Fenway Fever (22 page)

“As if it matters. Look, I’m sleeping. Talk to you later.” Stats shut down the phone.

“What’d he want?” asked Mark.

“I don’t know. He’s one of these guys who only sleeps three hours a night, so he’s only half there, reality-wise. Sorry.”

“S’okay.” Mark rolled over.

Stats walked to his laptop. He was awake and curious enough about L.A. to at least check it out. He was happy, too, that it seemed a pure shortstop had won the spot.

In batting average, Welzer edged out Mark by one point. That was not news. He also barely lost to L.A. by one. But there it was on the ballfield graphic. Mark still led in fielding percentage.

How is that possible? How did Mark pass Welzer in fielding? They both had one error, and Welzer had more total chances, so the error hurt him the least. It didn’t make sense.

Then, as if he were smacked by a bat, Stats understood. After studying the numbers, he realized why the shortstop category had changed completely. It all came down to what Mark had done at the very end of the game. Five put-outs and one assist, accounting for all six outs in the seventh and the eighth innings—the two meaningless innings that Stats never bothered
to record in his book. Though he now realized Mr. Scorggins had recorded them all—and reported them.

Due to those six extra chances, Mark’s final fielding percentage had been nudged up ever so slightly from .995 to .996. Welzer now sat five one-hundredths of a point behind Mark. And since neither player led in both categories, the YMBL went to its tiebreaker—slugging percentage. In that category, Mark creamed the poor guy.

Stats switched to the YMBL all-star position graphic. On the green and brown animated sketch of Fenway Park, all of the top YMBL national players were listed in blinking bright blue letters, according to their positions.

At shortstop, the name read “Mark Pagano, Boston.”

Stats woke early the next morning and jumped right out of bed. He fired up his eXfyle on the dining room table and set about designing the perfect way to let Mark, who was still sawing logs, learn the good—no, the amazing—news by fashioning a baseball card of Mark wearing a custom-designed YMBL All-Star baseball cap.

After making a few final adjustments, including Photoshopping a big wad of chaw into Mark’s left cheek, he uploaded the image. Then he designed the text.

Stats sent the baseball card to the printer back in the bedroom. He arrived in time to hear Mark complaining.

“What are you doing now?” He snugged the pillow around his ears. “That printer is so loud. Need to get a new one.”

It was not loud for long. Zip-zip. A quick image on photo paper, then a reinsert for back-to-back printing of Mark’s up-to-the-instant stats, a quick trim job, and presto!

Mark stared at the finished card. After Stats proved once and for all that, as goofy as it looked, the card was no gag, Mark just sat and gawked at it.

He would be playing shortstop in a real game in the magical confines of Fenway Park.

On Monday at Papa Pagano’s, Pops had another son to gloat about. Though he didn’t particularly like the way Stats had rendered Mark on the baseball card—that is, the cheek full of chewing tobacco—he nevertheless easeled it, front and center, next to the
Globe
’s article on Stats.

The crowd was just as enthusiastic today as it had been on Sunday. Why? Two breaking news items had caught the attention of Red Sox Nation.

First off, it seemed that Cedro Marichal had left Sunday’s game only in part because of his performance. The other reason was due to a hyperextended knee, which caused him to change his landing mechanics so much, his control went haywire. Fifteen-day disabled list for Cedro.

That left a huge hole in the Red Sox pitching rotation. Enter—or, rather, re-enter—Billee. In what might prove to be the world’s quickest rehab assignment ever, Billee was recalled from Pawtucket.

At first Stats couldn’t understand, since technically, once demoted to triple-A, a player had to stay at least ten days before he could be recalled. But Billee had never officially reported to Pawtucket. Since he was not due until Monday, and it was only a one-hour drive away, Billee’s locker had not even been emptied.

Two news items? No, actually three. Billee’s last start, he would be first to admit—and
did
, actually, in the morning paper—had amounted to nothing more than a “long workout,” lasting only about twenty minutes. Thus, he was in all actuality the most rested Red Sox starter on the roster. Therefore, on Monday night, for the fourth and final game of the Yankees series, Billee Orbitt would take the mound.

Would this alone explain the enthusiasm on display along Yawkey Way that morning? Not likely, thought Stats. Sure, an upcoming Billee Orbitt game had always lifted spirits, but he had not been his old self in so long, it could not be the reason for the upbeat mood.

Before Stats and Mark rushed off to catch the start of the game, Pops said, “This may be it, boys.”

“May be what?” Stats had already lifted the escape hatch and was ready to leave.

“While you’re inside, I’ll be meeting with a broker representing a prospective buyer for the business. He says he has a top-notch offer for me.”

“What’s top-notch?” Stats wondered.

“Well, we’re asking a hundred and eighty-five thousand
dollars. Top-notch, to me, says he’s got a hundred and eighty-five large in his pocket. But we’ll see.” Then Pops waved at the air in front of him. “Hey, hey. It has to be done, and the sooner the better.”

“Are we really going to reopen the store?” asked Stats.

“As I say, we’ll see. I don’t know anything yet. I just need to get out from under all this.”

“Whoa,” said Mark. He had not been paying attention. He had the tip jar contents spread out on the back counter. “This is our biggest haul yet.” He looked up. “People are putting twenties in there.”

That caught Stats’s interest. “How much does it come to?”

“This is unbelievable. Pops, there’s over five hundred dollars in here.”

Stats hustled over to look. “Hey, we could pay off the whole debt with just another”—he paused to calculate—“uh, two hundred and sixty-three days like today.” His smile dimmed when he realized just how long it would take to reach that many days in home baseball games—over three full years.

Mark scooped up the paper money. “Pops, you take all these. We’ll take our twenty-five in change. At least it’ll do some good.”

Pops took the money with a crooked frown. “Uh, look, leave the change. You boys go enjoy yourselves.” He handed each of his sons two twenty-dollar bills. “We’ll talk about this later.”

Billee started off strong Monday night. The game was being broadcast nationally, and the crowd knew it. They were with him during warm-ups, and they exploded in cheers when he struck out the leadoff man.

Then came the fireworks. The next batter went golfing after a forkball and sent a screamer down the third-base line that never rose above four feet high. This wasn’t just a frozen rope. It was frozen smoke.

And even Stats, as close as he was to the ball, could not quite believe Wadell Fens, the third baseman, snagged the liner as it zoomed past.

That was the second out, and the play garnered a standing ovation.

Then the number three hitter drove the third pitch he saw so high and deep into center field, Stats immediately saw 1–0 flash into his mind.

The skyball flew toward the center-field “nook” four
hundred and twenty feet away, the deepest part of the park. Luckily, the center fielder, Teddy Lynn, raced to the warning track and hauled it in only inches shy of the fence.

“Just a long out!” cried Mr. McCord. Others agreed as the enthusiastic crowd offered its second standing O of the night. But those in the know knew. Since the Yankees were timing Billee’s pitches this well, this early in the game, in order for the Red Sox to have any chance at all tonight, they would have to do it with their bats.

“Better put some runs up, boys!” yelled Announcer Bouncer. “We’re gonna need ’em.”

Stats penciled in the F-8 and drew a double line indicating the inning’s end. Three up, three down for Billee in the first, but it was not pretty.

“Sox better have their hittin’ shoes on,” said Mark as the Yankees took the field. “Billee’s getting hammered.”

The hammering went both ways in the early going. But by the end of two, only the Red Sox had crossed the plate, and they’d done it twice.

As Billee took the mound at the top of the third, with a 2–0 lead, Stats noticed something in the sky above the right-field seats.

Three hawks circled in the late twilight.

Look up, Billee,
look up
, he thought.

Billee, though, was deep into his pre-inning ritual, smoothing out the mound, walking around it to pick up the rosin bag and bounce it off the wrist of his pitching hand four times.

Two things now kept the Boston fans in a roaring mood, fully supporting their starter. He had fanned the last batter in the second, and due to a diving grab and a kneeling whip-throw by Rico Ruíz from out in, basically, shallow center, the Yankees had yet to reach base.

Before Billee’s first pitch, a distant cry echoed through the ballyard.

“Chee! Chee!”

Billee paused a moment. Had he heard it? He sent a sideways glance toward Stats and slowly stepped back off the pitching rubber, setting the ball into the palm of his glove. Then he looked up.

It was the very moment one of the hawks that had circled the field touched down on the press box roof. It was entirely possible, Stats thought, that he and Billee were the only two people in the park to notice.

In his scorebook, on this batter’s third-inning line, he wrote an H. When the hitter grounded out to second base, Stats circled it.

From that moment on, Billee Orbitt seemed to possess a rhythm, a tempo, a balance that Stats had not remembered seeing since his rookie year.

“It’s going to be a good game,” he told Mark.

“Hope so.”

“Know so.”

Mark looked over at him, let his eyes linger with eyebrows up, huffed, then turned back to the game.

Stats would not again mention the status of tonight’s contest nor his personal view of Billee’s performance for the rest of the evening. He couldn’t. No one who knew anything about baseball could speak of it. For Billee went into the ninth pitching a no-hitter.

Actually, it was more than that.

Billee Orbitt was pitching a perfect game.

No one on the bench had spoken a word to Billee since the fourth. Stats could see from where he sat that Billee did not go down the tunnel between innings, as he sometimes would. For eight straight innings, he went to his usual spot at the end of the bench, watched the game with his glove still on, parked upon his knee, and no one came close.