Ball Four (RosettaBooks Sports Classics) (46 page)

“Who the hell you think you are, Griffin?”

“You know, by getting mad at Harry taking you out, you reflected on Fred Gladding. Whatsamatter, don’t you trust Gladding?”

And Gladding said, “That’s right. You just showed you have no confidence in me at all.”

“Now, wait a minute, Fred,” Griffin said. “I’ve got confidence in you.”

“Bullshit,” Gladding said. “You don’t have any confidence at all. You don’t think I can do the job.”

On the bus, while Blefary, Dierker, Edwards, Wynn and a few other guys sang a couple of choruses from “Proud to Be an Astro,” Gladding apologized to Griffin. “I was just kidding,” he said, patting him on the shoulder. “Nice game, bubble ass.”

And Blasingame immediately jumped in. “Did you hear what he called you, Tom? Bubble ass? Jesus, that’s absolutely uncalled for.”

And so on.

There’s a different relationship between whites and blacks on this club than there is in Seattle. Although there was no trouble in Seattle, there was a certain distance. Generally Davis and Simpson and Harper went their separate way. Pagliaroni and Segui were quite friendly and had dinner at each other’s homes and there were no strained relations. Yet there was not a lot of—what else to call it?—segregation. Here it’s obviously different. It’s as though the blacks go out of their way to join with whites and the whites try extra hard to join in with the blacks. Blefary and Don Wilson room together on the road, and this is probably unique in baseball. In Jimmy Wynn’s room the other night, the group was thoroughly mixed. Tonight Miller and I were having milkshakes and Joe Morgan and Jimmy Wynn came over and sat down with us. It doesn’t seem forced, and I think it’s worth a lot to the ballclub.

Of course, the humor sometimes gets self-consciously heavy-handed. Like one time Norm was supposed to play in a game against some tough pitcher, but he had a bad ankle and at the last minute Harry Walker decided to let him rest another night. Naturally the word went right out that Miller had asked out of the lineup, which everybody knew wasn’t true. And soon there was a song called “Jew the Jake” sung to the tune of Hava Nagilla.

It just struck me that I’m playing for a team that has beaten the St. Louis Cardinals two out of three and we’ve got Don Wilson, one of our aces, going tomorrow, and we’re in a pennant race, and we won tonight because their shortstop made an error in the tenth inning and opened the door and we stepped in, just like the old Yankees used to. I think I’m going to cry.

When I got back to the hotel, Harry Walker was standing in the lobby with Jim Owens and a couple of the other coaches. They asked me to join them, and Owens asked me what my longest stretch in a game was this season.

“About five innings,” I said. “But I could have pitched longer.”

“We were just thinking,” Harry said.

“I know he likes to run those long sprints,” Owens said. “So his legs are in shape.”

“Yeah, he just might be able to give them fits,” Harry said. “Niekro stopped them 1–0 tonight.”

And I think, “What the hell is going on here?”

“We’re just thinking about it,” Harry said. “There’s a possibility we may start you against Pittsburgh on Friday.”

“Oh well, hell, sure,” I stammered. “I think I can do it.” Of course, after facing Niekro’s knuckleball they might not think much of mine.

“Well, shit, if you can throw it like you did the other night, that jumps around good enough,” Owens said. “You’d give them fits. The knuckleball screws up the mind.”

“We’re just thinking about it,” Harry said again. “We wanted to know how far you’d gone with it.”

“I’m ready,” I said. “But don’t hesitate to use me before in relief if you need me. I can pitch in relief, then start the next night.”

I walked away, my head buzzing. Here the Seattle Pilots, fighting to stay out of last place, wouldn’t take another chance on starting me and the Houston Astros, in the middle of a pennant race, may just do it. Beautiful.

The Pilots ended their losing streak with a 2–1 win against Baltimore. Brabender pitched. I felt happy for them. I found I wasn’t rooting against them the way I rooted against the Yankees. I guess I’d like Joe Schultz to keep his job. But I wonder what the guys think about getting Dooley Womack. I hope Dooley gets hammered. That way maybe somebody will wise up to Marvin Milkes.

We lost a 2–1 heartbreaker in extra innings. It was tough to take. On the other hand, President Nixon today nominated Judge Haynsworth for the Supreme Court. I think that will turn out to be a more famous defeat.

Houston

I start tonight against Pittsburgh. I decided I wasn’t going to be nervous. I wasn’t going to let my stomach churn over. It was the Bard or Johnny Sain or somebody who said, “He who would be calm must take on the appearance of being calm.” So that’s what I did. I tried to look relaxed, and after a while I felt relaxed. Shakespeare or somebody would have been a helluva pitching coach.

I don’t think Bobbie would have been very good at it, though.

I called to tell her about the start and she said, “You? Why you?”

Lovely girl.

Why me, at that? I guessed because of Niekro’s success against the Pirates. I also guessed because of doubleheaders, which have jammed up the pitching staff. And I guessed because Harry Walker likes to take chances.

The trouble for me in a pressure situation is that the knuckleball isn’t like other pitches. Throwing conventional stuff in a tight situation, I’d just throw harder. It didn’t take any thinking, just more muscle. Whitey Ford once said to me during a World Series game, “Kid, you’re throwing nervous hard out there.” But with a knuckleball, if you start cutting loose, it starts spinning and you spend a lot of time watching baseballs fly over fences.

Still, the pressure, I think, is one of the most exciting things about athletics, and it’s one of the reasons I have so much fun playing. I remember sitting on the bench before my game in the 1963 Series. I was to pitch against Don Drysdale. Houk was sitting about five feet away from me on the bench and for some reason we were all alone. And I said, “You know something, Ralph? Whether I win today or lose, this sure is a helluva lot of fun, isn’t it?”

Houk understood. I could tell because he didn’t say, “Whaddaya mean lose? We’re gonna win,” the way a lot of other managers would have. All he said was, “It sure is. I know just what you mean.”

I’m getting a big kick out of Blefary. He’s called “Buff,” short for Buffalo, because he works so hard. If I had to be in a foxhole I’d like him in there with me. He’s the kind who picks up hand grenades and throws them back. He’s a perfect Marine, yet he doesn’t seem to have the Marine mentality. One winter he spent his time, not selling mutual funds, but working with retarded children. Blefary on the pick-off play: “Now if you see me reaching for my throat—like this—that means you go into your stretch position, take your set, don’t even look over. As soon as you get to your set, turn around and fire over there, hard and low, between the runner and the bag. I’ll be there.”

“And if you see me going for
my
throat,” I said, “it means I’m choking to death.”

Which reminds me of Joe Pepitone’s pick-off play. In the 1964 World Series with Lou Brock on first base, I gave the pick-off sign to Pepi and when I took my stretch position and looked over toward first, he was standing there shaking his head, tiny shakes because he didn’t want anybody to see. It was the first time I ever saw anybody shake off a pick-off sign. It was in the 1963 Series that he lost a throw from third base in the shirts of the crowd and was the goat of the game. Now he didn’t want to handle the ball any more than he had to. Just for the hell of it, I gave him the sign again a few pitches later. I wanted to see if he’d shake me off again. He did.

“Bulldog,” said Curt Blefary, “if we get back to the Dome no more than four games out, we’re going to win it. We don’t get beat in the Dome.”

Then Don Wilson came over and said, “When we get back home, we’re going to win this thing. We just don’t lose in that motherfucking Dome.”

The idea is that I’m not supposed to lose there either. I’m willing not to.

Spec Richardson got on the bus to the ballpark last night and there were five Latin players talking Spanish. He stood listening for a while, his eyes shifting back and forth, as if he understood what they were saying. Finally he said, “Abbadabba dabbadabba.”

When we got into Houston last night we stopped off at the Astrodome so the players could pick up their cars. I went inside to look at it. I’d been there once, with the Yankees, when it first opened. The only thing I remembered was this huge band that played seven songs during the evening, five of them “Dixie.”

Also last night, I was standing in the skin part of the infield before the game and Miller came over and said, “Hey, you’re not allowed to stand on the infield dirt.” I asked why. “Because Jimmy Wynn was fooling around in the infield and he’s an outfielder and he got hit on the finger and couldn’t play, so Harry made a rule. Every time something happens, we have a new rule.”

It shouldn’t matter that much what happens to me tonight. If I win, I’ll be all the way back from the basement. On the other hand, if I lose, it will still have been a pretty good season. Still, I’ve been having all kinds of insane thoughts. On the airplane last night I thought, “Damn, if this plane goes down I hope the newspapers at least have me listed in the probable starting pitchers.”

Here it is, my dream. I’m pitching for a pennant contender in August. I really am lucky.

That’s what I thought about when I went out to the mound. This is fun, this is kicks. Stay cool. Be calm and try to get the feel of that good knuckleball with the first pitch. Find that tricky abstract thought, the one that makes you feel so competent and smooth. I tried to recall the last few warm-up pitches I threw and I remember thinking, “Why are they playing the National Anthem so slowly?”

I walked the first hitter on four pitches. The first two pitches to the next hitter were balls. Christ, am I ever going to throw one over? Fortunately the runner tried to steal second and Edwards threw him out. Edwards is a great catcher. He catches the knuckleball better than McNertney, and he doesn’t have the big glove. Edwards ought to be President.

That enabled me to walk the second hitter. But somehow I got by the inning. I felt a great surge of nervousness, and while I couldn’t throw hard, I think I was able to use it, make it work for me.

I just kept throwing the knuckleball, and after a while I looked up at the scoreboard and we were in the fifth inning, leading 1–0. Gravy. After this it’s all gravy. I’ve done it for five innings and nobody could ask for more.

There was a lot of scraping and scrounging after that, hanging tough with men on base, the way it was back in the old days. Each inning I came back to the dugout and I could see a little more respect in the eyes of my teammates. I wasn’t with them from the beginning, when they were four and twenty, when they battled back into the pennant race. I’m a newcomer, and I have to prove myself, and I was doing it. I could see new appreciation in their eyes and sense an excitement as they realized how much help I could be.

The game went ten innings. I was ahead 2–1 in the ninth. All I needed was three outs. I got them, but not before a few things happened. Like I bounced a knuckleball off the first batter’s kneecap. The next batter conspired with heaven and Astroturf to hit a chopper that took so long coming down it went for a base hit. Two outs later I’ve got runners on second and third. Now a base hit to center field ends the ball game. I mean it’s
over
. Except Jimmy Wynn and Leon McFadden make a blurry fast relay that nails the second runner at the plate and I’m out of it with a 2–2 tie.

Now here I am in the tenth inning, the tenth unbelievable inning, and I swear I expect Joe Schultz or Sal Maglie or Merritt Ranew or somebody to come out and tell me I’m throwing too goddam much. Instead, all I got to do is pitch to Matty Alou. He strikes out. On a passed ball. And reaches first base. It happens.

Then Gene Alley moves him to second on a ground ball and I strike out Willie Stargell. With first base open we walk Roberto Clemente intentionally. Here comes Al Oliver, a left-handed hitter. I fool him on a knuckleball, outside. Somehow, though, he puts his bat on it and pokes it into left field, on the line. Who’d want to play him there? Nobody. So it goes for a double. Two runs. The ballgame. We lose 4–2.

I could’ve cried. There wasn’t a tear in me, though. Just joy, elation, satisfaction, vindication, a great sense of accomplishment. The knuckleball
worked
. In the National League. For ten innings. I struck out eleven, walked only four. A bounce, a bit of luck, I could have won. No matter. For the first time, for the first time in what seemed eons, I went all the way through a ballgame getting the hitters out on my stuff, my very own personal, natural stuff.

If I cried, it would have been for joy.

I called my wife, and then my mom and dad and brothers. Then I was alone in the Astroworld Hotel, with nobody to talk to but my tape recorder. I was still talking to the machine at 2:30 A.M., knowing it would be hours before I could fall asleep.

Norm Miller said he wanted to room with me and I said sure, but wouldn’t I be coming between him and somebody else? “Nah,” he said, “I’ve already filed papers on my former roommate.”

My note-taking has quickly attracted attention. Dierker got on me pretty good, and since I was going so good I told him flat out I was writing a book. Now he keeps coming around with good stories. “Write this down,” he says.

Watching the ballgame today someone broke off a real good curve and I said, “That was a real yellow hammer.”

Dierker agreed.

“Hey, Dierk, you ever hear ‘yellow hammer’ before?” I asked.

Jim Owens jumped to his defense. “Of course he did,” Owens said. “You think he came into town on a load of watermelons?”

Then Owens got on me. He insisted I show him my notes. There was nothing much in them, so I did.