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Shakespeare hit a hot smash at you in Boston, and you
fielded it as caressingly as you d pick up a newborn chick.
You play this game with love, Smokey, and that s rare.
That s real rare. Then there s the other side of you. You re
a born troublemaker. You never met a rule you liked or a
wisecrack you didn t. It kept you an outsider in Boston,
because they didn t know what to do about you. You hung
around more with the sportswriters than your teammates,
and that s not good. I traded for both sides of you. I wanted
a good ballplayer who could keep my clubhouse stirred up.
I wanted someone who would push the limits and keep the
other players loose. I figured I could handle you, although
God knows it hasn t been easy. I ve disciplined you more
than I ve disciplined any other player, and I ve coached
everything from Little League to pro ball.
She took a sip of coffee and continued.  For the most
part, you ve worked out the way I wanted. You shored up
my infield and gave me a good leadoff hitter. By watching
you around the veterans, Stryker got up her confidence.
She s turned into the best damned relief pitcher in women s
baseball. S.B. s guardianship of you has brought out the
best in her on the diamond and in the clubhouse. And the
veterans won t let themselves slack off with you around. But
I haven t been able to wean you from your wisecracks to the
press, have I?
 Oh God, Coach, I m sorry. I should have listened to
you.
 Some players spend hours before a game combing their
hair just so. You spent your time polishing your quotes.
I winced.
 Go get yourself cleaned up, Smokey O. When S.B.
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comes in, we ll discuss what we want to say about this story.
This is one time it won t hurt to polish a few quotes.
I had forgotten I was still in my running clothes. It had
been a long morning.
 Coach, are you going to talk to Mac?
 No, Smokey. That s for you to do.
And that s what I was really afraid of.
I didn t have many clothes on when S.B. came into the
locker room. She gave me a pretty frank once-over and
said,  You don t seem to have horns and a tail, but maybe
Clarabelle got a better look than I did.
 S.B., are you mad at me?
 Mad? No, not mad. Just I don t know resigned, I
guess. Some of us worked kind of hard to try to keep this
from happening.
 I know. I feel awful. It s my fault.
 It s not just your fault. Mac did her share. And we ve
got a snitch or two on this team, who gave Clarabelle all
that inside information although I suspect she got a lot of
it from Mac.
 God, S.B., people all across the country are going to
read that story and think it s true. Today of all days. It s the
start of the biggest series of the year, and everybody s going
to be talking about Clarabelle s story.
 Which is just what Clarabelle intended, I m sure. Have
you talked to Coach Lefevre yet?
 Yes. She was pretty nice to me, but I still feel like I ve
been taken to the woodshed.
 If you re ready, let s go back to her office. Shakespeare
and Zion are here, too, to help bail you out.
When we walked into Lefevre s office, Shakespeare
caught me in a half nelson that wasn t meant to be gentle.
 We could all clobber you, she said,  but we re going to
save your ass, instead. She let me go.
Lefevre fanned out a stack of pink telephone messages.
 These are the media calls already, and that s just from the
ones who don t sleep late. We ve got more sportswriters in
town than usual, because of the interest in tonight s game,
and they re all smelling blood in the water and moving in.
 Can I say something? I said.  Listen, I feel like a jerk.
I m sorry, and I appreciate what you all are doing. I don t
deserve it.
 Damn right you don t, Zion said. Since she was
sitting near enough to me to kick my leg, she did. Then she
relented.  Aw, Smokey, it s all right. You may be a jackass,
but you re our jackass.
 Here s what we re going to do, Lefevre said.  We have
to bury this story under an avalanche of counter-publicity.
We have to be more credible than Clarabelle. We have to
get the sportswriters on our side and make them want to
go after Clarabelle, instead of us. The front-office staff is
setting up the press conference room for you. Go out there
and talk one-on-one with every reporter who comes in. No
joint appearances we want them to think they re getting
exclusive interviews. They re more likely to report what you
say if they think no one else has it. We re going to encourage
the reporters to get here as soon as they can. I want our side
of the story to be out by the time the radio and television
stations do their noontime news. I want the fans to hear it
from us before they have a chance to buy Sports Illustrated
on their way home from work. If we don t win them over
before they get to the ballpark tonight, they ll kill us.
S.B. nodded in agreement.
 While you four are out there doing interviews, I ll stay
in my office and take the telephone calls from the national
press. Lefevre went on,  Here s what we re going to say.
Don t complain about the story. Don t attack Clarabelle.
Say that she got her facts right, but she drew the wrong
conclusion. Tell them there s more to this club than a
couple of well-publicized spats that are nothing but old
news, anyway.
 I know what, Zion said.  I can talk about how Smokey
and Mac volunteered to do a clinic for city kids yesterday. I
can say that s what this team is really like.
 That s great. That s exactly what we want, Lefevre said.
`Be positive. Tell them we re going to disprove Clarabelle s
interpretation by winning the division title. She turned to
me.  As for you, Smokey, you get out there and eat crow.
You tell those sportswriters it s your fault that Clarabelle
got the wrong impression of you. You tell them that you ve
never been more thrilled in your life than to play on the
same team as Mac MacDonnell. When I get the newspapers
tomorrow, I better read that you re the sorriest ball player
that ever gave a quote to a sportswriter. You got it?
 Yes, Coach. I knew as well as Lefevre did that
the sportswriters couldn t resist the spectacle of public
contrition. It would put the story to rest.
The cost would be that my ego would take one hell of a
pounding. But Lefevre knew that, too. As she sent us out to
meet the press, she caught my eye and smiled.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The conversations in the locker room before game time
were tense and resentful. The angry words that I overheard
were directed at Clarabelle, but I was treated to a hefty dose
of dirty looks.
As the players came in, S.B., Shakespeare and Zion
kept up the missionary work that they had started with the
sportswriters, defusing and deflecting the Blue Diamonds
outrage. Only this time, in the sanctuary of the clubhouse,
they were outspoken and profane about what they thought
of Clarabelle.
 Someone told her that crap, I heard Cranny say to
Shakespeare.
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 She made it up. Don t you understand? She fuckin
made it up, Shakespeare snapped.
They were arguing. I had never heard them argue
before, and it was a frightening thing.
Mac came in, and it was as if she and I were the only two
beings in the universe. Amid the chaos of inflamed players,
discarded clothes, baseball gloves, cosmetics, uniforms and
bats, Mac never looked at anything but me.
The voices around us ceased, like an orchestra that had
lost its conductor, and Mac said,  Come here.
She jerked her head toward the showers. I followed.
In the privacy and stark sterility there, Mac said, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]