Second Chance at Bat, page 5
* * *
The “Commissioner” of the Phantasy Baseball Camp, Kent Koosman, was introduced. A long time Phillie, he was well known for a wry sense of humor and love of umpires. As he ambled over to the podium, Joe noticed that the former major leaguers were getting up and going out into the hallway. Kent was skilled at hyping the evening’s festivities and the room began to buzz when he made introductions of the Phillie “Legends”. Applause cascaded upon each player as Kent invited each one to the stage. Ozzie Diaz, Bo Virgil, Kiko Garcia, Steve Schmidt, Mike Jeltz, Glenn Gross, Garry Hayes, John Stone, Jeff Russell, Larry Carlton, Steve Andersen, Kevin Denny , John Hudson, Julio Vasquez Shane Holland, Rocky Surhoff, Juan Aguayo, Al Rucker, Derrell Schu and Benny Bogues. Standing before the thunderous clapping, whistles and shout outs were four decades of Phillies greats.
Each man before them was an idol to at least one player in the room. They were here in the flesh, not on TV or on the field peered at from the cheap seats. Joe remembered trying Benny Bogues’ batting stance for a season. Whose pick off move did he mimic the day after he saw it done perfectly? Was it Andersen’s? How many times did he flip baseball cards to get one of these players into his stack? Joe and his buddies were too young to grow sideburns or moustaches, but they could set their cap just so or wear their uniform pants legs at exactly the same height as their favorite player. Even as adults, if you had the chance to golf with one of the legends at a charity event, you would remember how they shot or what they said. Some of the younger Legends Joe knew personally. He was the insurance agent of choice for the Reading Phillies. When a bonus baby needed to insure that fancy tricked out muscle car, who got the call?
* * *
The wisecracking between old friends on the stage was fun and genuine. These Legends were part of the Phillies family. They were relaxed and at ease with themselves and each other. Joe noticed that most of them had kept working out, but a few could have been the clean up hitter on your beer league softball team. To a man, not one was wearing glasses. Maybe it was because of compact lenses or lasik’s surgery or because their parents had swam in the deep end of the genes pool, but it seemed to Joe that good eyesight had stayed with them over the years.
* * *
As the festivities concluded, the players were told that stretching would begin at 6:00AM Thursday and that the “Rookie” bus was to depart at 7:30AM. Joe was still very excited and wanted to get up close to a few more Legends before hitting the hay. As the room cleared out, the migration parted with some steering to the elevators and with others veering to the hotel bar.
* * *
Joe spotted Julio Vasquez sitting at a table underneath watercolor painting telling an animated story.
* * *
“I barely made it into the closet before her husband walked into the bedroom. He was a big dude, let me tell you. I was afraid that he could hear me breathing. I tried breathing like this so he couldn’t hear me.” Julio made a pained exaggerated panting expression. The Blonde on his right was giggling and jiggling at this pantomime. “After what seemed like a lifetime, the husband finally went to use the bathroom and that’s when I heard male voice behind me in the closet say softly, ‘excuse me I coud not help noticing that you are the famous Julio Vasquez, I have a question for you’ Julio paused for effect, ‘When did you become a set up man, I thought you were the closer?’” The table roared in laughter. Joe couldn’t quite hear the next line from another Legend at the table and the table erupted again.
* * *
Joe grabbed a ginger ale and drank it as slowly as he took in the whole scene. He drifted from the bar to other tables. Joe saw that if you took a generous dollop of Southern sunshine still radiating in sun tans or on white winter skin now turned pink, add liquor poured and drank freely, then blend it with a healthy shot of being up close to Phillies Legends and top it off with the promise of four more days and nights of fun in Florida, you had a powerful elixir. Joe could stay there and drink it in all night, but he had an early wake up the next day. As he made his way to the elevators he had a vague remembrance of another time of when he had this much fun.
* * *
xxxxx
* * *
“D make love to me. I want you now.”
* * *
“Are you sure?" His voice was hushed. “What about protection?”
* * *
Linda saw Joe’s sweet face was filled with both passion and confusion.
* * *
“My period was last week. I could only make you happy. Remember?”
* * *
They were laying in the back of Joe’s family’s mini-van at their favorite parking spot, their shorts, his t-shirt and her top were handy in case a cop lit them up. Classic Rock from his mom’s presets on the radio kept the beat.
* * *
Joe nodded and kissed her. Their lips touched with now with trembling anticipation. Ever since Joe first kissed her in grade school, she knew he was the one and now she would be sure.
* * *
Tonight was different, Linda knew it was going to come to this. She took care of his needs first and then he reciprocated. All through their Senior year, when they could be alone together and not double-dating, they had found other ways to satisfy each other. They were not going to deny their feelings or their hormones. D had found a porn tape from the back of his oldest brother’s closest and it had been like Sex 101 for them, except for this part.
* * *
Joe again kissed her neck and breasts, the girls as he liked to refer to them. She more than filled out her tops on a sexy athletic build. He drifted lower. Was he repeating this again to harden his resolve or his member, she wondered. She didn’t need to get wetter down there, but she wasn’t about to complain for him wanting a second taste of the apple.
* * *
They had to adjust their positions. She could lay back and enjoy it. Little D was standing at attention and didn’t need any coaxing. They had already played with some adult toys before tonight, so she wasn’t worried about it hurting and it didn’t.
* * *
They fit like a hand in glove and rocked slowly at first to the music and then faster and faster, until......
* * *
As the song finished on the radio, Linda realized that she had stopped wiping down the sink faucet with both hands and was staring off into the swirling snowflakes. Did this same song that played while they were losing their virginity trigger those memories or was it the thought of Joe going away? Or was it both?
* * *
That day when she woke up, all those years ago, she knew things were going to be different. D had accepted a scholarship for track to Penn State and would be leaving for Freshman orientation in a week. She was going to Reading Area Community College to get her first two years of general credits before hopefully joining him in Happy Valley for their junior year. Would he wait for her? Would he come home every weekend when he wasn’t running?. Could she visit him? Would he be true to her? Those drunken whore sluts on campus would take one look at her boyfriend and want to hook up. She didn’t want to lose him to the competition. She realized now what she had done to keep her man coming back to her cave. Was this hardwired into her sub-conscious through years of evolution? She had given him a taste to keep him wanting to come back for more.
* * *
Back then, she thought about buying the condoms and surprising him, but she didn’t want to make it look like she planned to have sex with him. She was a good girl. One boyfriend, no drinking or drugs. Their friends could keep on guessing. They didn’t need to know. Did she want to play with fire? Did she want to have D’s baby? She wiped down the counters and wondered if that was part of the plan too.
* * *
Now, tonight alone, with her husband away in Florida to play baseball in the sun, was he leaving her again? Was he leaving her for something better? Is that what triggered these feelings or was it that song about ‘60 Chevys and far off thunder, she had to wonder.
* * *
xxxxx
* * *
The bar was still serving at 1:30AM. The party was winding down in a hurry. The blonde had left 15 minutes earlier with Julio’s spare room key. Julio had been separated from his wife now for three years. He was the last Legend there and hadn’t picked up the tab all night. The players had to sober up and be ready for baseball in just a few short hours. Julio had to be at the Paul Owens Sports Complex by mid-morning. He had a little more time to sleep it off. The stories were repetitive now and some of the punch lines didn’t make sense, but to the Philly phaithful, it didn’t matter. They were too shot to care. They would stay and keep their hero company, as long as he was dealing.
* * *
Before retiring Joe met his roommate. He was chatting on his cell phone with his wife and daughters in California, where he had moved to from the Delaware Valley 25 years ago. Joe had been in bed for awhile and was dreaming of another time in another place where the party was hopping.
* * *
xxxxx
* * *
“Hey Marsha and Mandy, this is Joe DiNatale, he’s pledging Gamma Delta Tau, make him feel welcome.” With that the pledge sponsor disappeared.
* * *
“Hi Joe, where you from?” Marsha asked. She and Mandy were from a sorority of female jocks and they matched up often with the second most popular jock fraternity on campus.
* * *
Through the dark and noise of the Fraternity House basement, Joe yelled, “ Call me D and I’m from Reading, how about you?"
* * *
Marsha said, “Chestnut Hill.”
* * *
They both looked at Mandy who said, ”Secaucus, NJ.”
* * *
Borrowing a line from Saturday Night Live, Joe asked, “What exit off the Jersey Turnpike is that?”
* * *
Mandy just rolled her eyes, but Marsha laughed into her red beer cup. “What’s your Major,
D?"
* * *
Both girls were drop dead gorgeous but he was staring eye level into Marsha’s blue eyes. Blonde hair, white teeth and tanned face completed the picture. Joe dared not break eye contact. “Business, how 'bout you?”
* * *
“Accounting. I want to be an FBI Agent.”
* * *
“Wow, are you kidding me?”
* * *
“Nope, I come from a family of cops. My dad is a Philly cop, his dad was a cop and my brother is a cop”
* * *
Joe was confused, “Why accounting?”
* * *
“The cold war is over. The Russian’s are no longer the threat. We won. The Feebs have to learn spreadsheets and understand financials. My brother said that the FBI recruiters are looking for accountants, not coppers. White-collar crime is their big priority now.”
* * *
Joe nodded. Mandy was now drifting away and that was okay. Marsha stayed put. “So D, this isn’t the biggest Jock Frat house on campus, you won’t see any of the Football Gods here, what is your sport?”
* * *
Joe decided then and there that no criminal would ever have a chance being interrogated by Marsha. He confessed, “ I’m here on a full boat for track, seems that I run the low hurdles and relays as fast as some guys can sprint."
* * *
“Yeah, I can see that.” she said, now appraising his body.
* * *
"You?"
* * *
“Volleyball, A football factory like Penn State has to match just as many scholarships for the women.”
* * *
“Do guys say ‘wow’ all the time when talking to you?” Joe was hooked.
* * *
Now it was Marsha’s turn to blush.
* * *
Joe added,“I think you should get a scholarship for being the best you can be regardless if its volleyball or” just then, another pledge projectile vomited near them and Joe swiftly moved them out of the line of fire “or Hurling, I mean Curling.”
* * *
The whole frat pledge scene was a recipe for excessive drinking. Throwing up on concrete floors of a Fraternity House was part of the routine. No big deal.
* * *
Seeing no spatter on their clothes, Marsha asked Joe, “Would you like to walk around campus with me?”
* * *
The fresh night air was an instant cure for their drinkfest sluggishness. It was a good thing Joe was a runner, because she walked as fast as anyone he ever met.
* * *
“Not everybody thinks that way, D- You can have Eighty thou at Beaver Stadium in the rain and cold to see Notre Dame, but we are lucky to get 500 fans in the gym for a play-off match against the same school."
* * *
Joe agreed. “I was a three year quarterback in high school and the stadium was packed for our home games, but in the summer, we had to keep the outside lanes open during track meets for the joggers.”
* * *
She stepped aside to look at him again with a puzzled look on her face.
* * *
"Yeah, I know what your thinkin’. I ran the option and could throw on the run. If they didn’t put a spy on me, I would fake the pitch and hit the seams. I got lost in traffic. I didn’t fit the prototypical mold of a drop back QB, but I had the best win-loss percentage in 50 years at Reading Central Catholic.” He made like he calling cadence, taking the snap, and then faked handing her the ball on a belly dive with is right hand and then pretended to throw the ball with his left. Next came the exaggerated TD dance around her.
* * *
Marsha laughed. She was catching Joe’s passes, he hoped .
* * *
They walked and they talked and they walked some more. They drifted into town where they split a pizza and she kicked his ass in air hockey. Not ready to call it a night, the conversation moved as steadily as their footsteps into their home lives and dreams. Joe found that he was a ready listener and he could ask questions without an agenda and just learn about this amazing girl.
* * *
He could tell her anything, but somehow they both stayed away from relationships past or, more importantly, present. She was smart and funny and fun to look at, as he saw every red blooded male with a pulse attested to with their stares as she and Joe walked by.
* * *
“Yeah it happened when I was eleven, he went to work that day and didn’t come home. I got off the bus and came into the house to find my mother and grandparents and aunts and uncles all crying. Its the first time, I had seen men cry, even my uncle Vinnie. My mom hugged me and said that something terrible had happened on the job site and that dad was not coming home. ‘where’d he go?’, I asked her. she looked at me and said, ‘ he is in heaven’ and she hugged me harder than she ever did. I looked over her shoulder at everybody and they were all so sad.” Joe drifted into the memory.
* * *
Marsha snuggled closer to him as they sat on a wall by Main Gate. “What happened?”
* * *
“My dad worked for a construction company and a trench they were working in collapsed, they couldn’t get him out in time. They had violated some work rules and later my mom got a settlement but I was too young to understand it all. The wake ‘n funeral and cemetery were all a blur. My older brothers and sisters tried to help, but they didn’t have any answers either” Joe faded out again kicking his legs out aimlessly and hearing them clunk again the stone wall with no particular rhythm. “ My dad worked all the time and when he wasn’t working construction, he would do side jobs for the family and friends with my uncles”. He looked at her and said, "I know he loved me, but he didn’t have much time for us. All he did was work. Work. Work. Work. Worked until it killed him." Joe stopped for a moment and added,” when I have kids, they will have a father around.”
* * *
Marsha Drummond, PSU Sophomore, Sorority sister, future FBI agent, sat and rocked next to Joe with her hand in her coat pockets. Nothing needed to be said. Listening was good enough.
* * *
The new day would be upon them soon; facing Joe, she said, “This was a magical night and I felt like I could talk with you forever, but I have to go now" She kissed him on the cheek then let her lips linger near his. He hesitated. Was this an invitation to respond? In that micro second, she moved away, smiled and turned to walk home. Why did he not kiss her?
