For Love of the Game Read Online Free Page A

didn’t quite work anymore for Joe or Williams wasn’t exactly the best anymore, as soon as the hints were there, even the
hints
, they would play no more. They were done. They would take no trade. Willie Mays … Willie, I saw him out there one day, drop a fly ball. Tears in his eyes. But he had to go on. Some guys love it that way, the pride doesn’t matter. Some guys, just the money. But you, Billy … well. Will you tell me? Are you done? Or will you go on to another team? What’ll it be?”
    Chapel sat for a long moment in a silent room without any motion. Ross couldn’t wait. He said: “I came to you with the news, to break it to you as a favor.”
    Chapel nodded, said nothing.
    “Now, Billy, will you do this for me, will you tell me what you’re going to do? Can you tell me now? Because Billy, now that you know, I’ll tell you this: I’ve got a hunch. A big hunch. It will make big good news. Billy, I don’t think you’ll go. I think you’re done.” Pause. Silence. “Am I right?”
    Chapel didn’t want to sit anymore, didn’t want to talk. He stood up rubbing his face. He said: “Shave, I think. Excuse me.”
    He walked away. Ross said nothing. Chapel wentinto the bathroom and closed the door. He felt pain and darkness for the first time. Hit very hard. He went mechanically to the mirror and looked into it and did not see himself as he began to soap his face. He thought no words. For a moment he saw the happy face of his father, Pops, pounding a hand in the catcher’s mitt they had practiced with when Billy was a pup, and he
heard
Pop’s voice: “Come on, Billy! Throw hard now, Billy Boy!” He began slowly to shave. Softly, the old folk song: “Oh where have you been, Billy Boy, Billy Boy? Oh where have you been, charming Billy?”
    First thought: I guess he’s right.
    Chapel stopped shaving.
    Time to go home.
    Play no more?
    At all, at all?
    “What, never? Thou’ll come no more, never?”
    This … is a hell of a day.
    He tried to clear the mind but it wouldn’t clear, wouldn’t think. He finished shaving, stood there by the door, not wanting to go back in to talk to Ross. One more moment. He heard Ross’s voice:
    “…    for four years with that man, right? Yes, I know, you’ve been traded yourself, what, three times? Not the same thing for you, is it? But him? Listen, you’ve been catching Chapel for four years. You know him like nobody else. What do you think? Go ahead, give it straight. You think he’s over the hill?”
    Gus’s voice, sudden and harsh:
    “Horseshit! Ole Chappie? Over the hill? Pure horseshit! Listen, ace, you try and catch him yourself, first few innings. Hail Mary. Give him to anybody. Then stand back. He is … he is still the
fastest
I ever saw, and along with that the control. My God, near perfect. He does it all. Shit, he can thread needles with bullets. With any kind of team at all … hell, he still holds half the records. Christ, you know that. And he’s thirty-seven. So what? Only problem is he … he just doesn’t last as long as he used to. He tires earlier. A little like Ole Bobby Feller.
He
wasn’t before your time, you remember him. Christ, if baseball was a game only lasted six innings nobody ever would have beaten that guy. But he tired … a little too soon. And Billy’s now that way. In the beginning, nobody hits him. Those first few innings, God Almighty … he was always the best. He’s
still
the best. Hell. Ask anybody. Anybody who has to go up against him.”
    Pause.
    Ross said: “So. Agreed. But. What do you think he’ll do?”
    “Ah. I don’t know.”
    “You think he’ll go play on the Coast because he loves the game? Because he never really played for the money?”
    “Don’t know.”
    “What would you do?”
    “Me? Why the hell ask me?”
    “What would you do?”
    “I been traded … enough. Makes no more difference to me. To a lot of guys. So. I’d go. Just to play some more.”
    “Yes. And so