“HEARTBREAK
IN LEFTFIELD”
“There he is!
Slasher!”
“Heard yah got in a brawl, Meat.”
“Meat ain’t no
lover boy, he’s a fighter.”
I was a clubhouse
hero, disappointed Tobin was gone because he’d of been proud of me. But Herb
Gorman wasn’t. He gave me a long look and told me to sit beside him at his
stall. He was one of the few players who read the front page of the local
newspaper. He gave me a stick of gum. He’d been banged up and smelled of
logangesic. Dad had confided to me that Gorman’s chances of making the majors
were pretty much over. At twenty eight, without much speed or power, he’d have
to resign himself to a career as a solid AAA player, which meant in a year or
two he would get his release and have to find something else to do in life. Dad
said that Herb had an “old body” and was already past his peak.
Herb patted my
knee and smiled. “Dell, your father is my best friend in this world, and there
is nobody I like more, along with your wonderful mother. But you are not your
dad. You are yourself. You don’t need to fight to impress your dad or me or
anybody else in here. You understand?”
I shrugged. He grinned,
roughing my head. “You know, Roselee and
me, we’re going to have a child, and we want a boy, and if we do I want
him to be just like you—a real boy.”
We walked out
onto the field together and started playing pepper. Herb tapped balls to my
right and left, moving me around, an expert with the bat; and when I hit he
changed speeds and even threw me a knuckleball. After pepper I sat in the
dugout watching batting practice. Later I joined the team in the clubhouse,
installing myself beside Gorman at his locker, polishing his spikes with a can
of black wax dad had given him from his shoe supply business. He promised to
share his ham sandwich with me between games of the coming Sunday
double-header. Before I left he snagged my arm. “No fighting,” he said, dead
serious. Then he laughed and smacked my ass when I walked off.
*******
The first game of
the double-header, dad was at third, Gorman in left. I watched part of the
game, at their urging, with mother and Roselee, Herb’s twenty year old fiancé
who was beautiful and smiled at me in a manner that disarmed my tough guy act
and melted me into a blushing softy. I couldn’t take any more of it and started
out toward the leftfield bleachers where I planned to sit with an old retiree
who wore a straw hat and was a regular at the ball park. We’d meet and talk
baseball. He was from Cleveland and saw dad play
for Detroit
before the war, and was thrilled to have me join him. He always ate a hotdog
with everything on it and insisted on buying me one and smoked stogies. We sat
together anticipating bunts, hit-and-runs, steals, plotting strategy, so
immersed in the game that people sought us out for our predictions. He never
missed a game, never failed to mark a pitch in his program scorecard, read the
Sporting News religiously and knew about every baseball player in every league
in the country and never left the ball park until the last out no matter what
the score. His name was Mullins and he said, “Everyday is a good day at the
ball park, I don’t care if it’s snowing, kid.”
I was almost to
where Mullins sat when there came a long, low sigh from the crowd, and then
everybody stood up. The stadium went dead quiet. I jumped up and down to get a
better view, and I saw Gorman sprawled in left field, not moving. Somebody
said: “He just toppled over.” Dad and the shortstop, along with the
centerfielder, sprinted over to him. They checked him briefly and then together
hoisted him on their shoulders and ran to the dugout with him. The entire Padre
team followed.
I pushed my way
back to our box, where mother was holding Roselee. Her eyes were wild as she
clung to mother. I tore down to the area under the stadium leading past
concession stands to the clubhouse, where I pounded on a big heavy door. A cop
there tried to restrain me. A padre official opened the door and told me I
couldn’t come in, but I broke free from the cop and dashed by him, and when he
saw me run to my dad and hug him, he didn’t intervene. There was a crowd of
ball players in the training room and I heard players weeping. Dad knelt down,
his face wet. His voice was strained and hoarse as he whispered in my ear that
I had to leave the clubhouse; then he took me by the hand and led me to the
door. “Go to your mother. Tell her I’ll see her as soon as I can. You can’t be
in here.”
Mother stood with
a crowd of newspapermen and ball player’s wives and kids at the door. I
watched, helpless, as Roselese screamed and collapsed while my mother held her. Roselee kept sinking to her knees and another
wife stepped in to help mother hold her up. Mother’s eyes met mine and they
were so sad I could not look at them. Roselee’s wails echoed throughout the
stadium. Then she broke loose and tried to get into the clubhouse. I don’t know
if they let her in.Everything blurred when the announcer’s voice thundered over
the confines of Lane Field that the double-header was cancelled out of respect
for leftfielder Herb Gorman, who had passed away.
Mother collected
Suzie and I and drove to the apartment. We sat around crying and holding each
other. Dad came home later, and explained to mother that Gorman had died of a
heart attack. Dad said that as he helped carry Herb off the field he heard him
grunt and shudder and then his grip went limp and dad knew Herb was gone.
Later that night,
he came into the living room and sat on the sofa and put his arm around me “We
lost our dear friend today, Dell. I was looking forward to having him as a
friend for the rest of my life. We have to be thankful for the short time we
had with Herb.” He sighed and shook his
head. His eyes were raw. “He was twenty eight years old, had a beautiful
girl…sometimes life just isn’t fair, and there’s not a thing you can do about
it.”
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