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By Root 364 0

silent. The fifty-five thousand people outside are making about as much noise as fifty-five thousand people can make, but none of it reaches this benighted place. Pity Art Howe. What little he has done to make the office a home suggests a view of the world so different from Billy Beane’s that it’s a wonder he’s kept his job as long as he has. There’s a framed aphorism, called “The Optimist’s Creed.” There is a plaque containing the wisdom of Vince Lombardi. There is an empty coffee pot, with a canister of non-dairy creamer. Behind the manager’s white Formica desk is a sign that says Thank You For Not Smoking. There are photos that hint at a fealty to baseball’s mystique: one of Art standing on the dugout steps, another of Art and Cal Ripken, Jr. (signed by Ripken). On the television, Art maintains his stoical expression. Beneath him flashes the news that no Athletics team has lost an eleven-run lead since the Philadelphia A’s lost one to the St. Louis Browns in 1936. Baseball has so much history and tradition. You can respect it, or you can exploit it for profit, but it’s still being made all over the place, all the time.

Micah Bowie gets the final out in the Kansas City eighth, and the A’s go quickly in their half. In the top of the ninth, facing closer Billy Koch, the Royals get a man as far as second base. With two outs and two strikes against a weak hitter, Luis Alicea, the game, once again, looks over. Then Alicea lines a single into left center.

11–11.

From somewhere in the clubhouse I hear a sharp cry, then the clatter of metal on metal. I open Art Howe’s door to sneak a peek, and spot Scott Hatteberg running from the batting cage to the tunnel that leads to the Oakland dugout.

Hatteberg isn’t particularly ready to play. He’s in the wrong state of mind, and carrying the wrong bat. After Art Howe told him he wasn’t playing tonight, he’d poured himself a cup of coffee, then another. He’d sat down briefly and chatted with some guy he’d never met, and whose name he couldn’t remember, who wanted to show him some bats he had handcrafted. Hatteberg had picked out one of the guy’s bats, a shiny black maple one with a white ring around its neck. He liked the feel of it.

Like most of the players, Hatteberg, as a minor leaguer, had signed a contract with the Louisville Slugger company, in which he agreed to use only the company’s bats. All but certain that he would not play tonight, he had taken his contraband bat with him to the dugout. By the time the score was 11–0, certain that he would never play, he had the bat between his knees and four cups of coffee in his bloodstream. He is, by the bottom of the ninth, chemically altered. He’s also holding a bat he’s never hit with.

The score remains 11–11. The Kansas City closer, Jason Grimsley, is on the mound, throwing his usual blazing sinkers. Jermaine Dye flies to right for the first out. The television camera pans the A’s dugout and from their expressions you can see that a lot of the players think the game is as good as lost. In losing an eleven-run lead, they’d lost more than that. They look as if they know the last good thing already has happened to them.

Art Howe tells Scott Hatteberg to grab a bat. He’s pinch-hitting. Hatteberg grabs the bat given to him by the anonymous craftsman. It violates the contract he signed as a minor leaguer with the Louisville Slugger company, but what the hell.

He had faced Grimsley just two days before, in a similar situation. Tie game, bottom of the ninth, but that time there were men on base. He didn’t need to watch tape tonight. With a pitcher like Grimsley you always know what you’ll be getting: 96-mph heat. You also, usually, know where you’ll be getting it: at the bottom of, or just below, the strike zone. Two days ago Grimsley had thrown him six straight sinking fastballs, down and away. With two strikes on him, Hatteberg had swung at the last of them and hit a weak ground ball to second base. (Miguel Tejada had followed him with a game-winning single up the middle.) As disappointing as that experience had been, it now served