The Art of Fielding_ A Novel - Chad Harbach [133]
PELLA HAD NEVER HEARD so much silence from so many people. A tear ran down her cheek, pushed forward by the one behind it, and the one behind that, and who knew how many more. She turned and glared at Gary. “You owe me a hundred bucks,” she said.
49
The Harpooners in the dugout—Arsch, Loondorf, Jensen, and on down the line—lowered their eyes as he came down the steps. It was eerie, the calm he exuded. The fans had fallen silent. The players on the field stood frozen, dumbfounded, staring into the dugout. The umpires stared too. Coach Cox’s jaw worked at his wad of gum. No one knew what to do. It wasn’t clear that they could continue without him; it wasn’t clear what the other options were.
Henry stopped in front of Izzy, laid a hand on the freshperson’s shoulder, waited for Izzy to look up and meet his eyes. “Get loose,” he said. “You’re going in.”
Izzy looked at Coach Cox. Coach Cox, remembering himself, yanked his lineup card from the back pocket of his uniform pants. “Avila!” he barked. “Hustle up, goddamnit!”
Izzy grabbed his glove and trotted up onto the field, blinking at the sunlight.
Henry walked to the far end of the bench, sat down beside Owen. Owen closed his book and laid it in his lap, but he couldn’t find anything to say. Henry pried off his left cleat and then his right, knotted the laces lightly together, looped them around the strap of his bag. He slid his plastic sandals on over his sanitary socks.
Coach Cox conferred with the umpires while Izzy bounced around, windmilling his arms, trying to get loose. The way he shimmied his shoulders; the erect, almost princely carriage of his head and shoulders—it was uncanny. It seemed like some kind of tribute. Rick tossed him a warm-up grounder that he gobbled up with lazy grace.
Henry unbuttoned his jersey and folded it neatly into quarters, so that the Harpooner on the left breast faced upward. As always, he was wearing his faded-to-pink Cardinals T-shirt underneath. He laid the jersey in his bag, placed his glove gingerly on top, zipped the bag, and pushed it underneath the bench between his feet. He sat back, hands on his thighs, and looked out at the field. The game resumed.
50
Affenlight was still seated between the two baseball men.
“Blass,” Dwight Rogner said, breaking a long and awful silence. “Sasser. Wohlers. Knoblauch. Sax.”
“I played against Mr. Sax for years.” Aparicio’s voice was always soft, so you had to lean in to listen, but even more so now. “A good man, though of dubious politics.”
“Chuck Knoblauch and I were teammates. His only full year in the minors—one of my ten.”
Aparicio nodded.
“And then Rick Ankiel, of course, for our organization.”
Affenlight didn’t know the names. They proceeded from Dwight’s tongue with respectful reluctance, like a litany of friends killed in war.
“They call it Steve Blass Disease,” Dwight explained to Affenlight. “After the first player it happened to. A pitcher for the Pirates. That was a little before my time.”
“Those were the Pittsburgh teams of Clemente,” said Aparicio. “They won the Series in seventy-one. Clemente was named Most Valuable Player, but the honor could easily have gone to Mr. Blass. He had an exceptional ability to control the baseball.
“A year later, on New Year’s Eve, Clemente was killed in a plane crash while delivering aid to Nicaragua. When spring training began, Mr. Blass could no longer do what he’d always done. It happened very suddenly. Walks, wild pitches. One year later, only two years removed from the height of his career, he decided to retire.”
“You think this was related to Clemente’s death?” Affenlight asked.
Aparicio touched his chin. “I suggested as much by the way I told the story, didn’t I? But in truth I have no idea. Clemente’s death affected me deeply, and I never met him. But I was a child, a child from that part of the world. Clemente was a hero to us. Teammates are not inevitably so interested in one another.”
The Coshwale