Still Pitching (30 page)

Now that summer was over it was much harder for us to see each other. On top of her parents' objections, there was another obstacle—how to get from Belle Harbor to Woodsburg and back each weekend. I still couldn't drive at night without an adult in the car. And even if I could, my father would never have considered loaning me his ‘56 Olds, our family's only vehicle. Julie had a license, but she could only drive inside the Nassau County line.

So I started bumming weekend rides with Harris Bookbinder and Danny Alpert, two classmates I'd never socialized with before. Harris was reputed to be one of the richest kids in Neponsit, and Danny was an ambitious social mover who still aspired to be part of the clique. Harris had a steady girlfriend who lived in Cedarhurst, just a few miles from Julie's house. And, on an impulse born of guilt and self-interest, I'd fixed Danny up with Joanne, never dreaming that in less than a month they'd be going steady. Uncharitable as it was, I felt a tinge of envy that they'd taken to one another so quickly.

Both Harris and Danny were driving illegally, but with their parents' permission. Those weekend excursions often qualified as a form of low comedy. Whoever drove, Harris or Danny, he would always wear the same costume: sunglasses, a brown fedora, and a dark trench coat with the collar turned up. They both believed that the disguises made them look older. I thought they were a dead giveaway; yet we were never stopped by the police. The rumor was that Harris's father, a big-shot in the importing business, had made an “arrangement” with the local cops.

When we were still within the city limits, neither of those guys ever exceeded the speed limit. But the minute we crossed the border into Nassau County, they'd punch it up to 75 on the back roads. It was partly because they were so giddy from their outlaw triumph, and partly because they knew it scared the hell out of me.

My dependence on them created other hardships. Some nights they'd pick me up at Julie's after midnight. Other times they'd show up at two or three in the morning. Once in a while Julie would have to drive me to the station or to the county line so I could catch the last train and bus home. Once I even had to sleep on her living room sofa—a maneuver that didn't go over very well with her parents, both of whom continued to make me feel as welcome as a gate crasher.

It was not in Julie's nature to be willfully rebellious. Like me, she went out of her way to try and make people like her. I know she tried her best to convince her parents that they had a mistaken impression of me. But the more strenuously they resisted, the more Julie continued to subvert them.

At first I had kind of enjoyed playing the role of the boy from across the tracks. Sneaking around behind her parents' backs was a heady adventure. But now that Julie and I had become so close, it bothered me that her parents saw me as a disruptive influence. I tried being overly polite, I tried to engage them in conversation, I even suggested that they meet my parents. But nothing I did seemed to change their perceptions.

Naturally, my parents were apprehensive about my dating a rich Five Towns girl. Julie's background made them suspicious, even a bit defensive. But, over time, she managed to win them over—just as I knew she would. Julie was like a lightening rod that way.

It amused me how she could always flatter and disarm my father—who under most circumstances was a hard sell. And my mother treated her as if she was the daughter she never had. They shopped, gossiped, and went to lunch together. My parents virtually adopted her as a member of the family. And she took to them just as readily—which of course created even more friction for her at home.

I was surprised to find that in the exclusive Woodsburg circle Julie was something of an outcast. Compared to her friends, she wasn't particularly sophisticated or artistically inclined. She wasn't a high-powered student in high school, and she had no designs on a finishing school education. Joanne, in fact, once told me that Julie had “no intellectual curiosity.” The cruel remark, I'm sure, was supposed to make me feel as if I'd made a big mistake.

Still, Joanne wasn't alone in her assessment. The word on Julie was that her interests and goals were limited to being the cheerleading captain and having a series of steady boyfriends. But none of the malicious gossip made me change my mind or second-guess myself. Given my own history with the popular crowd, I admired Julie all the more for being so unaffected, and so willing to risk her friends' disapproval.

There were times, however, that her lack of curiosity bothered me. When Kerouac, Ginsburg, and the Beats were all the rage, I tried to coax her to go to the Village with me. She indulged me a few times, but I could tell that the Beat scene didn't interest her. She also didn't share my curiosity for literature, theater, or jazz. Whenever Harris and Danny boasted about what play or jazz concert they took their girlfriends to, I always felt a little peeved that rather than accompany me to a jazz club or a play, Julie preferred to watch TV, see a movie, or go to a neighborhood party.

On the other hand, we were both interested in ordinary teenage things like rock and roll. After school we'd watch
American Bandstand
from our separate homes. Then at night, like two groupies, we'd gossip by phone about Frankie Avalon, Fabian, Bobby Rydell, and Connie Francis. We talked about them as if they were classmates we knew intimately.

Like me, Julie was a sports maven. She'd listen to my stories about the “good old days” when the Dodgers, Giants, and Yankees dominated major league baseball, and she made no attempt to hide the fact that she liked having a jock for a boyfriend. I know that she was disappointed I didn't have a letter sweater for her to parade in around school and she hinted more than once that it might be a good idea for me to reconsider my decision not to play baseball. To remind me, she'd sometimes wear my satin baseball warm-up jacket to the movies or out on a bowling date.

I admit I was proud of the fact that she was a cheerleader and a “head turner.” But what I remember most is that Julie was uncommonly affectionate and kind. She had a way of making me feel special and important—which made me grateful—thankful even, to have finally found someone who accepted me—even desired me—for who I was, and not for who she wanted me to be.

That fall I noticed
a marked change in Mr. K's attitude, not only toward me, but toward the whole football team as well. Whether it was tactical or genuine, I couldn't tell. He still threw temper tantrums when we lost games that we should have won, and he still inflicted cruel punishments on players who screwed up—though the penalties didn't seem as severe somehow. With so many of his veterans gone, Kerchman had resigned himself to rebuilding the team. Several times that season Mr. K even asked me to counsel some of the more troubled players. I wondered what this was leading up to?

At the banquet in November he gave me the customary “See you in a few months” line and handed me my third useless varsity letter. But this time I wasn't going to get my hopes up. I'd wait and see how I felt when baseball tryouts rolled around.

One blustery afternoon
in late January, I was working at
The Chat
when I came across a three-day-old press clipping. Someone on my staff had left it for me with an unsigned note that read, “Thought you'd want to see this.”

It was a story that had appeared in the
Long Island Daily Press
sports section—a pretty big feature article about this year's Far Rockaway baseball team. It quoted Kerchman as saying that “in this rebuilding season, the mainstays of my pitching staff will be my two seniors, Mark Silverstone and Mike Steinberg.”

I had to read the line again just to be certain it wasn't my imagination playing tricks.

“Silverstone is my number one starter, and juniors, Andy Makrides and Steve Coan, will be two and three,” the article read. “About Mike Steinberg,” Kerchman went on to say, “the senior right-hander will be my late-inning relief specialist, as well as an occasional starter. He has excellent control and an effective sinker, both important weapons for a closer.”

I read the interview over again before it sunk in. A closer? Me? I'd pitched some relief in the past, but I'd mainly been a starter since I was thirteen. Had Kerchman all the while been grooming me for this role?

Two more articles spotlighting Silverstone and me soon appeared, one of them in
The Chat
, written—unbeknownst to me—by my own staff reporter. Add Julie's urgings to the mix, and how could I pass this up? I had to at least call Kerchman's bluff on this one, didn't I? Besides, whatever else I might be, I was, goddamn it, a pitcher. If I went back it would be because I needed to play ball and because I wanted to be part of this team. Of course, in the back of my mind there was this tiny voice reminding me that I still needed to prove myself to Kerchman, this hard-bitten coach whose determination and tenacity were more akin to my own obsessions than I wanted to admit.

It struck me, then, that I'd been preparing for this moment since seventh grade. Six long years of auditioning for coaches, waiting my turn, kissing ass, and taking whatever garbage and humiliation I had to put up with. Now it would finally be my turn.

Right from the start
, Kerchman made certain to let everyone know just how important I was to this team. During tryouts I stood next to him and the other vets up on the running track. I was also assigned Jack Gartner's old locker. But most satisfying of all was when Mr. K personally escorted me to the equipment cage and ordered Lenny Stromeyer, our pissant student manager, to issue me a vintage Dodger uniform—one with the little red numbers on the front. I was so giddy, so elated, that I wore the jersey to bed for a week.

Taking their cues from the coach, all the new players deferred to me; classmates—and even some of my teachers—treated me with a respect I'd never experienced before. On Friday nights I sat with the varsity at the State Diner jock table while the freshman and sophomore girls fawned all over us.

It was gratifying to have finally gotten here. Still, I wasn't about to throw any parties. Not just yet. Sure, I'd earned all of it. That much I could acknowledge. But I still had to back it up on the ball field. Until I accomplished that, I wouldn't fully believe that I'd arrived.

In the preseason Mr. K
made sure I got to throw the last two innings of
every
game, no matter what the score was. I pitched my way out of most every jam, but the exhibition game that mattered most was the one against Long Beach High.

To everyone else it was just another preseason game. But for me it had a special meaning. The Long Beach shortstop was Larry Brown, the all-Nassau County basketball star, and Julie's former boyfriend. Baseball, I'm sure, was just a sideline to him. He was already headed to North Carolina on a full ride—the first leg of what would become a most successful basketball career—a career that would eventually put him in the Hall of Fame.

I started dreaming about the game weeks beforehand. I imagined myself striking Brown out with the ball game on the line, and Julie sitting in the bleachers cheering. In reality, it didn't quite come down to that. It was close, though. Julie was at cheerleading practice that day, but I did get to pitch to Brown in the last inning. When he came up to bat, we had a 5-4 lead and the tying run was on second.

Ever since the first inning I'd been scrutinizing him carefully. Initially, it surprised me that Brown was only a few inches taller than I was, and that he had a pretty average build. But what impressed me most was his tenacity and determination. He dove for ground balls that were just out of his reach; he slid spikes high, into every base; he chastised his teammates when they screwed up; he shouted taunts and epithets at us from the bench, trying to get into our heads. And at bat, no matter what the situation was, he battled on every count.

When I faced him in that last at bat, it was as if he was reading my mind on every pitch. He had ferocious concentration. He didn't bite on anything that was even a hair out of the strike zone. He was looking for either a walk or for a pitch he could drive out of the infield. I threw everything in my repertoire. But I deliberately held back the sinker, waiting for just the right spot to throw it.

I kept changing speeds and rotations, stepping off the rubber to disrupt his rhythm, moving the ball around—up, down, in, out—probing for a weakness. On a 3-2 count he fouled off seven straight pitches—all of them strikes. In the larger scheme of things, the game meant nothing. But I thrived on this kind of challenge. And evidently, so did he.

One of Yogi Berra's classic malapropisms is that “Baseball is fifty percent physical and ninety percent mental.” For me, the psychological battle between a smart hitter and a savvy pitcher is the essence of the game. I was determined to outwit Brown. On the thirteenth pitch, I threw a sinker, knee-high, just a hair off the outside corner. It was right where I wanted it: too close to let go, not good enough to hit hard. Most high school hitters would have been too anxious to take that pitch. But he just watched it go by as casually as if he was waiting for a bus. Before the umpire had even yelled “ball four,” he'd already flipped his bat toward the dugout and was trotting toward first base. That's how cocky and smart he was. I could have sworn that he winked at me as he headed up the line.

Pitching to Larry Brown that afternoon was just the reminder I needed. Given my limitations, I'd have to cultivate the same mindset and tenacity that great athletes like him possessed.

By the time we opened
our league season, I was aching with anticipation. In the first home game, against Woodrow Wilson, Kerchman started Silverstone. Knowing that two big league scouts were in the stands was all the incentive Mark needed. He pitched beautifully for the first four innings. By the fifth though, he started to leave too many fastballs up—a sure sign that a pitcher is beginning to tire. I started to mentally prepare myself. I studied the Wilson hitters more carefully, looking for tendencies and weaknesses I could exploit.