The Batboy (21 page)

The car pulled up to Brian’s house. Hank got out with him.

“Thank you again,” Hank said.

“I really didn’t do anything,” Brian said.

“You did more than you know,” Hank answered.

“What?”

“Gave me one more person I want to prove something to,” Hank Bishop said.
“You.”

S
o it had come to this:

If everything broke right, Brian was looking at the best week of the summer. Both his summers, actually. The one with the Tigers and the one with the Bloomfield Sting.

Both summers were ending fast now, like Brian was racing through the last few chapters of a really good book, having to slow himself down because he was so eager to get to the good parts.

Hank Bishop had four home games to hit his 500th home run before the Tigers went back on the road for three consecutive series, ending with three games in Seattle against the Mariners. More than anything, Brian wanted to be there when Hank made his own personal history. And at least proved some of what he wanted—needed?—to prove. If he could.

Hank’s average had dipped all the way to .217, and with the Indians holding a one-game lead over the Tigers in the Central Division standings and the Twins having won eight of their last ten to climb just a game behind Detroit, there was talk that the Tigers couldn’t wait much longer for Hank to rediscover his hitting stroke. The Detroit media was calling for the team to acquire a power bat, 500th home run or no.

It wasn’t unrealistic to think the Tigers might release Hank Bishop by the end of this road trip if he didn’t start hitting.

Part two of what Brian wanted to be his own dream week? The Sting had to win their semifinal game against Clarkson on Thursday night and then find a way to win the finals of the North Oakland Baseball Federation against the winner of the Motor City-Birmingham game.

If they could manage all that, then they would be on their way to the state tournament.

Yet the dream was off to a slow start. It’s impossible to hit home runs while sitting on the bench, and that’s exactly where Hank Bishop found himself the first three games against the Twins. He didn’t get a single at-bat as the Twins took two of the first three games. Today they would play one of those rare weekday afternoon games before hitting the road—a “getaway” game, as it was known. Assuming the rain held off, that is. The skies around Comerica were dark and heavy.

Brian was talking about all this with his mom on their way to Comerica Monday afternoon.

“Doesn’t the manager know about the batting tip you gave Hank?” his mom said. She was smiling. “The one that’s going to change the course of civilization?”

“Funny, Mom. Good one. I should have gone right into Davey’s office yesterday when I saw that he hadn’t written Hank’s name into the batting order yet again. Set him straight.”

They were a few minutes from the ballpark, Brian thinking that there were only a handful of these rides left for them. And this one was even more special than usual because Liz Dudley was actually coming to the game.

And today, Brian had a feeling, Hank Bishop would finally be back in the lineup. The Twins were pitching a young right-hander named Kevin Cross, a kid with a 97-mile-an-hour heater. Even hitters completely on their game had difficulty catching up with this guy’s fastball. Yet Brian knew that Davey wasn’t about to deprive Hank, and all the local fans and media, one last chance at seeing number 500 hit at home.

So when Brian had called Mr. S. to see if his mom could buy a ticket to today’s game, Mr. S. had told him, “Don’t be ridiculous. I’ll set her up with a great seat.”

It was the first time in years that Brian’s mom would be going to a big-league game. Brian hoped it would be a day neither of them would ever forget.

“Today’s the day,” Brian said to Finn as they went through their daily checklist of items in the dugout, making sure they hadn’t forgotten anything. Even though by now they never forgot anything.

“For number 500 you mean?”

Brian nodded.

“Let me get this straight,” Finn said. “
You’re
calling
his
shot?”

“Something like that.”

They went back to organizing then, checking things off one by one on Finn’s list: gum, Gatorade, water, sunflower seeds, towels, bats, helmets, rosin bags, bat rings. Brian lined up the trays of gum, making sure sugarless was right behind where Davey Schofield sat, Davey sometimes going through half a tray of gum all by himself before the game was over. In the old days, Mr. Schenkel said, before the Tigers’ manager got what Mr. S. called “religion” on living a healthier life, he used to chew tobacco. Now he chomped away, all game long, on sugarless gum.

“You’re saying today’s the day,” Finn said, “even though your guy has gone, like, 2-for-August so far?”

“I
know
his stats,” Brian said. “But what they don’t tell you is that he’s got his stroke back.”

“And you know this . . . how?”

“Batting practice.”

“We barely even watched batting practice today.”

“I’m just sayin’.”

Finn stared at him. “You’ve got that look.”

“What look?”

Finn said, “What do you know that I don’t?”

Brian grinned. “Dude, I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

One thing Brian knew was where his mom was sitting. Mr. S. had come through big time, getting her a seat behind home plate. Her view today would be almost as good as Brian’s.

Brian knew Hank hitting his 500th home run would have been a much bigger deal once. If it had happened when it was supposed to, when he was younger. If he’d never used steroids and never been suspended. If some of the other steroid guys hadn’t treated 500 home runs like some sort of speed bump to even bigger numbers.

But even with all that, it was still huge for Brian Dudley. And he knew it was huge for Hank, even if he kept saying that his comeback wasn’t
about
the numbers.

Right before the first pitch, setting up his folding chair in its usual spot, Brian looked up into the seats behind the home-plate screen. There was his mom, wearing a Tigers cap she must have bought. She waved at him, smiling.

Brian smiled back and shook his head. His mom at a Tigers game. His mom
wanting
to be at a Tigers game. And now his mom gearing up.

Compared with the improbability of all that, Hank hitting one historic home run tonight actually seemed like cake.

Kevin Cross had won fourteen games already and was the clear front-runner to be Rookie of the Year in the American League. Not only did he throw pure gas, but he also had a hard sinker that most batters couldn’t pick up until it was too late. That sinker was his strikeout pitch, and he’d made many All-Stars look foolish already, flailing off balance at a ball that usually hit the catcher’s mitt only an inch above the dirt.

Eventually, hitters would see him enough—in person and on film—to figure him out. Yet for now, no one was happy to be facing him.

Brian saw Hank for only a minute in the clubhouse before the game, stopping by his locker just long enough to wish him luck.

“Hey, Coach,” Hank said.

He put out his fist. Brian gently pounded it.

Brian said, “I’m just one more guy rooting for you today.”

“Root hard,” Hank said.

“I always have,” Brian said.

Hank got his first shot at Kevin Cross in the bottom of the first inning, Willie on second and Curtis Keller on first with two outs.

Now,
Brian thought. Pounce on this guy early, before he gets too comfortable on the mound.

The crowd wound up being a sellout, and as Hank stepped into the batter’s box, there were cameras clicking everywhere, as if the thunderstorm that was threatening had already begun and lightning strikes were hitting Comerica.

Brian leaned forward in his chair and stared as Hank carefully set his hands. He cocked them on his right hip the way he had that night at Royal Oak, the way he did in the old video. Didn’t even take a practice swing.

Just stood there, waiting, still as a statue.

Baseball announcers liked to say that if you were lucky, you got one pitch to hit every at-bat. Hank got his with the count 2-2. The scoreboard listed the speed of every pitch, and the one before it had been 95 miles an hour. The scoreboard said it was a “fastball” even though Brian knew it had been Kevin Cross’ sinker. Impossible to hit.

Now Cross threw that pitch again, only without nearly enough sink on it this time. Hank was sitting on it, knowing what was coming.

And he missed it.

Didn’t miss it entirely. He still got good wood on it. Yet he missed it by the amazingly small distance between the sweet spot and the end of the bat, the distance in baseball that changed a home run into a routine fly ball to left.

Hank ran the ball out, knowing it didn’t have the legs to leave the park before the fans did, their sudden cheer bursting like a roll of thunder as the ball left Hank’s bat. When the ball landed harmlessly in the glove of the Twins’ left fielder and the bottom of the first was over, Hank ran back across the infield. Brian had already collected his bat. They met at the dugout steps.

Hank was the one who spoke.

“No worries, it wasn’t the swing,” he said to Brian in a quiet voice. “I was just a little over-anxious.”

Brian laughed. “Well, I was a
lot
over-anxious.”

Hank gently took the bat from him, went walking down the steps with it, Brian knowing he was on his way to the indoor cage.

His next turn at bat came in the bottom of the fourth. By this point Cross had settled in and was throwing bullets. Hank struck out swinging on three pitches—good morning, good afternoon, and good night.

The way the rookie was pitching, Hank would get only two more at-bats. The game was an old-fashioned pitching duel, the Twins up 1-0 through four innings, having scored their lone run on a home run in the top of the second. Both pitchers seemed to be growing stronger as the game went on.

The rain, meanwhile, was holding off despite the ever-looming threat. Time was running out with every pitch, and the fans could sense it.

Hank came up to bat again in the bottom of the sixth with two men out, the Tigers still trailing 1-0. Maybe Hank sensed time running out, too, because he swung at the first pitch. He got the barrel of the bat around late against Cross’ fastball, grounding it weakly to the Twins’ shortstop.

Inning over.

The Twins’ second baseman led off the seventh with a single and advanced to second on a ground out to the right side of the infield. The way the Twins’ rookie pitcher was throwing, Brian knew the Tigers couldn’t allow another run.

Sure enough, out walked Davey Schofield, signaling to a lefty in the Tigers’ bullpen. The Twins’ cleanup hitter was due up next, and he had a habit of feasting on tired pitchers. Davey wanted a fresh arm to get the Tigers out of this inning.

The move worked. The next two batters, each free-swinging lefties, were retired on only five pitches.

Neither team advanced a runner beyond first base over the next two innings.

Now it was the bottom of the ninth inning. Hank, due up second, walked to the on-deck circle. The wind was blowing in hard now, holding up any ball hit to the outfield. The rain, just a threat before, was finally starting to fall. Yet no one, not even the umpires, wanted to halt this game where it was.

Brian sneaked a glance at Hank’s face. He couldn’t read Hank’s expression, which was as serious as ever. Brian wondered what he was thinking.

The Tigers’ cleanup hitter led off and watched as the first two pitches were delivered low. Two balls, no strikes. It was the first time since the fifth inning that Cross had fallen behind a hitter. Could he be tiring? Brian thought.