October

the smell is always what did it for him.


nothing else brought him alive with anywhere near as much voracity as the smell of that dirt on a crisp spring night. it always had to be spring too, summer was too stagnant, fall was just too windy, and winter just didnt even exist in his world. The only months that mattered were March through October. for those seven months, him and twenty-four other men were all on top of the world. pharaohs in a kingdom of grass and dirt, instead of sand and sun.


Reggie "The Duke" Richards bent down on the third base foul line and grabbed a handful of rich, red dirt that could only be called Cincinatti's finest for the sole reason that it WAS the finest. it looked petty in his hands, yet he wielded it with such an artistic attitude. as if the dirt was being conjured into a brush and he was picking colors from a palette to splay upon an eggshell canvas.


He sloshed the dirt around, in an oscillating motion. artistic and machine-like all at once.


The crowd roared. a staggering audience of 45,000. congregated in this one moment of time to view and critique a legendary artists last piece. The Duke gave a sobered look towards the club suites and convinced himself that he could see his wife and five year old son, Noah in there, eating delicious chocolate chip cookies. Everybody was standing. 90,000 legs and 90,000 hands clamored in unison. the least they can do to repay him. Billy Hubert tipped his cap from the Reds bullpen. Sonny Markowitz did the same from the Phillies dugout. They were bitter rivals once, The Duke and Sonny... Sonny had a mean splitter that bored in on the hands like a backdoor cutter then at the last second, dropped off the table and wound up at the ankles. vicious. The Duke struck out eleven consecutive times before he found it was easier to connect on the 2-1 fastball on the outside Sonny was known to throw. And he connected, alright. four straight home-runs. one game. that was in '94. eons ago. centuries ago.


The Duke was old. his knees pulsed an arthritic heart rate until it was euthanized by pain killers and Bengay. he had already had three surgeries on his eyes for astygmatisms and corrections. he had been knocked out three times. he had hit fifteen career grand slams. he had hit 755 home runs over a thirty year major league career that took him from baltimore to houston to cincinatti. he was 49. and purely, he couldnt keep up with todays game anymore. he never worked out once. he never had a personal trainer. he lived in a humble five bedroom house in a small suburb outside Cincinatti with his wife, Helen of twenty-five years and their three children, Lana, Noah, and Jack. he never had a supermodel girlfriend. yes, he got paid what he thought was high, but he was always lenient and compromising. he didnt even have an agent. it was all him. everything that Reggie Richards had in this world that he built was his. and they loved him for it.

he stepped into the batters box and gave an uninterested look at the figure on the mound of dirt sixty feet and six inches away. Holt Higgins. another respected old-timer. one of the last great dinosaurs still alive and functioning rather than displayed in a museum like the Hall Of Fame, like the rest of the bones there. when Holt came up from pawtucket in 79, he had a 102 mph fastball and a curve that could make you look like a 12 year old in the box. but after a long battle with tendinitis and tommy john surgery, Higgins' fastball now blazed across the plate at a hot 85 miles per hour. but god did he have control, he could paint the black on the corners and hit a dime in a catchers glove every time. and he knew how to work the hitters in different counts. deadly.


Holt nodded and tipped his cap in this bottom of the 9th inning in the NLCS. the two high priests connected eyes. Holt gave an achey hitch and fired. ball. low. 83mph fastball. a setup pitch. The Duke was astonished that Higgins had the confidence for such a slow first pitch fastball. mind games. Higgins danced around Richards in his head. the two were now engaged in a mental dogfight. a game of elusion and maneuvering rather than attacking.


Richards patted the tar on his 33-30 louisville white ash bat. the smell never got old. his dirty hands made a paste with the tar. grip. confidence. he choked up on the barrel, just like he learned in Nashville when he was five years old.


cant be too careful.. that first one was a setup but this next one is going to be a challenge pitch, The Duke thought warily to himself.


Next pitch, swung and missed. wicked curveball inside. looked so big on approach, like a beach ball. then fell off and away at the last moment, like somebody tipped a table and the ball rolled off. that swing hurt his back. he winced, and pressed on.


Change-up. too low. good mistake for Higgins though, better to throw a 65mph change-up in the dirt than to miss high and at the letters.
another setup pitch, The Duke concluded.


Curveball just a bit outside. Higgins didnt miss by much, if at all. this umpire might need corrective surgery too.


3-1 count.


Richards has Higgins right where he wants him. he has to come in now. challenge the batter, or you are a wimp for dancing around him, is the cardinal rule. Richards needs something belt high, inside, to break the 755 he and Aaron both now shared. Just something he can push over the left field wall. no effort, really. just waiting. to flip it over that wall with his wrists like a cook with a burger. or a drummer with a drumstick. sweat rolled down his forehead. it wasnt even hot. he stepped out of the box and did his pre-pitch ritual again. this time, he really did see his family up there. smiling. his wife in a double breasted tweed overcoat with a rose lapel and his son happily eating an ice cream cone. 90,000 eyes searched him. 45,000 brains assessed the situation and scrutinize silently. 90,000 hands crushed the silence in the same motion used to crush bugs. the stage he was standing on shone its spotlight on him. he was on the scoreboard, and for the first time in his career, it flattered him. the stage lights perched high above, in towers. illuminating the setting for the next scene. everything and everybody appointed itself around Reggie Richards and Holt Higgins.

He wound up and threw. 34,000 cameras flashed in unison. blinding each other in a sick game of spite. when the lenses focused back on the batters box, Richards was nowhere to be found. The Duke had done it. he'd tied Aaron. he was found moments later rounding first, a slow trot in his old age. headed home. back to comfort. home. that was it. he was done.


it could have been a hanging change-up. it could have been a flat curveball. it could even have been a 93mph slider on the outside at the knees, which is what id like to think; just extending his arms in a timeless translucent effort and the ball finding itself in a glove in section 147B, right over the right field fence. he did it. he had joined the gods. he was dead. he was now immortal.