Chapter 12

Wayne and Buddy weren't getting the message. They wanted me to try out for the team. My trust owned the team. Major League rules don't allow for owners to be players, as far as I could recall. Charlie Finley claimed he was going to add himself to the MLB roster of the Athletics, back in the bad old days of his Oakland ownership, and Bowie Kuhn shot that down before it could get going.

Now the fact is the Mr. Bell signed all the documents, so technically it wouldn't violate any rules. I didn't want any publicity. My life was nearly perfect. Publicity, media attention, and any form of notoriety could mess it up completely. Jack would say it wasn't safe, and Rebecca would probably take Millicent Jane and disappear from my life, if something like that came to pass.

Of course my former enemies, in both bodies, would love nothing better than to kill me and my family, so publicity is not high on my list of activities.

The whole thing had no upside, and I was sorry that I wanted to run around, get in shape, and play home run derby with Charlie Waters.

After half and a hour of brow beating, I agreed to work out with the two of them, as long as they understood that I had work to do, and wasn't trying to make the team - or any other team, for that matter.

Immediately, Charlie and his cohorts stopped their work to watch, offer advice, and generally give me a bad time.

"Hey, white guy? If you run any slower, Wayne will have to time you with a sundial."

"So, if you work really, really hard, you might have a chance to fall off the bench and hit the ground someday, but you ain't never gonna hit our pitching."

"What are you trying to do ... hit, or fall down?"

"Hey, Pudge? Did you mother have any children who lived?" That got a rise out of me, and the offending player ran off with his tail between his legs.

The big surprise was that I could run to first in under four seconds, throw from home to second on a line, all day long, and hit ten out of twenty pitches ... somewhere. Charlie kept pushing, prodding, and poking me to try this, that, and the next thing for hours. Wayne wrote constantly on a clip board and offered direction when he wanted Buddy to move on to the next task. I never got tired. Didn't feel particularly winded, and thought I was stronger at the end, than in the beginning of the workout.

Then Wayne asked me if I had ever tried pitching. "I pitched maybe four times in little league," I said honestly.

"Go out to the mound and throw a few pitches. Don't worry about technique, and don't think about speed." He called one of the players over, who was a catcher, and had him squat to catch me. The catcher was a career minor leaguer, hanging on because he handled young pitchers well, called a good game, and added a bit of maturity to squads that tended to be way too young and ambitious for their own good.

I walked out to the mound, thought about what I needed to do, settled down and fired a hard pitch into the catcher's mitt. It sounded like a gunshot when he caught it. The catcher took off his glove, rubbed his hand and said he needed a better mitt, and would be right back. He took a different glove out of his equipment bag, adjusted the straps and squatted down again.

The next pitch felt less foreign. I remembered some of what it took to pitch when I was eleven, and used it to put a little more on the second one. The catcher grabbed his hand, grunted, and said, "What the fu... ? Where did that come from?

"Listen white guy. You don't throw like no office worker, or none of those college boys that show up here and show off their big arm motion, then throw seventy. You got you a gun, there." He tossed the ball back to me and said to Buddy, "He got himself a big old arm. This one gonna do some damage in this league. Might do some damage up the road a piece, too."

Wayne showed the radar gun to Buddy and said, "Yep. Ninety-two, and he has almost no technique." They walked off conversing quietly. I waited for a long time. Giving up, Benjamin and I headed back to the office to shower, catch up on my mail and phone calls, find out what Mr. Bell had to say about the day, grab Winnie and Colleen, and head for home.

We (Benjamin, Colleen and I) were playing with the babies in the family room when Mr. Bell walked in. He had that look he gets when things are not what he expected, so I knew something was wrong. He strode in, purposefully, sat down across from me and James, and got right to it.

"You," he said petulantly, "apparently gave our major league partners a coronary today. Your throwing prowess has gotten them so uptight they wanted to come home with me so they could double team you into playing for the Eagles this year."

I couldn't tell if he was mad, sarcastic, pleased, or neutral. I knew what I was, though. "Mr. Bell, I'm not playing baseball this year, or any other year, for the Eagles, or any other team. Can you imagine the risk I'd put us to, if I turned up on the sports page as a curiosity?"

Rebecca interrupted our conversation. She and Colleen walked right into the middle of it. "I think you are dead wrong," she said. "Hiding in plain sight is the last place anyone would ever look for you. Even if they went to a game trying to find you, the last place they'd look is on the field..."

Mr. Bell interrupted Rebecca interrupting him, "No one goes to the theater, looking for someone, and looks on the stage to see if they are up there."

Colleen smiled indulgently. "Sweetheart, give it a try. You're young, handsome, strong, and apparently talented. Go see what there is to see, and then decide how you feel about it. We all love you, and want you to do what makes you happy. You've been scared, shot, poisoned, brutally attacked, and died. Instead of worrying about us, worry about having some fun for a change."

"Look, Brian. If you try out and aren't as good as they think you are, so what? If you are, think of what it would be to live every boy's fantasy," Mr. Bell made sense.

He had me there. I promised to think about it and talk later.

I put James Brian to bed, spent some time with Millicent Jane, and gave Rebecca my best pick up line. She smiled and raised the covers to admit me. We spent a couple of hours reacquainting ourselves with the finer points of loving, and slept like babies.

Colleen was waiting when I emerged from Rebecca's room in the morning. We talked as I headed to shower and get ready for the office. "How did it go with you and Rebecca last night?" She was anxious.

"We talked and then she initiated sex. It was sweet, gentle, and loving. I think she has made peace with whatever is hurting her, but we need to give her space and lots of love.

"Speaking of love, how are you?" I was slowly petting her furry friend as we talked and showered. She was getting wet.