Chapter 16

Brock sat out the next night in Arizona – the Diamondback skipper gave Repling a break, too – and both managers hoped the bad blood between the teams would settle before the teams' series finale.

They were sadly mistaken.

The crowd started to chant "Jor-dan" as soon as Brock appeared in the on-deck circle in the top of the first inning. Many of the Dodgers had no idea what the chant meant but a few of them did.

Brock simply brushed it off.

The chant changed to "Kil-ler" by the fourth inning and to "Rap-ist" by the time Brock came to bat in the sixth. They saved their best, "Or-phan" for his last at-bat of the night.

Brock had another good night at the plate and the Dodgers won, 2-1, but his teammates could see their shortstop was seething when the final out the game was recorded. He was in the dugout and into the clubhouse before his teammates had finished congratulating their pitcher on a complete game three-hitter.

"You can't let it get to you," Al warned Brock as they packed up for a trip to Houston. "If teams see it rattles you, you're going to hear it in every stadium in the league."

"How would you feel?" Brock asked hotly. "You didn't live through that shit. The last time you saw your mother it wasn't through a Plexiglas window. The last time you touched your mother's hand, it wasn't as they led you out of a courtroom in shackles."

He shook his head violently to stem the flow of memories – and the tears those memories often brought.

Al put his arm around his younger friend.

"I don't know what it's like, Brock," he said softly. "And I'm thankful for that. I know that you would never want anyone else to have to suffer through what you have. In Rookie League, Billings, Montana, I went into the stands after a redneck who called me a 'Beaner.' You know what that accomplished? Nothing. All it did was to make every crowd from Rockford, Illinois, to Bakersfield, California, call me the same thing. The only way I got it to stop was to punish the fans by crushing their team. You had a great series. When the people who started that crap get home and realize you were 3-for-4 with two stolen bases, they'll think twice about riding you again. If the assholes in Houston try the same thing, take it out on the baseball.

"Then you can come in here and beat the hell out of the water cooler or something. But if you ever want that stupid shit to go away, you can never let the idiots know it bothers you. OK?"

Brock nodded. But he knew it wouldn't be that easy.

Brock spent a Saturday morning in early August sitting at a sports memorabilia store in Glendale. He had two security guards nearby – a male and a female – because the threatening letters had not stopped. If anything they had become more frequent and more troubling. The sender had yet to be identified, let alone confronted.

Cynthia Lu had tried to convince Brock that he was putting himself unnecessarily at risk but he had insisted he wasn't going to let some lunatic dictate his life. If Ms. Lu had her way, Brock would never leave his house except to go to games.

He didn't want to miss the chance to interact with a few of the team's fans at an autograph signing that had been scheduled since he first arrived in Los Angeles. The Sports Emporium was the very first place to contract the team about having their little-known shortstop pay a visit to their store. Brock had agreed and he didn't want to break his word.

In fact, he found himself having fun.

Unlike some players, Brock did not charge money for his autograph. The only caveat he put upon his signature that day was that it would only appear on merchandise purchased from the store or on officially licensed Major League Baseball apparel. As with all players who were part of the player's union, Brock received a pretty healthy check each month from vendors who sold official gear. It was part of the Collective Bargaining Agreement and it was one of the rare times he and Al Perez were compensated identically.

He wouldn't sign slips of paper, photographs, old programs or body parts.

Outside the park before and after games, Brock would sign anything put in front of him (although he had not been asked to sign a portion of anyone's anatomy yet, he figured it was probably only a matter of time).

Brock had appeared at other signings and he knew this one would go the same way. The crowd – and, to his surprise, there was a crowd – would comprise two groups. The first was middle aged men (and occasionally women) with a child in tow. These were the fathers and mothers who wanted to give their children a chance to meet a real professional athlete.

Then there was the second group: 18- to 25-year-old women, dressed in as little clothing as they could get away with, who wanted the chance to, perhaps, turn the well-paid professional's head with her looks and charm.

Brock was eminently thankful that the first group far outnumbered the second on that Saturday morning. He liked to look at scantily clad women as much as the next guy but he didn't care for the mercenary aspect of some of the women.

Of course there were mercenaries among the parents, too. A few would post his signature for auction before they even left the store, he was sure. But the kids were still kids. It was obvious that some of the children didn't have the slightest clue who Brock Miller was. Baseball was a dying sport among the young in America. Basketball had taken over the inner city; football ruled the heartland; and soccer had overrun suburbia.

So he wasn't surprised that a large portion of the children were Hispanic or Asian, places where baseball still dominated the landscape and places where the parents still had a heartfelt love of the National Pastime.

The first person to seek his autograph was a young father with his two children, a boy who looked about six and a little girl who was probably a little older. The Hispanic man didn't look old enough to have children that age but the guy introduced the kids as his children so Brock didn't say anything.

He posed for pictures with the two kids and then asked the next person in line to take a picture that included the father, too. The man shook his hand enthusiastically as the group departed and the scene was set for the rest of the morning. The people were polite and friendly – and a few of the young, unattached women were a bit aggressive. One offered to trade her phone number for his and another handed him a nude picture of herself.