Matthew McGough - Bat Boy: My True Life Adventures Coming of Age with the New York Yankees

Contents

in memory of my friend Greg Trost

Aesthetics of Being a Baseball

Go as fast as you can
In whatever direction.

Kenneth Koch, from On Aesthetics

The Best Seat in the House

The game of baseball frames many of my sweetest childhood memories.

I made my first friendships playing Little League, and these friendships were shaped by countless hours of team batting and fielding practice on our neighborhood diamond. I consider our coach, a burly police officer named Mr. Ferguson, to have been my first great teacher. He drilled us in baseball fundamentals until they became second nature, but also allowed us time to practice acrobatic catches and double plays, feats we dreamt ourselves capable of but had little chance of ever actually executing in a game. Practices were focused but fun, a solid foundation for a lifelong love of baseball.

As a fan, I grew up rooting for the New York Yankees, and the teams players became my earliest heroes. I looked forward to visiting Yankee Stadium at least as eagerly as I anticipated the first day of summer vacation, Halloween night, or Christmas morning. I was still too young to realize that I might lack major league talent, and the handful of games Id seen in person just fueled the dream that I too might play someday at the Stadium.

As momentous as any trip to see the Yankees seemed at the time, there was one particular game that made an impression so vivid and powerful that I can hardly imagine my childhood without it. In fact, its hard not to wonder how my adolescence might have unfolded had I been anywhere else but Yankee Stadium that day.

The game, against the Kansas City Royals, was played on a sweltering Sunday afternoon in late July 1983. I had just turned eight. Personally speaking, it had been a banner summer for baseball.

I was halfway through my second season of Little League, starting at shortstop and leading off for my team, the legendary, perennially pennant-contending Brunt & Brooks Pharmacy. Being sponsored by a pharmacy didnt yield the tangible rewards enjoyed by some of our rival teamsnamely, Tonys Pizzeria or the Ice Cream Villabut one through nine, B&B had the best third-grade ballplayers in town. My team won many games that summer.

After the school year ended that June, my bedtime had been pushed back late enough that, if the pitchers worked fast and kept the score down, I could watch Yankees night games on television right up to the last out. Summer days peaked with Little League practice, then dinner in front of the TV listening to Phil Rizzuto call that nights Yankees game until Mom or Dad sent me to my room. That Fourth of July, I sat on the living room floor and watched every pitch of Dave Righettis no-hitter against the Boston Red Sox. It was one of the most exciting things Id ever seen; the fireworks show broadcast later that night from over the East River seemed dim in comparison. A few nights later, tuning in to another game, I saw Dave Winfield reach up and over the outfield wall to pull a game-winning home run back into play. I was awestruck by his catch. For weeks afterward, I imitated it so tirelessly against the four-foot-tall chain-link fence surrounding our Little League field that I came home from baseball practice every night with scrapes and bruises up and down my left arm.

Then came the game against the Royals. Since the night my dad brought home the ticketsone each for him, my little brother Damien, and meId been able to think and speak of little else. We arrived at Yankee Stadium in time for the national anthem, and our seats in the upper deck had an expansive view of the field and the Bronx beyond it. Once the game started, though, I had trouble keeping my eye on the ball.

A friend had recently taught me how to keep score, the system of shorthand by which the details of any baseball game can be recorded for posterity. In my eagerness to correctly make note of each at bat on the scorecard, I spent a good share of the afternoon with my head in the program, half a step behind what was happening in the game.

Also competing for my attention were a trio of belligerent beer-swilling Yankees fans in the row directly behind us, huge men, unshaven and foul-mouthed. I stole quick glances at them over my shoulder between pitches, fascinated but terrified they might catch me staring.

The Yankees took a 43 lead into the ninth inning. Damien and I joined the crowd in a lusty chant of We Want the Goose, a reference to Goose Gossage, the Yankees celebrated relief pitcher warming up in the bullpen. It was my favorite ballpark huzzah, excepting the bugle call that always ended with a spirited Charge! After a two-out Royals single put the tying run on first base, Yankees manager Billy Martin acquiesced to the crowd and brought Gossage in to close out the victory. My brother and I retook our seats, satisfied at having influenced the course of the ballgame. I noted the pitching change on my scorecard and, while the Goose warmed up, double-checked my earlier handiwork.

Wait, is the shortstop number 5 or number 6 if youre keeping score? I asked my dad.

Number 6, my dad answered.

So when the shortstop throws to the first baseman, its 63, right?

Thats right, he said. The crowd cheered Gossages first pitch, a strike.

And a called strike three is a backward K or a regular K?

Matt, get your head out of the program. Youre missing the game.

But which one is it?

Backwards. But youre missing all the action. George Bretts up. Watch the game. You can do that when we get

He was cut off in midsentence by the crack of the bat. By the time I located the ball, it had begun its descent; it came down far beyond any Yankees reach, over the outfield wall. With two outs in the top of the ninth inning, Bretts homer had put the Royals ahead by a run. One of the men in the row behind us cursed and tossed his half-full beer cup over my head, over the upper-deck railing, and down onto the fans in the box seats below. More than a few drops splattered my scorecard; long streaks of inky beer ran down the page into my lap. I looked to my dad, who had somewhat miraculously been spared the shower. Unaware, he still faced the field, watching Brett circle the bases. I blotted fruitlessly at the scorecard with my T-shirt.

Here comes Billy! screamed the beer-thrower over my shoulder.

I craned my neck and could see that the Yankees manager had indeed left the home dugout. Martin walked out toward the home plate umpire, gesturing animatedly at the bat Brett had just used to hit his home run.

Whats he saying? I asked my dad.

I dont know, he said.

All four umpires huddled around home plate. The home plate ump emerged from the conference and turned to the Royals dugout, then extended his thumb and swung his arm, throwing Brett out of the game.

Brett, the Royals best player, didnt take the ejection very well. He burst out of the Royals dugout and onto the field, charging straight at the umpire. The Yankee Stadium crowd went bananas. In half a second, thirty-five thousand fans, including the tall ones in the row in front of me, were on their feet. Another cup of beer sailed over my head.

I cant see the field! I shouted. I cant see anything!