Almost Perfect

He was already at the ballpark when I got there, and that was unusual for Tommy. Of course he was scheduled to pitch that afternoon, going up against the Bobcats in the last game of a three-game home stand, but even when he pitched he tended to show up a lot closer to game time. He'd make it in time to warm up properly, and he'd generally be there for the batting practice that Hairston makes his pitchers take along with everybody else, seeing as our league has escaped the goddamn designated hitter rule. But he was a last-minute kind of guy, and I'm the opposite, like most catchers. So it was a surprise to walk in and see him already suited up.

But not that big a surprise, (continued on page 136)Almost Perfect(continued from page 86) because Tommy Willis was a southpaw, and it's true what you've heard about them. Pud Hairston was a pitcher himself for 12 years and has been a pitching coach for better than 20, and he swears they're all knuckleballs, meaning you never know which way they're going to break. I don't know why it should be true, why you can predict a man will have a wild hair on the basis of which arm he uses to throw the ball, or why it only seems to work that way with pitchers, while a left-handed outfielder or first baseman will be as regular as the next person, or at least the next ballplayer. A southpaw has an edge against left-handed batters and gives up the same edge to righties, and I can see why that would be, same as I or anybody else can see why he'd have an advantage throwing over to first. But what has all of this got to do with what goes on in his head? That makes no sense to me, but I've known enough of them and caught enough of them to be able to swear it's true.

I said he was early for a change, and he grinned that lazy grin of his. "Gotta get them Bobcats," he said. We went out and threw a few, and then he put on a jacket and sat down while I went and took my turn in the cage. I love batting practice. You just stand there and hit. I'd do it all day if they'd let me.

Around the time the ground crew got to smoothing out the base paths, I checked the stands and spotted my wife sitting where she generally did. I waved, but she was deep in conversation with Sally Peres and didn't see me. There were rumors that we were looking to trade Reynaldo Peres, and for Kathy's sake I hoped they weren't true, as Sally was her closest friend among the wives. (Other hand, if I was the general manager, Peres would have been gone by now. He's always behind in the count, and that means every hitter is a struggle for him.)

"I don't see Colleen," I said to Tommy, and he said she wasn't coming.

"She gets tired of baseball," he said.

Anybody'll tire of baseball from time to time, even the men who play it, and I can see how a wife could get sick of it, especially if she wasn't too crazy about hanging out with the other wives. And the TV cameras pan those rows all the time, so you have to make sure you look interested and that the camera doesn't catch you yawning or picking your nose. Kathy doesn't come to every home game, not by any means. Still, a pitcher doesn't start but one game in five, so when he's up his wife's usually there to see him.

I didn't say anything, and Tommy said, "Hard to believe. I mean, how could a human being get tired of baseball? But she does. She even gets tired of the Bobcats."

They were the defending world champions and a good bet to repeat this year, and our attendance was never higher than when they came to town. So his remark was natural enough, but it had a little extra on it, and I wondered about that. But not for any length of time. We were just minutes away from the first pitch, which he'd be throwing and I'd be catching, and I was more interested in whether his fastball had a little extra on it, and how his curve was breaking.

Introductions went like they always do, with cheers for us and boos for the Bobcats, the loudest round of boos for Wade Bemis. He had two strikes against him, as far as our fans were concerned. Number one, he was hitting .341 and neck and neck with Clipper DeYoung of the Orioles in the home run race. Number two, he played for us for four years, jumping to the Bobcats as a free agent. That's fans for you. The better you are, the more they hate you, and it goes double if you used to play for their team. It never made sense to me, but there's not much about fans that does.

After Bemis was introduced, the boos dropped to a more cordial level, and Pud Hairston came over and asked how Tommy was throwing. "He should be fine," I told him.

But we both knew you could never tell for sure. Not until the game started, and even then you might not know right away.

•

Early on, I thought fine was the one thing Tommy wasn't going to be that day. His first three pitches to their leadoff batter, Jeff Coleman, were all off the plate, all in the same spot, and each one a little farther from being a strike than the one before it. I was calling for inside pitches, and he was missing away, and that's not a good sign. The next one was right down the middle, with Coleman taking all the way. If I'd been coaching the Bobcats I'd have had him take the next pitch, too, the way Tommy had started him off 3-0, but he swung at a bad pitch and popped to short.

Tommy went to 3-1 on the second batter. The biggest mistake a pitcher can make is to get behind in the count, and that's especially true for a hard-throwing kid like Tommy, who can have a problem with control. His next pitch caught the corner. The batter lined the 3-2 pitch, really got good wood on it, but it went straight into the third baseman's glove like it had eyes.

Tommy started the next hitter off with two balls, the second one in the dirt, and I dug it out and walked it back to the mound. Bemis was in the on-deck circle, looking eager, and he'd be batting from the right-hand side of the plate today, since Tommy was a southpaw. His on-base average was about the same lefty or righty, but he had more power as a right-hander.

"Let's get this guy," I told Tommy.

"Piece of pie," he said.

He'd say that, piece of pie, where other people would say piece of cake. Other hand, he'd say something was easy as cake. I was never sure if he got the expressions mixed up accidentally or on purpose.

I went back and gave the sign--the hitter was McGinley, their left fielder, and the book on him was give him nothing but fastballs. The next two were straight heat, right where I wanted them, outside and down. The next pitch was in the same place, and I thought it got the corner, but it was ball three. The next one was down and in, probably off the plate but too close to take, and McGinley got a piece of it. But I got my glove up and held on to it, and we were out of the inning.

•

We went down one two three, with two of our outs coming on the first pitch. There was just enough time for Pud to ask me how Tommy was throwing. I said I thought he was settling in. Pud said he hoped so.

Wade Bemis led off, and he did everything but tip his hat to the fans who booed him. He stood in there like he was waiting for someone to take his picture, and maybe he was. Bemis likes to crowd the plate, and the only way to get him out is to pitch him inside. Tommy almost hit him with the first pitch. Bemis went into the dirt to get away from it, and he had a smug look on his face as he brushed off his uniform. I called for heat and Tommy gave it to him. Bemis took it for strike one, swung at the next one and missed it, and looked silly swinging at a splitter that bounced on the plate.

That got a hand from the crowd. They cheered some more when Tommy struck out the side.

I don't know just when it was I realized something special was going on. Oh, I knew he had his stuff when he fanned Bemis. His fastball was popping, and his control just got sharper. It got so I would just stick out the mitt and he'd hit it. And his curve was breaking real good, and his change had the Bobcat batters digging for balls in the dirt.

And we were in sync, too. He wasn't shaking off my signs hardly at all, and the few times he did I was already questioning the sign in my own mind. It was like we had our minds hooked up and we were going over the batters together, figuring how to move them back off the plate, then get them to chase stuff they couldn't hit. When it's like that, I sometimes lose track in my own mind as to who's catching and who's pitching. It's like we're both part of the same machine, with the gears meshing just right.

Bemis led off the top of the fifth. We'd left the bases loaded in the bottom of the fourth, and you hate to see that, and Bemis had a cocky smile on his face when he stepped in. Like we'd had our chance, and blew it, and it was his turn now.

Tommy got the first one in--he was throwing nothing but first-pitch strikes by now. His next delivery was low but didn't miss by much. Next was a curve, and Bemis swung late and fouled it back. I called for a fastball down and on the outside corner, and Tommy got it where I wanted it, but Ev Kalman called it ball two. I swear it caught the corner, but my opinion doesn't count. It was too close to take with two strikes, but Bemis stood there and took it. He has a good eye, but he was lucky to get the call.

He fouled off about four pitches--it could have been five--and checked his swing on a curve that he couldn't have reached with a broom. I checked with the first-base umpire, but he said he didn't go around. I'd have sworn he did, but you see what you want to see, and anyway no one was asking me.

Next pitch we challenged him with a fastball, high and tight, and he fouled it off. I called for another in the same spot, and he was just the least bit late in his swing, and that's what saved us, because he really tagged that one. But instead of pulling it he lifted it to the gap in right center and Justo Chacón floated under it and took it at the warning track.

Bemis was halfway to second when the catch was made, and he turned and trotted back to the Bobcats' dugout. I happened to notice the expression on his face, and he didn't look frustrated or disappointed, mad at himself or at Tommy or Justo. He looked all pleased with himself, which wasn't what you'd expect from someone who was 0 for 2 for the day.

Maybe it was the look on his face that made me turn around and look over to the stands, where the wives were sitting. Kathy was there, of course, and I caught her eye when I turned around, and she gave me a wave. I grinned back, happy because we'd just dodged a bullet, with Bemis' shot nothing but a long out, happy too because there was my wife waving at me.

I looked for Colleen, but of course she wasn't there, and I reminded myself that Tommy had said she wasn't coming. I hadn't exactly forgotten that, but Bemis' expression made me look for her even though I knew she wouldn't be there.

I'd heard the rumors, see. I guess everybody heard the rumors. But you hear stuff like that all the time. You don't pay any attention to it, or at least you try not to.

•

Once Bemis was out of the way, it only took us four pitches to get out of the inning. Tommy used three of them to strike out the number five hitter--two fastballs that he swung at and missed and a curve he held off on. It was right on the corner, and this time we got the call. Then the next Bobcat batter fouled off the first pitch and our first baseman made a nice running catch at the stands. Three up and three down.

And that was when it first hit me that what I had just seen was 15 up and 15 down, that we'd played five innings without a single Bobcat making it to first base. No runs, no hits, no errors, no bases on balls, nothing. Tommy Willis, who had started out shaky, like he might walk the bases loaded, was past the halfway mark of throwing a perfect game.

That's what it was, but you have to keep in mind that it sounds like more than it is. Being halfway to a perfect game (or an ordinary no-hitter, for that matter, if there can be such a thing as an ordinary no-hitter) is a little like being 90 years old and saying you're halfway to 180. It's not as though you're an even-money shot to get there.

No-hitters are funny. Some of the winningest pitchers in baseball have never had one, or even come close. They get out the guys they have to get out, they shut things down when they've got men in scoring position, and game after game they scatter a handful of hits and come out on top.

But to throw a no-hitter you have to be on top of every batter you face. And you need to be lucky, too, because you can have the best stuff in the world, and some lifetime .220 hitter can lunge at the ball and knock a fluke into shallow left. A no-hitter's like a soap bubble: It doesn't take much to burst it.

And a perfect game's all that and more, because not only can a lucky swing beat you, but a batter can get lucky by not swinging, and your too-close-to-take curveball turns out to be ball four. Your outfielder can misjudge what should have been a routine fly ball, your shortstop can bobble a grounder and throw it into the stands. Not your fault, but there goes your perfect game.

There are a million superstitions in baseball, plus the private rituals some players go through. Maybe it's because there's so much in the game you can't control, so you try to get a handle on it by fastening and unfastening the snaps on your batting glove, or keeping a hitting streak alive by not shaving, or pounding your glove a certain number of times between pitches. No one could follow all the baseball superstitions, especially since some of them contradict each other, and anyway there's too many of them to remember. But one that just about everybody follows is what you do when a guy is throwing a no-hitter, and that's that you don't do anything. And what you especially don't do is mention it.

It used to be that radio and TV announcers wouldn't mention it, and some of them still won't, but plenty of them seem to figure that they're too far away to jinx it, and their viewers would have a fit if they wound up watching a no-hitter without realizing it.

But you don't mention it in the dugout or on the field. You sure as hell don't say a word to the pitcher, but you don't say anything to anybody else, either. And here's something interesting--if you're on the other team, doing everything you can to keep from having a no-hitter pitched against you, you still don't say a word about it.

I don't know why that is. There's no limit to what ballplayers will say, trying to get a rise out of one another. You'll hear comments about a player's wife, or even his mother. But you won't hear anything about the no-hitter he's so many outs away from throwing. I thought it might be like countries at war not using poison gas, because if they do the other side might use it right back at them. But how would that work in baseball? The other team couldn't mention your no-hitter until you had one going, and it might be forever before that happened.

I guess it's just a feeling that mentioning it would be bush. Looking bush is something a ballplayer will do a lot in order not to.

But the point is, Tommy was 12 outs away from a perfect game, which is miles and miles away but close enough to be aware of. And I wasn't saying anything, and neither was anybody else, but I would look around and catch another player's eye and I'd know he knew what was going on, and he'd know the same about me. And pretty soon everybody knew, and nobody said a word.

Except the one person I wasn't sure about was Tommy. I tried not to stare, but of course I was looking at him when he was out there and I was behind the plate, because how could I catch him properly without taking a lot of long looks at him? And when it was our turn at bat I couldn't help sneaking peeks at him, and it seemed to me he was just looking straight ahead and not seeing anything. He was in a zone, all right. He was off somewhere with his private thoughts, and what those thoughts might be or where they were headed was something I didn't have a clue about. Maybe he was seeing the whole game, past and future, pitch by pitch, or maybe he was off in some world where there was no such thing as baseball. I could stare at him all I wanted and it wouldn't matter. He wouldn't know I was staring, and I wouldn't be able to tell what was going on in his head.

•

Tommy struck out the side in the top of the sixth. Justo walked to lead off our half of the inning, and I laid down a bunt that was good enough to get him to second. But that was as far as he got. A pop-up and a ground ball and the inning was over.

In the top of the seventh, Tommy went to three and two on the leadoff batter. Then he shook off my signs until I called for a curveball that I didn't really want him to throw, and he hung it. The batter got all of it, and I thought it was gone, and it was, but it hooked at the last minute and was foul by a couple of feet.

The whole ballpark held its breath, and when the ball went out and the umpire called it foul, everybody in the place sighed at once. And there were cheers, real cheers, and as far as I know it's the first time anybody drew cheers for hitting a foul ball. The batter had only got a few steps toward first base, since he and everybody else knew right away it was either a home run or a foul ball, so there was no need to set any records getting down the line. He trotted back and picked up his bat and struck out on the next pitch.

The next batter tapped a grounder to first, and the inning ended with a foul pop. It was high enough so that I could imagine a hundred things going wrong in the time it took to come down, but it plopped in my mitt and stayed there, and we were out of the inning. Twenty-one up and 21 down, and six to go.

•

We scored two runs in the bottom of the seventh, and I'd say it was about time. The thing is, no matter how good a pitcher is, he can't win a game without runs. There was even a case once of a pitcher throwing nine no-hit innings and losing in extra innings. People don't believe it could happen, but it's right there in the book.

Anyway, with one out Darnell Weeks doubled down the line, and Tommy was next in the order. Ordinarily that would have meant a pinch hitter, because Tommy's batting average is a lot less than his playing weight. He takes a decent cut at the ball, but more often than not he fans.

So, with the game on the line, he'd have been gone. And that would have been true even if we already had a lot of runs on the board. Tommy would hardly ever stay in for a whole nine innings. If we were behind he'd come out for a pinch hitter, and if we were ahead we'd have Freddie Olendorff close things out. But you don't lift a guy who's six outs away from a no-hitter, let alone a perfect game. Tommy picked up a bat and struck out on three pitches.

Pepper Foxwell was up next, and he ran the count to three and two, fouled off five or six pitches and finally got one that he liked. He's our leadoff batter and doesn't usually hit for power, but this time he swung hard and got all of it, and just like that, Tommy had a two-run cushion.

I watched the ball go out, and as soon as it cleared the fence I looked over at Tommy. Everybody else was off the bench with the crack of the bat, climbing up the dugout steps to watch and then to cheer, but Tommy never moved. I don't even know if he saw what was happening, or paid any attention to it.

He was in a zone, and he might as well have been in a bubble. Between innings, nobody sat down next to him and nobody talked to him. That's part of not mentioning a no-hitter. You just leave the pitcher alone, you let him stay in his own space, and I guess that's where he was.

The next man up hit a long fly, and it looked for a minute like it was going out, too, but their center fielder gathered it in at the track, and that was the third out.

•

Wade Bemis led off the top of the eighth. He had a funny look on his face, not what you expect of someone whose team is getting shut out. Like there was a joke and he was in on it.

"Hey, Willis," he called out. "You're almost perfect."

Now, I'd say the whole park went silent, but it pretty much already was. Because everybody in the stadium knew Tommy Willis was six outs away from putting a perfect game in the record book, and if that won't quiet a crowd down I don't know what will.

Quiet as it was, Bemis' words rang out loud and clear, and what followed them was a whole lot of silence. I was truly shocked, and the first thing I did was look at Tommy, but if his face showed any expression I couldn't read it.

In an undertone, so nobody but Bemis could hear it, I said, "Man, that was really bush."

He must have heard me, but he didn't react. "Just like Colleen," he said, loud and clear. "She's pretty close to perfect herself, Willis."

Now Tommy reacted, but not like you'd expect. He got this big grin on his face. He stood up there on the mound while Wade Bemis knocked the dirt out of his spikes and got into his stance. Bemis crowded the plate, the way he always did, but this time he was closer than ever. I called for a fastball on the inside corner and Tommy delivered it belt-high. It was a strike, and Kalman called it a strike, but at the same time it was almost the end of Tommy's perfect game, because it was that close to brushing Wade Bemis's uniform. It was over the plate, but even so it almost hit him. In fact I wasn't sure it didn't touch the cloth, and if it had that would have put him on first, even if it was in the strike zone.

Everything would have been different. The box score would have been the same, if you think about it, but everything would have been different.

As close as the pitch was, Bemis didn't turn a hair. He didn't make a remark, either. He stepped out of the box, picked up some dirt, gave his batting helmet a tug, and stepped in again. If anything, he was crowding the plate more than ever.

I called for a curve outside. It would break in toward a right-handed batter like Bemis, and if it worked right it would just catch the outside corner. It would be a tougher pitch for him to handle if Tommy could first move him off the plate by throwing high and tight, but I was afraid another inside pitch would get a piece of his uniform and he'd be on first and Tommy's perfect game would be out the window. I set up low, figuring if Tommy kept the ball down it would be a tough pitch for Bemis to handle, even if he was just about standing on the plate.

Well, everybody in the world saw the pitch that Tommy threw. They showed it over and over on every news program in the country. I try not to look at it, but I still guess I must have seen it 100 times, with Tommy going into his windup and throwing his fastball straight at Wade Bemis' head. Except it wasn't right at his head, it was behind his head, so that when Bemis saw it coming and tried to get away from it he just pulled right back into it.

Somebody had a radar gun clocking the pitch--somebody always does, these days--and the ball was going 102 miles an hour when it hit Bemis. Tommy threw it at his head and there was nothing the matter with his control. It got Bemis just above the ear, and I'll never forget the sound it made.

I suppose they could hear it clear to Cooperstown.

Bemis was wearing a batting helmet. You have to, and I think they even wear them in slo-pitch Softball nowadays, and there's no question that they prevent a lot of injuries. But so do seat belts, and what good are they if your plane flies into the side of a mountain?

Everybody saw the pitch, and everybody saw what happened next, with Wade Bemis falling flat and lying still, and a whole stadium full of people catching their breath. And then, the next thing anybody knew, there were a dozen cops out on the field, all of them heading for the pitcher's mound. My first thought was that they were there to protect Tommy, to keep the Bobcats from taking a shot at him, but the Bobcats were in the same state we were, too shocked and stunned to do anything much but stand around. And the cops weren't protecting Tommy. What they were doing was putting cuffs on him and taking him into custody.

Wade Bemis left first. An ambulance drove in from the bullpen entrance and drove right across the infield, and they got him on a stretcher and loaded him on the ambulance and drove out the way they came, siren blazing away. They didn't need the siren, as it turned out, and they didn't even need the ambulance, because Bemis was dead on arrival at the hospital, and he was most likely dead when he hit the ground.

Just about everybody watched the ambulance leave, and most of the crowd missed Tommy's exit. He left in handcuffs, escorted by 10 or a dozen cops, and they took him out through the dugout and the locker room so nobody really knew what was happening.

And then we finished the game.

There was some criticism later about that, some people arguing that the game should have been called on the spot, but how could you do that? For one thing, I think you'd have had a riot on your hands. You don't call off a game every time a batter gets hit by a pitch.

Some rookie, a skinny guy named Hector Ruiz, was announced as a pinch runner, and he was awarded first base. And our closer, Freddie Olendorff, came on in relief. He took his warm-up throws, and I got a hunch and called for a pitchout on the first pitch, and sure enough, Hector Ruiz was off and running. I threw down to Pepper Foxwell at second and we had him out by four feet.

The next two batters grounded out, and that was it for the Bobcats in the top of the eighth. They brought in a new pitcher in the bottom of the inning and he walked the bases loaded, and we scored two more runs before they managed to put a stop to the bleeding. Then Freddie went out there and shut down the Bobcats one two three, on a pair of ground balls and a foul pop that I caught for the final out.

We were in the locker room and the crowd was out of the stadium and halfway home before we found out what had actually happened that afternoon. That Bemis was dead, which was what we were all afraid of, of course, but didn't know for a fact, not until the word filtered through to us. And that Tommy Willis was in a jail cell, charged with murder.

That was hard to believe. I think everybody knew it wasn't an accident, that he'd thrown that ball at Wade Bemis on purpose. And some of us knew that he hadn't been trying to just brush him back, but that he meant to hit him.

And I knew just how intentional it was, because I knew what pitch I'd called and where I had set up. And Tommy didn't even bother to shake off my sign. He nodded and went into his windup and threw the ball straight at Bemis.

But since when did you charge a pitcher with murder for hitting a batter? There have been pitchers fined for throwing intentional beanballs, and there have been some brief suspensions, but criminal charges? That's something I've never heard of.

We didn't know it then, but of course it wasn't Wade Bemis that the authorities charged Tommy for murdering. It was Colleen.

•

That was why the cops were out on the field almost before Bemis hit the ground. They'd been waiting since the fourth inning. It was around then that police officers went to the Willis house in Northbrook in response to a neighbor's complaint. They found Tommy's wife, Colleen, in the bedroom with a carving knife stuck in her chest.

A pair of detectives came straight to the ballpark, but they had the car radio tuned to the ballgame, so before they got there they knew Tommy was pitching, and that he hadn't allowed a hit. They got a lot of flak later on for not arresting him right away, and there's no question but that Wade Bemis would be alive if they had, but I can see why they did what they did.

On the one hand, there was no rush. Tommy wasn't going anywhere. All they had to do was wait until the game was over, or at least until he'd been yanked for a pinch hitter, and he could be taken into custody without making a public spectacle of the whole thing. That's what you'd have if you arrested him in the middle of any game, and it would be even worse given the game he was pitching. Can you imagine what the crowd's reaction would be if the police interrupted a no-hitter and led the pitcher off in handcuffs? And this wasn't just any no-hitter, it was a perfect game in the making. You could easily have a riot on your hands.

And suppose Tommy turned out to be innocent? Suppose somebody else stuck the knife in her, and when it was all over he'd lost not only his beautiful wife but his chance for baseball immortality, all because a couple of eager-beaver cops couldn't wait for a few more innings?

And here's another thing. If they were listening to the game on the radio, that probably means they were fans. And what kind of fan is going to screw up anybody's perfect game?

The way it turned out, the way it goes in the record book, Tommy Willis and Freddie Olendorff combined to throw a no-hitter. That's rare enough, but this was a no-hitter where they faced only 27 batters. The one man who did reach first--not on a hit, a walk or an error, unless you call a hit batsman a pitcher's error--that one man was thrown out stealing. So you'd have to say the game the two of them pitched was the closest possible thing to a perfect game.

Some perfect game.

Colleen was having an affair with Wade Bemis, and Tommy found out. And they had a fight about it, and you know how it ended, with the carving knife stuck in her chest. And maybe if Bemis hadn't said what he said at his last at-bat, Tommy would have let it go and just hung in there and pitched to him. The way he was throwing, you have to figure he'd have gotten him out, and five more after him, and completed his perfect game and gotten his cheers and gone off quietly with the arresting officers.

Or maybe Bemis would have gotten a hit, and, with the no-hitter out of reach, Tommy would have come out of there. Maybe the Bobcats would have rallied and broken things open and won the game. I mean, it's baseball.

And anything can happen in a baseball game.