The Bazaar of Bad Dreams

Billy Anderson didn’t play again until ’58, and ’58 was his last year – Boston gave him his unconditional release halfway through the season, and he couldn’t catch on with anyone else. Because his speed was gone, and speed was really all he had to sell. The docs said he’d be good as new, the Achilles tendon was only nicked, not cut all the way through, but it was also stretched, and I imagine that’s what finished him. Baseball’s a tender game, you know; people don’t realize. And it isn’t only catchers who get hurt in collisions at the plate.

After the game, Danny Doo grabs the kid in the shower and yells: ‘I’m gonna buy you a drink tonight, rook! In fact, I’m gonna buy you ten!’ And then he gives his highest praise: ‘You hung the fuck in there!’

‘Ten drinks, because I hung the fuck in there,’ the kid says, and The Doo laughs and claps him on the back like it’s the funniest thing he ever heard.

But then Pinky Higgins comes storming in. He was managing the Red Sox that year, which was a thankless job; things only got worse for Pinky and for Sox as the summer of ’57 crawled along. He was mad as hell, chewing a wad of tobacco so hard and fast the juice squirted from both sides of his mouth and splattered his uniform. He said the kid had deliberately cut Anderson’s ankle when they collided at the plate. Said Blakely must have done it with his fingernails, and the kid should be put out of the game for it. This was pretty rich, coming from a man whose motto was ‘Spikes high and let em die!’

I was sitting in Joe’s office drinking a beer, so me and DiPunno listened to Pinky’s rant together. I thought the guy was nuts, and I could see from Joe’s face that I wasn’t alone.

Joe waited until Pinky ran down, then said, ‘I wasn’t watching Anderson’s foot. I was watching to see if Blakely made the tag and held onto the ball. Which he did.’

‘Get him in here,’ Pinky fumes. ‘I want to say it to his face.’

‘Be reasonable, Pink,’ Joe says. ‘Would I be in your office doing a tantrum if it had been Blakely all cut up?’

‘It wasn’t spikes!’ Pinky yells. ‘Spikes are a part of the game! Scratching someone up like a … a girl in a kickball match … that ain’t! And Anderson’s in the game seven years! He’s got a family to support!’

‘So you’re saying what? My catcher ripped your pinch runner’s ankle open while he was tagging him out – and tossing him over his goddam shoulder, don’t forget – and he did it with his nails?’

‘That’s what Anderson says,’ Pinky tells him. ‘Anderson says he felt it.’

‘Maybe Blakely stretched Anderson’s foot with his nails, too. Is that it?’

‘No,’ Pinky admits. His face was all red by then, and not just from being mad. He knew how it sounded. ‘He says that happened when he came down.’

‘Begging the court’s pardon,’ I says, ‘but fingernails? This is a load of crap.’

‘I want to see the kid’s hands,’ Pinky says. ‘You show me or I’ll lodge a goddam protest.’

I thought Joe would tell Pinky to shit in his hat, but he didn’t. He turned to me. ‘Tell the kid to come in here. Tell him he’s gonna show Mr Higgins his nails, just like he did to his first-grade teacher after the Pledge of Allegiance.’

I got the kid. He came willingly enough, although he was just wearing a towel, and didn’t hold back showing his nails. They were short, clean, not broken, not even bent. There were no blood blisters, either, like there might be if you really set them in someone and raked with them. One little thing I did happen to notice, although I didn’t think anything of it at the time: the Band-Aid was gone from his second finger, and I didn’t see any sign of a healing cut where it had been, just clean skin, pink from the shower.

‘Satisfied?’ Joe asked Pinky. ‘Or would you like to check his ears for potato-dirt?’

‘Fuck you,’ Pinky says. He got up, stamped over to the door, spat his cud into the wastepaper basket there – splut! – and then he turns back. ‘My boy says your boy cut him. Says he felt it. And my boy don’t lie.’

‘Your boy tried to be a hero with the game on the line instead of stopping at third and giving Piersall a chance. He’d tell you the shitstreak in his skivvies was chocolate sauce if it’d get him off the hook for that. You know what happened and so do I. Anderson got tangled in his own spikes and did it to himself when he went whoopsy-daisy. Now get out of here.’

‘There’ll be a payback for this, DiPunno.’

‘Yeah? Well, it’s the same game time tomorrow. Get here early while the popcorn’s hot and the beer’s still cold.’

Pinky left, already tearing off a fresh piece of chew. Joe drummed his fingers beside his ashtray, then asked the kid: ‘Now that it’s just us chickens, did you do anything to Anderson? Tell me the truth.’

‘No.’ Not a bit of hesitation. ‘I didn’t do anything to Anderson. That’s the truth.’