George Martin - Deuces Down

“Hi ya, kid,” he said cheerfully as Tommy approached the press box. “I’m Slug Maligne, ex-Yankee, press box attendant.”

“Tommy Downs,” Tommy said routinely, holding out his press pass, “The Weekly Gospel.” He paused as the joker’s words sunk in. “Ex-Yankee? You mean, the New York Yankees?”

Slug nodded cheerfully, as if this were a subject he never tired of discussing. “That’s right. I was with them for twelve days in the spring of ’59. Even got into a game. Yogi and Ellie Howard were both hurt. That was why I was on the roster. I was playing for the Joker Giant Kings-you know, the barnstorming team; I played for them off’n’on for over twenty years-and we were in town when Yogi and Ellie went down on consecutive days. Maybe I wasn’t the greatest hitter, but I was terrific defensively. Nobody could block the plate like me,” Slug said proudly. “Game I played was the second game of a doubleheader. Johnny Blanchard caught the first game; we were winning the second twelve to two and I caught Duke Maas for the last two innings.”

“Wow,” Tommy said. There was a story there, too-The Forgotten Joker of Baseball-but he couldn’t lose sight of the story he was chasing. In fact, maybe here was somebody who could help him, if he played his cards right. “That’s really interesting. Say, do you think you could spot another wild carder, if they were on the Dodgers?”

Slug frowned. “An ace, do you mean? Because anyone could spot a joker like me-and as far as I know I’m the only one who made it to the majors, even for a single game.”

“Yeah,” Tommy said. “An ace. Haven’t some funny things been happening on the Dodgers this year?”

Slug’s upper body shimmered, as if he’d shrugged tiny shoulders. “Kid, you hang around any team for a year, you’ll see a lot of funny things. Why, I remember back in ’56 when I was playing with the Joker Giant Kings-”

A sudden roar again shattered the air.

“Man,” Tommy said. “I’ve really gotta follow what’s going on with the game. Can we talk later?”

“Sure, kid,” Slug smiled, and Tommy made his way into the crowded press box where rows of reporters were banging away at their portables.

“What’d I miss?” Tommy asked.

“Drysdale doubled two in,” one of the scribes said laconically, shifting his cigar from one side of his mouth to the other. “Dodgers lead three to nothing.”

Reiser didn’t have to even think about managing until the fourth when Drysdale showed his first sign of weakness. He gave up a walk and a single. With two outs Ellie Hendricks, the big, hard-hitting Oriole catcher, scorched a line drive into left center. It looked like a certain two-run double, but Tommie Agee came out of nowhere with his smooth center-fielder glide that ate up the ground under his feet, reached his glove back-handed across his body, and snow-coned the ball in the webbing, robbing the stunned Orioles of two runs.

Sign Man held up his sheet of cardboard and the word “SENSATIONAL” appeared upon it in thick, black, sans serif letters. The Symphony broke into a spirited rendition of… something… as Agee trotted smilingly into the dugout and the Ebbets faithful shouted themselves hoarse all over again.

“What do you think?” Reiser asked Castro as Drysdale came into the dugout, put on his warm-up jacket, and sat down on his end of the bench.

Castro shook his head. “Don’t worry, yet. He’s throwing smooth. His motion is loose. He’s got a couple more innings in him.”

Once again, the prophet was right. It was the seventh before Drysdale ran out of gas. He retired the first two batters, but then walked three in a row. Reiser hardly needed Castro’s confirmation. It was time for the veteran to come out.

Reiser strolled out to the mound, and signaled for the right-hander, the twenty-two year old flamethrower out of Alvin, Texas, a tall angular kid named Nolan Ryan. Ryan could throw harder than anyone since Bob Feller. The only problem was, he didn’t have much of an idea where the ball was going once he released it. He struck out more than a batter per inning pitched, but walked nearly that many, and with the bases loaded and a three run Dodger lead, there was no room for error.

“We need one out,” Reiser told Ryan as he handed him the ball. Ryan nodded calmly, like he always did, and started his warm-ups as Reiser headed back to the dugout.

“It had to be Blair up next,” Reiser said as he sat down next to Castro. The Hawk, understanding what Reiser meant, only shrugged.

Paul Blair was a veteran, a patient hitter. He’d know Ryan was prone to wildness, and test him by taking a pitch or two. But today the kid seemed to have his control. He poured over two fastballs for strikes as Reiser, watching, gripped the bench, trying to squeeze sawdust out of it.

Castro muttered, “Waste one now, hermano . Make him go fishing. Waste one…”

But Ryan, perhaps overly confident in his stuff, came with heat right down the middle. Blair jumped it. He connected solidly, driving the ball on a line to right center, and Reiser knew that this one was going into the gap and would clear the bases for sure.

But Agee didn’t. He ran to his left with the effortless stride of the born center fielder. Reiser, watching, seemed to see the years fall away and it was as if he himself was out there again, running down the ball. Agee, mindless of the outfield wall as Reiser ever was, dove, skidded, and bounced on the warning track, and some-how managed to spear the ball right before it hit the ground, turning an inside the park home run into an out, and the end of the inning.

If Ebbets had gone crazy before, now it became totally delirious. Sign Man’s sign read “DID I SAY SENSATIONAL?” and the Sym-phony’s percussionist dropped his base drum and it rolled down the bleacher’s concrete steps rumbling like thunder. In the sky above The Turtle’s speakers blared “ Happy Days Are Here Again .” The fans deluged Agee with applause. Reiser and Castro just looked at each other and shook their heads as Ryan strolled calmly off the mound.

The inning was over, and so for all intents and purposes was the game. Ed Kranepool hit a homer in the eighth, making it four to nothing. Ryan went two and a third innings, giving up only one hit and striking out four, and the Dodgers were up two games to one.

As the team charged the mound at the end of the ninth, engulfing Ryan in a swarming mass of laughing, jumping, hugging bodies, Reiser sat in the dugout and smiled.

Just another day , he thought, at the ballyard .

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 15TH, 1969: GAME 4

The press box was oddly quiet as the game started. Tom Seaver, who in only his third year with the Dodgers was already known as “The Franchise,” had taken the mound against the veteran screwballer, Mike Cuellar, another of the Orioles’ plethora of twenty-game winners. Reporters were mostly sitting before their portables wondering what would be the next improbable turn of event, who would be the next unlikely hero.

Tommy found Slug in his favorite perch in the back of the press box, where the joker could see the action on the field below, the action in the box, and the action at the buffet where management fed the reporters hotdogs, burgers, fries, pretzels, and soda. “Hi, Slug.”

“Hiya, kid,” the joker replied with a jolly smile. “Want a hot dog?”

“Sure.”

“Help yourself.”

Tommy fixed himself a dog from the covered serving tray and took a bite, savoring for a moment his favored status as a member of the fifth estate. For the paying customers dogs were fifty cents each. And he could have as many as he wanted. For free.