Forced Out (23 page)

He nestled the toe of his right cleat into the depression at the back of the batter's box made by all those right-handed batters who'd gone before, took two practice swings, then brought the bat up into the kill position over his right shoulder. He wasn't going to take long with this turn. He was going to hit the first pitch that was even close. This was just a single and he wanted to get to the fifth, wanted to get to that second big shot. And God, it would be huge.

Don't intentionally walk me he kept thinking as he dug in a little deeper.
Please
don't intentionally walk me. Please let me have all my chances tonight. He heaved a heavy sigh of relief when the pitcher nodded, accepting the sign the catcher had flashed, then went into his delivery.

He whipped Black Maple through the strike zone at the last moment, and smiled as he saw the white flash rocket toward the outfield out of his left eye. Perfect. Absolutely perfect.

* * *

Jack's mouth fell slightly open when Clemant laced the hard single to left, driving in a run. His jaw almost hit the yellow railing in the fifth when the Kid launched another monster shot over the center-field wall--the longest of the three home runs he'd witnessed--and the crowd went crazy. In the seventh he simply stared in awe when Clemant led off with a double to the wall in right and scored as the Tarpons batted around. And in the bottom of the eighth, in the Kid's final at-bat, when he laced another single, this time to right, driving in the last run of the game, Jack almost sank to his knees.

He caught himself on the railing in the nick of time, still completely awestruck by the Kid's talent. He'd never seen anything like it.
Never
. Then an eerie sense of deja vu slowly overtook the feeling of awe as Clemant headed toward the dugout to retrieve his glove and cap for the top of the ninth after the next batter popped up to end the inning. MJ met the Kid in front of the pitcher's mound with the stuff, handing him his cap and glove and taking his batting helmet. Teammates usually brought caps and gloves to players left on base at the end of an inning, but Clemant had no friends in the dugout--

MJ had confirmed this fact after his first game on the bench. The Kid usually sat by himself and rarely spoke to anyone in the clubhouse before or after the game, MJ had reported. The Kid had pissed everyone on the team off, just as Bobby had said that first night.

The deja vu feeling intensified as Jack followed Clemant out to center, that spring in his step no longer there. Why? He ought to be ecstatic. He'd gone a perfect five-for-five tonight--five hits in five at-bats--two home runs, two singles, and a double. He'd driven in five runs, scored three himself, and made two incredible plays in the field: a gravitydefying, wall-scaling, home-run-robbing catch in the fourth and, in the seventh, a rifle throw from deep in right center to nail a runner who'd tried to score on a sacrifice fly. An unbelievable performance at any level of the sport. It had all been working for him tonight.

Jack cursed quietly, frustrated by the feeling that he'd seen it all before. Unable to remember where or when. He tried the old trick of not thinking about it for a few seconds, then refocusing on it. But that didn't work, so he went back to thinking about nothing but what he'd seen.

Suddenly it hit him. "Oh my God," he whispered, putting a hand to his head, elation, shock, and disbelief bursting through him at the same time. "That's it."

* * *

"It's getting late." Bobby was standing in the doorway of Cheryl's bedroom, holding a beer. He'd been watching a game on TV in the living room. "Let's go to my place." Cheryl laughed like she couldn't believe he'd made the suggestion. "Are you kidding?" Rosario was lying on the bed playing with a bracelet. "Don't you see this package of huge responsibility lying in front of me?" she asked, starting to change the little girl's diaper.

"Yeah, I see it," he grumbled. He'd been forced to amuse himself most of the evening because Cheryl had been so busy with Rosario. He'd done a decent job of biting his tongue to this point, but now the game was over and he was getting frustrated. Since the baby had shown up, they'd had sex only once. "How could I miss it?"

"It's good practice," she said maternally. "I get to see how you'll be as a daddy." He took a gulp of beer, then glanced warily over his shoulder back down the narrow hallway. "Your father's gonna be here anytime. Then the fun'll really be over."

"Oh, don't complain so much," Cheryl scolded good-naturedly, finishing the diaper change. "You're a bigger baby than Rosario."

"Why don't you bring her with us?" Bobby suggested. "She'll be fine. We can set her up on my couch. We'll put some pillows around her, and she'll be right at home. Snug as a bug in a rug."

"I don't think so."

Bobby made a face at the baby. "Shouldn't she be asleep by now?"

"She's had the sniffles the past couple of days, and it's put her off her schedule."

"Poor thing," he muttered sarcastically. "Well, it's put me off my schedule, too." Cheryl gathered Rosario in her arms and moved toward the door. "Sometimes we all have to make sacrifices." She raised up on her tiptoes and gave Bobby a quick kiss on the cheek. "I love you." Then she slipped past him and headed for the kitchen. "I'm going to fix her another bottle. Maybe she'll go down after that. Then we can have some alone time."

"This is your brother's kid?" Bobby asked, following Cheryl to the kitchen. "That's what you said, right?"

"Uh-huh," she answered hesitantly. "Daddy and I are taking care of her while David and his wife are on a cruise."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. The ship left from Miami. They flew in here from New York, dropped Rosario off, then drove over there."

Bobby sat down at the kitchen table, in the seat beside Rosario's high chair. He made another face at the little girl. A friendlier one this time because Cheryl was looking.

"Thanks for screwing up my sex life, kid."

"Don't talk to her like that."

Bobby cocked his head to one side. "She looks kind of...well...Hispanic, if you ask me." He gestured toward the living room. "Your brother's wife doesn't look Hispanic in any of those pictures."

"They adopted her," Cheryl explained, shaking the bottle. "David's wife can't have children." She slipped the nipple into Rosario's mouth, and her face lit up when the little girl grabbed the plastic bottle with her tiny fingers and held it herself. "Good girl," she said loudly.

"Yeah, good girl," Bobby echoed, standing up. "Maybe I can get a little attention now." He wrapped his arms around Cheryl. "Kiss me, sweetheart." She gave him another quick peck on the cheek, then pulled away. "I need to run a load of wash."

"Damn it, Cheryl."

She stopped and turned back around. "What's wrong?"

"I'm outta here," he mumbled, stalking toward the front door. "I can't deal with this anymore."

"Bobby, stop!"

"Forget it."

A moment later he was out the door and gone.

Cheryl's eyes moved quickly to Rosario, who was sucking away on the bottle. Bobby was right; she had been ignoring him lately. She hadn't realized how much until just now. She heard the engine start up, then the SUV peal away. How could she have been such an idiot?

Well, she'd make it up to him. In a way he wouldn't forget.

* * *

"Can you believe the game Clemant had?" Jack asked breathlessly, not even giving MJ a chance to close the Citation door and settle into the passenger seat before starting in. "It was incredible." He'd barely been able to control himself while he waited for MJ to emerge from the home team clubhouse. "Five-for-five. Two dingers, five RBIs, three runs scored. He was on fire."

"Yeah," MJ agreed, swinging the car door shut. "On
fuego
." Jack's enthusiasm faded momentarily as the image of the young woman in the sedan flashed through his mind. She'd been screaming that word over and over as she burned.

"Huh?"

"Fuego,"
MJ repeated. "Spanish for fire."

"I know, but why'd you say it?"

"That's what they say on ESPN. On
SportsCenter
when somebody has a great game. You know, they shout
'!Fuego!'
when they show a guy hitting a home run or making a great catch."

"Yeah, yeah. Now, look, I gotta tell you--"

"Didn't you know that?"

"Sure I did," Jack said confidently. Trying to revive the feeling of utter elation he'd been high on a few moments ago. Trying to forget the horrible image of Julia wedged between the windshield and the dashboard as the flames consumed her. It had been haunting his dreams every night. "
Of course
I did."

"No, you didn't."

Jack rolled his eyes. "It doesn't matter. Listen, I--"

"You say you're this big baseball guy and you didn't even know that? I mean, it's ESPN, for crying out loud."

"Will you please--"

"How am I supposed to believe that you're really--"

"Shut up!" Jack yelled. "Christ! Okay, okay, I didn't know. I never did watch ESPN. I was too busy--" He interrupted himself with a moan, irritated that MJ was
still
distracting him from what was literally causing his hands to shake it was so amazing.

"Here's what I've been trying to tell you. Yeah, yeah, the Kid had a great game and all," he said with a flick of his fingers. "A
really
great game. But we already know he's a huge talent. Hell, I'm starting to think he could do that every time out if he really wanted to." An edgy smile played across Jack's lips. "See, here's the damn thing of it all. I think I've seen somebody have that same game before."

MJ had been rubbing at a dirt mark on his cleats. He was taking them home to shine them because the equipment manager did such a crappy job. "Say
what
?" Jack guided the Citation out of the stadium parking lot onto the main road. "I know it sounds crazy, I can't even believe I'm saying it. But I'm almost positive I saw somebody else have that same game a long time ago. You know, five-for-five with two home runs, a bunch of RBIs, and a bunch of runs scored. Or at least a game a lot like it."

"Who?"

"Mickey Mantle," Jack answered, his voice hushed. "The Mick." MJ shook his head. "How the hell could you remember a game from that long ago?

Didn't Mantle retire in the early seventies?"

"After the 1968 season, actually."

"Well, he must have had a ton of great games like that during his career. How could you remember one in particular?"

"I remember him having the game in his last season, in 1968. And believe me, he didn't have many games like that in 1968. Maybe only that one. His knees were so shot at that point he could barely run. Hell,
I
probably could have beaten him around the bases with these knees," Jack said, patting them. "They moved him to first from the outfield because of that. Those knees really killed his hitting, too. And his eyes were bad, too, but he wouldn't admit it. Anyway, in '68 his stats were terrible. Way below his career averages in every category. Hits, homers, RBIs. So I know he didn't have many great games that year."

"Yeah, but how do you know it was 1968?"

Jack's expression turned distant. "I know because I was just about to go into the army when I saw Mick do it. I enlisted in 1968, and I'll
never
forget that. I remember wondering all through the game if I'd made the right decision to go into the service. Or if I was crazy for doing it. I remember thinking how when I got out I wanted to get a job with the Yankees. That I would have done anything to work for them. Started in the mail room, for crying out loud, just to be able to say I was with the team. And the whole time I'm thinking about how much I want to work for the Yankees, the Mick is having this incredible game." He smacked the steering wheel. "So it must have been late spring, too, right around this same time of year, because I actually reported to the army in early June." He knew how this was going to sound, but it was true. "You'll think I'm full of shit, but I can still remember a lot of games I watched no matter what year it was. What guys hit in the game, who pitched, who won. It's like the great golfers, like Nicklaus and Woods," he said. "They remember a lot of specific shots they hit in tournaments for years afterward. I can remember baseball games like they remember golf shots." MJ shook his head. "Well, Ahab, at least you got one thing right."

"What?"

"You're full of shit."

"No, no, I'm serious. I have a great memory for that stuff."

"Worse, I think you're bullshitting yourself."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Jack demanded, angry that MJ wasn't buying into this.

"Huh?"

"You want the Kid to have had a great game like Mantle because you think that'll help you get him a tryout with the Yankees. Like that might help you sell him to the guys up North."

"That's not it," Jack replied firmly. "It wouldn't matter to them."

"Okay, fine. Then who pitched for the Yankees the day Mantle had this great game?" MJ

asked like a district attorney on cross.

Jack ran a hand through his hair as he drove, digging deep. "It was...it was...um..." He let out a frustrated sigh. "Christ, I--"

"All right, I'll give you a snow cone, a real easy one. Who was the other team that day?"

"It was the...the
Twins
," Jack blurted out, then shook his head immediately. "No, no, it was the Orioles." He banged the steering wheel again. "Nah, that's not right, either. Damn it!"

MJ snickered. "Yeah, great memory."

"I'm...I'm positive I remember the game," Jack muttered.

"Well, there's one way to check it out."

"Sure, go through all the Yankees' 1968 box scores. At least the ones for games they played around this time. But how the hell am I going to do that?"

"You could start with the Elias Sports Bureau."

Jack pulled to a stop at a red light. "Oh, yeah?"

Based in New York City, the Elias Sports Bureau amassed tons and tons of baseball statistics. Before the team had turned its back on him and he'd given up baseball, Jack remembered seeing the television networks credit Elias at the bottom of the screen whenever one of the announcers or analysts came up with an obscure baseball fact during a broadcast.