How to Make a Baseball Player Cry Dana De Greff – Second Place Contest Winner
First, tell the gringo baseball player how your husband, Roberto, always knew he was going to die young. If he has no reaction, tell him about what was on the plane: fresh water, plantains, rolls of gauze, baby shoes, powdered milk. Hundreds and hundreds of chancletas. And even if he doesn't ask, tell him those things were for the earthquake victims in Nicaragua. This player, Roberto’s teammate on the Pittsburgh Pirates, will look surprised, and you know it’s because he never bothered to ask where your husband traveled, why he’d go anywhere that wasn't here. Take his hand, lead him away from the living room full of mourners, and out to the balcony where it’s quiet. Because he comes from a farming background, tell him about how Roberto cut sugar cane, all places that hurt after hours bent like a curveball. Explain the first time you met, the first time you saw him play in Carolina, Puerto Rico. This was when he was skinny, palms full of splinters, hair combed out like thick black cotton. It was a Sunday morning in June after church, 1949. The boys’ nice clothes—starched white shirts, navy pants ironed smooth, cloth ties—lay in neat piles on top of a piece of a tarp to keep them clean. They changed into their uniforms on the field behind the high school, the grass crisped from the summer sun. Sometimes you watched them, admired the folds of skin as they bent to pull up thin socks, the small bumps of their spines, how their chests, necks, and arms were different shades of brown. They were your patchwork boys and you loved their bodies leaping over each other, turning, and throwing balls like releasing prayers. You loved their blistered hands, the tight belts at their delicate waists, waists of boys not quite men yet, something fragile and in between. Roberto was special, even at fifteen. In his eyes there was something good—not pure—but good. Eyes that had seen enough for two lifetimes, that had seen into the future. I won’t be here long; I need to hurry. But that would come later. For now, he was in front of you, and this was the day he would be signed. You wore a white lace dress and tight braids held in place with white ribbons, the frayed ends brushing your shoulder blades. Even though you knew your mother’d get mad, you took off your shoes and socks and leaned against the wooden fence next to all the boys from the barrio, watched Roberto step up to plate. He rolled his neck, tapped the bat against the inside of his shoes, old black trainers covered in orange dust. At the neck of his shirt were several holes; you wanted to put your fingers there, touch his skin.
The first swing was a strike, the second a foul ball, but the third? The third was mythic. The sharp crack, a sound that made both teams stand up in unison and Roberto’s team jump like children. Later, that sound was something you’d associate with love, then anger, and finally, an acute sense of drowning. But on that day, the crack shot ran through you and up your legs to the tips of your fingers, hands shaking as if it was you holding the bat. As he ran the bases he kept his face passive, and before he could put both feet on home plate his teammates lifted him to their shoulders. In the air he took a necklace out from under his shirt, a key on a thin strip of leather, and that’s when he looked right at you and brought the key to his lips: a promise of things to come, of leaving and returning home, of dreaming of this moment again and again. Stop talking now and wait for his reaction. If he pats you on the shoulder and offers his condolences once again, shrug his hand away. You’re not looking for pity. Everyone sitting in your living room, standing in your kitchen, has bestowed pity. If he sighs and tries to give you money, politely decline and say you need to be by yourself. If his shoulders slump, if he has the face of a man who’s struck out with the bases loaded, take out the cigarettes, accept his light. He’ll ask, Do you think if he hadn't come here he might still be alive? There’s no way to know, you’ll say. While you smoke, fast forward to the part about moving to America. This is where it gets interesting. (Yes, there are good stories from Montreal after he got signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers, but you really want to emphasize the America part.) Make the baseball player feel included, even though he never tried to include Roberto. On April 17, 1955, Roberto made his debut with the Pittsburgh Pirates. You remember being confused when he told you that spring training was in Fort Myers, had to borrow a map to figure out where it was. Florida, you assumed, was a land of flowers, of hibiscuses and gardenias, roses and wild azaleas. You imagined Roberto and his teammates eating supper in delicate gardens, him practicing his English, admiring the burning sunsets. Of course, you could never have imagined what actually happened because he never told you, not until years after you’d already bought a nice house in Pittsburgh with air-conditioning, a room for the boys to grow up in. Years later, on the yellow couch
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