Second Chance at Bat, page 19
Tommy answered the rhetorical question very succinctly. "I can only think of one time when our favorite 'Phillies Phenom' allowed his feet to touch the ground- we were kids playing Little League."
* * *
The other players at the table rolled their eyes and didn't seem too interested in hearing a diaper dandy story.
* * *
"Hey, listen! How many people were in the stands tonight?"
* * *
Lakewood answered, "Maybe 7-8 thousand. Why?"
* * *
"How many of you guys have played in front of 40,000 on national TV for over a week?"
* * *
They looked around and looked down at their empty mugs.
* * *
"That's what I thought. We did it when Blake was twelve and I was eleven. We pitched in the same game that proved he was mortal ."
* * *
"What bullshit are you feeding these guys Tommy?" Hot Shot asked, as he returned with not one, but two topped off pitchers.
* * *
"He was about to tell us about a game that you played when you were a kid", came the answer from their hard-hitting third baseman. A little older than the other boys, he was on the fast track to either to the Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs at Triple-A or he'd become "a player to be named later" in a trade. His on-the-field leadership translated to the present situation and Hot Shot couldn't side-step this one.
* * *
"Which game is that, Tommy?" Hot Shot sent a volcanic stare while keeping his voice very nonchalant.
* * *
"C'mon Blake. which game? for Christ's sake, which game." Tommy shook his head.
* * *
It gave time for Hot Shot to spin it. "Oh, that game, the one that was played in front of 40,500 screaming berserk people. ESPN broadcasted it prime time to 27 countries. Yeah I was throwing a shut off into the last inning when the only way they could beat me was to bend the rules. I got hosed on a call. I took the loss. I was in sixth grade. I remember I got a lot of run support that game too. How many runs did we score?"
* * *
Tommy was silent as was the whole table. They came to realize what Tommy already knew. Hot Shot was could never admit that things were ever his fault.
* * *
"Yeah I only went 12-1 with 7 shutouts, striking out 96 in 72 innings with 4 home runs, 20 ribbies and a .426 batting average taking us to the Little League Finals against some team from south of the border.
* * *
"What was it like?" Lakewood asked.
* * *
"What was what like?" Hot Shot replied a little testily.
* * *
"Playing on the national stage when you were only a kid."
* * *
Tommy diffused the situation and talked about the greatest time of his life and Hot Shot piped in with his memories as the other players retrieved more pitchers. By the time last call rolled around only Tommy and one other player could drive and the conversations had turned to Hot Shot reclaiming his King of the Hill status.
* * *
xxxxx
* * *
It’s your turn.”
* * *
Joe groaned. “C’mon Lin. I worked a double tonight and have to be at the dealership at Nine.”
* * *
“What do you think my day was like? Joey cried all day, spit up every time I tried feeding him-your mom doesn’t know what to do either- I’m going crazy.” Linda was not going to budge. they each agreed to get up with Joey every other night so that one of them could get some sleep. It had been like this, with the colicky crying, for the last 6 weeks. Taking turns was the only answer that worked for both of them, sort of.
* * *
Joey wailed from the bassinet at the foot of their bed. D wasn’t moving. She could feel D’s rhythmic breathing. “D, you can’t go to sleep, its your turn.” She yelled and kicked him under the covers.
* * *
“Yeah right. Sorry.” and with that he stumbled out of bed and went to pick up Joey. “There,there Daddy is right here.” and Joe walked Joey out of the bedroom. Joe began wearing out the carpet downstairs. Linda heard Joey slowly quiet down thanks to Joe’s pacing around the downstairs.
* * *
Linda’s nerves were on edge. She had nobody to talk to. D was always working. The first time around, all their friends loved being around the baby, but their friends were “normal” teenagers. Soon, the real or imagined excuses made it evident that their friends had their own lives, including all the fun things that teenage parents forfeit, she thought.There was nobody their age to hang around with, especially with a fussy baby.
* * *
Both families could not get enough of Joey, but who wanted to spend time with your parents? They were becoming more estranged from what their lives had been about. She cringed at the memory of the home football opener at the high school stadium when they brought Joey in the stroller. She was last year’s captain of the cheerleaders and he was a football star. It seemed like ages ago when they were crowned King and the Queen of the prom. Now she heard the whispers. Linda felt fat and seeing all the other cheerleaders doing their routines made her mood worsened. D kept up a good face, but he became tired of answering questions about what he was doing now that he gave up a four year scholarship to a marquee University. It was a disaster. They left after the cheerleader’s halftime routine. This was it. Working day and night,caring for a baby non-stop and getting no sleep. She was always tired and feeling bloated. Joey
was four months and Linda was not in any of her normal clothes yet. They didn’t have a lot of money to buy fall clothes in her bigger size. They were too exhausted to make love. This was her life now.
* * *
The Grandfather clock chimed in bringing her back from the funk that swallowed her during first year of marriage. Sitting at the kitchen counter with her tea steeping, Linda realized this was her life now. She had zero desire to be a ballplayer’s wife. She resented the way D just picked up and ran out of the house to chase who knew what? She didn’t feel like a mother either with her only child seemingly ripped from her womb, thanks to her heartless husband. Now, sitting alone in her empty house, the question, that nagging question in the back of her mind, the question with the usual easy answer, surfaced again. During the last 20 years, it was simple. She was a wife and mother and a homemaker. Why wasn’t that answer working anymore? If that wasn’t the answer, she faced the question again with fear and anxiety. Who was she? Had she ever been her own person and not an extension of her family growing up and then immediately to her husband and to her child?
Not one for introspection, this was new and scary, Linda thought. Staring at the the black thermal protected glass of the microwave convection oven she asked, ‘ Linda Maire Iannello DiNatale, who are you’?
xxxxx
* * *
What’s a matter kid?” Joe knew his Uncle Carmine voice, gravelly from years of hard drinking and chain smoking. He settled in across from Joe in the small kitchen prep table at the rear of Carmine’s tavern.The squat brick building on a double lot was a neighborhood fixture with the old-school dart board, pool table and shuffleboard. Yuengling flowed on tap for a buck and bar food was served until an hour before closing. The drunks from the winning softball team were doing so wrong, so wrong on Sweet Caroline blasting from the juke box in the main table area. Joe had stayed late to help the servers with busing and doing extra barback, while the team and their
families settled into Carmine’s to celebrate their tournament win. This was the first time Joe had a chance to sit down by the hot table for a bite and a beer. “Thank’s , I appreciate you helping out. Here’s something extra for Joey.”
* * *
Carmine slid Joe a fifty across the table. “That’s okay Uncle Carmine, you don’t have to do this, you’ve been real good to me ‘n Linda since we,” Joe paused looking for the right words from his sleep deprived brain, “Had Joey.”
* * *
“How’s Linda doin?” Carmine wanted to know.
* * *
“Don’t ask.” Joe drained his mug and didn’t break eye contact with the last of the suds from his third beer. “She blew a gasket when I called to tell her I would be late. Joey was cryin’ from her other arm”.
* * *
Camine asked, “Been hitting that stuff pretty hard lately, huh kid?”
* * *
Joe looked at his Uncle Carmine across the table and wanted to ask, ‘You’ve been keeping count’? but instead nodded his head in resignation. “This is the only time, I can relax. Either I’m working or dealing with Linda and Joey. Its 24-7” He just shook his head and stared at the neon sign with a painting of those beautiful whites horses pulling a beer wagon.
* * *
Carmine stubbed his cigarette out in the glass ashtray and stood up over Joe. He looked down directly into Joe’s eyes and spoke in a clear but soft voice.’This was trouble’Joe thought. “I am not going to tell you how to run your life, but I will give you some advice son. Its tough for you right now, but you ain’t gonna find the answer there. Listen to me kid, I have been serving drunks for 27 years, I know a little about this subject. I’ve been the friendly bartender for a long time, dispensing advice one pull of the tap handle at a time. Its easy to crawl into a bottle, but it ain’t so easy crawling out. Don’t get me wrong, I know I make a living selling booze. Its not my job to fix their problems. I’m just a good listener. If they want to have a few pops here and grab
a sandwich and a six pack to go, who am I to tell them no?”
* * *
Carmine had Joe’s complete attention, Joe was holding his breath, not knowing what to expect next. “Okay, I underst-”
* * *
“ Another thing, I can’t have an underage kid leave here three sheets to the wind and get into an accident ‘n hurt somebody. How long do you think it would take the cops or some ambulance chaser to put it together?”
* * *
Joe’s uncles had been looking after the boy for a long time, but rarely did any of them get this blunt.
* * *
“Go to the all-night market ‘n buy her roses with the fifty, tell her how beautiful she is and do your duty as a father. And tomorrow when you come back here, its gonna be Ginger Ale from now on, you understan’?
* * *
“Yeah. Sure Uncle Carmine. Sure.” is all Joe could manage.
* * *
“Last thing, Joe.”
* * *
“What that, Uncle Carmine?”
* * *
Carmine fished the last unfiltered camel out of a soft pack before crumbling it, he looked away for a second, took a deep breath turned with moistened eyes to face Joe and said. “You dad, God rest his soul, would be proud of you with the way you are workin’ and takin’ care of your family. It wasn’t always easy for him either living with your mom and raising four kids. He liked to help us out with side jobs and made a little money doing it. It was like a hobby for him. Kept him out of the bars and helped when money got tight. You know what I mean kid?"
* * *
Joe was confused. Was Uncle Carmine telling him that not everything was rosy in his parent’shome. “ I don’t remember my parents fighting or having loud arguments when I was young.”
* * *
“ By the time you came along, they figured it out, kid. Your dad and mom made a decision to put their family first and your dad couldn’t do that if he was half in the bag, capiscie?”
* * *
“The only time, I saw my father drinking was a little wine at the Holidays and when the Phillies won the World Series in ‘80.”
* * *
“Yeah ,well that was a like a Feast Day too around here, as I recall.” Carmine’s eyes twinkled as he stared at the framed and signed photo of Tugger leaping off the mound.
* * *
“Okay Uncle Carmine. Ginger Ale and a hobby, anything else?”
* * *
“Go home and love 'em and hug 'em kid, now get outta here before I get all sentimental on you.”
* * *
Joe did just that. The dozen red roses were beautiful. It didn’t hurt either that he held them behind his back, telling Linda how beautiful she was, before presenting them to her like a count surprising his contessa. They danced together at one in the morning with their baby in his arms and a glass of fake champagne in their hands.
* * *
As Neil Diamond finished his signature song, Joe pushed aside his empty dessert plate and sipped on his Ginger Ale at the all night coffee shop not far from the team hotel. Joe was still too wired to sleep. He reminded himself to give Carmine a call in the morning. Better still, he’d also sign a ball for him and get somebody from the team to Fedex it to him. Carmine was getting up there and his health was sketchy. You never knew if one day soon you’d get the call. Carmine’s advice had served him well these past twenty years. Joe had made the sacrifices and he was grateful that he never really started drinking. His life wasn’t easy but in hindsight, he didn’t dance with the devil either and was grateful to the “friendly bartender” from his hometown. It was exactly the right advice at the right time; lucky he had his listening ears on.
* * *
Christ, two wins in two nights. How’d that happen? Uncle Vinnie had made his way over from Orlando with a group of geriatric die-hard fans and were treated with Joe’s allotment of box seats to see him unexpectedly pitch tonight. Posing for group pictures with everybody’s camera and giving out autographs were pure pleasure for both Joe and Uncle Vinnie. He looked good. Florida was agreeing with him. That reminded Joe to call Marge in the morning. They needed a system to stay in touch and get his signatures on renewals. Marge had to produce the new business now. Marge had already suggested sending flyers to everyone who didn’t renew their policies in the last couple of years with Joe’s 8” x 11” glossy in uniform and yesterday’s sport’s headline. Joe made a note to talk to his new sports agent about how to leverage this new found
fame with his business.
* * *
His business? What was his business now? Who was he kidding? How long was this gonna last? On one hand, Knuckleballers did last longer than most pitchers, so maybe he could squeeze out more than this season if things continued to go this way. This season? A week ago, he was an Independent Insurance Agent from a small town, now he was a pitcher for the Philadelphia Phillies with an unhittable knuckle ball. He was now visualizing about a season or even more. This was all too new to him. He still had his work to-do list for tomorrow on his iPhone.
* * *
He didn’t want to think about Linda’s honey-do’s.
* * *
Joe stared at his empty plate and glass.
* * *
xxxxx
* * *
"A penny for your thoughts." She said.
* * *
Joe looked up to see the server hovering with a pot of coffee. She was tall with
reddish blonde hair and a pretty face that didn't need a drop of make-up, except around
the eyes. Joe was replaying the game in his head when she appeared before him.
* * *
"It's been a couple of crazy weeks and I am just trying to make sense of it all." He
exhaled.
* * *
"Your server had to take a personal call- something about a casting call- and wanted me
to check up on you. Would you like a refill?"
* * *
"Sure. Ginger ale."
* * *
She smiled and gave Joe more reason to stay in the real world as he followed her
backside until she disappeared from view.
* * *
Joe allowed himself to linger here and was rewarded when as she returned. He liked
what he saw approaching him.
* * *
"Are you an actress too?" He asked.
* * *
"No I am a fireman's wi-" she stopped herself and said. "I am going to school in the
daytime for nursing".
* * *
His eyes darted to her left hand as she placed the ginger ale on the table. No ring, he
saw.
* * *
"What brings you to the Big Apple?" She asked.
* * *
"Business. I am an insurance agent from Reading, Pennsylvania. My name is Joe,
