Old Timer's Game

Old Timer’s Game

By Ben Bova

It all started with my left knee – he said. The big three-oh.

I’d been catching for the A’s for four years, hitting good enough to always be fifth or sixth in the batting order, but the knee was slowing me up so bad the Skipper was shaking his head every time he looked my way.

We were playing an ineterleague game against the Phillies. You know what roughnecks they are. In the sixth inning they got men on first and third, and their batter pops a fly to short right field. Runner on third tags up, I block the plate. When he slammed into me I felt the knee pop. Hurt like hell – I mean heck – but I didn’t say anything. The runner was out, the inning was over, so I walked back to the dugout, trying not to limp.

Well, anyway, we lost the game 4 – 3. I was in the whirlpool soaking the knee when the Skipper sticks his ugly little face out of his office door and calls, “Hoss, get yourself in here, will you.”

The other guys in the locker room were already looking pretty glum. Now they all stared at me for a second, they they all turned the other way. None of them wanted to catch my eye. They all knew what was coming. Me too.

So I wrap a towel around my gut and walk to the Skipper’s office, leaving wet footprints on the carpeting.

“I’m gonna hafta rest you for a while,” the Skipper says, even before I can sit down in the chair in front of his desk. The hot seat, we always called it.

“I don’t need a rest.”

Old Timer's Game. Photo by Elena

“Your damned knee does. Look at it: it’s swollen like a watermelon.” The Skippeer is a little guy, kind of shriveled up like a prune. Never played a day of big-league ball in his life but he’s managed us into the playoffs three straight seasons.

“My knee’s okay. The swelling’s going down already.”

“It’s affecting your throwing.”

I started to say something, but nothing came out of my mouth. In the fifth inning I couldn’t quite reach a foul pop-up, and on the next pitch the guy homers. Then, in the eighth I was slow getting up and throwing to second. The stolen base put a guy in scroing position and a bloop single scored him and that’s how the Phillies beat us.