He had a firmer build than Frank Faraday, though; broader butt and thicker thighs. He was skinny from the waist up, but looking at him ass-end-going-away, I remember thinking he looked like what he probably was: an Iowa plowboy on vacation in scenic Newark.
He went to the plate and turned around to look out to dead center. He had dark hair and a lock of it had fallen on his forehead. He brushed it away and just stood there taking it all in-the silent, empty stands where over fifty thousand people would be sitting that afternoon, the bunting already hung on the railings and fluttering in the little morning breeze, the foul poles painted fresh Jersey Blue, the groundskeepers just starting to water. It was an awesome sight, I always thought, and I could imagine what was going through the kid’s mind, him that had probably been home milking the cows just a week ago and waiting for the Cornholers to start playing in mid-May.
I thought, Poor kid’s finally getting the picture. When he looks over here, I’ll see the panic in his eyes. I may have to tie him down in the locker room to keep him from jumping in that old truck of his and hightailing it back to God’s country.
But when he looked at me, there was no panic in his eyes. No fear. Not even nervousness, which I would have said every player feels on Opening Day. No, he looked perfectly cool standing there behind the plate in his Levi’s and light poplin jacket.
“Yuh,” he says, like a man confirming something he was pretty sure of in the first place. “Billy can hit here.”
“Good for him,” I tells him. It’s all I can think of to say.
“Good,” he says back. Then-I swear-he says, “Do you think those guys need help with them hoses?”
I laughed. There was something strange about him, something off, something that made folks nervous…but that something made people take to him, too. Kinda sweet. Something that made you want to like him in spite of feeling he wasn’t exactly right in the top story. Joe felt it right away. Some of the players did, too, but that didn’t stop them from liking him. I don’t know, it was like when you talked to him what came back was the sound of your own voice. Like an echo in a cave.
“Billy,” I said, “groundskeeping ain’t your job. Bill’s job is to put on the gear and catch Danny Dusen this afternoon.”
“Danny Doo,” he said.
“That’s right. Twenty and six last year, should have won the Cy Young, didn’t. He’s still got a red ass over that. And remember this: if he shakes you off, don’t you dare flash the same sign again. Not unless you want your pecker and asshole to change places after the game, that is. Danny Doo is four games from two hundred wins, and he’s going to be mean as hell until he gets there.”
“Until he gets there.” Nodding his head.
“That’s right.”
“If he shakes me off, flash something different.”
“Yes.”
“Does he have a changeup?”
“Do you have two legs? The Doo’s won a hundred and ninety-six games. You don’t do that without a changeup.”
“Not without a changeup,” he says. “Okay.”
“And don’t get hurt out there. Until the front office can make a deal, you’re what we got.”
“I’m it,” he says. “Gotcha.”
“I hope so.”
Other players were coming in by then, and I had about a thousand things to do. Later on I saw the kid in Jersey Joe’s office, signing whatever needed to be signed with Kerwin McCaslin hanging over him like a vulture over roadkill, pointing out all the right places. Poor kid, probably six hours’ worth of sleep in the last sixty, and he was in there signing five years of his life away. Later I saw him with Dusen, going over the Boston lineup. The Doo was doing all the talking, and the kid was doing all the listening. Didn’t even ask a question, so far as I saw, which was good. If the kid had opened his head, Danny probably would have bit it off.