Moneyball - Michael Lewis [122]
“I’m glad Art’s leaving him in,” says Billy. “He’s wasted if you only use him to get an out.”
I ask if it worries him that Chad relies so heavily on faith. That Chad’s genuine, understandable belief that the Good Lord must be responsible for his fantastic ability to get big league hitters out leaves him open to the suspicion that the Good Lord might have changed His mind.
“No,” says Billy. “I’m a believer, too. I just happen to believe in the power of the ground ball.”
In nearly seventy relief appearances this year Chad Bradford has walked exactly ten batters, about one every thirty he has faced. He opens the eighth inning by walking Brent Mayne.
As Mayne trots down to first base, the Oakland crowd stirs and hollers. Someone from the center field bleachers hurls a roll of toilet paper onto the field. It takes a minute to clear, leaving Chad time with his hellish thoughts. When play resumes, fifty-five thousand people rise up and bang and shout, perhaps thinking this will help Chad to settle down.
“Why should noise have any more effect on the hitter than the pitcher?” says Billy, a bit testily. “If you’re playing away, you just pretend they are cheering for you.”
Chad walks the second hitter, Dee Brown. It’s the first time all year he’s walked two batters in a row. The TV cameras pan to Miguel Tejada and second baseman Mark Ellis, conferring behind their gloves.
“In the last ten years guys started covering their lips with their gloves,” snaps Billy. “I’ve never known a single lip-reader in baseball. What, has there been a rash of lipreading I don’t know about?”
The third batter, Neifi Perez, hits a slow ground ball to the second baseman. John Mabry, playing first, races across and cuts it off. Chad just stands on the mound and watches the play develop. By the time it has, it’s too late for him to cover first base. The bases are now loaded, with nobody out. Another roll of toilet paper streams from the bleachers into center field. The crowd is on its feet, making more noise than ever, still thinking, Lord knows why, that their attention is what Chad Bradford needs to get him through his troubles.
Billy stares at the television with disgust, like a theatre critic being forced to watch a mangled interpretation of Hamlet. “I can’t believe I have to sit here and watch this shit,” he says. He pulls his little white box onto the desk in front of him. Its plastic shine has been rubbed dull. “I would be dying right now if I was walking around watching this,” he says. He’s fantasizing: if I hadn’t trapped him with the TV inside this office he would be out in the parking lot, marching around glancing every five seconds at the white box. He’d rather be dying out there than whatever he’s doing in here.
The next batter, Luis Ordaz, is the one who makes good on Billy’s prediction about Miguel Tejada (“Watch him: he’ll try to do more than he should”). Ordaz hits a routine ground ball to Tejada’s right. Instead of making the routine play, the force at third, Tejada tries to make the acrobatic one, the force at home. His leaping throw bounces in the dirt in front of Ramon Hernandez and all runners are safe: 11–6. Bases still loaded, nobody yet out.
Art Howe virtually leaps out of the dugout to yank Chad from the game. On his way to his seat on the bench Chad stares at the ground, and works to remain expressionless. He came in with a six-run lead. He leaves with the tying run in the on-deck circle. The ball never left the infield.
“Jesus Christ, what a fucking embarrassment,” says Billy. He reaches under the desk and extracts a canister of Copenhagen. He jams the chaw into his upper lip. “Why am I even watching this shit?”
The new pitcher, Ricardo Rincon, gets two quick outs, and gives up just one run on a sacrifice fly: 11–7. With two outs and runners on first and third, Art Howe walks out yet