Me and the Rocket Man

Since I was brought up properly, I recognize and respect the important things in life. I've learned the three things that matter most are: 1) always listen to those who can teach you something; 2) above all else, respect yourself; and 3) the kid with the sixty-five mile an hour fastball is the coolest kid around.

In my part of the city, there was a kid who had me firmly convinced that he was God's gift to the local baseball scene. I don't remember how well he could hit, but I often gaped at the way he struck out guys. Just like they do in the big leagues.

His name was Bill Botten, and he was popular, especially when he and his friends got together with me and my friends at a diamond one afternoon to see who could one-up who in the skills department.

I was never a bad ballplayer. Good gloveman. Had lucky at-bats. But I was mush with a useless piece of timber in my grip whenever I went to bat against young Mr. Botten and his ace fastball.

Once, I saw Bill Botten strike out six or seven guys in a row, and as many as fourteen or fifteen in a seven-inning game. I remember his father once interjecting when a coach tried to pitch him on two days rest in a crucial playoff game. Bill Botten on two days rest was better than anyone else fresh.

When I think of that fastball coming my way that afternoon, I must have appeared to all the guys to be scared out of my shorts. When you're fifteen years old, a sixty-five mile an hour fastball looks to you like a pea whizzing through a pea patch, one mere pea amalgamated into a background of millions of other peas. That meant that the tiny white baseball appeared to me, at sixty-five miles an hour, as green as the green grass surrounding the diamond. An old coach told me: a white baseball can appear green if it is moving fast enough across a green background. He was right.

This is exactly the image I conjured as I strove confidently forth into the batter's box in Fenway Park one hot August afternoon to face Roger "the Rocket Man" Clemens. My team hadn't scored yet, and we'd barely touched that razor-sharp fastball of his, nor had we managed to get pegged in the backside by a pitch and get on base that way. From the dugout, I'd failed to get an inkling of how fast that ball was really travelling, or on which part of the plate it would end up at when it got there. I knew that I'd be hackin' to even make contact. "Nice and easy", I repeated over and over to myself, as I stared down the vacuum of emptiness, the eternity between the pitching mound and my little wooden stick of opportunity.

I peered sheepishly out from under my batting helmet at the big man on the mound. He was gazing straight back at me, or more aptly, right through me. As I was a rookie, I knew Mr. Clemens wouldn't take kindly to me showing him up. If the Rocket Man ever needed extra incentive to get someone out, that would do it.

I had studied my look in the mirror that morning and had found just the perfect expression that would be required to camouflage a cup-and-a-half-full of scared-straightness. I applied the look, refused the deep breath my lungs begged for, planted my body for action, and waggled the bat affirmatively.

As businesslike as ever, Roger cocked his brow, rolled his big shoulders menacingly forward, and began his wind-up.

I was way too excited to take a good rip. I guessed fastball, and the biting curve made mince-meat out of me.

STRIKE ONE.

Had I dwelled on that pitch, I woulda been a goner. Instead I blocked out the applause, -it wasn't for my team- noted the sign from my third base coach, and focused on Mr. Clemens' throwing hand.

STRIKE TWO.

I didn't even see it. I was thinking curve. He showed me a real hummer. I had a headache. Was the manager going to replace me? Would it be 'to the showers'? Yeah, I thought, oh shit, yeah.

Suddenly I remembered my lungs, took a breath, and got air, which helped for about ten seconds... until I saw the Rocket Man in his wind-up again. As he wound up, so did my stomach. But this time, I hit the ball... Mr Clemens didn't seem so nasty to me now.
Foul to left. Nice distance.

I looked out at the wall in left-centrefield and saw the names, Williams and Yastrezemski. Their memories were forever etched with pride into the facing of the big Green Monster. Suddenly the vigour of their early years was mine.

"Ball One"... "Ball Two"... the umpire said softly as I willed the next two pitches out of the strike zone. Letting two go by without really looking at them was never a smart move, but I had Yaz and Ted in my corner now.

I drove the next pitch, a fastball high and tight, way back into the bleachers on the third base side. Foul again. Maybe the ball knocked a popcorn or Coke out of some fat guy's hands. I didn't care. Who was he anyway, I scoffed, but some long undernourished Red Sox fan?

Anyway, Roger didn't look intimidating at all any more. What only short moments ago appeared to me like the slow ticking of a time bomb in his composure now felt more like the dainty ticking of a Mickey Mouse watch. "C'mon Rog. Strike me out now", I muttered, "... if you can". And, of course, he did.

STEERIKE THREEEE!

It was the fastball I'd wanted. The one I imagined -no, envisioned- sailing up over the Green Monster and into tomorrow's morning's box score in all the papers. Instead, it echoed in my ears like a shell from a popgun, as the ball nestled into the bruised palm of the worn-out old catcher's mitt.

There is no consolation when the Rocket Man strikes you out. For me, there was only the recollection that Bill Botten had done the same on numerous occasions. I turned away from home plate and trudged slowly toward my place in the dugout. I couldn't muster up the courage to look out at Mr. Clemens to acknowledge his small victory. Nothing to appease my embarrassment. No suggestive "Next time it will be different" stare, like any young rookie should, had he any self-respect left.

I stepped out of my concentrative haze and looked over at the guys standing outside of the batting cage. As I walked by them I said, "Look out guys, that machine is a real rocket launcher".

THE END