Painting the Corners Read online

  After we won the division, Hank played a big part in our series against Houston. Even though we swept them in three games, two of the games could have gone either way and put us in a hole. In the opener, he bunted Morgan to third after he led off the ninth with a double, and then Morgan scored the winning run on a sacrifice fly. And in the game that clinched the series for us, Hank moved two runners along in the seventh with a perfect bunt down the third base line and they both scored on a two-out error by the shortstop. Being two runs up instead of one when the Astros had their last at bat in the ninth changed the strategy in the inning, and we held on to win by a run.

  We figured all along we’d have to go through the Mets to get to the World Series and we were right. What a series that was, huh! It was pretty much our hitting against their pitching and it was one of those rare times when the hitting won out. They went one up on us three times, but we came back each time to tie the series and send it to a seventh game. Hank batted only once in the first six games, and when the pitcher slipped and threw his bunt into right field, two runs scored and he moved that old body of his all the way to second. I had already used up most of our bench — that was the 13-10 game — but I pulled a pitcher out of the bullpen to come in and run for him. There was no way I was going to take a chance on Hank having to run some more on another play and have a heart attack out there. I told everyone on the bench to give him the silent treatment when he got back to the dugout, and Hank never even noticed. He just put on his jacket, got himself a Gatorade, and took a seat next to the bat rack.

  In game seven we went up against Orman, their number three pitcher who had given us just two runs the first time around. But this time our hitting was strong right from the start. After seven innings we were up 9-5 and the fans were having a good time in the stands. In the eighth, though, our setup man didn’t have it and the Mets scored three runs before I could bring in our closer to get us off the field. In our half of the eighth, Rudy Ruiz got to third with one out on a single and a two-base error by the center fielder who let the ball get under his glove and roll about 50 feet past him. It was Anderson’s turn to hit, but I knew we could replace him at first base defensively and he hadn’t been swinging a good bat the last couple of games. Besides, I was pretty sure the Mets would be looking for a suicide squeeze if I sent Hank up to bat, and I wanted to challenge them on it. We had the team’s fastest runner on third and the league’s best bunter at the plate.

  As soon as Hank was announced over the PA system, Mal Nash came out of the Mets’ dugout and took his time getting to the mound. The first thing he did was call his infielders together for a short conference. When it was over, they all moved in from their regular positions to no more than 40 feet from the plate. Then Nash signaled for his three outfielders to come in. He put his left fielder right on the third base bag, his right fielder on the base at first and his center fielder about ten feet behind the catcher. I guess that last move was in case there was a play at home and the ball got past the plate. If that happened, Nash didn’t want Hank to be able to take an extra base.

  I’ll tell you, that was the first time in my career I’d ever seen that kind of shift on a baseball field, and I haven’t heard from anyone yet who has seen it before. It meant, to me at least, that no other player who’d been sent up there to bunt, with everyone in the park knowing what was coming, had ever received the respect Hank was getting in that situation. Hank walked over to the rosin bag in the on-deck circle and rubbed up his hands. When he finished, he looked over at our dugout and gave me a wink with a little bit of a smile. I figured he knew what he was going to do and there was no sense in prolonging the suspense. I also felt sure that Nash expected me to have Hank take the first pitch so we’d see how close their infielders were going to come to the plate. As far as I was concerned, that all added up to a fastball looking for strike one, so I signaled for Ruiz to take off on the first pitch. I knew Tyson coaching at third would talk to Ruiz after he got my sign and tell him to get as big a lead as he could on the pitcher’s stretch.

  Well, you saw what happened. Hank showed bunt even before the pitcher threw the ball, which is almost always a “no, no,” and all four infielders were about on top of him when the pitch reached the plate. But that’s just what he wanted. It was a fastball, as I’d guessed, right down Broadway. When it got to him, Hank pulled the bat back a little, and instead of waiting for the ball to hit the bat, took a slight swing at it and looped it in the direction of the second baseman, but over his head. Walters — and he’s been an All-Star for years — stopped in his tracks and tried to go back for it, but the ball fell on the infield grass before he could get there. He threw Hank out at first, but Ruiz scored standing up and gave us a two-run lead. Hank had pretty much done the impossible and the ballpark showed its appreciation by giving him a standing ovation as he walked back to the dugout. They wanted him to come out for a curtain call, but Hank’s from the old school and doesn’t believe in that stuff. The Mets got one back with a home run in the ninth, but that was all and then our guys were out there in a big pile — all except for old-man Hank — celebrating the National League Pennant we had just won and our chance to play the Detroit Tigers for the world championship.

  When the World Series started that weekend, it was the kind of letdown you might expect after what we’d been through with the Mets. The National League had finally won an All-Star Game that summer, so we opened at home. The stadium looked beautiful with all the red, white, and blue bunting on the walls. They brought in that rock star to sing the National Anthem, and the players loved being introduced individually and jogging out to the first base line. But we fell behind early and the fans never had much to cheer about. The team seemed to be playing at less than full speed, and deserved the loss the Tigers pinned on us.

  I had a short meeting with the players before game two to try and light a fire under them. I told them they might never be in another World Series the rest of their careers, so they should focus on what they were doing and give everything they had on every play. The guys listened to what I said. We won easily at home that day, took two out of three from Detroit in their ballpark and came back to Pittsburgh hoping to wrap it up in six.

  I gave the players the option of practicing or staying home to get some rest on the off day. Some of the writers thought that was a crazy move, but I knew they were upset because they wanted every chance to get personal interviews with the players for their papers. But most of the team showed up anyway, so that kept the grumbling to a minimum. Hank was all over the place, hitting fungoes to the outfielders, working on bunts with the pitchers and bench players who had to pinch-hit, and spending time out at second with our double play combination which had looked a little unsteady in the games at Detroit.

  After practice, Hank came in to see me and thanked me again for putting him on the team. He said it was the best three-month period he’d ever had in the big leagues and he’d never forget it. I butted in to tell him we probably wouldn’t be fighting for the championship if it weren’t for him. He laughed at that and said it was because I sent him up there with the chance to be a hero every time and he’d been on a lucky streak. “That’s bull,” I told him, “it’s because no one in baseball comes close to being able to bunt like you.”

  Hank got up from his chair then and said he wanted me to know he’d already decided to call it quits when the Series was over, that these were the last days he’d be spending on a big league ball field. Both of his daughters and two granddaughters lived in different towns around Pennsylvania and they all wanted him to come and stay with them for weeks at a time. Carol, his wife, had passed away about two years earlier, and Hank felt those invitations were something he shouldn’t turn down. “I’ll be able to watch my great-grandkids grow up a little,” he said, “maybe make a ballplayer out of one of the boys. And Lord willing, I’ll still be able to get to some of the club’s home games. The only difference is I’ll be watching from the boxes, not the dugout.” He went over
to the door, said “See you tomorrow, Skip,” and left.

  Well, we lost game six 2-1, but I had nothing to complain about. Alex Ochoa gave us six terrific innings, a lot more than I’d counted on, and left with a 1-0 lead. The Tigers scored a run each in the seventh and eighth innings off our two best setup men. Holbrook allowed only four hits and one run in the eight frames he worked for Detroit, and that kid Macy showed us again why he was the best closer in the American League. My only regret was that I didn’t have a chance to use Hank because I wanted to get him one more at bat before he hung up his spikes.

  Before game seven the next day, I had the worst set of butterflies in my stomach I can remember, and they never went away. That may have been the best nine innings of baseball I ever saw, because even though the score was 4-4 after eight, both clubs could have been in double figures if not for some of the great plays you saw out there. Morgan should have had a grand slam for us in the fifth, and I still can’t believe how high their left fielder got up there to snag it before it reached the stands.

  But we’re talking about Hank here, so let me go over what happened. We had shut the Tigers down in the ninth and were looking to score a run and end the Series right there. Everyone in the dugout was on the edge of their seat. Things looked great when Coffey swung late and flared one down the line in left for a double to lead off the inning. I could have sent Hank up right then to bunt him over to third, but Harris came out of the Detroit dugout to talk to his pitcher himself instead of sending his pitching coach, so I waited to see what he’d do. While they went at it, I decided to hold Hank back on a hunch, and it turned out to be a good move when Harris ordered an intentional pass to Mullins.

  So we had first and second, no outs, and Trinidad, our shortstop, captain, and number eight hitter up next. I figured Harris was looking for a double play if Trinidad swung away, or at least a force-out at third on a bunt. That gave me another chance to call for Hank, but Trinidad was pretty good at laying one down so I decided to let him stay in the game. As soon as Trinidad was announced, Harris came back out of the Tigers’ dugout and brought in Macy, his fireballing closer who had already saved two games in the Series. Trinidad bunted twice, but the ball rolled foul each time. I could have let him try again, but instead I took off the bunt sign and let him hit away. That hunch wasn’t as good as my first one because he rolled it hard to the shortstop who started the double play.

  That left us with Coffey on third, two outs, and Baldacci, our pitcher, due up. He had thrown two terrific innings of relief, six up, six down with a couple of strikeouts, and I felt he could give us at least one more strong frame. A suicide squeeze wasn’t in the picture because Hank would get thrown out at first and the run wouldn’t count. As I was thinking about what to do, Hank came over to me and said he thought he could get the run in if I let him bat. I could have asked him what he had in mind, but there was something about the way he said it and the look on his face that convinced me to just let him go. The fans started clapping and making noise when Hank stepped on the field, but you could tell everyone was wondering why he’d be batting in that situation.

  All four infielders moved in toward the plate as the pitcher went into his stretch, and they inched in closer as the pitch was thrown. Hank didn’t make any move to bunt and took the first fastball for a strike. The next two pitches were off the plate and he watched them both with the bat on his shoulder. On each delivery, both heaters, the infielders charged in even closer as soon as the ball was thrown. The next pitch from Macy was another fastball, this one showing a 98 on the radar gun. Hank swung and missed, and you could almost hear the air going out of the crowd, like 52,000 balloons deflating at the same time. I didn’t know what he was up to, but it was too late to be asking any questions.

  Well, now you know Hank had been playing his own game with the Tigers and convinced them he wasn’t up there to bunt. So with two strikes on him, they moved back to pretty much their normal positions. As Hank told me afterwards, with a big laugh, “They had me where I wanted them.” The fifth straight fastball came in, Macy fell off to the right side of the mound as he did after every delivery, and Hank dragged one to the other side of the mound, right between the first and second basemen. Each of them thought it was his ball to field and went for it as Hank started down the line. Macy recovered quickly when he saw the play unfolding and ran to cover first base. The first baseman fielded the ball, and his only play was to throw it to the pitcher. With the crowd screaming, Hank ran as hard as he could and went into a headfirst slide to avoid a tag by Macy who was a little off balance when he took the throw. Hank recovered, got partway up and dove headfirst again, stretching his arm out to touch first base just before Macy stepped on the bag.

  The fans roared when they saw the umpire give the “safe” sign and saw the winning run cross the plate. A chant of “Hank, Hank, Hank” began filling the stadium. Everyone ran out of the dugout to help him get up off the ground. They lifted Hank carefully on their shoulders and circled the bases with him as if he’d hit a home run and couldn’t make it around without help. What a celebration that was! The Tigers were stunned and were slow to leave the field, but I never thought it was that hard for them to take because they knew they’d lost the World Series on a one-in-a-million play by a one-in-a-million ballplayer.

  Later that week someone in the Pirates’ organization sent a fax to the commissioner’s office expressing the club’s total agreement, albeit belatedly, with the rule that had kept Hank from sitting in the dugout during games without him having a position on the team.

  •

  THE AUTOGRAPH

  •

  “In retrospect, you are always looking back.”

  —Jimy Williams

  IT WAS BY chance that I was walking down that street in Herkimer, New York — its name escapes me — and looked into the window of a store with the appearance of being a cross between a pawn shop and the unlikely resting place for an assortment of items I would have expected to find in a flea market. The shop’s name, painted on the glass in faded gold lettering, was “The Treasure Chest.”

  Several electric guitars, some brass instruments, and an assortment of men’s suits and women’s dresses hung from two parallel wires that looked to be pieces of an old, orange-colored extension cord. In front, there were a number of china cup and saucer sets, a collection of foreign coins, and glassware of all types, some of it the opaque-green variety that was given away to movie house patrons during the depression. Farther back, several beat-up dolls joined a display of tin containers that once held tea or soap or crackers, and odd-shaped bottles that once were filled with unpasteurized milk, medicinal cure-alls, and Moxie. But what captured my attention was a baseball, sitting on a small square of red carpeting, near enough to the front of the window that I could read the signature, a name that for several moments I almost couldn’t believe I was seeing again: Denton Heywood.

  My daughter and I had left our home outside of Boston early that morning on a mission to visit five colleges in upstate New York over a period of three days. The first was already out of the way.

  “I don’t know. Don’t ask me for all kinds of details,” Tracy said, irritated by my persistent questioning after she had rated the latest one “about a 6” on a scale of 1 to 10. We had joined a group of other parents and high school seniors on a student-led tour of the campus, watched a film extolling the virtues of every academic department in the college, and sat through a welcoming presentation with one of the assistant deans of admission. He was prepared to take questions at that point, but despite the nervous glances that we mothers and fathers gave to the prospective members of the Class of ’87, they indicated by their detached silence that they were not there to take risks but only to be entertained.

  On the thruway heading toward Syracuse — our first stop the next morning — we saw signs for the General Herkimer Inn. The name seemed to amuse Tracy, and she suggested we stay there. I had no reason to disagree. Tracy wanted to rest after
we checked in, so I changed into some comfortable clothes, put on my factory-discount New Balance sneakers, and began exploring downtown Herkimer.

  * * *

  I turned twelve years old on October 2, 1945. It was a Sunday, and the last day of the Major League Baseball season. Baseball had entered my life for the first time that summer when I became friendly with some boys who spent the better part of each day playing ball at the huge field in our neighborhood.

  My father, who worked a grocery store owner’s typical fifteen-hour day, had responded to my plea for a baseball glove — “I need my own mitt” — by purchasing what looked more like an extra large leather mitten. It had very little padding, and there was no webbing at all between the thumb and fourth finger. I never fully considered the words “mitt” and “mitten” until years later when my father said he thought he bought me exactly what I wanted; that he understood a “mitt” to be a training glove that one used before being ready to play with a regular one. But the glove served me well that summer as I learned how to play the game.