Backstop: A Baseball Love Story in Nine Innings

For the first time anywhere, an excerpt from my forthcoming novel, “Backstop: A Baseball Love Story in Nine Innings.” 

As I dig into the batter’s box I can hear the chants of the home crowd — “Let’s go Tigers!” I’m charged, but I clear the sounds of the game from my head and look out to Fernando to try to gauge how he’s going to attack me this time. He got me on strikes back in the second, but he needed his entire arsenal to do it; and I tagged him for a single in the fifth when he relied on his heater. When he doesn’t shake-off the sign, I guess he’s starting me off with something off-speed. Sure enough I get an outside curve, which misses outside for ball one. The next pitch is a fastball inside — a purpose pitch to back me off the plate and set up what I guess will be another outside curveball. When Fernando doesn’t shake off Evans, I commit to jumping on the curve, which Fernando delivers, and I hit it hard, taking the ball the opposite way. I hear the crowd erupt in anticipation, but I’m not sure I’ve gotten enough of the ball to send it out. As I run down to first I watch the ball, its trajectory high, certain I’ve put too much air under it. Gallegos is back to the warning track, seemingly camped under the ball and I slow my pace, certain I’ve but hit a long out, but the upper deck porch that hangs out over the first row of the lower deck has robbed many a right fielder from making an easy putout, and tonight I’m fortunate that it gratefully accepts my gift. I watch the fan in the front row who catches the ball leap with joy, fists pumping. I round first base and the din of the home crowd grows deafening. Still, I show no emotion. I’ve certainly hit longer homeruns in my career, but none were as important as this one. I’ve always been careful not to show-up opposing pitchers, and this homerun, as important as it may be should we go on to win — we still have three more batters to face in the ninth — I treat no differently than the two-hundred-eighty-seven I’ve already hit in my career. I round second base, conscious of the hitch in my gait the result of my swollen and aching ankle, aware of my knees, who both seem to ask me, “how much longer are you going to ask this of us?” I pick up Preston, our third base coach, applauding with a big smile on his face, and it occurs to me then that this might be the last time I round these storied base paths, and so I resolve to enjoy the moment as best I can. Preston holds out his right hand and, rounding third base, I slap it and feel the sting of his left hand on my backside. All too soon I reach home, where McCandles is waiting for me, hand outstretched for me to slap, although he, too, is aware the game is far from over.

I head for the dugout and glance out to center field where Cobb once played — a silent acknowledgement of the greatest Tiger of all — and I recall the debate Darlene and I once had about whether a man’s evil nature can, or should, be forgiven for the good he contributes. Right or wrong, Cobb’s evil nature was set aside when the Hall of Fame recognized his contributions to the game of baseball. It hits me then, as I doff my cap to acknowledge the cheering fans, if a bad seed is capable of doing something good, then the obverse must certainly be true. I’ve tried to live my life according to a high set of standards, but I fell short, failing often where baseball was concerned — maybe also where my mother was concerned — and once miserably with Darlene. That failure resulted in my hurting the one woman who means the most to me, as well as disappointing myself and my mother; but my failures do not, by themselves, make me a bad person, nor should they take away from the good I’ve contributed, to baseball or to my marriage. In that moment I resolve not to give up my fight to win back Darlene.

The crowd is jumping, electric with anticipation as I head down the steps of the dugout, greeted by a series of high-fives and a host of encouraging comments. I touch all the hands but ignore the comments as I approach my spot on the bench next to Stewart, who is standing and all smiles. “Way to go, Backstop!” he shouts at me, clapping me on my back. “Don’t get cocky,” I tell him as I sit on the bench. “We’ve still got business to tend to.” Stewart falls silent and I immediately regret what I’ve said. He’s just a kid — earlier I’d told him to enjoy the moment because he might not ever get another just like it, and now I’ve placed the weight of this World Series game seven squarely on his shoulders.

A moment later he turns to me and asks, “We’ve got the top of their lineup to face in the ninth, how do you think we should attack them, Backstop?”

I look at Stewart, the seriousness etched on his face, and suddenly I know without a doubt, despite never before displaying any amount of prescience, that Darlene is watching tonight — that she’s watched every game since this series started nine days ago.

I don’t know which is funnier, the look on Stewart’s face or the question he’s just asked, and suddenly I burst out laughing, and I find I can’t stop. Stewart is looking at me as if I’ve just slipped into madness, which only fuels my laughter to greater heights.

I realize, with a one-run lead, this is our game to lose. In that moment I know, beyond a shadow of doubt, that, with Darlene watching, we will win this game and the World Series — the Tigers’ first championship since 1968, the same year I watched, as a kid, Denny McClain bloop a pitch for Mickey Mantle, the dreaded Yankee, to hit out of the park. Damn it, Dad, I think, glancing to my left nearly expecting to find him sitting alongside me as he did those many years ago, it was just a game!

Stewart continues to look at me for a moment longer before, not wanting to be left out of the joke, although he can’t possibly have a clue as to what the joke is, he joins my laughter. Finally, as my laughter subsides, I tell Stewart, elbowing him in the ribs, “You idiot! Just go out and do what you’ve been doing!”