"Hit Parade" - читать интересную книгу автора (Block Lawrence)

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“He’s a designated hitter,” Dot had said, on the porch of the big old house on Taunton Place. “Whatever that means.”

“It means he’s in the lineup on offense only,” Keller told her. “He bats for the pitcher.”

“Why can’t the pitcher bat for himself? Is it some kind of union regulation?”

“That’s close enough,” said Keller, who didn’t want to get into it. He had once tried to explain the infield fly rule to a stewardess, and he was never going to make that sort of mistake again. He wasn’t a sexist about it, he knew plenty of women who understood this stuff, but the ones who didn’t were going to have to learn it from somebody else.

“I saw him play a few times,” he told her, stirring his glass of iced tea. “Floyd Turnbull.”

“On television?”

“Dozens of times on TV,” he said. “I was thinking of seeing him in person. Once at Wrigley Field, when he was with the Cubs and I happened to be in Chicago.”

“You just happened to be there?”

“Well,” Keller said. “I don’t ever just happen to be anyplace. It was business. Anyway, I had a free afternoon and I went to a game.”

“Nowadays you’d go to a stamp dealer.”

“Games are mostly at night nowadays,” he said, “but I still go every once in a while. I saw Turnbull a couple of times in New York, too. Out at Shea, when he was with the Cubs and they were in town for a series with the Mets. Or maybe he was already with the Astros when I saw him. It’s hard to remember.”

“And not exactly crucial that you get it right.”

“I think I saw him at Yankee Stadium, too. But you’re right, it’s not important.”

“In fact,” Dot said, “it would be fine with me if you’d never seen him at all, up close or on TV. Does this complicate things, Keller? Because I can always call the guy back and tell him we pass.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“Well, I hate to, since they already paid half. I can turn down jobs every day and twice on Sundays, but there’s something about giving back money once I’ve got it in my hands that makes me sick to my stomach. I wonder why that is?”

“A bird in the hand,” Keller suggested.

“When I’ve got a bird in my hand,” she said, “I hate like hell to let go of it. But you saw this guy play. That’s not gonna make it tough for you to take him out?”

Keller thought about it, shook his head. “I don’t see why it should,” he said. “It’s what I do.”

“Right,” Dot said. “Same as Turnbull, when you think about it. You’re a designated hitter yourself, aren’t you, Keller?”

“Designated hitter,” Keller said as Floyd Turnbull took a called second strike. “Whoever thought that one up?”

“Some marketing genius,” his new friend said. “Some dipstick who came up with research to prove that fans wanted to see more hits and home runs. So they lowered the pitching mound and told the umpires to quit calling the high strike, and then they juiced up the baseball and brought in the fences in the new ballparks, and the ballplayers started lifting weights and swinging lighter bats, and now you’ve got baseball games with scores like football games. Last week the Tigers beat the A’s fourteen to thirteen. First thing I thought, Jeez, who missed the extra point?”

“At least the National League still lets pitchers hit.”

“And at least nobody in the pros uses those aluminum bats. They show college baseball on ESPN, and I can’t watch it. I can’t stand the sound the ball makes when you hit it. Not to mention it travels too goddam far.”

The next pitch was in the dirt. Posada couldn’t find it, but the third-base coach, suspicious, held the runner. The fans booed, though it was hard to tell whom they were booing, or why. The two in front of Keller joined in the booing, and Keller and the man next to him exchanged knowing glances.

“Fans,” the man said and rolled his eyes.

The next pitch was belt high, and Turnbull connected solidly with it. The stadium held its collective breath and the ball sailed toward the left-field corner, hooking foul at the last moment. The crowd heaved a sigh, and the runners trotted back to their bases. Turnbull, looking not at all happy, dug in again at the plate.

He swung at the next pitch, which looked like ball four to Keller, and popped to right. O’Neill floated under it and gathered it in and the inning was over.

“Top of the order for the Yanks,” said Keller’s friend. “About time they broke this thing wide open, wouldn’t you say?”

With two out in the Tarpons’ half of the eighth inning, with the Yankees ahead by five runs, Floyd Turnbull got all of a Mike Stanton fastball and hit it into the upper deck. Keller watched as he jogged around the bases, getting a good hand from what remained of the crowd.

“Career home run number three ninety-three for the old warhorse,” said the man on Keller’s left. “And all those people missed it because they had to beat the traffic.”

“Number three ninety-three?”

“Leaves him seven shy of four hundred. And, in the hits department, you just saw number twenty-nine eighty-eight.”

“You’ve got those stats at your fingertips?”

“My fingers won’t quite reach,” the fellow said, and pointed to the scoreboard, where the information he’d cited was posted. “Just twelve hits to go before he joins the magic circle, the Three Thousand Hits club. That’s the only thing to be said for the DH rule-it lets a guy like Floyd Turnbull stick around a couple of extra years, long enough to post the kind of numbers that get you into Cooperstown. And he can still do a team some good. He can’t run the bases, he can’t chase after fly balls, but the son of a bitch hasn’t forgotten how to hit a baseball.”

The Yankees got the run back with interest in the top of the ninth on a walk to Jeter and a home run by Bernie Williams, and the Tarpons went in order in the bottom of the ninth, with Rivera striking out the first two batters and getting the third to pop to short.

“Too bad there was nobody on when Turnbull got his homer,” said Keller’s friend, “but that’s usually the way it is. He’s still good with a stick, but he hits ’em with nobody on, and usually when the team’s too far behind or out in front for it to make any difference.”

The two men walked down a succession of ramps and out of the stadium. “I’d like to see old Floyd get the numbers he needs,” the man said, “but I wish he’d get ’em on some other team. What they need for a shot at the flag’s a decent left-handed starter and some help in the bull pen, not an old man with bad knees who hits it out when you don’t need it.”

“You think they should trade him?”

“They’d love to, but who’d trade for him? He can help a team, but not enough to justify paying him the big bucks. He’s got three years left on his contract, three years at six-point-five million a year. There are teams that could use him, but nobody can use him six-point-five worth. And the Tarps can’t release him and go out and buy the pitching they need, not while they’ve got Turnbull’s salary to pay.”

“Tricky business,” Keller said.

“And a business is what it is. Well, I’m parked over on Pentland Avenue, so this is where I get off. Nice talking with you.”

And off the fellow went, while Keller turned and walked off in the opposite direction. He didn’t know the name of the man he had talked to, and would probably never see him again, and that was fine. In fact it was one of the real pleasures of going to a game, the intense conversations you had with strangers whom you then allowed to remain strangers. The man had been good company, and at the end he’d provided some useful information.

Because now Keller had an idea why he’d been hired.

“The Tarpons are stuck with Turnbull,” he told Dot. “He draws this huge salary, and they have to pay it whether they play him or not. And I guess that’s where I come in.”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Are you sure about this, Keller? That’s a pretty extreme form of corporate downsizing. All that just to keep from paying a man his salary? How much could it amount to?”

He told her.

“That much,” she said, impressed. “That’s a lot to pay a man to hit a ball with a stick, especially when he doesn’t have to go out and stand around in the hot sun. He just sits on the bench until it’s his turn to bat, right?”

“Right.”

“Well, I think you might be on to something,” she said. “I don’t know who hired us or why, but your guess makes more sense than anything I could come up with off the top of my head. But I feel myself getting a little nervous, Keller.”

“Why?”

“Because this is just the kind of thing that could set your milk to curdling, isn’t it?”

“What milk? What are you talking about?”

“I’ve known you a long time, Keller. And I can just see you deciding that this is a hell of a way to treat a faithful employee after long years of service, and how can you allow this to happen, di dah di dah di dah. Am I coming through loud and clear?”

“The di dah part makes more sense than the rest of it,” he said. “Dot, as far as who hired us and why, all I am is curious. Curiosity’s a long way from righteous indignation.”

“Didn’t do much for the cat, as I remember.”

“Well,” he said, “I’m not that curious.”

“So I’ve got nothing to worry about?”

“Not a thing,” he said. “The guy’s a dead man hitting.”

The Tarpons closed out the series with the Yankees-and a twelve-game home stand-the following afternoon. They got a good outing from their ace right-hander, who scattered six hits and held the New Yorkers to one run, a bases-empty homer by Brosius. The Tarps won, 3-1, with no help from their designated hitter, who struck out twice, flied to center, and hit a hard liner right at the first baseman.

Keller watched from a good seat on the third-base side, then checked out of his hotel and drove to the airport. He turned in his rental car and flew to Milwaukee, where the Brewers would host the Tarps for a three-game series. He picked up a fresh rental and checked in at a motel half a mile from the Marriott where the Tarpons always stayed.

The Brewers won the first game, 5-2. Floyd Turnbull had a good night at bat, going three for five with two singles and a double, but he didn’t do anything to affect the outcome; there was nobody on base when he got his hits, and nobody behind him in the order could drive him in.

The next night the Tarps got to the Brewers’ rookie southpaw early and blew the game open, scoring six runs in the first inning and winding up with a 13-4 victory. Turnbull’s homer was part of the big first inning, and he collected another hit in the seventh when he doubled into the gap and was thrown out trying to stretch it into a triple.

“Why’d he do that?” the bald guy next to Keller wondered. “Two out, and he tries for third? Don’t make the third out at third base, isn’t that what they say?”

“When you’re up by nine runs,” Keller said, “I don’t suppose it matters much one way or the other.”

“Still,” the man said, “it’s what’s wrong with that prick. Always for himself his whole career. He wanted one more triple in the record book, that’s what he wanted. And forget about the team.”

After the game Keller went to a German restaurant south of the city on the lake. The place dripped atmosphere, with beer steins hanging from the hand-hewn oak beams, an oompah band in lederhosen, and fifteen different beers on tap. Keller couldn’t tell the waitresses apart, they all looked like grown-up versions of Heidi, and evidently Floyd Turnbull had the same problem; he called them all Gretchen and ran his hand up under their skirts whenever they came within reach.

Keller was there because he’d learned the Tarpons favored the place, but the sauerbraten was reason enough to make the trip. He made his beer last until he’d cleaned his plate, then turned down the waitress’s suggestion of a refill and asked for a cup of coffee instead. By the time she brought it, several more fans had crossed the room to beg autographs from the Tarpons.

“They all want their menus signed,” Keller told the waitress. “You people are going to run out of menus.”

“It happens all the time,” she said. “Not that we run out of menus, because we never do, but players coming here and our other customers asking for autographs. All the athletes like to come here.”

“Well, the food’s great,” he said.

“And it’s free. For the players, I mean. It brings in other customers, so it’s worth it to the owner, plus he just likes having his restaurant full of jocks. About it being free for them, I’m not supposed to tell you that.”

“It’ll be our little secret.”

“You can tell the whole world, for all I care. Tonight’s my last night. I mean, what do I need with jerks like Floyd Turnbull? I want a pelvic exam, I’ll go to my gynecologist, if it’s all the same to you.”

“I noticed he was a little free with his hands.”

“And close with everything else. They eat and drink free, but most of them at least leave tips. Not good tips, ballplayers are cheap bastards, but they leave something. Turnbull always leaves exactly twenty percent.”

“Twenty percent’s not that bad, is it?”

“It is when it’s twenty percent of nothing.”

“Oh.”

“He said he got a home run tonight, too.”

“Number three ninety-four of his career,” Keller said.

“Well, he’s not getting to first base with me,” she said. “The big jerk.”