Page 17 - Way Out to the Old Ballgame

El Brujo del Beisbol

not like that anymore, of course, not since the major leaguers starting
getting these fat contracts. Anyway, the old guy stood up and
motioned to Roger. It reminded me of Charlie McGregor coming out
of the dugout with the hook, ready to send me to the showers. But
Roger went over to him and they started jawing.”
“Roger started out sort of apologetic, but that didn’t last long. The
old guy must have rubbed him the wrong way—Roger was sensitive
about a lot of things, despite his playboy exterior—and they really got
into it. I never did learn much Spanish, so I couldn’t tell you what it
was all about. I was laughing so hard I didn’t notice when things got
ugly. A couple of the bartender’s friends started putting their hands
on Roger, and he looked ready for a fight. He crashed into the
knickknack table and grabbed something, then threw it at one of
those guys coming at him. It missed and went right at my head.”
“Well, my left hand went up, just pure reflex like I’d done a
thousand times before when a line drive came back at me as I was
following through on my delivery. I caught it, wondering if Roger
thought it would be funny to bean me with a bean bag. The next
moment he was running toward me, yelling that we had to get out of
there fast. Being the superbly conditioned athletes that we were, we
only stumbled over a couple of chairs and knocked out a lantern or
two before finding the exit and jumping into his car. Some of the
characters in the bar came after us, but we beat it out of there before
they could catch us.”
“Roger said nothing about it on the way home. He was trying to
concentrate on the road, and I didn’t want to distract him. I was
already back in my apartment, struggling with my clothes, when I
found that little doll in the pocket of my warmup jacket. It wasn’t
much bigger than a baseball, and it didn’t look like the dolls my kid
sister was playing with, but I thought it was kind of cute. Maybe I
thought I would give it to her, as a souvenir of San Trueno. I put it in
my duffle bag along with my clean uniforms and forgot about it.”
“Now, get this, kid: up until that day I had been an average pitcher.
I knew I hadn’t really improved my performance in San Trueno, and
I had only one more start before it was time to go back up north.
Then suddenly all the pieces fell together. The next morning, despite

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