Ball Four (RosettaBooks Sports Classics) (39 page)

Before the game tonight pitchers were taking in extra bunting practice because we’d been having trouble moving the runner along. And Joe Schultz said, “Boys, bunting is like jacking off. Once you learn how you never forget.”

Garry Roggenburk left the club. Gordie Lund, his roommate, said he woke up this morning, saw him packing and said, “Where you going?”

“I’m going home,” Roggenburk said.

He marched in on Marvin Milkes, said that he had no interest in the game anymore, didn’t enjoy it, was through with it and was going home. The next thing Gordie knew he was driving him to the airport. I know Roggenburk has his four years in on the pension and has a college degree and planned to go into teaching this fall. The trouble is, when you’re a marginal player and you walk out, you can’t come back. No one runs after you. You get marked down as a nut and it’s all over. I don’t know if Garry fully appreciated that fact when he left. Sometimes it’s better not to act. Sometimes it’s better just to sit around and grouse.

Greg Goossen hit two home runs and we won 4–3. I thought the outstanding play of the game was made by Wayne Comer, who bunted in a non-sacrifice situation, giving himself up just to move the runner along. He’s that kind of player and recently Billy Martin, the Minnesota manager, was quoted as saying that he’d like to have Comer on his team, that he was his kind of ball player. It’s true that he’s a helluva player. And someday he’ll make a pretty good coach.

A ten-year-old lad named Marvin Standifer wandered out of the stands and into the bullpen tonight and I grabbed him, put a warm-up jacket and a hat on him and sat him on the bench. All his friends lined the fence and said things like, “Hey, is Marvin going to get into the game?” and “Does Marvin get to keep the hat?” and “How come you let Marvin into the bullpen?” And all the time Marvin had this giant grin on his face.

Of course, Eddie O’Brien said, “We have to get him out of here. We could get in trouble for that.”

“Eddie, go sit down,” I said. “This kid’s got good stuff and we may need him later in the inning.” Eddie sat down.

At the end of the inning I hoisted Marvin back into the stands. He’d had a big night.

The conversation turned to freezing people after they die and I said I’d like it to be done to me and then maybe I’d be thawed out in a couple of hundred years when they came up with a cure for whatever I’d died of. O’Donoghue was very angry at the idea. “How the hell are they going to thaw you out?” he said. “When you’re dead, you should be dead. That’s it.”

O’Donoghue gets angry easily at what he considers flaky ideas.

Steve Barber pitched five innings of relief the other night and did quite well. I was surprised he went so long and asked him about it. “Joe asked me how I felt,” he said, “and I felt all right, so I told him to leave me in there.”

That’s a tough spot for a ballplayer. What could Steve have said? “My arm doesn’t hurt, but I don’t think it would be a good idea to work anymore.” No chance. So he stood out there risking two months of rehabilitation for one stinking ballgame, which we eventually lost anyway.

The Pilots have bought George Brunet from the Angels for something just over the waiver price. He’ll fit right in on this ballclub. He’s crazy.

I got in for two-thirds of an inning tonight and did well. Struck out Epstein on three pitches, all knuckleballs. I had Bernie Allen just about struck out, but he reached out and tapped one to the second baseman. Oh, Frank Howard got a single off me. He’s liable to do that to anybody, isn’t he?

I’m glad the knuckleball is in such happy shape. The Yankees arrive here tomorrow.

Another example of a general manager generously giving a ballplayer money that he is absolutely entitled to. Greg Goossen told the story. He lost $200 in rent when he was called up and Marvin Milkes put his hand on his shoulder and said, “We’re picking up your rent check. [It’s a rule that he has to.] And since you’ve signed a major-league contract, today you start on the pension plan.”

“He made it sound like a special gift from him, a pot sweetener,” Goossen said. “It was only after I left his office that I realized there was no way he could prevent me from starting on the pension plan today, even if he wanted to.”

I talked to Fritz Peterson and Steve Hamilton in the outfield before the game and the pitchers’ court fined me $5 for—in the words of Gene Brabender—“flagrantly flouting the rules.” The court was in an ugly mood today.

“Before this season’s over, Jim,” Steve Hovley said, “we’ve got to steal the money, all $200 of it. We have to take it and keep it for a good long while.”

I agreed that it had to be done.

Going over the Yankee hitters we came to Len Boehmer and Ron Plaza said, “Bad curve-ball hitter.”

Dick Simpson, who’d played with Boehmer, said, “Hey, he hits the curve. He’s a good curve-ball hitter.”

“Well, I got it down on the card here,” Plaza said. “Bad curve-ball hitter. Somebody must have said it.”

And I remembered Gary Bell, and it struck me that somewhere in Plaza’s files he’s got a bunch of cards that say, “Smoke him inside.”

Today Joe Schultz said, “Let’s keep our minds on the game. And let’s remember we’re the same as everybody else. Let’s go out there, kick the shit out of them and come back in and enjoy that beer.”

We went out there, got two hits and lost 4–2. The beer was great.

Greg Goossen was doing his Casey Stengel imitation and he remembered the best thing the old man ever said about him. “We got a kid here named Goossen, twenty years old, and in ten years he’s got a chance to be thirty.”

There was a story in the paper about trades, and Milkes saying he was going to make some. He was reminded that the trade deadline was well past and that the only thing he could do was make waiver deals. And Milkes said, “Don’t worry, I’ll get waivers.”

This is a typical attitude toward the rules that baseball itself makes. Waivers are not supposed to be used as trade vehicles. They are, partly at least, supposed to protect the players from front office capriciousness. But that doesn’t faze the owners. They make the rules and they break them, and there’s not a thing the players can do about it. Not yet anyway.

We got some forms to fill out from the Pilots’ publicity department. One of the questions was, “Who is your baseball idol?” Mincher put down Mickey Mantle. Another question was, “What induced a major-league team to sign you to a professional contract?” And Mincher wrote, “Pretty fair country player.” Finally there was this: “What’s the most difficult thing about playing major-league baseball?” And Mike Hegan said, “Explaining to your wife why
she
needs a penicillin shot for
your
kidney infection.”

Sibby Sisti is with us so that he can get in his fifteen years on the pension. And today Tommy Davis said, “I wonder if anybody will ever offer me a job like that?”

“All you’ll get is a scouting job in Watts someplace,” Tommy Harper said.

So I started doing a general-manager bit, giving scout Tommy Davis his instructions. “Now, Tom, you have to make sure to sign the right kind of colored guy. You know what I mean? None of that rabble-rousing.”

“It’s not ‘colored’ now, Marvin, it’s ‘black,’” Tommy said.

“Yeah, well, you know what I mean. I don’t have to tell you. The right kind of kid. Can he laugh? Can he dance? Find out if he knows how to shuffle. We don’t want any of that Vic Power shit.”

“I know just what you mean,” Davis said. “I know just what to look for. I won’t give you any trouble.”

Steve Hovley says the club wants him to play winter ball and he wanted to know what I thought about it. I said I didn’t think it would be a very good idea. If you finish up a season well and leave a good impression you’re not going to improve it playing winter ball. All you can do is hurt yourself by playing poorly.

“I know that,” Hovley said. “But I’ve never been to a Spanish-speaking country, and I think I’d like that.”

It’s really just an afterthought to Hovley that he’d have to play baseball while there.

I find myself feeling sorry for Steve Barber. He had to get some shots in his arm today and he’s scheduled to pitch against the Yankees tomorrow. He had those five good innings and now he’s got trouble again. I asked him about it.

“No, it’s nothing,” he said. “Just a little tendinitis. It’s not the trouble I had before. I’m just taking the shots as a precautionary measure.”

Then we went to the outfield, the way we’ve been doing for the past weeks, and had a catch. He needs somebody to throw to and the price he pays is catching my knuckleball, which means every once in a while I bounce one off his foot. He doesn’t complain.

“Boys, today it looks like Steve Barber and a cast of thousands.” Bob Locker said it before the game and he was right. Steve never got by the first inning. He gave up five runs and we lost, 5–3. That was three in a row to the Yankees.

But it was a good weekend for me. I pitched five innings of relief Friday night and gave up one run, a home run by Pepitone. Saturday I pitched two scoreless innings. So now I’ve pitched about ten innings against the Yankees and given up only one run.

Ralph Houk has noticed. I was chatting with Fritz Peterson outside the Yankee clubhouse when Houk came out. We shook hands. “I’ve got to congratulate you,” he said. “You’re doing a helluva job. It just shows what can be done with a lot of hard work and guts. I knew you’d do it because you don’t quit.”

I said thanks. Then I said I’d been wanting to talk to him about something and would have called him. But since he was right there…

“There’s going to come a time in my career, when the kids start going to school, and I have to make a decision about whether I’m going to continue to play baseball,” I said. “It will be a lot easier for me to stay if I’m playing with a New York team. And I just wanted you to know that if you ever think you can use me, well, keep it in mind that I’d like to finish up my career near home.”

“I’ll do that,” Houk said. “I’ll definitely keep that in mind.”

I did it, and I’m glad. I wonder what’s going on inside his head, though. I wonder if he said to himself, “If that son of a bitch thinks he’ll ever get back to Yankee Stadium while I’m there he’s got another thing coming.” I also wonder if he said to himself, “You know, Bouton could be a help to us.” Houk’s a good manager and despite what’s gone before I can still see myself pitching for him.

After the game I asked Barber how his arm felt and he said, “Oh, my arm felt fine. It was just that my rhythm was off, that’s all.”

Just then I noticed Fred Talbot packing his arm in ice because every time he pitches, his elbow gets sore and I TGFMK—Thank God For My Knuckleball. I can’t describe how sweet it is not to have to go through all that.

Boston

Started a long road trip in Boston today and we talked in the bullpen about the same kind of thing we talked about in Seattle: Sibby Sisti. We decided that jobs as coaches were really a kind of political patronage. They’re dispensed for former favors. There’s not much to do. Being a coach requires only showing up at the ballpark, hollering clichés and being able to play false sorrow when you lose. It’s a boring job. But people who become coaches are not easily bored. You ever see a baby play with a rattle for two hours?

So it’s amusing that these jobs are often held out like a carrot on a stick. Like when a guy is in the middle of his career a general manager will say to him, “Someday we hope to have a place for you in our organization,” or “Don’t worry, we’ll take care of you later on,” or “We’ll see that you stay in baseball.” What he really means is, keep your mouth shut and be a good boy and do what we tell you. Sign a contract for this particular (low) figure and we’ll reward you later with a coaching job.

Every once in a while there’s a guy who doesn’t fit into the coaching mold, a man with an original idea or two who’s not afraid to express them, a guy who would like to have some influence on the club. I mean a guy like Johnny Sain. And what happens to him? He moves around a lot. He has to, because as soon as he asserts himself the manager wants to get rid of him, no matter how good a job he’s doing.

At the start of this trip Joe Schultz called in Steve Hovley and said, “I want you to start dressing like a major-league ballplayer.”

Joe only said that because Steve wears Levis to the park sometimes and thinks nothing of wearing his famous nondescript corduroy jacket seven days in a row. (After all, what’s a jacket for?) Steve said he thought that was pretty interesting, because when Joe says to dress like a major-league ballplayer he means there’s a certain style of dress followed by baseball players and you’re supposed to conform. In fact Hovley and I believe the style of the major-league player is not much style at all. Oh, they wear expensive sports coats and turtleneck sweaters, and a lot of them started wearing Nehru jackets just as they were going out of style. But the mode is often
nouveau riche
jazzy. I consider it the same kind of taste that features plastic flamingoes on the front lawn or a bullfighter painted on black velvet in the living room.

Started the trip with Steve Hovley assigned to room with Greg Goossen and me with Steve Barber. I told Gabe Paul that Hovley and I wanted to room together and he said, “Marvin Milkes has to approve roommates. Why don’t you stay where you are until we hear from Milkes?” I agreed to, reluctantly.

When we met at the hotel desk to pick up our keys, however, Hovley and I decided it was all very silly. It was silly for Milkes to worry about something like roommates and silly for us, as grown men, to care. So we switched, simply by having Steve Barber swap keys with Hovley.

Paul was furious. “I told you to wait until I had a chance to check with Milkes,” he said.

I told him we thought it was too unimportant to wait.

“I tell you one thing,” Paul said. “Don’t ever ask me for any favors.”

All right for you too.

Hovley and I were going to see
Midnight Cowboy
here but decided to wait until we got to Baltimore. We figured a good movie might just save Baltimore. On the other hand, probably nothing can.