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Buried deep in a subparagraph of minor league baseball’s unwritten rule book is a directive that batters shall swing at anything close on the last day of the season. With tickets home stuffed into the pockets of their already packed bags, most players are more concerned with the clock than the count. Two points shy of a .300 average, Del, who had moved up to the cleanup spot in the order when Chad Skeen was released in mid-June, dug into the box in the bottom of the first intent on waiting for a pitch to drive. When a fastball six inches off the plate was rung up as a strike, he realized he wouldn’t be getting one.
Del glanced back at the umpire, a year or two younger than himself. Barely 5-foot-7, he was rumored to have run a Harrisburg player earlier in the season for referring to him as “Wee Willie.”
“Looked good,” the ump declared. “Swing the bat.”
Reading’s catcher chuckled and set up in the same spot. Another outside fastball moved the count to two strikes. The third pitch came in even further off the outside corner. Del flicked his bat out and caught just enough to cue it toward the third-base dugout. He spoiled five more outside offerings before the pitcher changed the formula and mixed in a straight changeup that Del socked deep into the right-center alley for a double. Edsell stranded him one pitch later, popping up to the first baseman.
Two innings later it was more of the same. Anything that didn’t bounce in the dirt was a strike. Del hacked and flailed to protect the plate as long as he could before finally succumbing to a sharp-snapping curve that dove under his bat. In the sixth, with the game knotted at a run apiece, the Phillies introduced a new pitcher, a converted middle infielder just up from A-ball who threw everything hard. His first pitch came in so high and tight the umpire had no choice but to call it a ball. The next one caught the lip of the plate and bounded high over the catcher’s head. Up two balls, Del could finally get choosy. He let a slider at the knees go for a legitimate called strike one and passed on an offering above the letters on his jersey that should have pushed the count to three and one but instead evened it. Muttering curses just below the threshold that would get him ejected, he strode into a belt-high fastball and slammed it over the right-field fence. He peeked back at the arbiter just long enough to register a nonverbal “fuck you” before tossing his bat and embarking on his trot.
He’d been doing a lot of muttering lately, and punishing a lot of pitches. Everywhere he looked, he found fuel. Two weeks earlier the Twins had bypassed him in selecting their seven-player contingent for the Arizona Fall League, where each October baseball’s best prospects gathered for six weeks of additional seasoning. Then, despite leading the Eastern League in RBIs, he’d been left off the circuit’s honorary all-star team. Since mid-August he was batting .467 and bingeing on extra-base hits with five doubles and six home runs, taking out his frustrations at being overlooked on enemy hurlers.
Mask off, arms folded across his padded chest, the umpire waited just beyond the batter’s box as Del crossed the plate. “Mind your attitude, batter.”
“Just call ’em fair,” Del said, not turning his head or slowing his pace.
“What’s that?”
Del refused the bait and continued on to the dugout where a forest of raised arms awaited.
There was no need to make a call on the only pitch he saw in his final at-bat. Reading’s fourth pitcher of the afternoon was a towering collection of knees and elbows. On each warmup toss he paused mid-delivery, right arm extended toward second base triggered to sling the ball plateward, left leg suspended high in the air like a gangly, white, poor-man’s Juan Marichal. Having achieved balance, he unfroze and resumed transmittal of the baseball. His eight practice pitches completed, he took the sign with a blank, almost dumb, expression, then wound up and released a pitch that bore so far inside all Del could do was rotate away as it drilled him between the numbers on his back.
Del fell to his knees, hardly able to summon the strength to reach up and push his helmet off his head. His breath seemed to catch and loop as it traveled from his throat to his chest, inflating his lungs in stages. The plate ump strode between him and the pitcher, seemingly challenging him to get up and make a charge.
He didn’t have to. After just enough hesitation to lull the defense to sleep, a blur in home whites shot from the on-deck circle toward the center of the diamond. Warning shouts arose, first from the visitors’ dugout, then the infield dirt. The confused moundsman hadn’t even enough time to throw down his glove before Edsell drove his shoulder into his midsection. The momentum carried them clear off the mound and onto the infield grass, where the pitcher drummed an ungainly left-right patter of mitt and bare knuckles onto Edsell’s back. Edsell countered his much taller adversary with a flurry of gut shots landed with a balled-up right fist. As players streamed from both dugouts to join the fray, Del exchanged glances with the Phillies catcher, who smirked and shrugged, as if to say “what the hell?” before jogging into the middle of the conflagration. Having at last regained his wind, Del set off after him to even the numbers.
By the time he reached the mound the coaching staffs had quelled the minor squabbles, leaving only a rolling knot consisting of Edsell, the pitcher, and three or four on each side. Del grabbed a handful of gray jersey, only to be yanked back and lifted off the ground by an arm as thick and strong as a boa constrictor.
“Enough, you meatheads,” Bear Lupin shouted. “Tanner, get out of here before you get hurt.”
The trainer set him down out of harm’s way and rumbled back into the muddle, emerging a moment later with two more bodies under his arms, one from each club. Only then was the umpire emboldened to push into the center, laying hands on combatants and declaring their disqualification from the remainder of the afternoon’s affairs. “You’re gone,” he said, tagging the players on top of the squirming pile. “You, shower time. Come on, let’s go.”
Edsell staggered up from the turf, blood trickling from the corner of his grinning mouth. “Fuck you,” he muttered when the plate ump grasped his shoulder and pointed to the clubhouse.
As players from both sides dispersed toward their dugouts and bullpens, Del started back to the plate in pursuit of his helmet.
“Tanner.” The umpire pointed at him, then shot his thumb up over his head. “You’re done.”
“What?” Del searched frantically for his manager or a coach to come to his aid, but they were busy marshaling his teammates to the bench. “All I did was get hit.”
“I saw you out there. You were right in the middle of it.”
“You’re fucking blind.”
“What’s that?” The ump stepped toward him, close enough that his extended finger jabbed into Del’s sternum.
Del looked down at the hand encroaching upon his private space and imagined slapping it away. Then maybe going all Edsell on the guy. It wasn’t worth whatever suspension would carry over into next spring. Instead he smiled and said, “Have a nice winter, little man.”
“Care to repeat that?”
Dismissing him with an exaggerated can-you-believe-this-guy shrug, Del marched off the field, down the dugout steps and up the tunnel into the home clubhouse.
Edsell was seated on a stool in front of his locker, already down to his t-shirt and sliding shorts, dabbing at his lip with a balled-up towel. “What’re you doing in here?” he laughed.
“Same as you. That runt tossed me out.”
“For what?”
“Getting in the way of a pitch, I guess. Little mall cop wannabe. Hope I never see him again. At least you got your money’s worth.”
“I got your back, bro.”
Edsell held a fist up. Del pounded it with his own. He started to respond, but his throat tightened and he could only manage a nod. “Thank you” was such an easy thing to say to a stranger holding a door or a cashier at Wendy’s, but so hard sometimes to tell a good friend, particularly one whose testosterone was still raging from having just fought your battle. For four years they’d shared bus rides, motel rooms, meals, and nights out. A month from now they’d be back in Mexico, dependent upon each other to navigate through the murky world of winter ball. Del suddenly felt guilty for never envisioning a spot for Edsell in his Arizona Fall League dream. It was just as well he’d been passed over. Leave cushy Phoenix to the golden boys and their bonus money. He’d be down in Mexicali, watching Edsell’s back, confident his own would be covered in return.