Have Glove, Will Travel_ Adventures of a Baseball Vagabond - Bill Lee [2]
Clearly, this is not the major leagues.
We are visiting the town of Port Hawkesbury on Cape Breton, an island separated by the Strait of Canso from the Nova Scotia mainland. The locker room sits in the back of an old minor-league hockey arena the community built during the 1950s. It resembles an oversized Quonset hut constructed from concrete rather than aluminum.
A Canadian promoter arranged this event for the Tour de Hockey Legends Team. No, I have not adopted a second sport. You might say I act as the team’s halftime show or mascot. It was the promoter’s idea to stick me on the bill, his way of increasing ticket sales. I have never played hockey and have no connection with the game in the public mind. That does not matter. This promoter would have booked acrobats to soar above the rink while a SWAT team took potshots at them if he thought people would pay money to watch.
In an hour or so, the team will trot me out between periods of tonight’s charity hockey match between the Legends and a club composed of players from the 1978 Junior League champions of Nova Scotia. I might skate a bit at first. Not a particular skill of mine. Maintaining my feet on the ice while standing or moving at moderate speed hardly presents a challenge, but once I accelerate, stopping poses a problem. The only sure way I can halt is to slam into a wall.
Shortly after the collision, I will remove my skates and wobble up a long red carpet to a portable plywood mound at the center of the rink to demonstrate “trick” pitches—curveballs, sliders, palm balls, screwballs, knuckle curves, perhaps a spitter if my saliva has not frosted over to ice—for an arena filled with ravening hockey carnivores who consider baseball to be as macho an athletic endeavor as knitting.
It should all be quite classy, like a minstrel show at a KKK rally. I will perform the same function as some carny geek who bites off the heads of live chickens for the deranged amusement of the paying customers, most of whom will be wearing plaid.
You are wondering how I got here. Funny, I just asked myself that question.
We could blame any number of people for my predicament—Jim Fanning and John McHale immediately come to mind—but let’s face it, I screwed up, albeit with the best intentions. It all started more than two years ago on the night when the Montreal Expos’ front office released Rodney Scott.
Rodney had started at second base for Montreal since 1979. Cool Breeze impressed me as a wide-ranging fielder who routinely saved our groundball-throwing pitching staff with his jaw-dropping, rally-killing plays. Rodney rarely hit much more than .235, but he walked frequently enough to contribute on offense and ranked among the best percentage base stealers in the major leagues. Our manager, Dick Williams, named him our MVP three years running even though such Hall of Fame-quality players as Gary Carter, Tim Raines, and Andre Dawson also appeared on our roster.
The Expos’ front office did not share Williams’s high opinion of Scott. As soon as Dick left the organization in the middle of the 1981 season, his successor, Jim Fanning, began searching for an alternative at second base. The quest bordered on an obsession for Jim. After the 1981 season ended, Fanning and I occasionally ran into each other in the Olympic Stadium Nautilus room. He knew I considered Rodney my best friend on the team and I guess he wanted to send a message. No matter where our conversations started, they invariably ended in the middle of the Expos diamond. I might say, “Jim, did you see where the price of gold dropped again?” and Fanning would reply, “Yes, but can we afford to keep Rodney at second base next season?”
My answer was always the same emphatic yes. Rodney had established himself as the Expos’ most reliable infielder,