Chapter 10: A Biblical Rain

April 20: On the Road to San Antonio

While Charlie sleeps on the fold-out bed in the back of the van, I drive into the night. Immediately after the last night game of a series, we like to start for the next city, drive until we get tired.  On this night I am alert and stay at the wheel for hours, enjoying the darkened solitude. Mile after mile of flat Texas terrain flashes by . . . arrow-straight road . . . through sleeping towns with darkened neon signs—McDonald’s, Firestone, Mobil, Burger King.

I slip a tape in the 8-track and Stevie Wonder drowns out the steady growl of the VW engine. Hypnotized by the white line, I let my mind wander. Again and again it returns to Donna and some of our sensual moments together in California. But that’s no recipe for happiness, so I push my thoughts elsewhere, back to the 1975 Bill Kinnamon Umpire School, where Charlie and I first met . . .

It is lunchtime, and instructors Nick Bremigan and John McSherry sit in the stands, surrounded by fifty or so student-umpires eating turkey sandwiches and hanging on every word from those two major league umpires.

“Who’s the worst manager to work with?” one starry-eyes novice asks.

McSherry’s mouth is full of mashed bread, but Bremigan has a ready answer: “No question—Billy Martin. He’s a psycho. Always trying to ruin your concentration. Earl Weaver’s right behind him.”

I ask a follow-up question: “Do you think it’s a coincidence that the two toughest managers are also among the most successful?”

McSherry swallows and says, “There’s Walter Alston, Casey Stengal—those guys weren’t too bad on umpires, and they won a few games.”

“Tell us about the Cleveland riot.”

“Later.”

“How much do big-league umps get paid?”

“You start at $15,500 and $47.50 per day.”

“I could live on forty-seven bucks a day,” Charlie says, to nods of agreement.

“You’d be surprised. Hotels—you’re expected to stay in nice places—restaurants , taxis, clubhouse fees. It’s not enough.”

“What’s it like on the road?” My question, my worry.

“It’s tough,” Bremigan says. “We fly about 125,000 miles a season. In and out of a city every three or four days. Ballplayers have a home base for half the season, but we’re always on the road. When you’re away from home for months, it’s a twenty-four-hour-a-day job. Some guys can’t take it.”

“I love it,” McSherry puts in.

Everyone laughs, including Bremigan, who gets another laugh when he says, “John would do it for free.”

Nick Bremigan is dark, handsome, mid-thirties. In his American League cap, “Umpire Development” t-shirt, royal-blue umpire pants, and black Adidas athletic shoes, he looks virile and athletic—unlike McSherry who is obese. Rumor has it that Bremigan wears a toupee, but I have no eye for such things.

Umpire school is rife with fools. One, a pasty-faced 20-year-old named Dan Hinkley, sits beside me, noisily chewing turkey on white, a patina of milk where a mustache might be. With a hillbilly laugh, he asks, “What was your most embarrassing moment?”

Bremigan and McSherry eye one another before John says, “You win that one, Nick.”

Bremigan sighs with the air of a man who has told a story once too often. “It was in Baltimore, my first plate game in the Show,” he says. “And right from the first inning, I can hear chipping from the darkest corner of the Chicago dugout. This guy had a distinctive voice—”

“And a bad attitude,” McSherry adds.

“At the end of the third inning, my crew chief Nestor Chylak sidled down to calm me. ‘The guy roasting you is wearing a white towel around his neck,’ he said helpfully.

“Three pitches later, I heard the voice again—‘How can you sleep with all these lights on?’

“This time I was ready. With all the authority I could muster, I yanked off my mask, faced the White Sox dugout, and said, ‘You with the white towel around your neck! One more word and you’re gone!’

“Silence reigned—for about five pitches. Then I heard it again: ‘You could screw up a one-car funeral!’

“This time I had him. I called time, ripped off my mask, and stepped toward the Chicago dugout. There, to my horror, I saw twenty-five guys wearing white towels around their necks.”

San Antonio

We awake to a downpour. One of the toughest calls for an umpire crew is the rainout—when to pull players from the field, when to call the game on account of unplayable conditions. But we face no such decision today. Rain pelts our windows from first light, and I picture ducks frolicking on the submerged infield.

They don’t cover rainouts in umpire school. Certainly not how to survive hours confined to a San Antonio motel room. God help me if I didn’t like Charlie.

I scramble eggs for us on the Coleman stove we snuck into our room; for lunch we heat canned pea soup and toast cheese sandwiches in a frying pan. These are the high points of our day. It strikes me, though, that we might be having as much fun as anyone in San Antonio.

Charlie turns on the TV to watch the morning sit-coms.  I generally try to persuade him to be more discriminating in what we watch—and whether we watch—but today too many hours need filling. Mary Tyler Moore fades to Happy Days, then to Laverne and Shirley. We sit pillow-propped on our beds, glassy eyed before pelting electrons, until I retreat into a letter to Donna.

After dinner we watch a baseball game on the tube, Giants versus Braves, and kibbutz the umpires. I lie propped up on my bed, chin on chest, sipping a Coors. Without work, though, my body craves neither liquid nor alcohol. Instead, I drink to forget, to shed loneliness and boredom. It doesn’t work, and eventually the beer grows warm on the bedside table.

Charlie sits on the edge of his bed, polishing his shoes to a military shine. His attention drifts between tube and task. Consumed by a sudden claustrophobia, I wander out on the covered balcony and watch rain drops perish in the oily, iridescent parking lot. Standing by the open door, I try to rouse Charlie from his torpor.

“At least it’s warmer with this rain.”

Silence.

“Hard as it’s raining, we may never play again.”

Silence.

“You happy where you are?”

“Huh?”

“I’m going down to the bar to pick up a hooker.”

“Bye.” He doesn’t look up.

Most hotel lounges are depressing affairs, especially when you’re alone, and this one is no exception. A few couples sit at tables hunched over cocktails; at the bar, besides me, three single guys in leisure suits, looking as if they’d pounce on any woman bold enough to sit there alone. I order a Heineken, and nurse it for an hour, all the while trying unsuccessfully to tune out the white-bread band, dressed in powder-blue leisure suits no less, torturing a medley of Steely Dan tunes.

“This must be Dante’s lowest level of hell,” I wonder to myself, but loud enough for the slim, dark-haired barkeep to hear. Based on our shared disdain for ersatz rock and roll, we strike up a conversation. She keeps mistaking my job for “baseball coach,” but otherwise is charming and, as far as I can tell in the dim sepia tones, attractive. She is also interested in me, or so I flatter myself. The bar is not crowded, and every time she finishes with a customer, she sidles back to me and we talk. Time passes, which is my primary goal.

I consider the offer implicit in her declaration, “I get off at midnight,” but in the end I decide I am not yet ready to cheat on my girlfriend.

Back in our room, I call Donna, perhaps wanting to boast about my loyalty, perhaps wanting to check on hers. No answer.

“She’s probably working a late shift at the restaurant,” I say when Charlie asks.

“Uh huh.”