The Might Have Been Read Free Page B

Everett would go back to Springfield to resume a sad march toward thirty, when even he would have to realize that his faith had been pointless, that he had crossed the line between hope and delusion, and would have no choice but to return to the World.
    Day after day, he arrived at the ballpark and chased down fly balls during batting practice until it was his turn in the cage, where he took his cuts, ten swings and out for someone else, then back to the outfield to chase down more flies until game time, when he sat at the end of the bench, waiting and waiting, ashamed that, after the last out, as he filed into the locker room with his teammates, his uniform was pristine save for the powder from the husks of the sunflowerseeds he ate compulsively, while theirs were stained with dirt and grass, knees torn, where he took a shower he didn’t need and then went outside where the kids pestered them all for autographs—the stars, the regulars, even Edward Everett, who had done nothing that would make anyone want him to scrawl his name on a scorecard or a baseball. And so when he signed, he did it quickly, not meeting any of the kids in the eye, his mark a kind of lie, the kids asking him because they had no idea who most of them were, just that they were coming out of the right door, their hair damp, pushing through the swarming flock of children toward the team bus.
    Then, in Montreal, he got his opportunity.
    There had been problems getting into the city from Philadelphia late Thursday night; the Olympics were going on, and the airport was chaotic, long lines at the customs desk and confusion at the baggage claim. One of Edward Everett’s teammates had made a derogatory remark about French-Canadian efficiency and the already irritated official had made them all open their carry-on bags so that he could inspect them, counting, in a deliberate way, cigarette packs and confiscating pill bottles from one of Edward Everett’s teammates, who argued, honestly but in vain, that they were natural dietary supplements.
    They didn’t check into their hotel until after four in the morning and, as a result, were out of sync by game time. They dropped pop flies in the infield, botched coverage on stolen base attempts, only winning because Montreal was even more inept than they.
    On Saturday then, a twelve-fifteen game, the Skipper decided to give half the regular starting lineup the day off and started Edward Everett in right field, leading off.
    It was a miserable day, windy, raining throughout the morning. The teams couldn’t take fielding practice because the grounds crew kept the field covered, and Edward Everett feared they would cancel the game, that his chance would come and go, and his entire career would add up to nothing: a single sacrifice bunt that didn’t count as an at-bat, a batting average that wouldn’t rate expression in numbers, because even to have an average of .000, he had to have at least one unsuccessful official time at-bat. But no, there was a benign God,because at a few minutes to one according to the scoreboard clock in right field, he stepped to the plate to begin the game.
    The atmosphere in the park was entirely different from that in St. Louis for his first plate appearance. The Expos were a bad ball club and, with the poor weather and the Olympics in the same city, the crowd was sparse, perhaps fewer than a thousand people scattered throughout the stands, many huddled under blankets and plastic rain gear against the unseasonably cool weather.
    “You going to hit or watch the people?” the umpire snapped. Edward Everett realized he’d been lost in the moment and stepped to the plate. On the mound, the pitcher bent from his waist and looked in for his sign from the catcher. He was in his forties, a left-hander with a round belly and a plump face. As Edward Everett set himself, he remembered that he’d had the pitcher’s baseball card when he himself was a grade school boy. The pitcher had been with the