disgruntled veteran who's unhappy because, three years ago, he was making six mil, and now they're telling him it's one-point-five or there's the door.

"You need to meet the ten-year vet from Venezuela who still doesn't speak English. And the can't-quite-hack-it pitcher who's up and down from the minors every other year and having arm surgery in the off years. We have all kinds."

"What's your category, Dan?"

"Oh, that's easy. I'm the grizzled veteran. The fading former starter who's hanging on, pitching middle relief for one or two more seasons before trying to catch on somewhere as a minor league coach or a roving pitching instructor."

"You don't exactly look like you've got one foot in the grave."

"I'm thirty-six," he said. "Late middle-age in baseball. I'm sure you knew that much about me already. Arlie's the sort who'd tell you. He told me you were barely twenty-five and fresh out of college."

"Well, it's all public information, right?" she said casually. "What else was Arlie going to say? To either of us?"

"He told me about your going to Penn," Dan said. "Great school."

"Arlie made sure I knew you'd been to college, too," she said. "Arlie suspects —- accurately I'm afraid -— that I'm something of an education-snob."

"He tell you where I graduated?" Dan asked.

"He made a point of telling me you graduated. He couldn't remember from where."

Dan laughed. "There's a reason for that. It wasn't Penn. It wasn't even Penn State."

"You make it sound like I'm going to be shocked and appalled when you finally disclose this place."

"Not at all. It's a perfectly respectable school. It's just the obscurity factor that's kind of embarrassing. I went to the Colorado School of Mines, in Golden, Colorado, Home of Coors Beer."

"I've heard of the school, but not the baseball team," Susan said.

"These days, they have a baseball team," Dan said, "but I never played ball there. I was there on a full academic scholarship. It was a little peculiar, because the school curriculum was heavily focused on engineering, and that wasn't my personal bent at all. But I was poor, it was closest-to-home, my family needed some financial help from me instead of the other way around, and I was offered generous scholarship aid by the college."

Dan had pulled his car into the lot at an attractive restaurant near the harbor, one Susan had never patronized.

"So, where did you get the money to contribute to your family while going to college?" Susan asked.

"Baseball been berry-berry good to me," he said. "I signed with the Reds right out of high school for a substantial bonus, and with some pretty liberal special conditions that would permit me to get an education and squeeze in two full semesters every year."

"Didn't you worry that restricting your availability during part of the season would put a crimp in your development as a player?"

"Good question," he said. "And, yes, I worried plenty. Especially since the college I was attending wasn't exactly the best possible place to secure an effective liberal arts education. It made me wonder sometimes whether I should stick to the plan."

"But?"

"But the money from the Reds was good, my initial contract was solid, and I wanted to earn a degree sooner rather than later. Over the long haul, it all worked out and here I am, almost two decades older and still pitching."

"That's quite a story."

"Yes, and you've done a great job of diverting the conversation to everyone's favorite topic —- 'me.' But that's over now. While we're inside this restaurant, we're going to discuss Susan Munger. I hear you're a writer. That's something I want to hear more about, and in some detail. And I want to know what you're doing a few months out of one of the best universities in the country and why you're working as a nanny. Is the economy that bad?"

"It's honest work, you know."

"It's fine work, and I know how badly Arlie needed someone like you. You really have made Arlie's March and April, and I think it looks pretty good for his May, too. But, c'mon. You know what I'm asking. Why you, instead of just someone vaguely like you?"

Dan's dinner reservations were in order, and they enjoyed the efficient service that comes from beating the rush. Over drinks, Susan explained her reasons for seeking out the kind of work that the Stone family was offering.

"A decade ago, I might have tried for work right away as a journalist or a junior editor in a publishing house," she said. "But with the economy crashing all around, those kinds of jobs are disappearing faster than new openings are being created.

"And anyway, I was on the verge of getting married less than six months ago. That whole deal crashed, too. Arlie has given me a great place to live and enough free time that I can work steadily on my writing. And believe me, the actual job is pleasant as well. You know what a prince of a guy Arlie is. His kids are great, too. I like them and respect them, and with most any kid, affection and respect just come right back to you, with interest."

"The decline in publishing must also present some extra challenges to you as a writer," Dan said.

"I'm seeing signs of it, yes. And it might get even worse. But I've had some help from Arlie there, too. He put me in touch with Zeke Taylor, and Zeke's lining up a chance for me to try to impress the editor who handled his autobiography."

"Well, that sounds promising."

"Opportunity is half the battle," Susan said. "My poetry book would never have been published without help from influential teachers who went to bat for me with a publisher. Whether my novel gets published is going to depend on me and on whether it turns out to look marketable to a publisher. But I can't tell you how useful it is to have had Zeke Taylor help to get me in the door!"

"You've published a book already?"

"One of those slender, obscure poetry collections that doesn't get sold and doesn't get read," Susan said.

"Yes, but still. You're a published writer. I'm impressed!"