By Joe Greco

I first noticed him on a midsummer California morning pacing back and forth in the chain link dugout of the youth baseball field. His weathered red cap shaded a tanned, wizened face, but could not contain the tufts of gray hair spilling over his ears. I was on my daily trek around the city park that encircled the ball field, nodding greetings to the folks walking dogs and the young parents entertaining their children on the playground swings and slides. We’d become accustomed to the homeless who moved about the park like ghosts from another world, silently, separately, often appearing and disappearing within a day or two. The old fellow was likely one of them, I thought.

I saw him again the next morning and the next, and for days that turned into weeks. He wore the same faded baseball cap and a white jersey with red sleeves. He paced and paced every morning, looking up at intervals to shout toward the emptiness of the reddish-brown infield dirt and verdant outfield grass, paying as little attention to others as they were paying him.

But one morning, as summer faded into autumn, he stomped toward me with cursing dark eyes. I froze.
He stopped a few feet from me, ripped off his cap, and slammed it onto the grass. “That goddamned ump,” he growled. “He’s blind. That runner was safe. Now he’s tossed me from the game.”

“Oh.” I pondered. Then I reached down with my left hand, retrieved the cap, and gently handed it to him. “But, you’re the skipper,” I said, using baseball fans’ fond term for the team manager. “You gotta keep these umps in line.”

He tugged the cap over his wild gray hair. “Damn right.”

“Hang in there, Skipper.” I nodded and walked away.

“Hey,” he called. “Don’t just walk around. Keep that arm warm. I may need a lefty.”

I smiled. “OK.”

~

I waved to him on subsequent mornings as I passed the field, but he never seemed to notice. That changed one crisp October morning as he strode to the pitcher’s mound. I was still far from the field, but he turned, looked straight at me, and began tapping his left arm—the manager’s signal calling for a left-handed relief pitcher. I stopped, squinted. He began tapping frantically, then gesturing with his right hand. He wanted me. In the game. I hesitated, looking around, then took a deep breath and trotted toward him.

He held out his hand, fingers curved around an invisible orb. “Keep the runner on third base close. Don’t let the one on second get too far off. The guy on first’s irrelevant.” I nodded, reaching for the ball. The dog walkers and doting parents stopped and stared as The Skipper jogged back to the dugout, and I took a pitcher’s stance.

I brought my imaginary ball glove to my heart, craning my neck to peer over my right shoulder at the nothingness that was the runner at third base. I kicked my right leg and delivered the pitch. The Skipper cheered. “Yes. Again.” I repeated. “Again,” he shouted. I complied. “You got him. Now, throw smoke to this next guy.”

I coiled, kicked, and threw. The Skipper ran out of the dugout, whooping, hugging what I assumed were my teammates only he could see. He came to me, slapped me heartily on the back. “You did it, kid.”

I smiled, looking around the park at those from my other world, staring at me, mouths agape.

~

I approached the ball field the next morning, wondering what I may have gotten myself into. Were the others I’d exchanged greetings with for so long looking at me strangely? Would The Skipper call me into the game again?

But he was nowhere to be seen. Nor was he there the next day or the next or for weeks. I worried; I had no way to check on him. Had he died? Had he been arrested or committed? I missed him. The life he’d breathed into the ball field was gone; it had become just dirt and grass.

Then one chilly December morning, there he was, sitting in the ball field’s bleachers. I approached, waving. “Hey Skipper, where were you?”

He looked at me solemnly.

I sat on a bench a row down from him. “You OK?”

He shrugged. “Yeah. Frustrating though. Dealing with management.”

“Park management? They hassling you?”

He squinted at me. “What? Management. The team’s owners. You win the damn World Series and they won’t even give you a raise and a contract extension.”

“Oh, OK. I see.”

“What about you? How’re they treating you?”

“Uh —”

He shook his head. “Come on, kid. You gotta stick up for yourself. You come in, bottom of the ninth in game seven, bases loaded, no outs, we’re only up by a run. You whiff the first batter, get the next guy to hit into a double play. We win it all. You got ice water in your veins, kid. They need to reward you.”

I smiled. “OK. Good advice.”

The Skipper nodded, then turned and looked back out over the field.

“Take care of yourself, Skipper,” I said and began walking away. But after several paces I stopped, pondering the thought that had entered my consciousness—I was looking forward to spring training.

I frowned. Was I losing touch with reality? I started walking again, having corrected my thinking. After all, I had to be ready to hold out if management wouldn’t give me a fair contract. And if that meant missing spring training, then goddamnit, that’s what I’d do. I nodded, looking around at the walkers and the little dogs and the mommies and daddies and their dear children. I’d taken the field in front of all of them and I’d pantomimed the pitches that had won the World Series for The Skipper. Yes, I was worth it. Like The Skipper said, I had ice water in my veins.