For Love of the Game by Michael Shaara Read Free Book Online Page B

Surprising. You have plenty tucked in there today. Must be a state of mind. I wonder … how far? Five innings? Six? Oh please God … today … if I could just go the distance. Let me go all the way. Give the old arm.… A rare thing for Chapel, who did not pray or go to church. But the desire was huge. He thought: be at least a little crafty, old man. Take it easy now. Rest and prime it. Save it for when you need it. Be crafty for once. Well. But best thing is blaze away at the beginning, put ’em
down
, boy, down, show ’em who’s boss.
Then
get foxy. Sure. Waste nothing. Save the energy until you really need it, but … this is the last day. Today, you’ll use it all. Sudden memory of Mom: “God has blessed you, Billy, with that wondrous talent. Remember someday … to give Him thanks.” He never had. Well. May do it today. Right, Mom. But it’s a little late. So … don’t think on that. Music. And throw.
    He went into the pattern of warming up, the pattern he had learned and followed for twenty years. The difference now was he could not quite relax. Something burning deep inside, fire in the chest. No pain. But chest a bit tight. Relax, Billy, relax.
    Up came Maxwell. He was anxious and sweating, and kept both hands in his rear pockets, hunched over. He watched Chapel and the Yankees and the crowd in the seats, looked back over the dugout and saw the faces of the two ownersand waved, and Chapel recognized that special nod and looked: the young men, sons of the Old Man. The ones who had traded him. Their seats were, naturally, just above the Hawks dugout. Chapel paused for one moment. Both waved at him. Smiles. He gave an automatic nod. Did not remember their names. Threw again. The Old Man … Billy started to call him “John.” That was not his real name and at first it irritated him because the John was also the men’s restroom, but Chapel automatically, definitely nicknamed him “John” from the first time they knew they were personal friends—which had become a habit of Chapel’s; after reading
Hamlet
he began to call his mother “Gertrude” and the habit went on to Carol—so the Old Man responded with “Bobby,” which was also not his name and which no one around them quite grasped. It was never explained, nor was that needed. In their own world, the Old Man and the boy, they were John, sometimes Old John, and Bobby, sometimes Roberto. In the office together, alone, out to dinner with a group, arguing, dreaming, planning, hoping, it was always John talking to Bobby, and there were times when other people tried those names—to be met with rage and silence. The two sons had tried—thought it their right. Chapel never answered. They still tried. The Old Man was gone. He had not been replaced. Until this day Chapel had not known how far gone he really was,thought of him always as out there in the bull pen, watching, or wandering up in the clouds, flying a small airplane, looking down. There was a place up in high Colorado, an empty clearing in the northern mountains above Glenwood Springs which somehow was the place where John would drop in someday, when he came back. Chapel flew there in the fall, sometimes landed in a small place in a Super Cub, sometimes with skis, and there was the place Chapel talked to the Old Man, and Pops, and sometimes Mom, and although he knew no one was there it was a visit Chapel had come to look forward to, because it was a lonely life, more and more, as you grew older on a failing team, loaded with slow ballplayers who would never join your “club” and were therefore never to be friends … except a few, who rose above that to be, somehow, a friend, without envy … or hope … those who still dreamed … like Gus. Only friend now, Gus. Carol … gone off to marry.
    Throw harder. Loosen.
    Oh where have you been, Billy Boy, Billy Boy?
Oh where have you been, charmin’ Billy?
I have been to seek a wife
She’s the joy of my life
She’s a