An old man named Irving just wants to have a catch, and so he posts on Craigslist to find a partner. He finds three, in this surprising baseball story from Works Progress co-editor Scott Chiusano.
Heaving the cowhide back and forth is always more complicated than it seems. Happy baseball season, let’s go Mets,
The Editors
It started when Irving posted the ad on Craigslist. He wasn’t sure how he made his way to the Missed Connections page, a fortuitous accident probably that he’d stumbled across it. Craigslist, his wife said, is for prostitution and hawking ugly dressers. Don’t you know that? She was standing over his shoulder holding her reading glasses to her scrunched-up nose. Lately Martha always seemed to be breathing down his neck.
She said he was far too old to be having a midlife crisis. Maybe it’s like a mid-to-late-life crisis, Irving said without looking away from the screen. He was trying to focus. Martha told him there was no such thing, that was just death. When he stopped typing for a moment she put her hand on the molehill of his shoulder blade and said she was sorry, she didn’t mean that. Irving didn’t care, not really, but he accepted the sympathy. Just let me do this, he said, and her hand dropped away. He heard her go to the kitchen, pots tumbling out of cabinets like someone had put their whole forearm down on a piano. The faucet turning on. Pilot light on the stove click click clicking. It made Irving smile. Usually the house was so quiet.
Irving was used to speaking into a metaphorical void. For years he’d been sending letters in to the sports section of The Daily News. Sometimes they were angry letters. He thought the paper held water for the tightwad Wilpons, who had been sending his beloved Mets further and further into obscurity, same direction Irving was headed if he really thought about it. Which he tried not to. Other times he wrote in with begrudging respect for a story well done. Always he signed off the same way. Yours truly, Irving Katz. Two decades of letters and he’d never gotten a response. Maybe this would be different. It was the internet, after all, supposedly the reach was limitless, but he wasn’t going to get his hopes up. Martha said he should try being more optimistic. She knew as well as he did there wasn’t much to look forward to. But he was working on it.
Before he began, Irving read through some of the other posts on the page. Some of them were heartening. You asked me for a hug at Hoyt-Schermerhorn this morning. You might never see this, but thank you for being a beautiful human. Others were appalling. Looking at my big bulge on the N train. Irving stared down at his own crotch. He hadn’t seen a bulge since we invaded Iraq. That’s not what he was here for, of course. Irving wasn’t asking for sex or money or really for much at all. In fact he’d never asked for much, 60-something years gone by and he’d simply let it all happen. Just a bottom bear trying to find my top. That was one he’d scrolled quickly past.
Irving started to type. He could smell the early stages of something burning. Probably chicken cutlets again. Martha! he yelled. Alright alright, she said, the wind chime clink of her setting down a wine glass. She’d never had the attention span for cooking. So many other things I want to spend my time doing, she said. Just a 68-year-old man who’s looking for someone …. Maybe he shouldn’t start it off like that. Could attract a particular type of clientele. Straight facts were better, he thought. Put all the cards out on the table. It was normal, what he was asking for, wasn’t it?
My name is Irving Katz. I’m a 68-year-old former high school athlete. Baseball was my best sport. I haven’t touched a ball in over 30 years. All I’m looking for is someone to have a catch with me. I have my own glove, it’s somewhere in the garage. I suppose you will also need a glove, seeing as I don’t have an extra. I can provide the ball, brand new Wilson, high laces. Still in the plastic. Honestly, I don’t expect anyone to respond to this. But I will be in Marine Park tomorrow afternoon, 1 o’clock, on the field to the left of the flag pole. I’ll probably be stretching. I do hope someone will join me to have a catch. Yours truly, Irving Katz.
He sat back and surveyed his work. It was simple, no frills. Didn’t seem desperate, at least not to him. He was leaving out the most important part, but Irving decided he didn’t want to use the pity factor. It would be cheap. If anybody showed up, he wanted it to be because they loved the game as much as he once did. And if some ax-wielding maniac were to arrive, well they’d only be doing him a favor. Irving clicked the post button, saw his message appear at the top of the page. Closed the laptop. Irv, dinner is ready, Martha called from the kitchen.
***
It was noon when Irving arrived at the park, the church bells clanging from Good Shepherd. He wasn’t actually the type of person who arrived early to things, usually Martha was waiting for him on the front step jangling her keys when they had somewhere to be. Not that they went very many places anymore. This time it was out of necessity, though, the hour’s grace period he’d given himself. He had not used his arm for the very specific and unnatural purpose of throwing a baseball in three decades, and he needed some time to re-learn it, get the feel back. If anyone were to show up, he wanted to be ready when they did.
Irving laid his glove and the still-wrapped ball down on the base of the flagpole. He tried to remember the stretches they used to do for arms when he was in high school, pulling your elbow back behind your head, both arms out with upward-facing palms, then circles, like you were using them to hula-hoop. It felt right, this movement, energizing. Dr. Hess said exercise was good for him, as much as he could handle, more for his mental state than any actual physical benefits, that ship had sailed. He was still able to walk the full loop of the salt marsh beyond the park, usually he was out of breath by the end of it and he’d sit with Martha looking out at the Rockaway Bridge until the air came back into his lungs.
To walk was one thing, but to regain the motor skills necessary to throw and catch this tiny white sphere was entirely different. Irving had never actually been very good at baseball, never filled out his lanky frame nor worked hard enough to acquire the requisite strength to send the ball into the gaps as the great power hitters did, lacking the speed to make up for it. He’d made the high school team at James Madison by the skin of his teeth, the coach was a gruff Sicilian from Dyker Heights who went through three cigarettes a game and seemed to appreciate how deferential Irving was to authority. Only five at-bats his entire senior year, one hit, a double down the right-field line that squeezed past the lumbering first baseman. Irving could remember it so well, the exhilaration of rounding first base, seeing his coach wildly waving him onwards, the arrival at second base more a faceplant than a slide but he made it.
According to Irving’s watch, which he had set seven minutes fast, it was 1 o’clock. He curved the brim of his stained Mets hat and scanned the area. Nobody around, or headed his way. Next to the new senior center the old men played bocce, arthritic backs like umbrella handles. Irving caught himself, if they’re old what does that make you? They probably have a hell of a lot longer to go than you do. Try not to think about it so much, was what Martha told him, so he stuck his left hand inside his glove and thought about that instead, the way the leather felt on his knuckles, the stiffness of the web after so many idle years. Irving leaned his head back against the flagpole.
He awoke to a tugging at his pants leg. A dog off its leash, he thought at first, and considered kicking his leg out to free it. But when Irving looked down he saw a man. At least he had all the characteristics of a man, just in the body of a young child. Irving had to think hard, what was the proper term, you couldn’t say midget anymore. Dwarf? This wasn’t a Disney movie. Little person? That didn’t sound right either. Then again why would he have to say any of that, he was a man just like all the other men Irving had ever known.
Are you Irving, the man said, releasing his grip on Irving’s pants leg. Irving nodded, yes I am. The man said he was sorry for showing up late. Irving looked down at his watch, 3:17, or 3:10 actually. He had been out cold. What do you mean, late? Irving said. Your ad, the man said. The catch.
Oh god, yes, of course, Irving stood the way one does when about to shake another person’s hand, but then thought better of it and sat again so they remained face to face. I’m Marty, the man said, sticking out his hand. But most everyone just calls me Coach. Irving realized Marty was wearing a navy blue windbreaker, two gold stripes down each shoulder, it reached so far beyond his knees it seemed that only his shoes were sticking out from underneath. Xaverian Baseball, it read across the breast. They shook hands. Marty’s sleeve slid up and Irving noticed the white hair, liver spots like leopard print along his wrists. As if he himself were the picture of health, looking more like an unsharpened pencil by the day.
Irving still had his glove hanging loosely off his hand. How foolish he must have looked. He cleared his throat. Thank you for, um, coming, I really didn’t expect anyone to show.
It was a gamble, Marty said, whether or not you would turn out to be a total nutso freak. But I’ve been called worse than that so.
Irving sucked in a laugh, not wanting Marty to get the wrong idea. So, he said, you’re here for the catch then. Well yes and no, Marty said. You won’t exactly have a devil of a time playing catch with me, low center of gravity and all that. And I don’t want to be chasing after your goddamn overthrows all day long. But I got two of my guys I’m doing workouts with this summer. Nice kids, good ballplayers. They’re just getting warmed up on the field over there. How about you have a catch with them? The real deal, you know.
To Irving this sounded almost too good to be true. But he would not let the cynic in him win, the part of him considering the possibility that Marty the midget was some kind of con-artist who had a pair of goons waiting on that field to beat up and rob Irving. Well at least he’d left his wallet at home. I would really love that, Irving said.
***
The two boys were waiting in the dugout for Irving and Marty. The taller, skinnier one sitting on top of a bucket of baseballs was Ezra. The other was Carter, he had a more stocky frame, a round face that still carried baby fat, although at his age maybe they just called it fat. In appearance they were opposites, and Irving soon realized so too in personality. Once Ezra stood from the bucket, Irving noticed a certain bravado about him as they shook hands, veins like purple ivy crawling up his tan wrists. Carter on the other hand studied the ground like an anatomy textbook, much the way Irving had when he was that age.
These are my captains this year, Marty said. Getting them ready for their senior season. Ezra here’s got some college coaches looking at him.
Villanova wants him bad, Carter said. And Boston College too. When they all get a look at him I’m sure he’ll have his pick.
My agent, Ezra laughed.
Irving thanked them both for coming. It really means the world to me, you know, he said. Though you’ll have to take it easy on me, I’m an old man after all.
Old? Ezra leaned his arm casually on Carter’s shoulder. I wouldn’t have pegged you a day over 40.
Irving turned to Marty, they bull shit you like this?
No, Marty said, I’d kick both their asses.
Ezra and Carter split apart and grabbed their gloves and Irving put his on, the tingle of anticipation far better than any sex he’d ever had, certainly with Martha, though there was Sydney Albies back in college, his first and only before marriage sad to admit, for a fleeting moment he saw how his life would’ve been different had he shacked up with Sydney Albies, she would have wanted kids of course, he’d be in the park having a catch with his own boys now instead of two strangers taking pity on an elderly man. The thought escaped his body like a pent up belch.
I’ll go out, Ezra said, I always go out. Mister Irving you stay by the fence next to Carter. Just follow our lead.
The first throw zipped in to Carter, right at his chest, the thwack like a car backfiring. Back to Ezra and now it was Irving’s turn, finally, he half expected time to stop, to see the ball coming at him in slow motion the way it did in the movies, that tight red dot of the seams a laser pointer into his soul. But it came at him fast. Irving did a matador sidestep while sticking his glove out and then it had passed him by, colliding with the fence.
Ayyy, Marty yelled, take it easy.
My fault Coach, Ezra put his ungloved hand to his chest.
Carter picked the ball up and placed it in Irving’s palm. He said, your throw, sir.
Irving felt up the ball for the proper grip, two fingers across the seams, for some unfathomable reason he could remember that was how it was supposed to be yet the keypad code for the garage eluded him every single day. Back when he was a kid, Irving and Freddy Martucci who lived on Stuart Place had found a baseball someone left behind in the park. More likely the owner just didn’t want it anymore, because the cover was coming off, part of it hanging limp like the tongue of a panting dog. You always heard talk of guys who could tear the cover off the ball, they said it often of Irving’s idol Gil Hodges, but to find one was something different. Freddy said let’s see what’s inside, as though they might uncover some buried treasure, a hidden truth. He ripped the cover clean off. Underneath it looked like a web of yarn, tangled strands woven together meticulously. With frantic energy he unwound it, the sticky string didn’t come apart easily and his pudgy fingers soon felt like he’d melted ice cream between them but Freddy Martucci was determined, he tore through it until there was nothing left but a rubber sphere, just slightly smaller than a golf ball and probably, thinking of it now, about the size of the pair of tumors lodged in Irving’s chest. Irving recalled that to be the first great disappointment of his life, the inside of a baseball, learning far too early an ugly truth that we are all of us hoping never to have our covers torn off, better not to know what’s underneath. Here, Irv, Freddy Martucci had said, see how far you can chuck it, and then he did, so far it disappeared.
Irving came back into himself and realized Ezra was still waiting patiently to receive the ball, so he threw it in a way that felt awkward and unnatural and somehow beautiful. It took a short hop to Ezra’s glove side and he scooped it up with ease.
Not bad old man, Marty chirped, and Carter nodded his approval. After that first throw Irving felt the way he had when he’d lost his virginity to Sydney Albies, like now he knew he could do it, not that he’d ever be good at it, or graceful, he’d still sweat through his shirt and keep his socks on, but at least he was capable. And then it was just having a catch. Ezra took some velocity off his throws and Irving was able to handle them, every time the ball stuck in the web of his mitt like being static shocked by a doorknob. Back and forth they went, Ezra and Carter working on quickening their transfers, Irving just focused on catching the ball, Marty as always coaching the boys from the dugout, his legs dangling above the ground, and Irving thought if he could just do this, exactly this, for the rest of his life, he wouldn’t need anything else.
****
They met every Monday afternoon that summer, and so the most loathsome day of the week became a cherished one for Irving. Martha wasn’t exactly thrilled with his new routine. She said she was worried he was overextending himself, but Irving knew the real reason. She thought it was childish, that he was wasting his time, of which he had little to waste. As if he didn’t know that. Would she rather he had an affair? She had laughed aloud at that one. I’d like to see you try, Irv.
The boys used it as part of their training. They started by having their catch with Irving, and once Irving had tired himself out they continued, increasing their distance with each throw until it took more than two bounces to reach. That was when they knew to start moving it back in, and as they got closer they transitioned into quick hands, Ezra like a magician the way the ball went from his glove to his four-seam grip with hardly any movement. Irving and Marty would watch their routine from the bench. The long toss was followed by grounders, Ezra starting out at shortstop, Carter keeping his glove on and flipping the ball up to himself while swinging one-handed. Irving wondered at how dexterous he was so as to hit a perfect grounder every time, making Ezra move in the hole, up the middle. Marty barked encouragement or instruction, keep your body in front, get lower, you were flat-footed on that one, attack the ball, attack, attack.
When the boys switched they pressed their gloves together as they jogged past one another and said good round and Irving came to understand it was the subtlest most pure form of love he had ever witnessed.
It’s a special thing they’ve got, Irving said. Marty grunted. Someday they’ll have to learn to be apart.
Most of the time they went out for a slice of pizza afterwards at Pronto’s, they took up the same round table and the men behind the counter started to recognize them and sent their slices into the brick oven straight away. Irving always insisted on paying, though it made Marty angry and the boys were good, they’d reach for their wallets when it came down to it even knowing Irving would wave them off. What was he saving it for? Conversation came easy when he was around Marty and the boys, Irving had never experienced that before. He felt comfortable with them, talking baseball, how they were optimistic about the Mets, as they were most every year, only to be disappointed in the end. I cried at the end of ’06, Ezra said. Like a freakin’ infant. Marty discussed the boys’ future with them, their college prospects. Ezra often carried the conversation or at least was at the center of it, but he made sure to bring Carter in, to ask him what he thought or to prop him up, bragging about Carter’s AP Calculus grades or making sure they had heard he’d made first chair trumpet in band. You know Carter, Ezra said, he doesn’t like to toot his own horn.
Irving appreciated seeing the two sides of the boys, free and easy in the pizzeria and then workmanlike on the field, they did what was required of them in silence, the way one knows to genuflect in church. There was no need for the boys to talk, because they were having a catch, and in that way they knew they were not alone. Irving thought maybe this was the reason he’d been yearning to rediscover the game, the reason he’d risked summoning the crooks and the creeps on that corner of Craigslist to find this right here.
He said as much to Marty on the bench one day, how lucky he was to be a coach, to have his team wrapped around him always.
It’s a safety blanket, Marty said. But then you go home at night and get into bed and it’s too hot so you toss and turn and you kick the blanket clean off. Everybody in the damn world is lonely, Irv, don’t let them fool you.
Irving ran his index finger along the white stripe of his sweatpants. Martha hated when he went out in these pants. She said they were too tight, they were pants for a young man, look at the way they taper off at the ankle. That’s to show off the calves, for young men who have calves to show off, she said, not cankles like you have. Old men are supposed to have elastic at the ankles, like this Irv, and she’d rummage through the closet for the ratty pairs of maroon sweatpants she’d been buying him from Kohl’s every Christmas since Clinton was in office. God forbid Irving should ever be allowed to feel anything other than that which had reached its expiration date.
He figured it was as good a time as any to be honest with Marty, the way he’d never been able to be honest with anyone before, including himself, so he turned to the little man next to him on the bench and said you know Coach, I’m dying.
I thought as much, Marty said. Honestly. Irving asked how he possibly could have known.
I don’t know, Irv. Don’t take this the wrong way, but you look sort of like a guy who always seems to be staring down his own fucking ghost.
For some reason Irving thought that was about the funniest thing he’d ever heard, and he laughed the way he hadn’t in a long time, so Marty laughed too, a little nervously at first the way one does when they’re not entirely sure if they’re actually the butt of the joke. But then it became true, uninhibited guffawing, and Ezra called out from shortstop wha’ happened, did Coach let one rip again? Which only made them laugh harder, until they were in tears.
Irving wiped the back of his hand across his moist face and composed himself. Just don’t tell the boys, he said. I’d rather they didn’t know. Marty nodded.
As he picked up his glove from under the bench, Irving thought of what Roger Kahn had written in his favorite book, the one that would forever make him long to be just a kid who spent every last day in the packed stands at Ebbets Field watching the Duke of Flatbush run headlong into the center-field wall. Losing after great striving is the story of man, who was born to sorrow, whose sweetest songs tell of saddest thought, and who, if he is a hero, does nothing in life as becomingly as leave it.
Irving went out onto the field to join Carter and Ezra. They were the boys of this, his last summer. And that was fine because they didn’t know it yet, all they knew was that Irving was coming out of the dugout with his glove on his left hand, which meant he wanted to have a catch. When it came down to it this was such a simple game, a ball, a glove, a duck-beaked cap pulled low down over your eyes to keep out the sun. Carter said boy Mr. Irving, sir, your wing must be feeling good today and Irving made a circle motion with it, felt the blood rushing into his veins to let him know he was alive. You’re damn right, kid. The boys and the dying man took their places on the field, the three of them in triangle formation, none of them knowing that one of these Mondays Irving would not show up. And if that was a terrifying thought, the not knowing, then so be it. The only thing you could really count on in this life was a game of catch, that if you let go of the ball it would always find its way back to you.
-30-
Scott Chiusano is a writer/editor, currently at MLB.com and formerly at the New York Daily News, with fiction published in Toasted Cheese Literary Journal and The Twin Bill. He is a fan of slow rollers and Jacob deGrom sliders.