For Love of the Game Read Free Page A

for Gus. He stood up, that enormous grin growing wider. He cocked his arm like a warrior about to hurl a spear. “Well, I hope you blow ’em away. Zoom!” He whirled his arm and fired: strike. “Ha!” He flexed his arm, wrung it out, massaged the muscle with the other hand, like an old and mighty pro. He moved with natural grace—ex-dancer? He was saying: “I live in this town, but that ain’t
my
team. Motherless bastards. All you gotta do is work for ’em
once
, and, man, the things I could tell ya.…” He picked up the baseball bucket. “ ’Preciate it, Mr. Chapel, ’preciate it. I know the kids that’ll … well. Good luck, sir. Hope you go out there today and”—he gave a cheery, evil grin—“and
dust
’em off, Mr. Chapel. Just dust ’em off.” He departed.
    “His own hometown.” Gus was slightly wounded. “Well, I betcha he just doesn’t come from here.”
    The Neil Diamond song was beginning to annoy Chapel, and that was unusual: he turned the thing off, stood there, picked up another: old stuff, folksongs, Burl Ives, kept the hands moving, put on another cassette.
    Gus: “Got to tell you this, Chappie, I get cold up
here
in the winter, so, if you don’t mind, I’d just as soon—”
    The phone rang.
    Carol?
    But Gus was near: picked it up.
    “Yeah. Right. Who? Well. Okay. Here.” He handed the phone to Chapel. “Manager at the desk.”
    Chapel took the thing, put it to the ear. The voice was one of the head men downstairs whose name Chapel did not know. The man was excited.
    “Mr. Chapel. Ah, yes. Sorry to disturb you, sir, normally wouldn’t do that kind of thing at all, but, ah, there’s a gentleman down here who wishes to see you, sir, in person, and, well, sir, the gentleman is rather, ah, well, he’s that television personality, sportscaster, whatever the word is, well,
everybody
knows Ross. I mean, it’s that fella from NBC, D.B. Ross. You’re, well, familiar, of course. If you don’t mind, he, ah, tells me that he
must
speak to you as soon as possible, that the matter is, ah, urgent, and that he prefers to do it privately, and not on the telephone. Can he come up?”
    After a moment Chapel said: “Is he alone?”
    “Alone? Oh. Oh, yes, sir.”
    “Well. Okay.”
    “Fine! Thank you, sir. He’ll be right up.”
    News? Something had happened. Clutch in the chest: pressure, warning. No. Don’t think. He drank the coffee.
    Gus: “Dooby Ross. Jeez. I wonder.…”
    Chapel: “I need a shave.”
    Gus: “I’d watch this bird. Chappie, take care. This guy is what they call a ‘showboat.’ Want me to move out? Leave you alone?”
    “Hell, no.”
    “Shit. This guy, in some ways, is worse than Cosell. Ah. I was hopin’ it was Carol. Hey. Now, Billy?”
    “Yep.”
    “Want you to know, before somebody comes. I hope you fix that up. I think a lot of her. And if you don’t fix it up—Christ, how long have you known that girl? Years and years. You two … went good together. You looked good together. Matching pair. I mean, with that girl, you
laugh
. So I really hope—for your sake—Jesus. Is it
marriage
? Is that the point? Is it time for … time to be practical? Ha? What you think?”
    Chapel said nothing. Songs often went through his mind, were singing in the back of the brain while he worked, and that one song was repeating itself there now as he stood by the pictures:
    Are you goin’ away, with no word of farewell?
Will there be not a trace left behind?
Well, I could have loved you better
Didn’t mean to be unkind
As you know
That was the last thing on my mind …
    Knock on the door. This time it didn’t open. Chapel: here he comes. To Gus he nodded. Gus opened the door: Dooby Ross.
    He was famous among television people, had been a sportscaster going back a long ways, back almost to the days of Red Barber, Mel Allen. He was a round, bald man with a flaxen mustache which was his “trademark,” that old-fashioned barber’s mustache. He had a small, round