The Might Have Been - By Joe Schuster Page 0,1

night, and wondered, as the girl nuzzled his neck, what the score was, and then saw himself in another October not too far off, in the on-deck circle, in the still point before coming to the plate, while around him the crowd flickered in an anxious and hopeful roar. He had imagined his being called up so often that his imagining seemed more a memory than a desire.

On that day more than half his life ago, Edward Everett sat in his manager’s office—it was Pete Hoppel then—waiting while Hoppel finished a tired conversation with his wife on the phone. He had a practice, Hoppel did, of stripping off his uniform and leaving it crumpled on the floor for the equipment man to pick up and then sitting, his ankles crossed on his desktop, wearing nothing but a red Cardinals logo towel around his waist. Because he was a large man, the towel did not adequately cover him and so, sitting across from him, Edward Everett tried not to notice that his genitals were exposed, but this was difficult since he kept hefting himself in his chair to scratch his hip. In that state, he seemed to Edward Everett, for the first time, shockingly old: the giddy man who had sailed his ball cap into the crowd after Edward Everett’s catch to end the game—that man was in his fifties, Edward Everett realized. In his uniform, Hoppel seemed substantial but, naked, he just looked fat, with folds of flesh cutting across his hairy chest and belly. His legs seemed like kindling that shouldn’t be able to support his bulk and he picked at scaly patches of hard yellowed skin on the balls of his feet while he talked to his wife about whether they could afford a mason to repair their patio. Thirty years earlier, he had been as lithe as Edward Everett was in that moment. On the wall behind his desk hung a picture from when he was with Boston for two seasons, Hoppel’s long arm draped over Ted Williams’ shoulder, two skinny young men in dusty jerseys grinning for the photographer after they each stole home on successive pitches in a game against the Yankees.

“Babe, I gotta go,” he said finally, giving Edward Everett a wink and hanging up the phone. He took his feet off the desk and pushed himself until he was sitting upright, letting out a groan from the effort. “Don’t never get old, Double E.”

“Yes, sir,” Edward Everett said, not certain it was the right answer.

“Look,” Hoppel said, “you done good. Last year, I would’ve said you was going nowhere. You got the body, but your brains was for shit. This year …” Hoppel shrugged. “Long story short. You’re going to St. Louis.”

Edward Everett felt his heart leap in his chest. “I …” he started to say but couldn’t think of any words. Today he had been playing a road game in Omaha, sleeping four to a room at the Travelodge, and tomorrow he’d be in St. Louis, where Musial, Hornsby and Gibson had played and where he’d step onto a field with Lou Brock as his teammate. “Called up”—the words seemed in some way holy.

“It’s maybe just for a month,” Hoppel said. “Perry tore up his ankle going into the stands for a pop fly. But here’s a word of advice. Don’t fuck up. Make it tough for them to send you back. Do what you been doing here, and you got a chance to stick. Now get the fuck out of here.”

“I won’t—” Edward Everett said, but Hoppel picked up the phone and waved him out of the office. “Hey, Benny,” he said, without even saying hello. “You still have that concrete connection? That guy, what’s-his-name—he played at Altoona that one year?”

By the time Edward Everett got to the ballpark in St. Louis for the one p.m. holiday afternoon game against Pittsburgh the next day, the team had already finished batting practice and was in the dugout. From down a long concrete corridor that led to the field, he could hear the stadium announcer introducing a woman who would sing the national anthem. The clubhouse was nearly empty. Beside the door, a guard sat on a folding chair, a short and thin man who tugged on his sideburns as he worked a crossword puzzle. A clubhouse assistant laid folded towels on a shelf in each of the lockers, while another set bottles of soft drinks into a cooler in a back corner.