Mick Dawson stepped up to the plate and tapped his bat on the hard rubber. The bright yellow October sun blazed down and he squinted out across the field to the pitcher who was stretching his arm. He felt the sweat from his brow slide down his graying temples and onto his dusty red cheeks. From every side, he heard the collective roar of all 15,000 people in the bleachers, and felt the unreflective glare of every pair of eyes. They just watched him, and waited for him to defy their expectations. Maybe they all thought that today would be different, but if there was one thing Mick knew, it was that “today” was always the same.
Just like every game, he understood no one around him gave a rat’s ass about him, not that he’d ever given them a reason to. He’d never been an exceptional player, and with an average of 12 home runs a season and 53 RBIs, he was no more spectacular than any other baseball nobody of the past 150 years.
As he felt the bitterness rise in his chest like indigestion, he became aware of how slowly time was moving. It felt as if it had taken hours for him to escape the dugout. And now this brief pause, which swirled around him like leaves in a breeze, left him in a strange limbo that gave his mind freedom to think clearly.
In the next few moments, he would bat in the last game of professional baseball he’d ever play. This day, this moment, had seemed to be just on the horizon for at least two years, and he’d successfully ignored it for the most part. But when the MVP chosen for his team was a guy who was still being carded at local bars, Mick began to feel his age all the time. Eventually he came to accept that it was only a matter of time before he got his pink slip.
A few months prior to this very instant, his manager had pulled him into his office and shut the door behind him. Bob had been a good guy, a friend even, and yet under the glare of his shallow blue eyes, Mick felt more like a high school student about to get expelled for smoking in the bathroom. Bob droned on for awhile, and although the conglomeration of words that hit Mick’s ears was fuzzy and muted, some part of Mick’s mind was clearly understanding it all, as if he’d heard the speech performed exactly the same way before.
So when Bob had finally stopped to gauge Mick’s reaction, the player gazed up at him from the $50 Ikea armchair and shrugged.
“Fine,” he said resolutely. Bob watched him curiously as he opened the door and then turned back from the threshold. “I’ll retire.” Mick stepped into the hallway and pulled the door shut behind him. He then walked out of the building and got into the driver’s seat of his ’99 Subaru Forrester, where he’d removed his cap and sat staring at it for almost an hour.
His entire career, if not his whole life, had been boiled down to a trip to the principal’s office.
He recalled all of this as the pitcher massaged his sore right shoulder with his glove tucked gracefully underneath one sweaty armpit.
Is time slowing down? Mick asked himself. Or is my mind moving so fast that the world lags in comparison?
Once again, Mick glanced around himself once again he saw that even the other players on the field and the venders in the aisles were proceeding in their duties at the pace that the sap drips out of a tapped sugar maple tree. The cheers of the crowd began to turn into a low, deep growl. And with the clarity that he guessed usually accompanies an epiphany, it dawned on him that every person that surrounded them had their own life. Each one had a job and loved ones and their own set of dreams and goals, and Mick didn’t give a crap about any of them; so why had he always expected them to care about him? Did being a nobody on a baseball team make him any more important than the rest of them?
After his meeting with Bob and his hour in the car, Mick had gone for a drive. He’d had no destination in mind so when he’d finally returned home he was more surprised to end up there than he should have been. His wife was already sound asleep and he watched her from the doorway, hating her. Hating her cheerfulness even when he knew she was mad as hell. Hating how she’d never been to a single one of his games. Hating how she ignored the smell of cheap perfume on his clothes when he’d show up late after team parties. Hating how he’d been stupid enough to marry someone after he started making money.
He never told her about the meeting, and now as the pitcher swung his arm around in the slowest circle Mick had ever seen, he knew she would divorce him when he told her the truth. He’d never had time for kids so they never had any, and she’d take half his possessions and half his life. And he’d be alone all the time, and none of these so-called “Fans” in the bleachers would tell him they cared about him. Because no matter how much he hated his wife, when he came home and she asked him how he was, he knew part of her actually cared. He would end up a has-been, hitting on chicks in bars and recalling the moments of his life when he made enough money to support a wife and the chances to start a family that he had wasted on other women.
Mick felt his heart pick up speed as panic set in. This hit would mark the end of his life.
Thank goodness, he thought then, that the moment didn’t seem to be coming. In fact, everything was getting slower and slower as the moments got longer and longer. And with all the effort he had, he lifted his bat (which took several days), raised his elbow (another week or so) and waited for the pitch. And after a century, when the ball finally left the pitcher’s hand, the world sped up and Mick was left behind.
