Juniper JonesChapter 2
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The Yankees were in town Tuesday night for a three-game set, and we lucked out on the weather. It was still reminding us that the season was too long and started too early, but it was almost sixty degrees at game time, which seemed balmy after Boston.
The Yankees had been playing at home, too, so I figured they were as happy as we were for a decent night.
I started the game in my usual position -- two guys down from the water cooler. We had a full house, as was usual for the Yankees, but there were peculiar outbreaks of noise from the stands in the early innings.
"It's the NCAA final," Josh Brennan reminded me during our at bat in the bottom of the fifth inning. "People brought portable TVs."
I had lost interest in the tournament when my pool picks had hit a disastrous stretch in the semifinals. I was no longer in contention for the big money.
The Yankees took a 5-2 lead into the late innings and held it until our half of the eighth when the Orioles had a little uprising. Tough Shit Williams led off with a double, and our catcher, Dave Hooks, brought him in with a sharp single down the right field line.
Omar Washington, the DH, moved Hooks to second on a ground ball out, and our light-hitting shortstop, Eliot "Hands" Harper, blooped one over second base for a single, pushing Dave Hooks over to third.
Our bottom-of-the-order hitter, Gomer Fitzroy, dribbled a weak grounder to the pitcher, discouraging Hooks from trying to come in, but the Yankee pitcher messed up the easy toss to first for an error. Fitzroy, who should have been the second out of the inning, was standing on first base instead.
So we were lookin' good. One out, bases loaded with Orioles, and our lead-off guy, Josh Brennan up. Brennan had no power, but he had been, two years earlier, the first guy since Ted Williams in 1941 to hit over .400 for the season. Not a bad guy to have up for you in a pinch. Nicest thing about Brennan, he hit even better with runners in scoring position.
New York changed pitchers, bringing in a young flame thrower who nobody on our club knew all that well, except we'd gotten the word that he was wild and very fast.
Brennan fouled off the first pitch -- a fastball -- and then took a pitch way inside for ball one. The next pitch was again inside -- this time wild and low, and Josh couldn't get out of the way. It hit him on the knee and the popping sound it made was audible in our dugout. It was an ugly, sickening sound.
Brennan was on the ground and writhing in pain, and instantly Paul Warren, Franklin Jones, and the club's trainer were all racing to home plate.
There was a lot of milling around, but eventually a stretcher was brought out to carry Josh off the field. He got a nice round of applause from the stony-silent crowd, but as soon as he was out of sight, it got awfully quiet in the Yard all over again.
I knew why. The fans were stunned. So were we. Outside of Zeke Taylor, Josh Brennan was our most productive offensive weapon. And it looked like his injury might be a bad one.
Paul sent me in to pinch-run for Brennan. The bases were still loaded, and the score was now 5-4 Yankees, still with only one out.
I wondered who would play first base if Brennan was out long-term. our DH, Omar Washington, was nominally a first baseman, but he was old and slow.
I thought the kid pitcher might have gotten rattled after he'd hit Josh, but instead he just hitched up his pants and struck out Spider Welch. Then he got Zeke on a warning-track fly ball.
I found out in the Yankee half of the ninth who would play first base. Spider Welch got moved in from right field, T.S. Williams moved from left to right, and I remained in the game as the new left fielder.
Maybe Josh's injury had us a little distracted. We lost, 5-4 after an uneventful ninth.
Next day we learned that Josh Brennan would be lost to us until at least late June. The club brought up a first baseman from Norfolk, but he was slated to be only a defensive back-up for Spider. Welch, it turned out, was a serviceable first baseman, and Paul Warren wanted Spider's bat -- and mine -- in the everyday lineup.
I'd be the left fielder until further notice.
With Josh out, we didn't have a natural leadoff man. Spider moved up to leadoff, and Dave Hooks moved from the six hole to bat second. I would hit sixth in Hooks' usual spot.
We were going to lose a little pop on offense, but it remained a formidable lineup. Brennan was a unique talent on offense, but he was barely adequate defensively, and Spider Welch seemed to be making the switch to first without difficulty.
But I was never going to be an adequate replacement for Brennan's bat. The best I could hope for would be to avoid being a significant drag on the club's ability to score runs and to make a contribution in left field with some steady defense.
It wasn't entirely evident at that moment, but during the next two months, it would turn out to be the longest stretch in a starting lineup in my brief major league career. I felt good about it on a personal level, because if past performance in the minors was any indication, playing regularly could be expected to do great things for my effectiveness as a hitter.
By the end of April, we were 17-12 and in second place behind the Red Sox. I had two homers and twelve runs batted in, and I was hitting .266.
Not great. But not awful.
We needed Brennan back, and I knew it as well as anybody. But it didn't keep me from enjoying the opportunity to play every day. And I felt as if I was slowly getting my batting eye back. It's hard to be a hitter when you're only getting called upon every fourth day or so.
Zeke Taylor was incredibly encouraging. He was always mumbling casual-seeming compliments to me in the dugout whenever I made any kind of defensive play the least bit out of the ordinary. He told me repeatedly that I had a "good stroke" at the plate. I guess I did, but it was almost laughable to be told that on a club with guys like Taylor and T.S. Williams doing the heavy lifting on offense.
But even though I knew the big guy was mostly just cheerleading, it still felt good, having a future Hall of Famer whispering sweet nothings in my ear. If it didn't actually make me a better hitter, it at least made me feel like I belonged in the lineup.
Two road trips and three home stands in April gave me a chance to fall into the routine of playing regularly, home and away, for long enough to find a groove. I had very little time to think about anything but the job. I hadn't seen Juniper Jones at any time since before Brennan's injury, and in early May we had to leave Baltimore (after an afternoon game with Tampa Bay) for a ten-day, ten-game road trip to L.A., Oakland, and Kansas City.
It was the start of a real grind. We'd gain three hours flying west, but it was still going to be an incredibly long day, and there wouldn't even be an open date between games. We'd have our first game with the Angels the very next night.
Franklin Jones sat beside me on the charter flight to Los Angeles. He had said nothing to me about Juniper during the entire previous month. If he wondered -- or knew about -- the way our brief relationship had ended, he didn't ask and he didn't tell.
I remember having wondered from time to time whether he held me responsible, but I doubted it. The attitude that Franklin had expressed in early days, when the two of us had discussed his step-daughter, had been one of somber resignation. So it didn't seem likely that he expected much from me despite my earlier declarations.
But I wondered about his having sought me out as a seatmate for the long flight west. Usually the coaches formed their own clique and didn't socialize all that much with players -- especially non-veterans like me.
Franklin and I exchanged small talk for the first hour of the flight, after which the older man napped quietly in his seat. Somewhere over the Midwest, he awoke and we each had a
beer along with the obligatory airline bags of peanuts.
"You get a seven or an eight?" Franklin asked me.
"Say what?"
"The peanuts. These little baggies they got. Most of them got seven nuts in 'em. Once in awhile, you get one with eight. I always count 'em. Never got a six, or a nine. Seven, mostly, and then your occasional eight."
"You ever think about getting interested in a hobby, Franklin?" I said.
He just smiled. "I've been working on how to turn it into some kind of -- you know -- some kind of profound observation about the nature of mankind, or something. I wondered whether it was done by weight, you know? Like maybe they had this real sensitive machine, weighing every peanut, and when they got to running a little small, then the computer would toss in that occasional eighth nut, just to get the weight right."
"You could go to graduate school, Franklin, maybe write a thesis on this."
"You laugh. But I'll bet if you were to recite all the profound things that you've had running through your allege-jid mind on this flight, they wouldn't amount to a whole helluva lot, either."
"You're right," I told him. "But mostly, I've been thinking about the series with the Angels. I know their pitchers pretty well, since I saw them more often with Oakland than we do in the AL East. I could pass on a few tips to the guys if you don't think doing it would be out of line for a newbie like me."
"It ain't like you're a rookie, Travis. The other guys respect you. You've come through for us, since Josh got popped. You got batting tips, you pass 'em on -- to anybody. To Zeke, even. If he wants to ignore you, he's free to. But he won't. Zeke's a pro. Don't you worry. He'll listen. They all will."
Well, we'd been dancing long enough. This was a long flight, but it wasn't interminable. I thought I'd deduced why Franklin had taken the seat next to me, and I figured it was up to me to get the conversation started. "So what's happening with Juniper?" I asked.
"She's okay. She's talking about moving out, getting her own place."
"Yeah, she told me she was feeling guilty, mooching off you guys at her advanced age."
"Shoot, we like having her around. It hasn't been that long since she graduated college. Why shouldn't she stay around home with us for awhile?"
"Hey, it's okay by me," I said, feigning defensiveness.
"You know, she's acting kinda strange, really," Franklin said.
"Oh yeah? How's that?"
"Stays home all the time. Oh, she went out with some girls from her work one night, and she goes to meetings and things. And she's come to the park for two-three games. But wherever she goes, she's been coming straight home after. It's not like her."
"No dating, you're saying?"
"Far as I can see, you were the last one she went out with."
I didn't know what to add to the conversation at that point.
After awhile, Franklin made a funny hissing sound with his mouth and teeth and sighed. "You never did call Mary Jane, ask to talk to her about Juni," he said.
"Well, I wanted to talk to Juniper first," I said. "And after I did, there didn't seem to be anything left for me to discuss with your wife."
"I know something about that. Juni told her mother pretty much how it went down. And of course, her mother told me. I guess I'm not supposed to know all the details, but Juni must know by now that when she tells her mama anything, I'm going to hear about it too."
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