Joe was that way about the sport section, keeping it to the last, sequestering it nowadays from Father Felix — that it wasn’t missed said all there was to say about the monk as a sports fan, a role he worked at when there was a game on TV. “Struck ’im out!” he’d say in antiphon to the announcer, or, in the event of a home run, chant along with him, “Going, going, gone!” Or with the crowd, if it was football, “Dee-fense! Dee-fense!” All show. At crucial moments he’d get up and go to the bathroom.
Joe had hoped for some inside info when he learned that one of Father Felix’s maternal uncles, now dead, whose name Joe remembered, had played tackle in pre-platoon days with the Packers and the Cardinals. “The Chicago Cardinals, Joe. You see, the team was later moved to St Louis or Kansas City.” Or! That was the inside info. And: “Stan had a very nice wife, three very nice children — one a Sister of St Joseph — and a very nice business, a bowling alley in Kenosha.” “Listen, Father. Stan lined up with the great Johnny Blood, with the great Ernie Nevers, and against the great Bronco Nagurski.” “Joe, how old are you?” “Forty-four, why?” “Joe, you’re going through a dangerous period for a man, especially for a priest. I’ve heard it called second puberty.” “You have, huh? And was this by any chance at the monastery?” “It could’ve been.” “I thought so. Luther was right about you guys.” (Joe had been pleased to get that in, now that Luther was being fitted out with wings by ecumenists, some of them monks, and it sounded no worse to Joe in retrospect than what Father Felix had said to him.)
Joe had tried hard with Father Felix. In the beginning there had been afternoons at the stadium (spoiled not so much by the monk’s ignorance and indifference as by his rather amused attitude), drives into the countryside to see the autumn foliage (“You should see it at the monastery”), visits to new churches of all denominations, since Joe would have to build a church someday (visits discontinued because the monk wasn’t, as he put it, terribly interested in new churches, or, for that matter, old ones, and — it came out — disliked the bucket seats in Joe’s car). So now, as a rule, they spent Sunday afternoons at home, in the study, sent out for seafood dinners, on which the monk’s verdict was always “Very tasty,” and watched television (which the monk didn’t have in his cell at the monastery). This was all right when there was something on, by which Joe meant major sports, including golf, and also things like “Meet the Press” and “Face the Nation.” But the monk wasn’t so discriminating — he enjoyed quiz programs, bowling, water-skiing, government propaganda. At such times, after a beer or two, Joe would go down to his office and read the sport section in peace and quiet, or retire to his bedroom and drop off, float off, collar in hand.
On hot days, like this one, he might wake up in a sweat and wade through the study in a dazed state, startling the monk (“My!”) but for whom Joe might have had his nap in the air-conditioned comfort of the study. That afternoon Joe kept moving, like a fighter in trouble, and made it to the kitchen, where he opened and reached into the refrigerator for a beer and then resisted it. Orange juice then? No. V-8? No. Tonic (no gin)? No. Ice water? No. Lukewarm chlorinated water from the tap? No, not even that. How about taking a much needed bath? No. A spot of mouthwash? No. How about just going to the toilet? No. Hey, I know — how about a beer?
Hey, what was he doing?
Ninety in the shade, and he was going out into the sun! Why? Hadn’t he done enough? Hadn’t he, though he’d lost points by opening the refrigerator, rallied, fought back, and won by a clear decision? Yes, he had, but the thing is not to let up, the thing is to pour it on, as every champion knows, be he (or she) athlete or saint, and that was what he was doing, pouring it on. Spiritually and physically — let’s face it — he’d dropped too many decisions. He was on the way down. But he still had it at times. Call it guts, call it class. The great ones all had it — Sugar Ray, St John of the Cross, Man o’ War, Stymie, and, not to forget the ladies, Gallorette…
From the can of nails in the garage, as from the ump, he took the official American League ball (a dog’s ball of rubber, actually) and strolled out (about thirty feet out into the driveway, actually) to the mound in that hitter’s heaven and pitcher’s hell, Fenway Park, smelling the popcorn, the peanuts, the hot dogs, the cigarette and cigar smoke, the natural grass, hearing the chuckle of beer pouring into paper cups, the partisan but (he being what he was) reverent cries from the Bosox fans. After taking his warm-up tosses, these powdering the inside corners of the strike zone (chalked on the garage door of stadium green), he hitched up his trousers — a few clubs had worn dark uniforms in the past, the Chisox last? — and mopped his brow (one of the ways he doctored the ball) and glared at the hitter. It was the usual bases-loaded-nobody-out situation, or he, having worked and won at home the night before, after hearing confessions, wouldn’t have got the call. Announcers up in the booth going on and on about him. “A picture-book pitcher!” “His delivery as, in the words of the Psalmist, oil being poured out!” “Yeah, and how he fields his position!” “He didn’t learn that in books!” “Wire here signed Arch: ‘MAY THE BETTER THAT IS TO SAY MORE DESERVING TEAM WIN.’ How about that! That’s America, folks!” “Understand Father said the ten o’clock Mass in his parish this morning.” “Understand it was a high one.” “Flown in by United.” “Police escort.” “Wire here signed Lefty: ‘IF FATHER FIGURED IN A TRADE COULD BACKWARD CHURCH AUTHORITIES QUEER DEAL?’” “Well, as I understand it, they could, but probably wouldn’t — in the national interest.” “The Bosox could sure use Father.” “Any club could.” He alone, with his knowledge of batters (encyclopedic), his stuff (world of), his control (phenomenal), had made the Twins a constant threat down the years. Forty-four now, ancient for baseball, he was perhaps best described as a short, fat, white Satchel Paige. Once a starter and consistent twenty- (make that thirty-) game winner, now used principally in relief. Iron Fireman. Little Engine That Could. His ERA still infinitesimal. Like Walter Johnson (the Big Train) and Ty Cobb and Rogers Hornsby, he was more respected than loved by players and fans, to say nothing, in his case, of his flock and fellow clergy. “Struck ’im out!” “Blew it past ’im!” “Father can really bring it!” “Wire here signed LBJ: ‘HATE THIS METHODOLOGY BUT WILL SAY THIS FOR THE MOTHER HE DON’T TAKE NO CENSORED.’” “Wire here signed Backward Church Authorities, per Catfish: ‘BOSOX CAN HAVE HIM GOOD RIDDANCE HIT ME WITH CROSS.’” Tough product of bygone era, up the hard way, sandlots, maximum-security seminary, buses, daytime ball. Boozer? A secret if so, but no secret — vide bios and centerfolds in Playboy and Homiletic and Pastoral Review—once wore no underwear on heavy dates and now chews Mail Pouch exclusively. Said to employ spitter (true), beanball (false) — Look out! Miraculously, his old sweat shirt, never laundered, dry-cleaned, or pressed (why not paper money?), gave off a pleasing odor, and his flapping right sleeve, denounced by batters and pruned by umpires, always grew back. The truth, known only to his confessor and the North American hierarchy, was that the garment in question, once without sleeves but no longer so, having grown them, was his old hair shirt. It would hang, when his playing days were over if they ever were, in Cooperstown, by the wish of the late Chaplain General U.S.A. and Cardinal Archbishop of New York (a recusant Bosox fan) in the pious and patriotic hope that it would settle for all time (sæcula sæculorum) the hash of un-American nativist hillbilly, and un-American pinko knee-jerk liberal, enemies of the Church.