Have Glove, Will Travel_ Adventures of a Baseball Vagabond - Bill Lee [65]
Besides being quick, these animals are smart. If you shoot a black bear on a grade above you, he will drop into a ball and roll down at a violent speed until he’s on top of you. When that occurs, you become dough for the rolling pin. They do have one weakness, though. Black bears cannot run diagonally on the side of anything slanted. They can race uphill or downhill in a straight line, but never sideways. Get them zigzagging on a steep grade and their legs tangle. But our bear glared at us from a road as flat as an airport runway.
Fergie led me toward the truck one slow step at a time. That bear stood stock still. Only his head moved, a lazy greased turret, as his eyes followed our retreat. Risen to full height on his hind legs, he resembled Darth Vader on a bad hair day. I tiptoed, too scared to draw a breath. Images flashed through my mind: my children racing through a field with arms outstretched to greet me . . . an early fall purple sun setting over Fenway’s Green Monster . . . Nicole Kidman writhing on satin sheets . . . my grandfather teaching me to track and shoot quail . . . the buttercream smoothness of my first baseball glove . . . Nicole Kidman writhing on satin sheets . . . the birth wail of my youngest child . . . all that nervous sweat sopping my uniform during my first major-league appearance . . . Carl Yastrzemski loping back on a fly ball as if he were tracking it with a homing device . . . Nicole Kidman . . .
We got maybe ten feet from our truck when the bear let rip a terrifying roar from deep in its gut. That sucker sounded hungry. As soon as Fergie and I heard him bellow, we dropped our rods and hauled ass. My heart pushed so much blood into my head, I felt top-heavy enough to tip over. To comfort myself, I kept repeating as a mantra some advice a forest ranger had once passed on to me: if a bear is chasing you and a companion, you don’t have to outrun the bear, you only have to outrun your friend.
My chances in a footrace against Mr. Jenkins rated pretty high, but I could not take advantage of him. I consider Fergie my brother, and I would have lost sleep—at least a whole night’s worth—had the bear caught him instead of me. So we ran in step together and reached the four-by-four just barely ahead of the beast. It was so close at the finish line, I swear that animal’s claws breezed past my collar as I hurtled through the car door. We drove without looking back, so I have no idea when the bear gave up the chase.
By the time we rolled into town, Fergie had regained his composure. Now I know how he could throw strikes over a plate the size of a quarter with the bases loaded. The man was just born to be cool, I guess. Not me. My adrenaline had jolted my nervous system. The incident left me so pumped, I smacked three home runs against the firemen that night, the only time I have done that in any game not played with a Wiffle ball.
On second thought, maybe something more than adrenaline added all that muscle. Native Americans place great stock in bear power. They believe that a black bear’s spirit can inhabit human form and imbue it with the strength to accomplish heroic feats. This is one river rat who has just enough faith in woodland lore to think that a bit of that black bear’s spirit might have passed into me during our encounter. Maybe Fergie and I will visit him again should we ever play another game in Prince George.
If we do, we will arrive bearing gifts for the bear god. We will also insist that Jon Warden tag along. Jon, a former major leaguer who pitched for the Detroit Tigers, is the All-Stars Legends’ catcher. He is great company on any outing, a witty raconteur, a good drinking buddy, and a man who knows how to stay calm in tight situations.
And he possesses one more important attribute: with his build, roly if not actually poly, Jon is at least four steps slower than Fergie.
14
A MAD DASH TO CUBA
One morning in November 1999 Cy Peterson called my house to make one