In Open Spaces (16 page)

Mr. Murphy stood right where he was, with one foot in the grass, one on the base of the mound. His eyebrows had jumped to the middle of his forehead, and he kept looking at me, as if he was waiting for
me to tell him something different, to change my mind. But I couldn’t think of anything to say. I wondered about coming down another time, but I knew that was impossible. It would probably be another three years before I had a chance.

“So?” Mr. Murphy finally said. “That’s it, then? You can’t stay one more day?”

I looked at my shoes. I suddenly felt ill. I thought about how long I’d been waiting for this chance—six years of hard work, six years of hope. There had to be a way.

“Can you just talk to your boss?” I asked.

“Talk to him?” Mr. Murphy shook his head in confusion. “About what? About what? If he doesn’t see you pitch, I really don’t have anything to talk to him about. See what I mean, Blake? What do I say to him if he’s never seen you?”

I swallowed. I thought about harvest. They were starting harvest the day after my return. They needed everyone for harvest. I dug my hands into my pockets.

We all stood there, and for several seconds, nobody said a word, and I knew that all I needed to do was say “Okay.” All I had to do was say, “All right, I’ll be here,” and I might have a chance. That was it. Mr. Murphy waited, knowing that questions would be rolling around in my head. The temptation sat, holding me hostage for those long, silent seconds, and he knew it. He was good. He knew that if there was ever a moment I would weaken, it was then. Finally, I saw that there was only one choice. Despite the price I would pay, and the trouble it may cause.

“Okay,” I said. “All right. What time?”

And I heard a small whoop from the direction of David Westford.

Despite all my efforts to talk him out of it, David insisted on giving me a ride to the tryout the next morning. I sent a telegram to the Belle Fourche Hotel, knowing that whoever came to pick me up would be
staying there. I just explained that something had come up, and that I’d be a day late. Nothing to worry about, I added.

I did manage to talk my way out of spending the evening with David. I wanted a good night’s rest, and I had a strong suspicion that a night on the town with him would not end with a good night’s rest. I was going to check out of my hotel, into a cheaper one, but again, David wouldn’t hear of it, paying for my room while I tried talking him out of it. I could do nothing but say thanks. So once he was gone, I walked around town, shopping.

I bought a new pocketknife for Dad, some perfume for Mom, a leather belt for Bob, and some chocolates for Muriel. The hardest decision was what to buy Jack and Rita. But in a strange little shop that sold mostly cigars and magazines, I found a catalogue that was basically a list of all the catalogues in the country. And for Rita, I remembered that she used to wear a lot of hats when she first arrived in Montana. So I found a pretty, black felt hat with a brim that curled up the front and a fake diamond pin that held it in place.

As much as I enjoyed walking around again, it felt different than it had the first evening. I noticed things I hadn’t that first night—such as the fact that people did not meet your eye. That they walked much faster than they did in Belle Fourche. And that almost every exchange I had with anyone outside of a salesclerk was negative. I started to experience some of the same stifled feeling that I did when I was living in Belle Fourche. By the time I got back to my hotel, I had a hard time breathing. I sat in the lobby for a few minutes, watching people walk back and forth, wishing there was some way to stop one of them and start a conversation. I watched people use the phone, and I wished that they had a telephone at home so I could call.

In the middle of all these people, I felt as lonely as I’d ever felt. I was happy to go to bed. And despite being as nervous as I could ever remember, I slept pretty well.

But the next morning, I was a wreck. I woke up early, with so
much energy that after I ate breakfast and took advantage of the tub one last time, I had to take a walk. My mind raced as I covered blocks of downtown Omaha. I visualized pitching, imagining my motion, feeling it in my arm, and my body. But more than anything, I thought of my brother George. I remembered how horrified I’d been to find out that he was thinking of leaving the ranch. I couldn’t imagine how he would even consider such a thing. Now here I was.

As my mind explored every angle of the situation, I looked up to realize that I had been paying no attention to where I was. I was in a part of town that looked completely different from the area where my hotel was. I noticed that it felt more dangerous, that people looked at you more suspiciously. There were people holding hats out for change, and the pedestrians were rougher, bumping into each other without a word of apology. I had to ask for directions, and to my surprise, I found that I was just two blocks from the hotel. It was a good thing, too, because I checked the time, and it was only ten minutes before David was supposed to pick me up. But I was struck by how abruptly the flavor of the town could change from one street to the next.

I hurried back, ran up to my room, splashed some cold water on my face, and waited in front of the building.

“You nervous?” From the amount of sweat pouring down David’s face, he appeared to be the one who was nervous.

I shook my head. “Not too bad,” I lied.

“God damn, I would be.”

I didn’t say much, and to my surprise, neither did David, somehow honoring my unspoken desire for a little time for mental preparation. When we arrived at the practice field, Mr. Murphy and Johnny Trumble stood on the field talking with a third man, a dapper, handsome man who was perhaps twenty years younger than Mr. Murphy, in his early thirties. And a good half foot shorter.

“Blake, how you doing today?” Mr. Murphy asked. He sidled up to me, shook hands, and handed me a mitt. I looked down and recognized
it was not the one I used the day before. It was new. Mr. Murphy winked at me, and I realized that he had bought it for me.

“Good, fine,” I answered, smiling. “Thanks, Mr. Murphy.”

He simply nodded. “This is Billy Spinelli,” Mr. Murphy said. “He’s the head scout for the Cardinal farm system.”

I nodded, shaking Mr. Spinelli’s hand. But Mr. Spinelli showed right away that he wasn’t interested in the social aspect of his job. “All right,” he said. “Let’s see what you can do, Arbuckle.”

Johnny gave me an encouraging smile before trotting behind the plate, where he stood pounding his catcher’s mitt while I took off my jacket and rolled up my sleeves. Mr. Murphy took a shiny new baseball from his jacket, rubbed it hard with the palm of one hand, and tossed it to me.

“Okay, Blake. Just remember how you felt yesterday. Just do the same thing you were doing yesterday.” He sounded nervous himself, which immediately brought a fluttering energy to my body. I took a deep breath, adjusted my grip on the baseball, and threw a few straight fastballs, right down the middle. The jitters began to fade.

Mr. Murphy did as he had done the day before, checking my motion from several different angles. But Mr. Spinelli had the opposite approach. He stood ten feet behind Johnny Trumble, expressionless, his arms folded, his brow furrowed. After checking the look on his face a few times and seeing that it hadn’t changed, I decided it would be better to avoid looking his way. Seeing that same rigid brow and the straight line in his mouth only worried me.

“All right, let’s see that curveball,” Mr. Murphy said. “Show him how you snap that thing off.”

I adjusted my grip, running my first finger along one seam, and wound up. But I realized the moment I threw the first curve that something was wrong. The ball squirted off to one side, almost two feet outside the plate, not breaking at all. Johnny didn’t even try to catch it, but stood up and trotted after the ball.

“That’s okay,” Mr. Murphy assured me. “Take a deep breath. Take your time. Just relax.”

“I hope you’re not wasting my time here again, Murphy,” Mr. Spinelli said.

But I knew what the problem was. I wasn’t used to a brand-new baseball. The leather was much slicker than the old, scuffed balls I was used to throwing. So before Johnny threw the ball back to me, I bent down and rubbed dirt on my hands. I caught the throw from Johnny and massaged some dirt into the smooth leather. I set my forefinger along the seam, laid my right foot on the rubber, kicked and threw. The dirt helped immediately. This pitch started toward Johnny’s glove, then dropped off its line at the plate. It would have kicked up dust right at Johnny’s feet, but he was ready for it, and caught it with his glove laid flat on the ground. Despite my vow, I had to shoot a quick glance at Mr. Spinelli. His eyebrows had jumped to the middle of his forehead. But it was the only part of his body or face that responded, and they quickly dropped back to their normal position, low over his eyes.

“Nice pitch.” Mr. Murphy was behind me, and I was relieved to hear this bit of encouragement. “Let’s see a few more like that one.”

So I did what I could, throwing pitch after pitch, letting the ball spin off the tip of my forefinger as it left my hand. Most of them broke nicely, diving through the strike zone. Johnny smiled, and winked after four in a row broke across the outside corner of the plate. But Mr. Spinelli retained his rocklike demeanor. Not until I’d thrown about twenty-five curveballs did he speak.

“Is that it?” he asked, still standing firm, arms crossed, brow low. “Does he have any other pitches?”

There was a long pause. I was annoyed that he spoke to Mr. Murphy as if I wasn’t there. Mr. Murphy cleared his throat behind me. I was just about to say “no,” or shake my head, but a thought came to me. “Yeah,” I said. “Yeah. I have one more pitch.”

“Hm?” Mr. Murphy held back his surprise.

“What is it?” Mr. Spinelli asked.

“Well, I don’t really know what you call it,” I said. “It doesn’t have a name.”

This seemed to annoy Mr. Spinelli. “All right,” he said impatiently, looking at his watch. “Let’s see it. I don’t got all day.”

Mr. Murphy came out from behind me, circling around halfway between me and first base. He set his fists on his hips, and eyed me with a subtle look of amused confusion. I took a long, slow breath. Johnny established the target, and I positioned my fore and middle fingers right across both seams, just as I would for my fastball, and started my windup. I changed nothing about my delivery, throwing a straight fastball, except that just as I brought my right arm forward, I flipped my glove hand in a slight motion across my body. The pitch honed in on Johnny, splitting the plate, popping the leather on his thick catcher’s mitt. He held the ball for a moment.

Mr. Spinelli looked up at me, and for the first time that morning, he shifted his glance toward Mr. Murphy. Again, his expression revealed nothing. But he did say, “Let’s see that again.”

I took the throw from Johnny, set my grip, and repeated the same motion. Again, I flipped the glove, and the pitch crossed the middle of the plate. The words of Satchel Paige ran through my head, and I acted as if I’d just done something nobody had ever done before. I took Johnny’s throw with a confident flip of my wrist, and stretched my throwing arm above my head.

“You say you don’t have a name for that thing?” Mr. Spinelli said. Considering his manner up to now, I was fully prepared for a sarcastic follow-up, or a challenge. I shook my head.

“Well, throw a few more of those.” For the first time since I’d started throwing, Mr. Spinelli showed signs of life. His arms dropped to his side, and he stepped forward, so that he was just a few feet behind Johnny. He leaned forward, bracing his hands against his knees. Mr. Murphy moved closer to the plate.

I did as he asked, and the more I threw, the more comfortable I felt with the little hitch in my motion. In the end, I don’t know whether this little flip of my glove actually affected the path of the ball, or if the best secret really is making people believe you have a secret. All I know is that after I had thrown this pitch another twenty times or so, Mr. Spinelli walked up to Johnny and reached for the ball.

“All right, Arbuckle.” He gave a quick nod. “That’s enough.” He motioned to Mr. Murphy, and the two of them walked over across the third-base line and began a quiet conversation. Johnny trotted out to the mound.

“What the hell were you doing out there?” he asked.

I smiled and shrugged. I couldn’t tell from Johnny’s expression or tone whether he was impressed, or if he couldn’t believe I thought I could get away with such blatant fraud. “I’ve never seen anything like that,” he said with admiration.

“Thanks,” I said. We shook hands.

I had not thought about David through the whole tryout. But I glanced over at him now. His ruddy face sported a smile that stretched from one ear to the other. He clapped his hands together a couple of times.

I watched the two scouts confer. It was clear from their body language who had the power between the two. Although Mr. Murphy was a half head taller than Mr. Spinelli, he was leaning toward him, his hands out, palms up, as if he was begging for a morsel of food, or a dime. As he listened, Mr. Spinelli stood with his arms crossed, his chin high. He pounded a fist into his palm when he spoke. Mr. Murphy nodded repeatedly, and it appeared as if no matter what Spinelli said, Murphy would agree with him. The discussion probably lasted a minute, but I wouldn’t be able to guess, as my mind was racing. Finally, the two men turned and walked toward me.

“You’re in,” Johnny said quietly, but I didn’t have time to ask how he knew.

Mr. Spinelli led the way, and Mr. Murphy was smiling at me from behind him. Mr. Spinelli took off his felt hat, plucked a handkerchief from his breast pocket, and wiped his forehead.

“Well, Arbuckle,” he said, “what do you got going on next spring? You have plans?”

I couldn’t breathe. “Urn, well, besides doing my regular work, you know, on the ranch. No. Nothing.”

Mr. Spinelli sniffed. He cleared his throat. “How does seven dollars a week sound? We’ll start you out in A ball, and see what you do in game situations. Everything from there will depend on you. You mow ’em down in A ball, you can move up fast, start earning some real money.”