Bryan knew it was all a sham. He could have turned and thrown. He’d done it thousands of times. But in that instant of hesitation his fear of the yips had changed his decision. It wasn’t a smart play. It was a stupid play. The chances of his soft exchange with the shortstop going wrong were much greater than if he had just kept the ball and made the play himself.
He kicked the dirt, disgusted by his decision.
He made the mistake of looking at the dugout and saw Archer actually grinning at him. The fucker knew Bryan was struggling with the yips. Then the asshole reached over and gathered Lauren to him.
Bryan saw red. Literally – his eyes filled with red. He had come across that as a metaphor somewhere, maybe in one of the Plinys’ writings, but to experience it for real was disconcerting. Terrifying. He had to look down at his spikes, rest his hands on his knees, to get the throbbing blood in his vision to relent. He did note that Lauren seemed uncooperative, tugging herself back against Archer’s grasp.
She was here under duress, it appeared to him, but she was here nonetheless. Under duress and under a spell. One initiated by words she had no doubt repeated to her young self over and over until the repletion gave them magical presence. A girl’s promise that had to be fulfilled by the woman.
Bryan wished he had some immediate magic of his own. A pill, a silver bullet. Some wizard skill made manifest to free her from the chains of this entrancement. A favor in return for all the good and kind things she had done for him. He could not cure her affliction, he knew now, but just to get her released tonight….
The umpire called time to replenish his supply of new balls and brush home. Bryan took the opportunity to stare into the night sky and take some deep breaths.
The next Yankee batter stepped to the plate and presented himself for combat. Bryan took his place again. A step towards first, as this guy was a right-handed contact hitter with a natural inside-out swing that placed most of his infield balls to the right side of the infield.
The batter swung and missed. He took a pitch for a ball. The catcher signaled for a sinking fastball down, and Bryan got on his toes. This was a prime situation for a grounder.
It truly was. The pitcher delivered a perfect hard sinker. The batter swung with an efficient compact swing, but was an inch too high. The ball went straight down into the toe of his left shoe and skittered quickly out toward Bryan.
Dead ball.
The umpire yelled “Dead Ball!” and raised both arms as the batter hopped around on his uninjured foot making guttural pain noises.
The defense relaxed.
Not Bryan.
He took three running steps to the rolling baseball, bent over, and snatched it up with his bare hand.
Play until the play is over. He had learned that truism from a young age. So what if the whole park saw that the ball was dead? Bryan only saw a ball coming into his area of responsibility. Bryan’s instincts were to field the ball as if the runner were hurtling toward first.
He held the ball firmly in his hand as he straightened up and directed his eyes to first base.
Mitch was off the bag, his mitt down, not expecting a throw.
Bryan glanced behind first, into the seats. Archer was leaning down over Lauren, speaking something, that smirk on his face.
Bryan drew back his arm.
Lauren met his gaze. Still his wife, once his friend, once his lover. They would have had children and grown old together if not for this horrendous confluence of events. He might never have known about those deep fears that weakened her inside. Her eyes were filled with regret.
He had a vision of a scrawny, dirty, unhappy little girl sitting on hard-packed dirt in the uncaring Texas sun.
Bryan stepped towards his target.
Yes, she had promised him. They had taken vows to each other. But she had a more fundamental set of vows that she had made to herself long before they ever met. Whatever anger he felt toward her had subsided. Leaving only pity for her and sorrow for what she had given up.
He whipped his arm forward, his eye fixed on a spot.
Hey, everyone knew he had the fucking yips. So when his totally unnecessary but excusable throw went wide and high, sailing nowhere near first base, that was not unexpected.
The ball rocketed true and flat and hit within a quarter of an inch of where Bryan had aimed.
A baseball traveling as hard as a professional like Bryan could throw possessed perhaps 150 Joules of kinetic energy. The whole of this energy was transferred in a microsecond to a small area near Owen Archer’s left temple.
The sound was a horrible splat like a pumpkin dropped from a rooftop onto concrete. The park was temporarily lulled after the dead ball call, so 35,000 plus people clearly heard the impact and winced as one.
**********
The Sox gathered on the mound during the delay.
The team of emergency room doctors and nurses from Beth Israel, present at the park every game, hustled down to the victim and worked on the injury. They laid the man down as best they could on the ancient green cement steps and obtained vitals, examined his head and face, applied pressure, taped on a temporary bandage.
This all took almost a half hour. Bryan saw Lauren standing, not exactly over Archer, not exactly away from him. She had her hands over her mouth in horror at what she had just witnessed.
When the medical team had her boyfriend strapped into a gurney and began to haul him to the exit, she stood rooted for a while, seemingly unable to decide whether to go or to stay. Bryan caught her looking out at him, but then he got distracted into a conversation between the catcher and the pitcher about how they wanted to work to the next three batters. After a few minutes, he glanced over and saw that she was gone.
Catillo approached, but Bryan just smiled a smile unconcerned and placid and confident. His coach frowned, thinking, then shook his head and returned to the dugout without suggesting a change.
The fans had begun the old Fenway staple, the Yankees Suck chant. It had of course been there throughout the game, a constant undertone to the cheers, propagated by pockets of the traditionally-minded. The refrain increased in volume during the lull, overtaking the programmed music and the season highlight reel that had begun to play on the big screen.
Then some fragment of those attending got the word about who was being taken to an ambulance, because the chorus of Yankees Suck! Yankees Suck! gradually morphed and became:
Yankees Suck! Jets Suck Too!
Bryan felt a right bastard, because he grinned like a sock monkey. He put out his arms like he was catching one of the beach balls being whacked about in the bleachers and spun around in a full circle.
These fans were such demanding unyielding unforgiving assholes. They were verbally kicking the guy when he was literally down. He adored them all, each and every one, pink hats and grizzled Southie lottery ticket scratchers, scientists, carpenters, housewives from the western suburbs, Maniacs down on a bus, college kids in the bleachers…. They were his tribe.