The Legend of Mickey Tussler (13 page)

“It's okay,” Pee Wee assured. “It's not your fault, Mickey. One of the guys is just playing with you. That's all.”

The commotion brought Murph in from his office. He took one look at Mickey and knew something was amiss. Then he looked around the room as the afternoon sun splashed light across all of the shiftless faces.

“What the hell is going on here?” he demanded, eyeballing the tattered cleats still in the boy's hands. “Mickey, is everything all right?”

Mickey's forehead became beady with sweat. He sat biting his lips, fists clenched. A great hollow of darkness sprung from his eyes. “Sure, Mr. Murphy. Everything's all right. All right. The fellas is just playing with me. Fun. Just playing. That's all.” His voice was thin and brittle.

Murph looked incredulously at Pee Wee, who nodded in agreement.

“That's good,” Murph said loud enough for all of them to hear. “Because if everything ain't all right, and I find out about it, they'll be hell to pay.”

Out of fear and necessity, things eventually returned to normal. Things got better for Mickey as well, as most of the others grew to appreciate the unusual but likable character that he was. The pranks still continued, but most were of a more harmless nature. They were all a part of it. The ribbing. The practical jokes. Even Murph and Matheson felt the wave of jocularity sweeping the ball club. Jimmy Llamas made sure of that.

Llamas and his girl loved the town carnival. Llamas always made a point of playing the games there, especially those that afforded him the opportunity to show off his throwing. On their last night there, Llamas went crazy. Won all kinds of crap, stuffed bears and Kewpie dolls. He could barely carry it all home. Most of it wound up in the trash, except for a few special prizes. He found a most unusual use for one in particular.

“Okay,” Murph announced that following morning. “Which one of you chuckleheads put the goldfish in the watercooler?”

This electricity found its way onto the field as well, appearing as dramatically as the gardenias outside the ball park that had burst into brilliant white. The tremendous energy flowed from player to player. Clem Finster, who swatted just nineteen home runs in his first two seasons with the Brewers, went on a tear, belting fourteen round-trippers in just eight games.

“I don't know what it is,” he told Woody, who was busy talking to his own group about his latest run of good fortune. “It's like the ball is twice its size.”

Boxcar, Arky Fries, Buck Faber, and Amos Ruffings also caught the bug, each delivering hits at epidemic proportions. Collectively, over that same eight-game stretch, they were batting .476 and accounted for 74 of the staggering 108 runs the Brewers scored. Even Pee Wee got into the act, producing several extra-base hits in addition to his usual repertoire of dying quails and Baltimore chops, including a game-winning, two-out, two-run triple to beat the Colts in extra innings.

“Holy Hannah, Matheson!” Murph cried as they rushed onto the field to join the others who had already begun forming the crew who would hoist Pee Wee on their shoulders in celebration. “It's raining hits.”

The pitching was clicking too. Although Lefty was struggling a bit with his control and now found himself third in a five-man rotation, the others seemed to be rejuvenated by Mickey's stellar performances. Butch Sanders, Rube Winkler, and Gabby Hooper all caught fire at once, each reeling off consecutive victories while holding opponents at bay with an assortment of breaking balls and some well-placed hard stuff. They were painting corners and breaking bats as never before, seemingly inspired by the actions and simple words of their unlikely teammate.

“Say, Mick,” Winkler had asked days before the unlikely streak began, as the whole group of pitchers farted around after one of their workouts. “Tell us. Please. How do you do it? Strike after strike? Christ, it's unbelievable.”

The inquiry startled Mickey. He had been standing off to the side, shaking his legs nervously while gazing off at the ring of birds that had gathered in center field when they approached. He looked puzzled, as if he did not understand what he had been asked.

“Come on, big fella,” Sanders prodded, rubbing his head. “Don't hold out on your brothers. What's your secret? How do you throw that ball exactly where you want it, almost every time?”

Mickey shrugged tentatively and looked down at his spikes, wincing at the torn grass that lay beneath them. “Mickey don't have no secrets, fellas. Honest. A secret's almost like a lie. And Mickey don't lie. I don't reckon I know how I does it. Mickey just looks at that there apple in Boxcar's glove and hits it.”

Hit it he did, especially in the twin bill the Brewers had with the Youngstown Bisons. In game one, Mickey turned in a one-hit, complete-game shutout, disposing of the Bison hitters with an incomprehensibly low sixty-nine pitches. The game lasted just one hour and forty-five minutes. He was brilliant. Fanned thirteen batters, walked no one, and didn't allow a ball out of the infield. Mickey was so economical that it forced Murph to alter his plan for game two.

“Hey, kid,” he said with a contemplative smile and sparkling eyes that appeared to be lit from within. “How would you like to go again? You know, pitch the second game?” Mickey opened his mouth to answer, but Murph rushed on. “Your pitch count was really low, and I feel that you're really on today, Mick. Besides, I can't remember the last time we took both ends of a doubleheader. So, what do ya say?”

Mickey shrugged his shoulders and held up his hands helplessly. “I don't know. Isn't it Lefty's turn this time? Lefty still has pitches left.”

Murph wrinkled his nose. “What?”

“Lefty still has pitches left.”

“What does that mean, son?” Murph asked, scratching his head.

Mickey turned his head to the side, as if he had no intention of answering the question. Then, in very certain terms, he said exactly what he meant. “Lefty Rogers threw seventy-six pitches last game. Seventy-six. Usually throws one hundred thirty, sometimes one hundred thirty-six. Yeah. That's right. One hundred thirty-six. He still has fifty-four pitches left. Maybe sixty.”

Murph stared at Mickey, his lips parting slowly, until his mouth hung completely open. “How do you know that? You
counted
his pitches?”

The boy did not answer. Murph was speechless as well. It didn't make any sense. There was no perceptible logic in it. How could it be? Murph was just about to continue his efforts to get Mickey to pitch the second game when he looked at the boy almost sideways, as if a light switch had suddenly been thrown.

“Say, Mick, how many did Hooper throw
his
last game?”

“One hundred thirteen.”

“What about Sanders?”

“One hundred six,” Mickey answered instantly.

Murph folded his arms, laughed, and shook his head. “Well, I'll be damned,” he said under his breath. “Amazing.” He continued to stare at the boy with tremendous, fathomless, incredulous eyes.

“I'm just curious,” he continued sheepishly. “How many strikes did you throw last—”

“Fifty-four,” Mickey said before Murph could finish his thought. “Fifty-four strikes, fifteen balls.”

Murph smiled. “That's great, Mick. Really. That's why I want you to—”

“Bison's pitcher threw sixty-six strikes. Sixty-six strikes, fifty-nine balls.”

Murph was still in awe but was growing frustrated. His head began to swim. “Okay, okay, Mick. I get it, I get it. But I need you for this game. Right now. Please. It's okay. I'll take care of Lefty. You can borrow his fifty pitches, or whatever the hell it is you said, and you'll pay him back later. We do it all the time here.”

Lefty was seated at his locker, stretching his stirrups and filing the nails on his pitching hand when Murph asked to speak to him. He saw the look on his manager's face, heavy and burdensome, and knew instantly he was not going to like what he heard.

“You're gonna sit this one out, Lefty. Mickey's getting the ball.”

The words exploded in Lefty's ears. His eyes filled with gloom. Some plug in Lefty seemed to loosen, for he began kicking lockers and throwing baseballs all around the locker room, all the while glaring at Mickey.

“This is bullshit, Murph!” Lefty roared. “Bullshit!”

Mickey took the ball in game two and rewarded Murph's confidence in him with another gem. Even with a fastball that had diminished some in speed due to fatigue, he was still too overpowering for the opposing batters. It took him less than one hundred pitches to dispose of the Bisons for the second time in less than four hours.

“Well, I ain't seen anything close to this in quite some time,” Murph said, beaming after the game, rubbing Mickey's head affectionately. “What a performance.”

Mickey was overwhelmed again. Without moving his head or blinking an eye, he surveyed his surroundings. Raucous laughter. Jubilant smiles. It was certainly a far cry from the austere stare he was used to back home. He smiled hard too, unable to help himself.

“Yeah, Mick,” Boxcar and a few of the others added. “You were something else.”

“Thank you, guys,” he finally said. “Mickey is really happy. I like baseball. Baseball is fun.”

Every one of them laughed.

“Fun?” Jimmy Llamas repeated out loud. “Fun? Can you imagine that? Fun he says. Of course it's fun. I can just see the headlines in tomorrow's paper. ‘Baby Bazooka Gets Twin Killing.' Unbelievable. And he's just having fun.”

“Yeah, Llamas,” Woody added. “And he'll probably get more pussy tomorrow than you ever did too.”

Llamas placed his hand on his chin in contemplative pantomime. “Can't say I'd blame 'im.” He chuckled. “Even in my zoot suit, on my best night, I couldn't run with him. Shit, the way he throws, I have to admit, I find myself curiously aroused as well.” They all laughed even harder.

The excitement and adulatory comments were not limited to the team. Some of the hysteria spilled over from the stands and into the locker room. “Murph, some people are here to see Mickey,” Matheson bellowed. “Say it will only take but a minute.” They were all still showering and changing. Murph crossed the floor, pausing only long enough to catch a glimpse of his own face, suddenly softer, in the trophy case against the wall. Then his eyes moved forward and discovered, standing by the gate, an elderly gentleman and a small boy, no more than ten years old. The man was tall, with a red face and thin wisps of silver arranged neatly across a balding head. The boy was quiet and held on to the man's leg as though he were in danger of falling through the floor.

“Walter Harrigan,” the man said, extending his hand in Murph's direction. “
Governor
Walter Harrigan. And this is my grandson, Billy.”

The man sat, with the boy now resting on his lap. He felt the need to speak—felt it rise within him uncomfortably, not like a pain but like a rushing tide that threatened to lift him back off the chair. He blinked at the line of shadows from which Murph had emerged and unfurled his story.

Billy had been born with a degenerative condition that had kept him confined to a wheelchair his entire life. Polio was the initial diagnosis, although the doctors were never quite certain. Walter spoke about all kinds of tests and treatments he had procured for the boy after his mother passed away suddenly and his father ran off with a cocktail waitress. “I am responsible for the boy now,” he explained grimly. “Not something I planned on—certainly not at my age. It hasn't been easy. I tell you—I had all but given up any hope when your young phenom here—Mickey—came along.”

The man swallowed hard. Tears formed behind his eyes but he did not cry. His face was strangely lit from the window to his side as he detailed the miraculous events surrounding the boy's implausible recovery.

“It must have been Mickey's second or third game,” he explained. “We were sitting right behind home plate. Close enough to smell the pine tar and cowhide. Billy was entranced by Mickey. The warm-ups. The popping of the catcher's glove. Everything. He did not take his eyes off him the entire game.”

Later that day, hours after the game, Billy disappeared. Walter had just lain down to take a nap and left Billy as he always did—in his wheelchair outside on the porch. When he awoke, a short while later, he discovered to his horror an empty chair and no sign of the boy anywhere. He panicked—raced around his property frantically, calling out the boy's name, besieged by the thought of how easy it was for a man to destroy his entire existence with just one careless act. His heart pounded as he darted from place to place until finally his flight was arrested by the sight of Billy at the edge of a grassy slope—standing erect with a baseball in his hand while rolling his arms in lionizing mimicry of his hero.

“It's a miracle I tell you,” the governor said, his eyes now fully wet with emotion. “An absolute miracle. We just needed to come down here and thank you. That's all.”

Murph smiled. He waited a minute, looking down at the boy whose eyes were lit like two birthday candles. Then he called to Mickey and watched as the governor and his grandson shook hands with Mickey and told him how thankful they were for all he had done.

“You are a very special young man,” the governor said. “I will never forget what you have done for my boy. Never.”

Mickey smiled, his face a subtle blend of aloofness and asceticism, then was a little confused when the governor handed him a brand-new baseball and a pen.

“Just one more thing, if we may. Would you mind doing us the honor?”

Mickey, trying to conceal his uneasiness, stood absently.

“He wants you to sign your name, Mick,” Murph explained. “On the ball. You're a celebrity now. Famous. It's what famous people do sometimes.”

“Okay, Mr. Murphy. Mickey will do it.”