It was ninety-four, summertime when you came to my last game, your first. That was a big major league nothing game at the start of a nothing season but I had thrown seven innings and shut them out seven times. I could feel the strain in my joints. A perfect game is a tension between having a really great night of pitching and the possibility of making that streak of perfection last into those purple-early nights. For other guys, that’s what it is but for me, you being there made it perfect. But this next kid takes the plate and somehow I know that this isn’t my big night–it’s his.
I can feel the strain in my elbow like there’s a pin in it.
This kid, you should have seen him, this deer in the headlights look, his face is skinny and pale. Kid keeps licking his lips wet. And keep pushing that bat out in front of him and then winding it back. He doesn’t know me.
My fingers feel like I have been catching and throwing rocks all night.
This Kid is on the back end of their line-up, he’s only out here so that they can give him experience standing on the diamond with us, learning to look for my breaking ball in the white blaring stand-lights out here. There’s something in his eyes, maybe he had a good warm up in the bullpen. Like he knows what I’m about to throw.
So, I give it to him.
But the world pitches too much. I feel the stitching depart too late.
And I hear that smack, that sound of solid wood.
My arm doesn’t work. It fills up hot. Then it gets cold from my shoulder down to my fingers. And I know it’s gone.
And the manager comes out. And Harvey on third comes over and Lasorda, my catch, comes over. They don’t even have to ask. They know I left it here.
I sit on the bench.
I sit in the car with your mother. I’m watching you sleep in the rear-view. And I decide that I won’t have the surgery. That was my last game. But it was only your first. FDM
El Golpe Avisa 