Five Seasons: A Baseball Companion (25 page)

Beyond these individual athletic and fiscal histories was the interesting business of the two clubs themselves and their impending summer-long fight for the affections of the same enormous and demanding baseball audience—the battle of Shea Stadium, the war for New York. There has been nothing quite like this since the departure of the Giants and the Dodgers, for the swift decline of the once mighty Yankees in the past decade and the even more precipitous ascent of the darling Mets had seemed utterly independent of each other. Now a big-city baseball reversal may be in progress, with the young and star-enriched Yankees, who were a close second in their division last year, apparently the possessors of the best pitching and the best outfield in their half-league, on the rise; and with the aging Mets, pennant winners in 1973 but a fifth-place club last year, apparently in pitching difficulties and thus possibly in very bad trouble indeed. This spring meeting was part of a good subway summer to come.

The game began, and baseball replaced speculation. Hunter in pinstripes was about the same as Hunter in green and gold—the flowing hair, the flowing motion, the big, oversize cap resettled between each pitch. Seaver, too, restored memory—the cold, intelligent gaze; the unwasteful windup; the sudden forward, down-dropping stride off the rubber. He struck out two of the first three Yankee batters, without really trying his fastball. Now, with one out in the top of the second, Dave Kingman stood in for the Mets, occasioning a small hum of interest because of his height, which is six feet six inches, and his batting style, which is right-handed, tilted, and uppercutting. The hum was replaced by an explosion of sustained shouting as Kingman came around on a high Hunter change-up, caught all of the ball—every inch and ounce of it—with his bat, and drove it out of the park and out of the lights in a gigantic parabola, whose second, descendant half was not yet perceptible when the ball flew into the darkness, departing the premises about five feet inside the left-field foul line and about three palm trees high. I have never seen a longer home run anywhere.

There were further entertainments and events—two hits by Munson; the Mets winning the game, 3–0, on sterling shutout pitching by Seaver and his young successors, Craig Swan and Rick Baldwin; and
another
homer by Kingman, also off Hunter—this one a high, windblown fly just over the fence, giving him a total of four round-trippers in his first five games as a Met. He also fanned weakly on his last two times up. In the fourth inning, Joe Torre took a backward step near third base as Bobby Bonds came down the base path from second (there was no play on him), and somehow severely sprained his right ankle. It was an inexplicable, almost invisible little accident that nonetheless ruined Torre’s spring, and the kind of pure bad luck that can sometimes darken a club’s entire season.

Nothing, however, could touch or diminish Kingman’s first shot. Catfish Hunter, after his stint, sat in the training room with his shoulder encased in an ice bag and his elbow in a bucket of ice water, and reminisced cheerfully about other epochal downtowners he had given up. There had been a preseason one by Willie McCovey and perhaps, years ago, a Mickey Mantle five-hundred-footer. Mantle, now a Yankee springtime coach, could not remember it. “I know I never saw one longer than this,” he said. Bill Virdon guessed that the ball had flown an additional two hundred and fifty feet beyond the fence, into an adjacent diamond, which might qualify it as a simultaneous homer and double: a six-base blow. The Yankees were still talking about the home run the next day, when Hunter told Ron Blomberg he hoped he hadn’t hurt his neck out there in left field watching the ball depart. Others took it up, rookies and writers and regulars, redescribing and amplifying it, already making it a legend, and it occurred to me that the real effect of the blast, except for the memory and joy of it, might be to speed Catfish Hunter’s acceptance by his new teammates. There is nothing like a little public humiliation to make a three-and-a-half-million-dollar executive lovable.

That night, the press clustered thickly around Kingman in the visiting clubhouse. He is a shy, complicated young man, twenty-six years old, and he seemed embarrassed by his feat, although he was noted for similar early-season tape-measure blows while with the Giants, as well as for his strikeouts. “I’m just trying to win a job here,” he said. “I’m putting home runs and strikeouts out of my mind. They’re not in my vocabulary.” Well, yes. Every spring is a new beginning, especially for a ballplayer with a new team, but in his three and a half major-league seasons to date, Dave Kingman has hit 77 home runs while striking out 422 times—once for every three trips to the plate—and his batting average is .224.

Rusty Staub, dressing in front of his locker, looked over at the tall newcomer and the eight or ten writers around him, and laughed. “The trouble with you, Dave,” he called over, “is you’re just having a slow start. You’ll get going once the season rolls along.”

Spring training is all hope. Hope is the essential, for every club and every player. Walt Williams, a black thirty-one-year-old journeyman outfielder, started for the Yankees in the Mets game the next afternoon, playing second base. He has had nine years in the majors, mostly with the White Sox; he hit .304 one season. Last year, however, his batting fell off to an abysmal .113, and he ended the season with the Yanks as a pinch-runner. He claims that he had an incorrect prescription in his eyeglasses. This year, he thought about the incoming Yankee talent and decided that his chances as an outfielder were “poor or none.” He received permission from Bill Virdon and general manager Gabe Paul to try to make the club as an extra infielder. The day before, he had played second in a B game against the Texas Rangers, and had made three hits, including a home run, and had been involved in a double play. Walt Williams is five feet six inches tall, with the shoulders and chest of a heavyweight prizefighter. At the plate, he stands with his arms and shoulders raised high, peering at the pitcher over his left biceps, and waggles the bat fiercely. While playing in Chicago, he was called No-Neck Williams—a name he does not like. He runs everywhere, runs out everything. He talks fast, in explosions of words, and smiles ceaselessly. It is impossible not to like him. Before the game, he said, “Listen, I’m just like a rookie in the infield, only I’ve got better hands than the average infielder. I’m a lifetime .280 hitter. Forget about last year—just throw it out. Aren’t too many guys going to outhit me. Truthfully, after last year I was going to go and play in Japan. I planned on winning the batting championship there. Then I got a little fan mail, letters that said ‘Don’t go,’ so I came and talked to Gabe about being an extra infielder. Those letters made me feel good. Listen, I
know
I can play second, but can I show them in time? When did I last play second base? Before yesterday? Oh, my, I think it was when I was about seventeen.”

In the game (which the Yanks won, 7–6), Walt Williams hit a single and a double, ran out everything, started one double play with a tag on the base path, and made an error when he dropped the ball in his eagerness to start another. In the clubhouse, panting and pouring sweat from the postgame squad sprints, he said, “I made a mistake out there—changed my mind at the last minute. But I think I showed them something. I know I can play this game. I
know
it.”

There are two utility infielders, Eddie Leon and Fred Stanley, already on the Yankee roster, and reserve infielders are kept on mostly for their steady gloves and their experience. But Walt Williams is hopeful; he has no other choice.

POSTCARDS

Saw Eddie Kranepool hit three singles today, against the Yanks. Eddie Kranepool always hits. Last year, he hit an even .300. Eddie will always be a Met. Mrs. Payson loves him, and, besides, why would you ever get rid of him? Eddie has it made. He has twelve years in as a major leaguer, twelve years on the pension. Eddie Kranepool is thirty years old. Good old Eddie.

Ron Blomberg came up the steps from the clubhouse and into the dugout, and saw a
Times
reporter reading the Mets’ press pamphlet. “Hey,” he said, “can I see that for a minute?” “Sure,” the writer said, tossing it to him. “Don’t drop it.” Blomberg nearly did drop it. “Jesus!” he muttered. Terrible hands. Bill Virdon said, “You got him thinking.” Everyone nearly died laughing.… Maybe you had to
be
there.

Pitchers are expected to do a lot of running in the spring. They sprint in groups of three or four along the outfield fence, from one of the foul lines to center field. They stop and rest, then run back. If the sun is out, they stop in the little slab of shade along the fence and bend over, with their heads down and their hands on their knees, and pant like dogs. This happens in every camp every day. Hundreds of pitchers running and panting.

Watched Los Angeles taking batting practice before the next game at Fort Lauderdale. A young Dodger was looking at three girls sunning themselves behind home. Coach Monty Basgall said, “Get out of the stands; you’re married now.”

The ballplayer said something short.

“You still married?” Basgall asked.

“I think so. Why?”

“I don’t know,” Basgall said. “I figure you for the kind’s going to get married three, four times.”

Bobby Bonds, sitting on a trunk in the clubhouse before the Dodger game, talking about his old Giant teammate Dave Kingman: “If you see him hit two singles, it’s amazing. If he’s making contact, the ball’s going to go. You know he’s a great bunter? People don’t know everything about him.… I’m the DH today. Never did
that
before. What does the DH do when he isn’t up swinging? … It’s funny—I looked over at the Dodgers there today and I didn’t get that old feeling. We used to be so up for those games. They really counted.”

STRAIGHT ARROWS

A slim, tan, dark-eyed young man with a very thin mustache turned up in the Yankee clubhouse. He was not in uniform, but most of the Yankee regulars came over to shake his hand. “Hey,” they said. “Way to go. I just heard. Go get ’em there, now.” He was Ray Negron, a nineteen-year-old Queens resident, who was a Yankee batboy last year. This winter, he was taken on by the Pirates in the second round of the free-agent draft, and now he was on his way to report to Pirate City, in Bradenton, for the opening day of minor-league training camp. He hopes to play second base with the Pirates’ Class A club, in Charleston, South Carolina.

“Leaving home yesterday was the hardest thing I ever did in my life,” he said. “Everybody came to the airport to see me off. My father, my mother, my two sisters, my grandfather, my girl friend, and me—everybody was there, everybody was crying. I’m not afraid of what will happen. I know I can pick it in the infield, so the only question is whether I can hit the pitching. I’m very thrilled. This is what I’ve wanted all my life. Being around the big leaguers last year on the Yankees got my attitude together. Watching guys like Alex Johnson and Lou Piniella made me learn to be positive. Before last year, I was a sure out. Couldn’t hit, couldn’t win. Since then, I’ve hit over .500 in every league I’ve been in. I know how hard a major leaguer has to work, so I’m ready. I told my girl, Barbara, I wouldn’t see her until September, no matter what happens. I said, ‘You go out, have a good time. You’re free. But if you want to wait, I’ll be waiting, too. I’ll wait for you in September.’” He looked down at the floor, suddenly shy.

Steve Garvey, the young Dodger first baseman, shook hands with two New York writers near the batting cage. Last year, he batted .312, hit 21 homers, and knocked in 111 runs, and was voted Most Valuable Player in the National League. Garvey’s hair is short and neat, and he is always clean-shaven. He is friendly and extremely polite. “It was a busy winter for me,” he said. “I spoke at thirty-five or forty lunches and dinners, and made sixty or seventy appearances in all. I also did PR work for Pepsi-Cola. I missed being with my family, but on the whole it was a very satisfying experience. It was a real opportunity for me to be a good-will ambassador for baseball and for the club. There were a lot of father-and-son dinners and YMCA affairs, so there was the opportunity to influence young people, to show them there are people in the world they can look up to and pattern their lives after. The kids do listen to you—I was amazed. I think they’re ready to get away from the antiheroes of the nineteen sixties and move on to the heroes of the seventies. Anyway, I don’t care if they listen or not, because I believe this and I practice it in my life. Excuse me for a second, please. It’s my turn to bat.”

He stepped into the cage. The writers watched him in absolute silence.

Randy Tate, a tall young right-handed pitcher, was throwing hard on the mound at Huggins-Stengel Field, the Mets’ training headquarters in Saint Petersburg. He was being watched by Rube Walker, the Mets’ pitching coach, and by a videotape camera. There was a long orange-colored electric cord snaking across the field from the sidelines to the machine, which bore the name Video Logic. It was a cool, bright morning, and the grass was still dark with dew and early shadow. Rube Walker shook his head and called Tate in from the mound. His place was taken by Jon Matlack. “Seven minutes, Jon babe,” Walker said.

Tate pulled on a silky blue warm-up jacket and joined Rube Walker beside the machine. The camera operator began the playback, and we all watched Tate pitching in slow motion on the little screen. “You still think you’re pushin’ off the rubber?” Rube said. “You call that pushin’ off? Look at that. This machine does the trick, Randy. I could talk to you about it all day, but this damned machine don’t lie. Run it back again.”

Huggins-Stengel is a modest double diamond in the middle of one of the Saint Petersburg public parks. The field is surrounded by trees. There is a lake out beyond right field, and a tiny strip of bleacher seats next to the low clubhouse building. An old-fashioned water tower behind home plate. On this morning, there were about thirty spectators sitting in the stands; some of them were watching the infield workout, and some were reading newspapers. There were six or eight schoolboy ballplayers there, wearing sneakers and pale-blue pinstriped uniforms with “Cardinals” across the shirtfronts in blue script. Birds were twittering. It was so quiet that when one of the coaches tapped a grounder out to a shortstop you could hear the sound the ball made as it hit the infield grass.