John Feinstein - Change-up - Mystery at the World Series

Assignment in hand, Stevie made his way back down the hallway in the direction of the Nationals clubhouse. He couldn’t help but notice how quiet the walkway under the third-base stands was-especially when compared with the night before, when the Red Sox fans had been celebrating winning game one.

He wasn’t the only one who noticed. “The silence is deafening, isn’t it?” said Jeff Arnold, another writer for the Herald. His assignment was to talk to Austin Kearns about his throw on the last play.

“I guess they’re surprised,” Stevie said as they fell into the back of the media line waiting to get into the clubhouse.

“Not surprised, stunned,” Arnold said. “It’s funny how things change. Once, Red Sox fans expected disaster in October. But they’ve gotten used to winning now. This is the first time they’ve lost a World Series game since 1986.”

Stevie hadn’t thought about it that way. The Red Sox had swept the World Series in both 2004 and 2007 and had won the opener in this one. There had been years when they weren’t in the Series, but lately, when they got there, they were unbeatable.

The line was barely moving in the direction of the door. “Why is it so slow?” Stevie said. “It only took a few minutes to get into the Sox clubhouse last night.”

“The security guy on the visiting clubhouse here is a real pain in the neck,” Arnold said. “He looks at every pass as if it must be fake, does everything but ask your blood type. I guarantee he’ll give you a hard time.”

Stevie shrugged. Security guards never seemed to believe someone his age could actually be accredited to cover events like the Final Four and the U.S. Open tennis tournament. He steeled himself as he followed Arnold to the clubhouse door, which was blocked by a burly man who was-as Arnold had predicted-checking every pass as if the secret to happiness were written there in code.

Arnold survived inspection and stopped just inside the door. “What are you waiting for?” the guard snarled, looking over his shoulder while Stevie waited for his inspection.

“The young man there and I are partners,” Arnold said. “I’m waiting on him.”

The guard turned back toward Stevie, grabbed his pass-which was around his neck-looked at it, and then looked back at Stevie.

“How old are you?” he asked in an accusatory tone. Stevie wanted to ask if he questioned the age of everyone who walked through the door, but he took the easy way out instead and just said, “I’m fourteen.”

“Fourteen and you have a press pass? How’d that happen?”

That probably warranted a wise-guy answer, but he heard a voice behind him saying, “He’s got a press pass because he’s a first-rate reporter, Bill. And if you paid any attention to anything except proving you’re in charge here for fifteen minutes a night, you’d know who he is.”

Stevie looked behind him and saw Bob Ryan, the Boston Globe’s star columnist. Given the guard’s bullying attitude, Stevie thought Ryan was taking a major chance standing up for him. Then again, this was Boston, and he was Bob Ryan.

“I really don’t need you giving me a hard time here, Bob,” Bill said, but the snarl was gone from his voice.

“And we really don’t need you holding up the line when we’re all on deadline,” Ryan answered. “Arnold and I have both told you the kid’s legit, he’s got a pass, let’s go!”

Bill hesitated. Clearly, he didn’t want to concede that he was wrong and Ryan was right. Just as clearly, he had to know that picking a fight with Bob Ryan wasn’t a great idea.

“All right, Bob, on your word I’ll let it go for now. But I’m going to check this out.”

“Yeah, you should do that,” Ryan said. “And then you can apologize to the kid for doubting him.”

Bill reluctantly stepped aside to let Stevie and Ryan pass.

“Thanks, Mr. Ryan,” Stevie said. “I really appreciate your help.”

Ryan shook his head. “The Red Sox should have fired the guy years ago.”

He headed off, and Stevie began making his way into the tiny locker area of the clubhouse. He stood for a moment getting his bearings, looking for Wil Nieves’s locker.

“Who you looking for, Steve?”

It was John Dever, the Nationals’ PR guy.

“Nieves,” he said.

“Right there, somewhere in the middle of all those people,” Dever said, pointing to a locker in the corner of the room.

Stevie nodded his thanks and moved to the outside of the circle. At that moment he couldn’t see or hear Nieves. He would have to be patient. The TV crews would push their way forward first, cameramen using the sheer bulk of their equipment to forge a path. They would get their sound bites and move away, and the circle would grow smaller. It was late at night, so almost everyone was on deadline. Stevie knew he would get close to Nieves eventually if he just waited the others out.

He looked at his watch. He was in pretty good shape. Because it had been a low-scoring game, it had taken only two and a half hours to play, lightning fast for a postseason baseball game, given the length of the commercials between half innings. It was now 11:20, and he didn’t have to file until the Herald’s 12:45 a.m. deadline. Stevie knew he could write eight hundred words in forty-five minutes, so as long as he was upstairs in the media workroom at his computer by midnight, he would be okay.

A couple of TV crews came out of the circle, and everyone else moved closer. Now Stevie could hear a little of what Nieves was saying.

“Every pitch was where we wanted it to be,” he said with a slight, though noticeable, Spanish accent. “The first six innings I could have put my glove down and closed my eyes because the ball was going to be right where I put it.”

That was a good line, and Stevie turned his body so he could scratch some notes down while still leaning in to try to hear. What he really wanted was to get Nieves to talk about Doyle off the field, since they had played together in the minors and he probably knew him as well as anyone on the team. Doyle had mentioned that to Stevie over breakfast, which felt like it had taken place about a month ago.

More people moved out of the circle. Now Stevie could actually see Nieves, who was sitting on a chair, still in uniform, streaks of sweat and dirt running across his shirt. There was still an ESPN crew that hadn’t finished up. The guy holding the mike, whom Stevie didn’t recognize, asked Nieves if he felt vindicated playing in the World Series after the Yankees had released him. Typical TV question, Stevie thought. It had nothing to do with the game, and if you looked at Nieves’s statistics, it was easy to understand why he’d been released. Before 2008 he’d never come close to hitting.200 in a season.

Nieves apparently felt the same way. “I don’t blame them for releasing me,” he said. “They traded for a guy who was better than I was. But I’ve improved my hitting the last two years, and that’s why I was able to stick with this team.”

Stevie already liked Nieves. He sounded like he was smart and honest. He didn’t give cliché answers. The ESPN crew finally moved away, and Stevie was behind only a handful of guys with notebooks. It was 11:35. Still in good shape.

There were more questions about Doyle’s control and his stamina near the end of the game. Nieves had clearly been through this already, but he understood that the media came in waves, often with repeat questions. He patiently answered the questions again. More guys moved away. Now it was only Stevie and three other guys. One, whose credential identified him as Tom Stinson from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution , asked the question Stevie had wanted to ask: “You and Doyle were in Triple-A ball together early this season and a few years ago when you were both in the Padres organization. Do you know him pretty well?”