Chapter 23

"Brian?" Millie asked, sweetly. "Why did those men deliberately run into you and then both start hitting you last night? I got so mad I wanted to run out on the field and defend you myself."

She was still mad. It was cute. I wondered how the Orioles would have reacted if Millie ran out to protect me? It made me laugh just thinking about it.

She did have a point. Rebecca and Colleen sat up a little straighter to hear my version of the truth. We were in the living room of our suite, enjoying quiet time. The babies had been up, fed, played with, changed, and put down for a later morning nap, and we all decided to gather on the three sofas and take-a-talk.

"I think they decided to try and scare me into pitching poorly. The first guy did it without thinking about it. When I went to pick up the ball he bunted he knew he needed to knock me over to avoid being out. But he made a mistake and ran outside the baseline, which made it an out because of that and interference. He wanted the attention off of his bonehead mistake, and got everybody thinking about the fight he started, and how tough he was, instead.

"I didn't even think about retaliating. I was all about getting to the ball and throwing him out.

"The second guy decided I was not rattled enough and tried to intimidate me. He got handled pretty roughly by Joe and Kevin, the first and third basemen. They hammered that guy pretty hard.

"My job was to keep my head, pitch calmly and be as tough on the hitters as possible. Everyone is worried about our pitchers throwing at their guys tonight. I don't think Mr. Janacone will let that happen. He knows we have this series won. All we need to do is keep our focus. The Orioles lost their poise, their tempers, and the game by being jerks."

Mr. Bell had two cents to throw into the discussion. "Millie, Brian handled himself unlike any professional athlete I've ever seen. He was within his right to make them pay for hurting him, but instead, he ignored his ego, and won the game. Now Baltimore has dug themselves a hole they may not be able to dig themselves out of.

"I wouldn't be a bit surprised if the Royals take them tonight, and send Baltimore home for the winter. Sometimes it's hard to regain your calm center after this type of blowup. Colleen and I know about it from court trials. If you lose your cool, you lose the case. Brian instinctively did the right thing. He is quite remarkable..."

Winnie said something very surprising. "We can't let those goons hurt you again. Jack and I have a plan to put this whole thing to bed quickly, and in such a way that it will never happen again." No matter how we tried to dig the information out of her, she zipped he lip, and kept it closed.

When Winnie and Jack drove me and Benjamin to the stadium, I had the radio tuned to Kansas City All Sports Talk, and we heard a wild exchange.

"This is All Sports - All the Time. We are Kansas City's own Sports-Talk. All Day All Night, we are on the job bringing you the newest, and craziest sports talk from people in the know, and people that just know- you know?

"Don't fall for that other sports-talk, where they play it by ear and hope something interesting happened that they can ramble on about for hours, and hours, and hours.

"Meet us right here, All Day and All Night. Like the slutty girl back in high school, with the big hooters, we can go all day and all night, bringing you the best, the newest, the most interesting, and the grooviest.

"So ... We all saw the twin rumbles in front of home plate, last night, at Royals Stadium. Our Big Boy, rookie pitching sensation, Brian Nelson is SIXTEEN years old, for crying out loud, he's a high school kid, and the Orioles think being a big, tough man is all about kicking a kid's ass? Same dudes probably hit their girlfriends for spilling their three point two percent beer, cause that's all their mama's letting them drink.

"Those dudes, if they got a girlfriend, she probably only twelve! What self-respecting, good looking, hotter than you know where in August, gonna be lowering herself to be seen with twiddle dee and twiddle stupid?

"Probably does have to pick 'em up at the Catholic, all girls, junior high.

"Seriously?

"A bunch of punks, I say." He sounded all wound up and maybe just getting started.

Another voice joined in "You want to know what blew me away, last night?

"Here it is. A sixteen-year-old pitcher in the major leagues, pitching in the American League Championship Series, gets punked by grown men, who tried to kick his head into next April.

"The dudes tackle him like he's a tailback and kick him around like it was U.F.C. best two out of three falls, out there. Instead of losing his poise, he picks himself up, dusts himself off, and shuts their lights off, one by one. You'd a thought Brian Nelson was thirty-five, with fifteen years of major league pitching under his belt, and those two fools were the dumb-ass rookies.

"Last night, the Orioles looked like minor leaguers out there."

His partner jumped in, "Did you HEAR the Orioles Manager trying to blame it all on Brian Nelson? What a crock of baby puke. I had a lot of respect for him before he vomited up that pack of stupidity at the press conference. He mumbled so much, I thought he'd developed a speech impediment, trying to float those lies to the Baltimore writers."

The first guy was right on that. "EVERYBODY saw the game. NOBODY was fooled by that fool and his spool.

"Dude might as well go be drooling on his mama's shoulder, trying to sell that crack coated ignorance!" He was clearly having a ball calling out the Orioles and giving the listeners something to get excited about.

The host grabbed it back and said, "So fans what do you think? Call us and let us know your thoughts as we discuss the rumbles and then the mumbles by the Baltimore Crybabies last night."

They went on for as long as it took to get from downtown to the stadium. As Jack turned into the players' parking lot, I heard, "Yo' Big Jo? I got the four-one-one on something those punk Orioles didn't want to know. They go all chump change on Brian Nelson, and those goons he be packing might punt their broken down carcasses out to the third ring of Saturn.

"No kidding. We all heard the news about those death threats and saw the new security all over the stadium. Well, it might be that some of those threats been made against Brian Nelson, and someone has hired a whole bunch of bodyguards to make sure those threats stay threats.

"If those Hulk Hogan wanna-be Orioles try to hit on our Boy-Wonder, Brian Nelson, a bunch of bad things may start happening, as those security people are paid to see that he don't get hurt, and that anyone trying to hurt him does get hurt, and they are be in the way, baby."

The hosts then took a couple of listener phone calls. Two were rather ordinary, but the third was off the wall. "The Orioles are a bunch of cowards. Did you see how fast they were to start the fight, but the second our boys got there, they pretty much gave it up and started hugging instead of fighting? They're pussies. That's what they are."

It went back and forth for a long time, until the final caller said, "I hope the Orioles are listening, right now. I got me a high-powered rifle, lots of ammunition, and nothing to live for. You punk ass pretty boys try to hurt our Brian Nelson, and I'm gonna put a couple of you in the grave..."

That chilled the discussion and the station cut to a commercial, rather than give the caller credence. When they came back on the producer led them back in from the break and said, "We at All Sports Talk – All the Time, Radio apologize for the last caller. We did not have the eight-second-delay mechanism, allowing us to screen out that type of call, but we have contacted law enforcement, and given the tape of the call, along with our call data to our security people to transfer to them.