Stealing Heaven

I toe the rubber with my right foot and spit through my teeth. A solid, clear stream right into the soggy infield grass. I dig my spikes into the wet mound while I finger the ball. I decide to take a moment to take in my surroundings. The crowd is absolutely wild. With not much to cheer for, this will probably be the most excitement they experience all season. For some of them, this may be the highlight of their lives as baseball fans. They are screaming, chanting, cheering, and some look just short of foaming at the mouth with hysteria. My eye rests on a grown man who is crying. CRYING. Not like a tear on his cheek. I could understand that. But he is sobbing…as if his only daughter is getting married or his son just bought him a house. As if this is HIS moment. This sight angers me so much that I step off the mound. Somehow I manage to tear my eyes away from this disgusting sight.
I look at the batter, who has now stepped out of the batter’s box. Number 27. My final hurdle. The last man standing in my way. My mortal enemy…because he is trying to prevent me from becoming immortal. It’s not his fault. He’s not a pitcher. He doesn’t understand. If he were, he would have come to the plate without a bat. Not because he doesn’t know how to hit…but out of respect for what an accomplishment this would be.
After I completed the seventh inning, on seven pitches mind you, I started doing the math. I’ve always been a math person. Major League Baseball was formed in 1903, making this the 109th season of baseball. Nowadays, we play 162 games a season. Previously it was 154. I don’t know if it was 154 since 1903. So let’s just say for arguments sake, and to low-ball the number, there’s been an average of 155 games a season for the last 109 years. Currently, there’s 32 teams. I don’t know how many the MLB started with. I know it was less. So once again, I just assumed there’s been an average of 26 teams for the past 109 years. That would make 13 games played between the 26 teams. Multiplying all of that (I had to borrow paper from my manager. It was the funniest thing. I’m throwing a “perfecto” and I break the sacred rule of sticking to the same tradition every inning to ask my manager for paper. It’s a stupid superstition but he was hopping mad at me. Whatever). Anyway, multiplying all of that together, we get 219,635 games. Including the playoffs, I rounded up to 220,000 games in MLB history. And this is a low-ball estimate. In the history of the game, there’s been 20 perfect games. Personally, I count 21 because of the Gallaraga-Joyce game with the obvious blown call back in 2010. That means that the percentage of perfect games in history is .0095%. Or less than one one-hundredth of a percent. Not only is this the rarest event in baseball, it is the most beautiful thing in all of sports. It is guaranteed immortality. Even if you don’t make it to the hall of fame (which I certainly won’t) you at least are in Cooperstown. All of these things could possibly be running through an avid baseball fan’s head.
But honestly, none of that has anything to do with what would make this so special for me. The fact is, that after a life of mediocrity (and at times sub-mediocrity), to achieve perfection, to touch God, to steal a piece of heaven would be the defining moment of my life. My career has been mediocre. A career record of 78-63 over 12 seasons is nothing to boast about. A career ERA of 4.72. And 964 strikeouts over 1600 career innings. My baseball card will never be worth more than five bucks.
My marriage was mediocre too. I loved her very much. And she loved me too. But she knew I loved baseball more than anything else. I had no right to get married because my heart already belonged to someone else. I kept telling her that if she could just hold out a few more years, then I’d retire. But she told me that I’d eventually become an analyst or announcer…anything that would keep me tied to the game of baseball. So she divorced me. And took our son, Justin. It wasn’t a nasty breakup. It was just…mediocre. Then she met some other guy. One night he took the two of them out on a date, and they got in a car accident. The only survivor was the driver of the other vehicle. They never would have been on that date if she had still been married to me.
It had never occurred to me until this season what baseball had taken from me. The game that I loved so much had taken so much from me. It obviously did not love me the way I loved it. Besides Justin and my wife, it had estranged me from my dad. My dad, when I was young, pushed me so hard to make it to the big leagues as a pitcher. I hated him when I was little because he pushed me so hard. Drills from morning till evening. Sprints till I threw up. Weight lifting sessions with weights so heavy it wasn’t healthy or productive. It eventually got me here, but I would never be outstanding. Maybe, though, for one brief instant in time…like the brightest and fastest of shooting stars…I could be perfect.
The game has also taken my body. Multiple arm injuries, a knee injury, broken hands and fingers, and most recently this season a concussion from a hit right off my head. That was the one that caused me to realize it was time to call it quits. A few days after I returned I announced that I would be retiring at the end of the season. I didn't want to leave right after the injury. I wanted to go out on my own terms. This was my last start of the season. There could be no better terms to go out on.
I turn my attention back to the batter. Number 27. I take the sign from my catcher and get set. Fastball. Inside corner. I go into my windup. Nothing special…mediocre even. I stride forward with my left leg, plant, whip my arm through the air like a helicopter blade, and follow through, bringing my right leg down. The mud from my spikes fly up spattering me and the infield around the mound. It’s been raining all day. Nothing bad at first, but it picked up in the eighth. The head groundskeeper is a good friend of mine and he managed to convince the umpires to let play continue. He wants this for me. Badly.
The pitch is a ball inside. I think it’s a strike. So does most of the crowd…as they start to boo. Eventually though the boos fade to cheers again. Cheers for me. Apparently too much mud flew off my spikes during that last pitch though, because the grounds crew comes out to fix up the mound a bit. All I can think is “hurry before the umps call this one.” My thoughts turn inwards again.
The first time I really thought about how much baseball has taken from me, I started to cry. Big, hot, wet tears. It was truly sad. And I felt truly stupid. Like a romantic hero who loved a woman who was the ultimate undoing of him. Arthur Pendragon. Romeo Montague. King David. Now, when I was so close to perfection, I felt those tears again. But unlike last time, there was hope in my tears. Maybe in this, my final act, baseball had decided to give me a parting gift. Something I could take with me and hold on to for the rest of my life. Something that would ensure that my name be carried on forever. I wiped the single tear that I hadn’t managed to blink back away from under my right eye.
My catcher comes out to talk to me.
“You okay, sir?” He calls me sir because, at 37, I’m 15 years his elder. I’ve been around for a while. All my career has been on this same team. They keep me around because I’m a great clubhouse presence. Especially for the younger kids. They all look up to me. And once in a while, I throw a real gem. I’m throwing the greatest gem of my life.
“Yeah, just fine. Just thinkin’, is all. But let’s get this thing done.” The grounds crew had just finished their work.
“How’s your hand?” he asks me. Back in the eighth, I tried to field a comebacker with my bare hand and took a nail right off. The trainer had to come out and stop the bleeding. Fortunately, he did. Normally, I would’ve been taken out. But not today.
“What hand?” I ask him with a wicked smirk. He smiles back, touches my left shoulder with his glove, and then starts to trot back to the plate.
He glances over his shoulder and says, “We all want this one for you, yano. ALL of us.” His eyes glanced from me to the crowds with that last sentence and then he turns to run back to the plate. He pounds his mitt hard and goes into his crouch.
I know he’s right. Almost every single soul in this stadium wants me to throw this perfect game. But he’s not completely right. The crowds don’t want this FOR ME. They THINK they do, but they don’t. They just want to see a perfect game. Because of what it means for their team. So they can tell their kids. So they can brag about how their bladders were bursting from all the beer they drank, but they refused to leave their seat and miss history. They don’t really care who it is that throws this perfect game. But that’s okay. I’m not bitter about that. They’re just fans.
My teammates, though, want this one FOR ME. They all love me. We’re brothers. I’m not the oldest one on the team. I’m certainly not the most talented. I’m not even the most respected. But I may be the most loved. Because of all the hardships in my life that they know about. And because of the way I love this game. There’s nothing mediocre about that.
There’s no one who wants this more than me, though. No one.
I take the sign for the 1-0 count. Another fastball. Inside corner. I get set, windup and deliver. Adrenaline is coursing through my veins. Everything feels like it’s in slow motion, but happening too quickly at the same time. The ball explodes out of my hand and the laces twirl in the air, like 108 synchronized dancers. I see already that I’ve missed my location. The ball has too much of the plate. But the batter swings and misses. He’s not even close. I blew him away. The ball hits the mitt with a thunderous crack. And the scene is a picture in my mind. The batter’s follow through, my catcher’s eyes wide as he holds the ball with a puff of dust coming out of his mitt, and the umpire getting out of his crouch to signal a strike. I look up at the scoreboard out of curiosity and see that the pitch I just threw was 97 mph. I haven’t thrown that fast since I was 24. I think it must be a mistake but the look of shock on the batter’s face tells me it’s not. My scouting report says that I can top out at 91 mph…on a good day. Today is a perfect day.
I’m two strikes away. It just occurs to me then how loud the crowd has grown. They’re deafening. Relentless. Terrifying. I love it. My adrenaline is through the roof. My heart feels like it could explode through my chest. My stomach is a knot that even Alexander couldn’t undo.
I take the next sign. A change-up. My catcher’s a genius. After a 97 mph heater, the batter will be looking for another fastball. A change-up is perfect.
The batter looks silly trying to adjust to my change-up, but he just manages to foul-tip it. One more strike.
I need to walk to calm my head. I pick up the rosen bag and try to dry my hand a little. I look up at the sky. Dark. Gloomy. Gray. Threatening. My life has seemed like that sometimes. I wipe my brow. I don’t know what’s sweat and what’s rain anymore. I don’t care. One more strike. I take my cap off and put it back on. The bill is soaked. Little droplets hang from the edge like dull icicles in winter. The infield grass has never been this green. My knee-high socks have never been this comfortable. My pants have never fit me this well.
I lean in for the sign. I finger the ball behind my back, playing with the laces, the soft thread feeling wonderful against my cold, callused fingers. I get set and deliver the pitch. Right out of my hand, I know it’s the greatest pitch I have ever thrown in my life. It’s perfect.
It dances toward the batter. A deadly ballet. It’s diving down and in on his hands. It will be the last pitch I ever throw as a major league baseball player. The batter swings and connects.
It’s a weak dribbler to the shortstop. I’m watching everything happen in slow motion. Impossibly, I’m also watching myself. I can see the anticipation in every fiber of my body. The shortstop fields it flawlessly. He’s perfect too. He throws a strike to the first baseman who catches it with ease. Well before the batter ever gets to the bag.
I collapse to my knees. Tears are streaming down my face. I haven’t cried this hard since Justin and my wife died. Maybe not even then. My hands are on my head when I feel it. My catcher’s big, burly body pounce on mine. His is followed by the first baseman and the rest of the infield. The dugout and the outfield are the last ones to join in. I’m on the bottom of the pile. But I’m also on cloud nine.
As my teammates pound me in congratulations, and beam at me with admiration and pride, they seem to forget that I’m human too…only flesh and blood. Maybe because on this day, I am more. I am more than I ever have been and more than I ever will be. I am perfect.