Las Vegas Gold (14 page)

“And that's not all. Eddy Harper is now the permanent GM and I am instructing him right now to renegotiate the contract of every single one of you. We want you all back next year, and every one of you deserves a raise. Except Bobby Joe. ”

That brought more yells and cheers. “Comingo, you're going to get exactly one dollar more because of your coaching help. You deserve it.” Bobby Joe, leaning on his crutches, laughed as hard as anyone else. “You know I'm just kidding, Bobby Joe.” The injured catcher grinned. “It's really only fifty cents.”

Comingo grabbed a bottle of champagne and caught Mike right in the face. Amid all the shouts, Mike wiped his face with his sleeve again and shouted, “Okay! Okay! You win. You can have a raise, too.”

Mike jumped down from the stool and went around the room hugging his players and coaches, and generally showing his exuberance. He was especially joyous when he came to young T.Y. Hollinger. He couldn't thank the young pitcher enough for saving his daughter's life. He was ecstatic. So was T.Y. He was overjoyed he had made the play of the year by being in the right place at the right time.

EPILOGUE

When everything had settled down, TV and newspapers finding other topics for their lead stories, Molly out of her hospital bed and on vacation with her father, the time came for Major League Baseball to announce the various season awards. The bulk of the awards went to players from the Las Vegas Gold.

Molly Malone was the unanimous winner of the Manager of the Year award. Mac Driscoll, with 36 saves, won the Rookie of the Year award. T.Y. Hollinger, with a record of 19-9 was a close second. Damaso Gonzalez, whose record was 23-10, won the Cy Young Award for pitching. Jerry Lyons won the batting title with .345, and Diego Martinez led the majors with his 52 home runs. Many thought he should have been rookie of the year. The youngster was undeterred, and was happy with his obvious success as a fielder and slugger. The only major award the Gold didn't capture was the MVP. That went to Stan Kirkwood of the Chicago White Sox, who had led the Sox in all departments and carried the team into the playoffs. But with all those awards, nobody on the Gold was complaining.

Harry Mendoza faced two charges of first degree murder, one in New York, the second in Las Vegas, and a charge of attempted murder in Illinois, plus charges of harassment in Nevada and California. The first trial was scheduled for early in the New Year in New York, where he had killed Tabby O'Hara. Happy Jefferson had recovered from his bullet wounds and was ready to testify as an eyewitness to Mendoza's presence in the locker room just before the murder. Nobody believed Harry Mendoza would be out of prison for the rest of his life, and in both California and New York the death penalty was a possibility.

As for Pat Trenowski, he disappeared into the Witness Protection Program, and as far as the Gold were concerned, he was never heard of again.

The second biggest story in Las Vegas was not even connected to the Gold's World Series win. The police drug squad had broken up Achille Ricci's drug operations and effectively put the Mafia leader out of operation. There were more than twenty arrests, his hotel and casinos were closed down, and he and his top associates appeared to be headed for long prison terms. Their chances of owning a Major League franchise anywhere were long gone.