Page 14 - Way Out to the Old Ballgame

El Brujo del Beisbol

“Yeah, kid, that’s right: I’m Sparky Pluggett. You must be pretty
sharp to recognize me after all these years. I don’t look much like the
rookie right-hander who won thirty-two games for the Juggernauts in
eighty-two. But then, again, you don’t look old enough to be drinking
in here, eh? Ah, never mind; just kidding. So you remember that
season: so do I, even though I’ve spent a lot of time trying to forget
it. You fans don’t know what it is to have the magic in your arms, in
your hands, in your fingers—and then lose it. You do well one season
and the expectations go clear out of sight. The next Sandy Koufax,
another Bob Gibson, the papers said. A year later they declared I was
washed up, a head case, a mystery, ruined by success, a victim of
unreported shoulder injuries. Sportswriters are like pit bulls.”
“Bartender! Did you take my drink? I wasn’t finished. All right, all
right, so I didn’t order yet. You want to buy me a drink, kid? Thanks.
You’re okay, you know. Want me to autograph that cocktail napkin?
No problem. Aaah, that feels good going down. Listen, you got a few
minutes? Let me tell you what really happened in eighty-two.
Statistics? They don’t tell you nothing. You know what pitcher gave
up the most hits in his career? No, I didn’t think you did—but you
can tell me who got the most hits, right? Well, the pitcher who gave
up the most hits was the great Cy Young himself. So, memorizing a
lot of numbers won’t get you close to the real story. What really goes
on between the lines is not what you read in the box score the next
morning: don’t forget that, kid.”
“Yeah, what was I saying? Oh. I had been playing winter ball down
in the Caribbean. Went down there after the minor league season
ended in eighty-one. Pitching coach of the Juggernauts’ farm team,
Ovid Goth—remember him from the sixty-seven Series?—he told
me, ‘Sparky, you might have it and you might not. I can tell you right
now you’re gonna get cut if you don’t. Prove it to me that you do and
I’ll convince that idiot Bushmaster’—he was the Juggernauts’ general
manager—‘to give you another chance next spring.’ So I went.
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