I saw it all. Saw it clear. That mile-high popup came down on our side of the wall. The kid was going to catch it. Then some long-armed bozo in one of those Titans jerseys they sold on the Esplanade reached over and ticked it so the ball bounced off the edge of the kid’s glove and fell to the ground.
I was so sure Wenders would call Aparicio out-it was clear interference-that at first I couldn’t believe what I was seeing when he gestured for the kid to go back behind the plate and for Aparicio to resume the box. When I got it, I ran out, waving my arms. The crowd started cheering me and booing Wenders, which is no way to win friends and influence people when you’re arguing a call, but I was too goddam mad to care. I wouldn’t have stopped if Mahatma Gandhi had walked out on the field butt-naked and urging us to make peace.
“Interference!” I yelled. “Clear as day, clear as the nose on your face!”
“It was in the stands, and that makes it anyone’s ball,” Wenders says. “Go on back to your little nest and let’s get this show on the road.”
The kid didn’t care; he was talking to his pal The Doo. That was all right. I didn’t care that he didn’t care. All I wanted at that moment was to tear Hi Wenders a fresh new asshole. I’m not ordinarily an argumentative man-all the years I managed the A’s, I only got thrown out of games twice-but that day I would have made Billy Martin look like a peacenik.
“You didn’t see it, Hi! You were trailing too far back! You didn’t see shit!”
“I wasn’t trailing and I saw it all. Now get back, Granny. I ain’t kidding.”
“If you didn’t see that long-armed sonofabitch-” (Here a lady in the second row put her hands over her little boy’s ears and pursed up her mouth at me in an oh-you-nasty-man look.) “-that long-armed sonofabitch reach out and tick that ball, you were goddam trailing! Jesus Christ!”
The man in the jersey starts shaking his head-who, me? not me!-but he’s also wearing a big embarrassed suckass grin. Wenders saw it, knew what it meant, then looked away. “That’s it,” he says to me. And in the reasonable voice that means you’re one smart crack from drinking a Rhinegold in the locker room. “You’ve had your say. Now you can either go back to the dugout or you can listen to the rest of the game on the radio. Take your pick.”
I went back to the dugout. Aparicio stood back in with a big shit-eating grin on his face. He knew, sure he did. And made the most of it. The guy never hit many home runs, but when The Doo sent in a changeup that didn’t change, Louie cranked it high, wide, and handsome to the deepest part of the park. Nosy Norton was playing center, and he never even turned around.
Aparicio circled the bases, serene as the Queen Mary coming into dock, while the crowd screamed at him, denigrated his relatives, and hurled hate down on Hi Wenders’s head. Wenders heard none of it, which is the chief umpirely skill. He just got a fresh ball out of his coat pocket and inspected it for dings and doinks. Watching him do that, I lost it entirely. I rushed out to home plate and started shaking both fists in his face.
“That’s your run, you fucking busher!” I screamed. “Too fucking lazy to chase after a foul ball, and now you’ve got an RBI for yourself! Jam it up your ass! Maybe you’ll find your glasses!”
The crowd loved it. Hi Wenders, not so much. He pointed at me, threw his thumb back over his shoulder, and walked away. The crowd started booing and shaking their ROAD CLOSED signs; some threw bottles, cups, and half-eaten franks onto the field. It was a circus.
“Don’t you walk away from me, you fatass blind lazy sonofabitching bastard!” I screamed, and chased after him. Someone from our dugout grabbed me before I could grab Wenders, which I meant to do. I had lost touch with reality.