The Groundskeeper

                                                                          THE GROUNDSKEEPER

         The setting sun was reclining  on the lip of the stands across from him and Phil Warner  saw  streamers of tangerine, vermilion, and gold threading through the clouds.  It would have been a good night for a baseball game, he thought, but the team was on the road for another week.
         He liked sitting in the stands at this time of day in the gathering darkness.  It was the gloaming, he thought.  He even liked the sound of the word "gloaming."  He had a portable radio and a cooler of soft drinks. He would  listen to the Wolves game.  His wife, Margery, was at her sister's place again,  so there was no immediate need to go home.
         The team was playing in San Francisco tonight and they would move on from there to Seattle and then to Minneapolis before the next home stand.  By then, he thought, the field would be in terrific shape unless there was bad weather.  The drainage at Wolves Field had improved markedly over the years, but he still worried about soggy turf.
         As the groundskeeper for the Wolves, Phil was as conscious of the weather and seasons as a farmer tending his crops.  Rain in  the spring kept the grass green, but made the infield treacherous.  The summer heat killed the grass and baked  the infield rock hard.  Rain in the fall caused  crucial rain delays or postponements if the field didn't drain properly.  A field in good condition was almost as critical in a pennant race as a great shortstop or a stopper out of the bullpen, he thought.
         He turned on the radio and heard the voice of the Wolves play-by-play announcer Monty Sinclair.  Monty, according to people in the industry, was a "living legend."  He had been doing Wolves games for over  30 years,  even longer than  Phil had been working as a groundskeeper.  Phil hated Monty Sinclair. 
         He supposed his antipathy toward Sinclair started back when Sinclair made hateful remarks on the air about the condition of the Wolves Stadium field.  That was early in Phil's tenure and the budget for groundskeeping was almost nothing.  But in Sinclair's world there were never extenuating circumstances.
         He  took a Coke from his cooler and opened the can and heard the voice of his friend Greg  Baker calling out, "You down  there, Phil?"
         "Yep, come on down," Phil said.
         He heard Greg shuffling down the concrete steps.  Greg plopped into a seat just in front of Phil.
         "Any score?" he asked.
         "Just started," said Phil.  "Did you get the sprinklers set?"
         "Yeah," Greg said.  "They should start fizzing any time now."
         Almost on cue, the outfield sprinklers sprang to life.  Phil liked the scent from the sprinklers.  They smelled like fresh rain, he thought.  The rain scent was mixed with  Greg's scent.  Greg was a cacophony of scents ranging from Old Spice, the only aftershave he ever wore, to the freshly-laundered tee shirt he wore, and the bouquet  from his beer.
         "What are you drinking?" Greg asked, although he knew.
         "Coke," Phil said ritualistically.
         Greg shook his head mournfully.  "I don't know how you drink that stuff."          
         "And Phillips slaps a ball into right field for a basehit," came the excited voice of Monty Sinclair over the radio.
         "Phillips is hitting good," said Greg.  He took a sip of his beer.  "How's Marge?"
         "She's at her sister's place," Phil said. 
         "Oh," Greg muttered.  "She likes it at her sister's place, I guess."
         "Sure," Phil said.  "I don't really want to talk about it, okay?"
         Greg took a deep pull from his beer can.  "I didn't intend to make you morose," he said.
         "Morose," Phil said.  "You've been taking vocabulary lessons again."
         "Yeah," Greg said.  "I'm trying to improve my mind."
         Phil was quiet.  He could see the lights of the city clearly now that it was getting dark.  It was a good place, he thought.  He loved this neighborhood.  There was a barbecue place he frequented that had the best chicken sandwiches and a Chinese takeout place and a comic book store.  He was too old for comic books, but they were something he would never give up.
         Phil drifted back to the game.  He heard Monty Sinclair say that the Wolves were down 4-0 after a grand slam homerun.  They were off to a miserable start this season, but the Wolves had been a terrible team for years now.  It was more fun when they were winning.
         "You don't have to stick around if you don't want to," Phil told Greg.  "I'm all right."
         "I like it here, Bud," Greg said.  "Sometimes I see the ghosts of players from years ago.  It's fun."
         "You really believe in ghosts?" Phil asked.
         "Sure, " Greg said.  "I've seen Mickey Mantle and Joe DiMaggio and Willie Mays  in center field.  I've seen Jackie Robinson and Bill Mazeroski cruising around second base. I've seen Brooks Robinson scooping up a bunt and throwing underhand to first base."
         Phil chose to indulge Greg, although he noted, " Some of those guys are still alive."
         Greg did  a tour in Vietnam back in the 70's  and had never been the same.  Greg was older and those few years made all the difference, Phil thought.  Phil stayed out of  'Nam and Greg went.
         They both grew up  fans of the Wolves.  When they went to the elementary school playground they pretended they were players on the Wolves.  Back then Greg was a good athlete.  He had good power to all fields, a powerful and accurate arm, and galloped around the bases like a thoroughbred.  Phil pretended he was a  pitcher, but a 70 m. p. h. fastball wouldn't get him  very far, he realized.
         When he was a junior in high school Phil got a part-time job working with the custodian, a guy named Pete something-or-other.  He couldn't remember now.  Pete something-or-other did the bare minimum at maintaining the baseball and football fields.  He would throw out some fertilizer now and then and watered the grass when he remembered.  He didn't mind turning the job over to Phil.
         Phil loved the job.  He had a talent for tending athletic fields.  He kept the  grass  lush and green.  One football player told him it didn't hurt  when he fell on Phil's grass because the grass was as soft as a feather comforter.
         Someone in the Wolves organization heard about Phil and offered him a summer job tending a minor league park in Fresno, California.
         He got a cheap one bedroom apartment near  Blackstone Avenue, but he spent most of his time at the ballpark.  The ballpark was old, but he liked its intimate confines.  It hardly ever rained in the summer in Fresno, so he didn't deal with tarps and wet weather.  But he learned how to nurture a field in desert-like heat.
         He lived on fast food when he wasn't at the ballpark and on hot dogs when he was at the ballpark.  He slept on a mattress on the floor in his apartment and watched a small black and white television that he bought used.  He liked to make it home in time to watch "The Tonight Show" with Johnny Carson, but sometimes games went  too long.  Then he watched  "The Tomorrow Show" with Tom Snyder and woke when the morning heat crowded into his sleep.
         Greg wrote sometimes from Vietnam. He  started  every letter the same:  "wet, hot, rice paddies, people running around in pajamas."  Then he would give his latest countdown until he came back to "the world."
          Phil worked  in Fresno in 1972.  Nixon brought in the draft lottery and Phil waited breathlessly, like so many other young men, for his lottery number.  If you got a low number, you were almost certain to be drafted.  If you got a high number, you probably escaped.
         When he got a lottery number of 324 he knew he could get on with the rest of his life.  His life then was consumed with mowing and raking and watering and fertilizing.  In his off hours he thought some about women and a lot about Greg.  He kept a running count in his head of how many days it was until Greg came home.
         Greg came home the next year.  He was lean and always on edge.  He wouldn't talk about Vietnam or the war unless he was drinking.  It seemed appropriate to Phil that he join his friend.  Drinking became a nightly ritual when he and Greg got together.
         Then he started drinking on his own.  Drinking went with baseball.  It went with mowing and raking and tending a field.  He liked the way alcohol made him feel.
         After  he became the head  groundskeeper for the Wolves,  Phil got arrested one night for DUI.  Foster Miles, who owned the Wolves, sent Phil a message that he wanted to see him.
         Miles was a burr under the blanket of the baseball commissioner.  Miles thought that baseball needed to change to make it more competitive with football:  colored uniforms, specialists such as base stealers, colored baseballs, and entertainment between innings.  He advocated ideas such as three balls for a walk instead of the traditional four balls because he thought it would speed up the game. 
         Phil liked Foster Miles.  For his all various eccentricities, Miles was on the side of the fans.  He wanted baseball to be a family entertainment spectacle. 
         After his arrest,  Phil expected a harsh meeting with the owner.  When he walked into the office Miles said, "Have a seat, Phil.  I just wanted to see how things are going."
         "Fine," Phil said.  "You know about the DUI, I guess.  I have to get that all settled."
         "Sure," Miles said.  He settled back into the big-backed leather chair behind his desk. 
         When he looked around the office Phil realized the chair was  the only luxury in the office.  The desk was economical and the file cabinets were spare.  Miles had some photos of his family scattered around the office.  He had other photos of players and managers from past Wolves teams.
         "I didn't bring you here for a lecture," Miles said and locked his fingers together on top of the desk.  "If there's anything I can do to help, let me know.  I know you're responsible enough not to get arrested again."
         "No," Phil said.  "I intend to give up drinking altogether.  But if I do drink I'll take a cab or something."
         "Okay," Miles said cheerfully.  He stood and walked over to a cabinet to Phil's right.  "What do you think of this spot?"
         "I don't understand," Phil said.
         "When we win the World Series," Miles said.  "Do you think the trophy would look good here?  We'd have to fix up the place some, of course."
         You heard that Foster Miles was cheap, Phil thought.  He ran the prototypical shoestring operation.  But Foster Miles knew baseball talent and he signed great young players, who went on to win three straight World Series. 
         It was during the second pennant run that Greg, freshly back from Vietnam,  came to work as a groundskeeping assistant for the Wolves.  It was also when Phil met Margery Lewis.
         Margery was working as a public relations intern for the Wolves that summer.  It was her job to turn the legendary (and very real) penurious operation of Foster Miles into a fan magnet.  At first she concentrated on some of the players who would go on to bigger and better things.  But one day she was inspired to talk about the actual physical structure of Wolves Stadium and the beautiful turf that won praise from everyone in the league.
         Phil told her everything he knew about groundskeeping from top dressing the field, painting dead spots green so the field looked good on television, reseeding the field with grasses suitable for the season, the types of sand he used for the best drainage, and  how he could subtly alter the basepaths (within the rules, of course) to fit the Wolves.  He knew she must like him when she kept asking more questions about groundskeeping.
         He  dated the beautiful redhead  for six months and they  got married in a ceremony in Las Vegas around Thanksgiving.  It became an annual vacation for Phil and Margery.  Thanksgiving was turkey, Las Vegas shows, and blackjack.
         "We're in the seventh inning and the Wolves need to get something going," Monty Sinclair said over the radio.  "The Giants are up 4-0 after Parker's grandslam in the third inning.  The Wolves bullpen has done an amazing job since then.  Let's see if Walker Clark can get something going."
         Walker Clark was the  longest current member of the Wolves.  Phil  had seen Clark throughout his career.  Terrific hitter, so-so fielder, very good with the press.  Clark was probably bound for the Hall of Fame.  "Clark hits a long drive," Monty Sinclair said over the radio, "and it's gone!  A homerun for Clark and the Wolves have cut the Giants' lead." 
         "Clark always seems to hit with no one on," Greg said.  "It's not his fault, I guess."
         "No," Phil said.  "Sometimes you're in a situation and it's not your fault."  He wanted to say more, but decided to be quiet.  He knew Greg and Greg knew him and there was much communication in silence.
         It was funny how they compartmentalized their lives, he thought then.  He and Greg had talked about anything and everything down through the years, but there was always a stopping point.  He didn't know Greg indepth and Greg didn't know him.  Somehow it worked.
         Greg had been married and divorced twice and Phil knew only sketchy details of both marriages.  He always thought that Greg  would offer more information someday, but Greg never had.  He knew some about the horrors Greg saw in Vietnam, but Greg never went into any detail.  The only thing they ever talked about indepth, he realized, was their job and sports.
         But he built  his own Great Wall of Silence too, he thought.  If he trusted anyone, it was Greg, but the thought of revealing too much scared him.  It was like opening up Pandora's Box.  Once the secrets were out there was no going back. Secrets were like shadows, always at your heels, but not offering any substance.  Secrets were good and silent company.
         "How about that," Greg said suddenly.  "The Wolves have the bases loaded."
         They listened to Monty Sinclair describe the inning.  In his mind's eye Phil could see each hitter as he came up to the plate.  He could see all the little mannerisms:  the tugs at the batting helmet, hands wiping across the front of the jersey, grinding spikes into the dirt around home plate, scratching away the lines that defined the batter's box, and each hitter's unique batting stance. 
         "The Wolves are down 4-1," Monty Sinclair said, "and a hit could tie or give them the lead."  Then he launched into a quick commercial between pitches.
         "It's a long drive by Clark!" Sinclair said after the commercial.  "Up against the wall.  One run in, two runs in, three runs in!  The Wolves have tied the game and Clark has a sliding triple."
         "Somehow I knew he'd do that," Greg said.  "He's like that guy in the movie.  The one with the bat made from the tree split by lightning."
         "Roy Hobbs," Phil said. 
         "Yeah," Greg said.  "You and me should watch that movie again sometime.  I have it somewhere."
         The sprinklers down below shut off and Phil could hear the hum of traffic on the streets and freeways surrounding the ballpark.  It was time to go home, but he didn't really want to go home.  The house was empty and empty was going to be a permanent thing now.
         He would talk to Greg about Margery and how things had gone wrong, but he wouldn't talk about it tonight.  He wasn't sure he understood it all himself.  Not everything that happened could be summarized like a baseball box score.  You could look at a box score and sometimes tell that right at that moment the game was decided.  It was that double play or that strikeout or that extra base hit that did it.
         "The Wolves take a one run lead into the bottom of the ninth," Monty Sinclair said over the radio.  "Matt Hastings will be going for his fifth save in this young season.  The save opportunities haven't been plentiful so far.  And the young right hander deals.  Fastball.  Strike one!"
         Phil knew instinctively it wouldn't be an easy inning.  The Wolves didn't win many games these days and the occasional win came with difficulty.  When Hastings walked the first hitter Phil knew his instinct was right.  Now the winning run was at the plate.  A homerun would win the game for the Giants.
         "Come on, Hastings," Phil said to the radio.
         It was almost as though Phil's energy transmitted itself back over the radio and to the pitching mound and to Hastings.  He got the hitter to ground into a double play and struck out the next hitter.  "And the Wolves howl tonight," Monty Sinclair said in his pet catch phrase when the Wolves won. 
         "That was good," Greg said.  "I wish they'd do that a little more often.  I guess I better head on home."
         "You're sober enough to drive?" Phil asked.
         "Sober as a judge," Greg said and lurched to his feet.  "Although that's not much of a recommendation now."
         "You better be," Phil said.  "I can't afford to lose you, pal."
         Greg stepped away from his seat and went into the aisle and looked at Phil.
         "You aren't losing me," Greg said.  "We're stuck with each other.  Besides, it's a nice night.  I'll just walk.  It's not far."
         Greg walked up the stairs and Phil heard his  his beer can clatter  into the trash can.  Phil listened to the post game interview with Walker Clark, who was quite practiced in interviews now.  And then the post game show was over and it was time to go home.
         He turned off the radio and gathered up his cooler.  He stood out in the aisle and looked down at the field that showed in the ballpark's interior lights.  It was his field, he thought.  It belonged to the Wolves and to the fans, but ultimately it was his field. He knew  every blade of grass.  He had nurtured it all these years.
         It wasn't something that many fans or even many players thought about.  They took it all for granted, he thought.  He thought then of the beautiful redheaded Margery, who wanted out of his life now, Greg, Foster Miles, and all the players he had seen come and go.  They were all here now, just like Greg's ghosts.  It was his own personal secret and it would be good company tonight.