jumped on the bus.
I was so dumbfounded all I could do was stutter and splutter at him. “Wha... baseball, Nappp... we were suppp... you can’t just...”
Napoleon’s mood had gone up several notches, and it was his turn to try and pull me through a rough spot. He did a bad job of it, though.
“There will be other days, Richard,” he said with his hand on my shoulder. “It is only baseball, after all.”
“ Only... baseball? Only baseball? Man, have you been listening to anything I’ve been trying to teach you?”
His seriousness came back. At least the appearance of seriousness. “Yes, Richard, I have been listening. But a lot of it... a lot of it is nonsense. ”
For somebody so polite, he was getting pretty free with knocking me around.
We were just about to go our own ways, but I had to make the point. “So, symphony with Beverly on Saturday morning and dinner with me on Saturday night. See? Who says you’re hopeless? Just imagine how many friends you’d have if you made a little effort to get along with people?”
He shook his head. “Get along,” he said, brushing me off.
WINTER HAVEN
S ATURDAY MORNING. I WAS up, as planned, bright and early to get my cuts in. They had the nets strung up all over the humongous Northeastern University gym, for their ballplayers to get in their first work of the season. I was already weeks ahead of them, so it was only right that I should have the place to myself first.
The custodian was good about it as long as you didn’t crank up the machine. His idea of cranking up the machine was getting it to throw pitches hard enough to bruise a banana.
But I didn’t mind. A slow groove was fine enough with me. It was, after all, mighty cold outside, even for me, and my hands would hold up longer over the season if I didn’t freeze them into splinters in spring training.
And there was another reason the slower pace suited me. Fred Lynn.
Fred Lynn.
He was almost here. I could just about smell him.
I had heard about him as far back as his college days at USC. Followed him to the minor leagues, even caught a few glimpses of him on the sportcenter end of the six o’clock news, which will tell you something right there since almost nobody in this town cares enough to look at some kid who might come to the Sox two years from now. Not with the Bruins and the Celtics and once in a while even the Patriots playing big-time major league sports right now.
So I’d been patiently paying my dues, waiting, hearing about him coming around the corner for a while now like he was the bingling music of the ice-cream man a block away on the hottest day of the year. I even went and joined the Boy Scouts for a week in the spring of 1974 because I heard they were making a trip to Pawtucket to see the triple-A farm team with Fred Lynn on it. I went on that trip, and it didn’t matter whether Fred Lynn was hitting or roaming around center field or drinking lemonade in the home dugout of McCoy Stadium, I could not take my eyes off him.
Because he did it all so well. Every stride, every stretch, every gesture, every stroke, he did like nobody I had ever seen before. He did it like he was supposed to be doing it, like he was never supposed to leave the field because he was built purely for baseball and baseball was built purely for him. We had been waiting for Fred Lynn forever. At least I had been. I know a lot of people felt that way, and I know a lot of people thought he was special, but I refuse to believe anyone felt it like I felt it and there is one more thing I was sure of that day at McCoy Stadium in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, at the end of my one and only week as a Boy Scout of America.
I was sure that, while I could not take my eyes off of Fred Lynn, he was watching me as well.
That is true. Time, after time, after time, when I stared down on Fred Lynn so hard you’d think he would have felt the heat of my vision burning holes in his Pawsox cap, it turned out he felt it indeed.
I was so dumbfounded all I could do was stutter and splutter at him. “Wha... baseball, Nappp... we were suppp... you can’t just...”
Napoleon’s mood had gone up several notches, and it was his turn to try and pull me through a rough spot. He did a bad job of it, though.
“There will be other days, Richard,” he said with his hand on my shoulder. “It is only baseball, after all.”
“ Only... baseball? Only baseball? Man, have you been listening to anything I’ve been trying to teach you?”
His seriousness came back. At least the appearance of seriousness. “Yes, Richard, I have been listening. But a lot of it... a lot of it is nonsense. ”
For somebody so polite, he was getting pretty free with knocking me around.
We were just about to go our own ways, but I had to make the point. “So, symphony with Beverly on Saturday morning and dinner with me on Saturday night. See? Who says you’re hopeless? Just imagine how many friends you’d have if you made a little effort to get along with people?”
He shook his head. “Get along,” he said, brushing me off.
WINTER HAVEN
S ATURDAY MORNING. I WAS up, as planned, bright and early to get my cuts in. They had the nets strung up all over the humongous Northeastern University gym, for their ballplayers to get in their first work of the season. I was already weeks ahead of them, so it was only right that I should have the place to myself first.
The custodian was good about it as long as you didn’t crank up the machine. His idea of cranking up the machine was getting it to throw pitches hard enough to bruise a banana.
But I didn’t mind. A slow groove was fine enough with me. It was, after all, mighty cold outside, even for me, and my hands would hold up longer over the season if I didn’t freeze them into splinters in spring training.
And there was another reason the slower pace suited me. Fred Lynn.
Fred Lynn.
He was almost here. I could just about smell him.
I had heard about him as far back as his college days at USC. Followed him to the minor leagues, even caught a few glimpses of him on the sportcenter end of the six o’clock news, which will tell you something right there since almost nobody in this town cares enough to look at some kid who might come to the Sox two years from now. Not with the Bruins and the Celtics and once in a while even the Patriots playing big-time major league sports right now.
So I’d been patiently paying my dues, waiting, hearing about him coming around the corner for a while now like he was the bingling music of the ice-cream man a block away on the hottest day of the year. I even went and joined the Boy Scouts for a week in the spring of 1974 because I heard they were making a trip to Pawtucket to see the triple-A farm team with Fred Lynn on it. I went on that trip, and it didn’t matter whether Fred Lynn was hitting or roaming around center field or drinking lemonade in the home dugout of McCoy Stadium, I could not take my eyes off him.
Because he did it all so well. Every stride, every stretch, every gesture, every stroke, he did like nobody I had ever seen before. He did it like he was supposed to be doing it, like he was never supposed to leave the field because he was built purely for baseball and baseball was built purely for him. We had been waiting for Fred Lynn forever. At least I had been. I know a lot of people felt that way, and I know a lot of people thought he was special, but I refuse to believe anyone felt it like I felt it and there is one more thing I was sure of that day at McCoy Stadium in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, at the end of my one and only week as a Boy Scout of America.
I was sure that, while I could not take my eyes off of Fred Lynn, he was watching me as well.
That is true. Time, after time, after time, when I stared down on Fred Lynn so hard you’d think he would have felt the heat of my vision burning holes in his Pawsox cap, it turned out he felt it indeed.
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