thing loud enough for everybody there inside the stadium to hear. G.D. grunted and looked at me, satisfied. I gave him the nod he wanted, and Dutch Bernson went on saying the rest of what he always told us.
It was two kinds of old hands on the Rice Birds team that early time in the season. Of the ones whoâd been playing before, I mean. The first bunch had reason to think theyâd been doing all right in the past and ought to be able to do the same thing this year. They had something still left, they felt pretty good, and wasnât hurting bad enough to be afraid they wouldnât get over the aches and sprains and blisters and sore spots here and there. If it kept on like this, they figured, theyâd play out the season, draw a regular paycheck, and get to come back next year. They didnât think any further ahead than that, and didnât want to.
The other bunch of the Rice Birds that had been around for a while knew something they didnât want to talk to anybody about. They couldnât help but look up ahead of where they were now and see themselves closing in on something narrow and dark. To them, coming to practice every morning and afternoon wasnât just a time to feel their sore spots getting better in the sunshine and the kinks working out in their legs and arms and backs and chests as they started moving around some. To them, it was like in one of them old stories in the Nation about Rabbit when heâs by himself moving toward home through the shadows close to the end of day. The light is fading, and Rabbit canât see like he used to, and he canât run near as quick as he once did, and heâs afraid to look up when he hears something moving above his head. It could be just Crow flying to his roost at the end of the day. But it could be Hawk or Owl floating above Rabbit as quiet as thistle fluff, waiting for the right time to drop out of the sky with his talons stuck out for sinking into something good to eat.
The third bunch of Rice Birds early in that season was the one that me and Mike Gonzales and a few other ones belonged to. We hadnât made it like them first two bunches had.
The new ones were strong then, the way you feel when you ainât never felt any way but that. A man whoâs fallen sick can get well, and once he does that he thinks itâs good to be healthy that way again. But thingsâre different now, and he knows it. He knows now he can get sick, he can get hurt, and he has got something to compare the way he feels now to the way he felt then when he wasnât strong. Itâs only a matter of time until it comes back, and he knows it will. His job is not to think about that. But it is a hard and lonely task heâs set for himself.
Dutch had me pitching a good deal in them early practice days when we were getting ready to play our first game of the season in the Evangeline League. He had me running a lot, and that didnât bother me none. I could run all day then, even in that heavy air in Louisiana. He had me doing more batting practice than the rest of the pitchers. I knew he wouldnât let me pitch the first game against the Crowley Millers, nor probably any of them first three. He already had pitchers, two of them among the best in the league, Hookey Irwin and Cliff Labbé.
Ballplayers are bad to take things personal, and the most tender of all is a pitcher. His feelings will get hurt over things an outfielder wonât even notice. I have seen pitchers get so mad they would hit a concrete wall full-strength with their pitching hand. The sense a pitcherâs got when heâs pitching donât translate well to what he does when heâs off the mound. So when Dutch Bernson called me in to his office to talk a day or two before we was set to get on the bus and go to Crowley, I figured I knew what he was going to tell me.
When I walked in that day, he was sitting behind his desk, and he had his Rice Bird cap on,
It was two kinds of old hands on the Rice Birds team that early time in the season. Of the ones whoâd been playing before, I mean. The first bunch had reason to think theyâd been doing all right in the past and ought to be able to do the same thing this year. They had something still left, they felt pretty good, and wasnât hurting bad enough to be afraid they wouldnât get over the aches and sprains and blisters and sore spots here and there. If it kept on like this, they figured, theyâd play out the season, draw a regular paycheck, and get to come back next year. They didnât think any further ahead than that, and didnât want to.
The other bunch of the Rice Birds that had been around for a while knew something they didnât want to talk to anybody about. They couldnât help but look up ahead of where they were now and see themselves closing in on something narrow and dark. To them, coming to practice every morning and afternoon wasnât just a time to feel their sore spots getting better in the sunshine and the kinks working out in their legs and arms and backs and chests as they started moving around some. To them, it was like in one of them old stories in the Nation about Rabbit when heâs by himself moving toward home through the shadows close to the end of day. The light is fading, and Rabbit canât see like he used to, and he canât run near as quick as he once did, and heâs afraid to look up when he hears something moving above his head. It could be just Crow flying to his roost at the end of the day. But it could be Hawk or Owl floating above Rabbit as quiet as thistle fluff, waiting for the right time to drop out of the sky with his talons stuck out for sinking into something good to eat.
The third bunch of Rice Birds early in that season was the one that me and Mike Gonzales and a few other ones belonged to. We hadnât made it like them first two bunches had.
The new ones were strong then, the way you feel when you ainât never felt any way but that. A man whoâs fallen sick can get well, and once he does that he thinks itâs good to be healthy that way again. But thingsâre different now, and he knows it. He knows now he can get sick, he can get hurt, and he has got something to compare the way he feels now to the way he felt then when he wasnât strong. Itâs only a matter of time until it comes back, and he knows it will. His job is not to think about that. But it is a hard and lonely task heâs set for himself.
Dutch had me pitching a good deal in them early practice days when we were getting ready to play our first game of the season in the Evangeline League. He had me running a lot, and that didnât bother me none. I could run all day then, even in that heavy air in Louisiana. He had me doing more batting practice than the rest of the pitchers. I knew he wouldnât let me pitch the first game against the Crowley Millers, nor probably any of them first three. He already had pitchers, two of them among the best in the league, Hookey Irwin and Cliff Labbé.
Ballplayers are bad to take things personal, and the most tender of all is a pitcher. His feelings will get hurt over things an outfielder wonât even notice. I have seen pitchers get so mad they would hit a concrete wall full-strength with their pitching hand. The sense a pitcherâs got when heâs pitching donât translate well to what he does when heâs off the mound. So when Dutch Bernson called me in to his office to talk a day or two before we was set to get on the bus and go to Crowley, I figured I knew what he was going to tell me.
When I walked in that day, he was sitting behind his desk, and he had his Rice Bird cap on,
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