The Last Man to Hit .400

By Stanley W Beesley

Batting .400 for a Major League Baseball season? Absurd. Never again. Hitting .400 is the most sacred and secure mark in all sports, and will never be done again. Never by a superstar, and never, ever by a .259 lifetime guy like Paul Demeter. It’s the last month of the season, the world is watching; and promising 17-year-old journalist, Sylvia Kerrigan, knows if Demeter finishes at .400, some writer will nab the Great Story. Sylvia aims to be that writer. She is young but not a kid. She was tear-gassed at Occupy Tulsa, she had her stomach pumped at the OU/Texas Game, and she was assaulted hanging out with a friend. Any other qualification? Easy. This ballplayer, this unlikely hero who abandoned his family years ago, this Paul Demeter? He’s her old man.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pegasus Books
• Release date: Sep 1, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370034567

Book preview

PART I

The Last Man

The last man to do it was the incomparable Ted Williams, the greatest hitter who ever lived, and it was so long ago that Reagan was a Democrat, America was pretty sure Japan wouldn’t dare attack, and civilized people herded other civilized people into pens before slaughtering them like animals.

Even if you know squat about baseball, you know that no hitter will ever bat .400 again. The idea is absurd. Today’s game makes it impossible, with its healthier, better-trained athlete wearing gloves the size of catfish nets, and the advance scouting, which can pick at a hitter’s every imperfection. The season is longer, while you have the glare of ESPN, Fox Sports and the pressure of talk radio putting every facet of a ballplayer’s personal life out there for millions to see and hear. Then there’s the trans-continental travel and hotel existence.

Never again will a player hit safely four times out of every ten at-bats for an entire Major League season. It is so hard to hit .300 that if a man manages to do that for ten or twelve seasons, they put him in the Hall of Fame. Wade Boggs and Rod Carew came close to .400, and George Brett came even closer. They were great left-handed batters, with decent speed who made good contact. They flirted all summer with .400, but they failed late in the season.

The pundits agree that no superstar of today will ever do it. But they say records are meant to be broken, so it makes sense that someday a whiz kid out there—maybe not even born yet, is going to come along and do it again, right? Wrong. Experts say .400 is the one mark in sports that’s untouchable. Can’t be done again! Not by the great players today, not by a future great, and never, ever, by a 38-year-old, good-field, lifetime .259 guy like Paul Demeter.

Credentials

In one of the college brochures that came to the house, I read an article that said most people wait a long time to learn their purpose in living. I figured that made me mighty damned lucky. At 13, and quite by chance, I hit upon why I was born. I needed an elective class, and being the exact opposite of an athlete, I opted for Journalism.

I figured I could score at least a B, selling the Henry Clay School newspaper, The Compromise, on Fridays at lunch. The job was taken. How about I run copies and staple stuff? Taken, they said, so I would have to write.

What do I write? I asked the teacher, Mr. Atherton.

Write what you know, Sylvia. So… what do you know?

I told him I knew a little something about a lot of stuff, but the only thing I knew a lot about was sports, especially baseball.

"We have a sports reporter, Mr. A said. You don’t want to do fashion or gossip? You like politics? You could report on the Student Council meetings."

I did the gag gesture, so he would know exactly how I felt about that.

You might give the weekly GPA report?

Nah, it’s the same six nerds every week.

You could be a copy editor.

"I don’t think so, since I am currently rocking a cool C-minus in language arts."

Again I mentioned sports, and he relented, saying I could help cover the big high school football game against Booker T. Washington.

But only stats, he warned. Yardage, scores, turnovers, stuff like that. Nothing else. And stay out of the way!

Sure thing.

Cool. I could do this: keep stats at sporting events until the kiosk job freed up again. Plus, I would get in games free. Then something exciting happened at the football game that changed everything for me. When a BTW quarterback sack turned into a shoving match, which turned into a brawl, which turned into a riot, which landed on CNN, well I just happened to get way in the way.

When benches cleared, stands emptied, and the boy reporter who was supposed to get the story ran away in terror, I grabbed a notebook and hit the field running. For the price of a black eye from an errant linebacker fist, I found my life’s calling. I cornered a few players and two coaches for quick interviews. I scribbled notes as I zigzagged through the melee, and then I stayed up all night, turning them into a story that would be published under my by-line as the lead the following week.

Mr. Atherton said that what I had written was powerful stuff that transcended sports, a piece that was a commentary on pent-up community resentment and economic racism. I didn’t know about all of that. I only wrote what I saw, heard, felt and knew, but I was hooked.

My bags are packed. I am almost ready to hit the road on a trip to write a great sports story, maybe the greatest ever. I see Jodie in the atrium, working herself up for one last-ditch effort to talk me out of going. First though, before I hug my mom farewell, I am meeting Wahoo (not a nickname) at the Dairy Queen for a goodbye milkshake. I told him I’d prefer a beer, but he said he’d prefer I didn’t drink and drive.

I re-check my bag: smart phone, notebooks, iPad, laptop, markers, scorebook and binoculars. All good. I’m set. Back in thirty, Jodie, I call out.

Okay, honey, she answers, forcing a smile.

I had snagged a massive moment during junior year, and though it didn’t pad my journalistic credentials in a professional sense, it gave a boost to my self-esteem as a writer and stimulated my muckraking juices. I was pretty certain the school board was firing the girls’ assistant basketball coach, not because she was incompetent, but because she was lesbian.

What are you going to do about it? Jodie had asked.

I don’t know. Something.

After public testimony from both sides at the special meeting—the LGBT topic was never mentioned—the board recessed in order to go into executive session. I snuck down the hall behind them.

Just before the door fully closed, the over-zealous clerk spat out, We’ll nail that dyke bitch now! as I captured it on tape.

When Mr. Atherton read the first draft of my column the next day in his office, he took off his glasses, stood, looked between the venetian blinds out the window and sighed. "Kerrigan, this is the finest thing you have ever done—perhaps the best work ever done on The Compromise."

Thanks, boss. I beamed. That’s nice.

Too bad it will never see the light of day, he said. You’ll have to tear it up, and I’ll have to ask you to surrender your flash drive too.

No sir, Mr. A, I pleaded. "You can’t do that! You’ve never killed anything I’ve done before. You can’t!"

Mr. Atherton wouldn’t look me in the eye as he explained that there was no freedom of the press in public schools, and though he respected and applauded my fine effort on behalf of a woman who was clearly getting a shitty deal, he was the father of three young children, and his wife was undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer. He couldn’t risk losing his job, which is what would have undoubtedly happened if he published my column in the school newspaper.

Then his eyes came back around to mine, and he told me that he wouldn’t ask me to give up the tape, but that if I trusted him, I could voluntarily hand it over for his safe keeping. Then he could begin a conversation with his superiors to see if that information would have any effect on the coach’s case.

I did, he did, and it did.

We never spoke again about my dead piece, but a month later, the coach was quietly offered her job back. She declined, having already been offered a similar post at the community college at a higher salary.

If a person is more upset than Jodie is about this upcoming journey of mine, that would be Wahoo. It is sweet of him to buy me a milkshake, since we are no longer seeing each other. He took our break-up like a man, meaning he yelled, and when he saw he wasn’t getting anywhere with that, he teared up and wheedled.

I smile when I see him in the booth. Since we’ve become just friends, I’ve had the distance and time to realize he is a good guy. Deep down, I think he is as relieved as I am. We hug. He aims a kiss at my cheek, but his lips hit my eye. Thankfully, it is closed. We laugh.

It’s dangerous, he says. You thought about that? Your car is a piece of junk.

I’ve considered the risk. Greatness often requires pluck, I say. Anyway, Moby Dick will make it just fine. I have no doubt, I lie.

I wish I had your guts, he says, slurping his straw.

Liberal Pansy Crap

Jodie couldn’t see why anybody would ever call in, unless they were masochists, and she certainly couldn’t explain why she listened when she wasn’t forced. The loudmouth radio host berated callers and interrupted them if he didn’t like what they said.

She would have never known about the station if Mrs. Ford hadn’t designated her to drive the coaches to Tahlequah for Great Expectations sessions on Thursdays.

They won’t make it past the titty bars if you don’t take them, her principal had said, handing over the keys to the school van. "Besides, they like you."

Right. They like me, Jodie thought. They like me so much they slap my hand when I try to dial up NPR. They yell at me to turn off the ‘liberal pansy crap’ and put it on The Game. At 10:00 every morning, the rant began. Oh, lord.

The host liked to pick on certain sports figures, and his target this summer—all summer—had been Paul Demeter. He called the man a fraud. Today, the radio in the atrium squawked. The host yelled that it would be bad—in his humble opinion—if a sacred mark like .400 was achieved by a so-so player like him.

Sylvia returned from the Dairy Queen. When she heard the radio, she entered the atrium to turn it off, but Jodie backed up to it.

I want to hear, she said.

Right. I forgot, Mom, Sylvia said. "You’re the lady who forces herself to watch an hour of Fox News every night."

So. You are leaving soon?

Right, and you will attempt once more to block me.

No, dear, I will not. I have come about-face. As I consider it more and more, I now have all the confidence in the world in you, she said unconvincingly.

What she actually thought: My child will be loose in the world, away from my protection, on a crazy mission in an unreliable automobile. She is going to get hurt. No matter how it turns out, she is going to be damaged, and I am scared to death, because smart, tough, curious, dogged Sylvia is also, undoubtedly, going to learn too much. I should stop her.

That would sully everything, the radio blowhard shouted. "Listen to me—it would be like a darn three-hundred yard career, third-down back suddenly breaking the NFL rushing record. It would be like a Nick Collison-type NBAer (now I do love Collison, don’t get me wrong) in one season erupts averaging 34 points a game—or some Dot.Com Tour guy, known only for pissing down his leg under pressure, in one year goes crazy and wins the Masters, the US Open and the PGA. Nope.

"Should be a star that hits .400, though I personally think it will never happen ever again. As it is with a fraud like Demeter, the big thing hanging over all of it is the doubt. People don’t know whether to praise him or censor him. The Doubt, ladies and gentlemen. Cheer him or boo him? Root for him or hope he goes away?

"This Demeter phony, he’s only had two good years his whole career. And back then I was like, okay, he might turn out to be a Boyer, Hart or a Kubek kinda guy, y’know, a really, really solid player, but never a star. Turns out he’s a flop. Never done a lousy thing after that! Lifetime he’s like .250, and now this one season, he’s in Ted Williams territory? Please! C’mon, really?

"Now he’s up there hitting the ball with Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner, Shoeless Joe Jackson, the greatest names in the book? Jeez! Just look at the great hitters who never got close to .400: Musial, Rose, Mays, Gehrig, DiMaggio, guys like that. And now we’re supposed to believe Paul Demeter?

"Last year he hit what—look it up for us, would you, Aaron?—Two twelve? Thank you—he hit .212. Last season this fraud hit .212—at 39 years old! What’s that, Aaron? Thirty-eight? Oh excuse me, he’s 38."

After eight minutes of commercials for erectile dysfunction, hair restoration and testosterone replacement therapy, the host continued.

Let’s go to the phone lines. Light ‘em up, folks, he bellowed. Let us know what you think about Paul Demeter hitting .400. He got a chance or no?

Jodie snapped off the radio. She brewed a cup of chamomile, and took a tablet from the shelf. The yellow of the paper brought the heat of the day back into play for her. Moving to a window, she remembered every window in the house was open. She’d vowed not to turn on the air conditioning until mid-afternoon. The electric bill was outrageous. Scarcely a breeze rustled the curtains, their vague movement in the sills like old people dancing. She sat, sipped and simmered, filling two pages with her slightly masculine slant.

When Sylvia had asked Jodie if she had noticed Paul Demeter this summer, she’d been coy with her answer. Actually, she’d done more than notice. She had watched anytime Sylvia and Jack were out of the house. Not a bandwagon voyeur, she’d looked for the odd television schedule over the years and taken a peek when she felt like it. When Paul was a Cardinal and sported a goatee, when he was with the Tigers and filled out the home white pants nicely, and when he was back with the ChiSox. She watched with curiosity when he played first base for Houston. She was furious about being furtive when she needn’t be. The dues were paid.

When they were not much more than kids, Paul was so shy he barely talked on the radio. How is he handling the smothering fame? She didn’t know how he could stand it: mics always in his face, reporters asking can you do it? but never listening to that answer or others because the one question they all got around to in the end was How?

During spring training, he was the rage of the Cactus League, ending any discussion of him not making the team. In May, his batting average hovered around the .390 mark, and the media noticed. At first, he got softballs: How you feeling this year, Slugger? Anything different at age 38? And, You’re batting almost a hundred-fifty points higher than your career mark— how is that? He laughed, and the reporters chuckled with him.

His answers were articulate, self-deprecating and were not answers at all. He gave credit to his teammates, which was bullshit. He wasn’t getting any help from them. He was alone. This was him, damn it! She understood the painfully solitary experience a batsman went through at the plate. All the clubhouse solidarity in the world—the opposite of what Paul was receiving from his teammates—wouldn’t swing the bat for a man. In the box a hitter takes his own licks.

At the All-Star break, when Paul was hitting .408, the media had become less amused. Interviews and press conferences grew hostile. Writers and broadcasters turned bolder. The lob questions stopped. The hah-hah phase was over. More quantifiable explanations were needed for an increasingly skeptical media and public. Boos now mixed with the applause he received in stadiums across both leagues.

Jodie stood in the closet without remembering the walk over. She reached above her head to a cubby where she kept hats. She took down a cigar box that her father gave her—the kind you didn’t see anymore, since men didn’t smoke as much. In elementary school, it housed crayons. She remembered the bittersweet smell of wax and tobacco. It had remained sturdy all that time. In middle school, photos lived there. The box was heavy, though it now only held paper—envelopes, most unopened. Back at the sofa, she rested it on her lap.

She had ordered the envelopes by date and kept them together with rubber bands. One of the bands had rotted and broken apart, leaving the envelopes lying loose in the box. She opened the end table drawer and found a new rubber band. Using her father’s ornamental unit knife as letter opener, she ripped a decade-old envelope along the fold and let the crinkly paper fall to her thigh.

On The Road

I hate to, but I’m going to have to turn left. Whenever I plot an itinerary, I make sure to x-out as many left turns as I possibly can, because when I turn the steering wheel to the left beyond ninety degrees, Moby Dick’s cacophonous horn blares like the cornet section of the fifth grade band. Then I have to pull over and get under the hood with gloves and a wrench to turn it off. Yet if I don’t turn left, I will have to drive four miles out of my way and execute a cloverleaf of right-hand turns to get back to the turnpike, and I’m late enough getting started anyway. Can’t be helped. I turn. Five miles later, and after at least six vehicles have pulled over to let me by, I am able to pull into a rest stop and pop the bonnet.

I check my phone. Two texts: one from Jodie, who wants to know if I am drinking water and not texting while driving (Duh!), and another from Wahoo, who just wants to check in to see how I’m doing.

I would have gotten away a lot earlier if Jack had kept out of the war that Jodie and I were waging this morning when she found the cigarettes in the console. Why he stuck his face in the middle of it, I can’t begin to know, since Jodie needs no help, and the only attention he ever pays me is when I forget and come downstairs in a Kowalski and panties.

Jodie’s mama lion instinct was strong this morning, and she had me almost whipped into compromise when Jack got off his lank ass and said his piece.

Up yours! I told him, and it was on.

He knew better than to touch me, but that didn’t keep him from dog-cussing me out in front of god and everybody. I was right back at him. Jodie whirled on him too, and said, Jack. Don’t swear at my child!

Way to go, girl! It chilled him some, but still he planted himself and tried to high-hat me.

When our imaginations ran out, Jack and I stood on the sizzling concrete, glaring at each other and sweating like a couple of tapped out MMA sluggers who weren’t sure the match was over or who had actually won.

So Jack threw down his hands. The hell with this! he said and stalked off to the garage.

While Jodie resumed explaining to me the evils of tobacco, she kept looking at the garage, like she ought to go in there. I told her that what she ought to do is run the sorry sonofabitch off.

I seriously do not know how Jodie can be so overwhelmingly predicted to find them. She can do so much better. She is still attractive—check that—ravishing, not a bitch, and sharp as a tack. There have to be some decent men out there somewhere. I tell her this all the time, but she doesn’t really listen and goes all Edna St. Vincent Millay on me.

"I cannot say what loves have come and gone,

I only know that summer sang in me a little while,

That in me sings no more."

She allows that she loved, honestly and truly loved—but once in her lifetime, and she messed that up. She is convinced that one time is it. Blah! Blah! Blah!

After Jack split, I spent another half hour arguing with Jodie. In the end, she took my pack of cigs and field stripped each one, letting the tiny bits drift to the blacktop. I put up a fight only on principle, since I had a whole carton in the trunk. Thinking she was victorious, she tired of talking, and I finally got on the road.

Up ahead, where the Will Rogers makes a long, easterly loop, I see that both lanes are backed up at least a mile. Bad accident most likely. Sure enough, twenty minutes later, I get close. I count six emergency vehicles, with their red, blue, and gold lights on fire. Not a wreck, though.

A Toyota van sits on the shoulder with a flat tire, and I see a large number of brown-skinned people in various stances behind and beside the vehicle, some lying down in the grass of the right of way. The men and the older boys are handcuffed. Women and children, looking tired and scared (more tired than scared), sit on the road shoulder and in the tall Johnson grass right of way. No shade anywhere in this swelter.

Doesn’t require a Mensa membership to figure out what’s going on here. Coyotes cram two dozen poor, desperate people in a vehicle meant to carry nine—probably picked them up in Tulsa. If they make it to Springfield, or even Joplin, everything is okay. The group can break off and go in different directions in safer, more secure vehicles—except they don’t make it to Joplin. They blow a tire in Oklahoma.

I ignore the trooper, whose power-curl biceps twirl a harsh, impatient circle, ordering me through the bottleneck of traffic between parked cars, semis, fire trucks, ambulances and patrol cars. I don’t care. I pull off on the shoulder.

You’ll have to vacate this area, young lady, an avocado-shaped sheriff’s deputy says through my window and in front of my face.

"I’m