Final Battle


Everett woke to the pain in his left knee, gripping hold of him. The pain was so intense it took his breath away. He rolled onto his back and labored to breathe.

This pain from a past injury haunted him before and he’d sat out of many games over the past five years. Now the plays at the plate that thrilled fans were much more difficult to make. He’d had re-constructive surgery four years prior to that season, but time had caught up finally. There was little relief these days. At thirty four he knew his days as a catcher were numbered, but he still never imagined the day would come he’d know for certain. And, although it was not quite over, it was indeed the twilight.

Everett dragged himself from bed and as he passed the dresser, hit the switch for the light and glimpsed himself in the mirror. The bags were heavy under his piercing blue eyes and he realized how thin his hair had gotten. He thought himself to look much older than his age. He loathed seeing shades of his father in his face and could see the same lines forming around his eyes.

His father Bernard, a tower of a man, had been an English professor at NYU for fifteen years. He’d expected Everett to be academically motivated, but Everett had other ideas. When he was sixteen, Everett gathered the courage to tell his father he wanted to be a baseball player professionally.

“Well, this is surprising”, Bernard said. Everett found this shocking, but held his tongue. How had Bernard thought he’d be anything else? Everett had dedicated every hour to playing for years at that point. He’d participated on a team that won the Little League World Series (as a pitcher he’d made the final out) and been the best high school player in the state of New York for two years. He was touted in the baseball press as a top prospect in his senior year.

Bernard, making no eye contact, mumbled practically to himself, “I suppose I thought you’d grow out it.” Everett felt his face growing hot, and he could hear his heart pounding at the sound of his father’s haughty, dry voice.

When Everett was a 4th round pick for the Mets, Bernard gave him half-hearted congratulations, but nothing more. Everett often thought that the students his father taught were who he truly considered his children. Whenever he saw Bernard with them, it was like looking at a stranger. He was so warm and engaged by them.

He never told Bernard when he began writing poetry in junior high and wondered what his father’s impression might be. He was terrified of his criticism so he never dared show him. But Everett continued to write throughout his life. He was sure no one had ever known.

Everett cursed his knee as he struggled to the bathroom. All those years he’d been able to play through the pain or be benched a couple of games to rest, but today that was not an option. It was a day that contained all the wishes and dreams of every little boy that loved to play the game of baseball and hoped to grow up to make it to the majors. Everett was hours away from playing in Game Seven of the World Series with his team, the Philadelphia Phillies.

It was the only time he’d been there in his thirteen year career and the only time he knew he ever would. It would be the last season he’d play before he knew he had to hang it up.

He thought about his teammates joined by their families and suddenly loneliness struck him. He’d never gotten around to having children and both his marriages were failures. Loneliness didn’t suit him, but answering to no one did.

It had been two years since Everett got what he always said was the best thing for him after his second divorce, and that was being a bachelor. But at that very moment in his hotel suite he never regretted that desire more. He wondered if his father would call on such an important day in his own son’s life. Everett shook that notion off. He'd learned to expect very little from Bernard, because it was easier.

Everett thought about calling his older sister Kate in upstate New York, where they’d grown up, but he didn’t know if he even cared to talk.

Kate was the one who took care of him when their mother Lillian died when Everett was ten and Kate was fourteen. Everett’s way of dealing with the strange emptiness of his home life was to get out of the house. That was how he came to discover baseball or, rather, how it discovered him.

He didn’t know he had any talent at anything until he spontaneously decided to join little league soon after Lillian’s death. Bernard was always absent from the games. It was always the babysitters or Kate and some of the neighbors who’d come to cheer him on.

As he gulped an ice cold glass of water, the phone rang. His long-time friend, Ryan Douglas, now a baseball scout, wanted to wish him luck.

His friendship with Ryan was the longest of his life, having met in junior year of high school. He often called after regular season games to talk baseball and he always called during times when Everett was not doing physically well.

“I know,” Ryan said in his thick Brooklyn accent, “you are raring to go. If I know you at all,” he said then laughed. Everett laughed half-heartedly and Ryan knew something was wrong. But he would never ask. Everett just wasn’t a guy people felt they could talk to on that level; not even those who’d known him forever.

Everett brought up the game the night before. “Drummond’s arm was ready to fall off, man. He had nothing left in his tank. That whole bullpen is tired out. We gotta really give ‘em our best tonight.” Ryan told Everett that Kal Drummond, the fire breathing closer for the Phillies, looked as if he’d lost considerable velocity. He was amazed the manager had put him in. “But he’s the guy.” Everett said this as if reading from a script.

“Yeah...but I hope to God you don’t need him tonight. I wish you a lotta luck. I know you can do it. You’ve never played better, I swear it. You look better than you did at 22.”

Everett laughed big at this. He knew Ryan was just saying it to build him up, but Ryan insisted it was true again. Maybe Everett was running on fumes and no one could see it.

Ryan mentioned the infamous knee injury to make his point. Everett didn’t give much thought to the injury over the years because he had done well throughout his career. It hadn’t hindered his success. But he felt the clock ticking now and in every game he was fully aware of inching rapidly toward the end. When the team won the National League pennant he took it as some kind of a sign.

The infamous injury, which made him a symbol of toughness to Philadelphia fans, was so brutal and yet he never complained. His recovery was ridiculously fast. The Philadelphia media loved him. When Everett did think about that day it came back to him in slow motion like in the movies.

In the bottom of the ninth inning of a crucial game against the Oakland A’s when Everett played for the Mets, A’s first baseman Tom Morton pulled a stunt of electrifying heroics. He shocked everyone who knew his average in clutch situations when he got an inside the park homerun to tie the game. He rounded the bases with break-neck speed. His legs were like propellers you could hardly see as they spun around.

Everett kept his eye on the centerfielder, who struggled for what seemed like an eternity to come up with the ball. Everett watched the shortstop bobble it like he’d caught a hot coal, then finally gun the ball violently to him.

Morton made it to third, his face mangled in desperation and with all his gusto he hurtled toward home plate right into Everett’s knees. Everett blacked out for a few seconds and when he was able to breathe again he felt the searing pain. He crumpled in the dirt on his back, the July sun scorching his face.

Everett could still remember the image of his mother appearing in his head, as if Lillian were standing over him. It was something Everett never shared with anyone because he was not the mystical type, but he could not explain what he felt in that moment. He saw a group of scruffy faced guys hovering above him and her, this lovely, blonde woman, in the midst of them.

He was sure he was hallucinating, but kept his eyes steady on that glowing, watery image that seemed to be caressing him with light.

After that day Everett was never the same player. But he endured the suffering and never let the public know what hell he went through to play. The team knew though. It made him a symbol of toughness in the eyes of his teammates.

He had come all this way. He’d faced the knife just so he could play, and play long enough to finally make it to a World Series. This was the reward for all that hard work and he’d be damned if he’d bench himself or, worse, have the manager afraid to take a chance with him.

Along with rascally third baseman Sonny Everett, his best friend for ten years, he and Everett had been the backbone of the team they carried to glory that season. The fans embraced them like heroes. While Everett appreciated the sometimes unexplainable passion of diehard fans, this meant something to him that went beyond that. It was his own personal burning need to say he had been to the World Series and won before it was all over.

Everett knew he could never stand to give again what he had given the past season. He had physically and mentally drained himself not of the desire to play, but of the need to kill himself to win. And unless he killed himself he wasn’t playing.

Room service arrived and Everett handed a fifty dollar tip to the young attendant’s shock and delight. Everett tried to eat, but couldn’t keep his mind still and it made him dizzy. He had no taste for anything. The hotel clock didn’t help with its gigantic red digital numbers in his face, as if screaming the time in his face. His nerves became increasingly rattled. Dropping his half eaten slice of toast on the plate, he stood with a start and the pain stabbed him again. He caught his breath as an icy chill crawled across his spine. He had successfully hidden the worsening pain from the trainer over the last month. It could’ve affected his game, but instead it drove him harder. If he were to be honest he was amazed by his fortitude.

Bernard entered his mind again and it infuriated and confused Everett to be so troubled about him at that moment. He rubbed his temples as if to rub away the thoughts of his father.

He eased onto the plush hotel bed, exasperated, wincing as his knees bent. As he lay there he considered what he would do today or tomorrow if he wasn’t in the World Series. Everett couldn’t imagine hearing about it on the news. He would rather climb in a pine box and be buried alive than see the back-up catcher play for him. Everett was not one of those players who couldn’t admit he wasn’t effective anymore, no, he was on top of his game. And while he understood that his body was telling him to hang it up, he also knew they could win the World Series.

After a hot shower, he thought again about calling Kate, but he knew she would know something was wrong. She had fine tuned her maternal instincts where Everett was concerned and would pick up on anything.

Out of the corner of his eye he could see the red blur of numbers on the clock. He tried to get hold of his emotions, but his thoughts were like rapid fire in a shooting range. He wanted so much to cry but he didn’t know how to even allow himself that.

Everett knew he just had to remember one thing- there would be no next season. This was his final moment in the sun.

Hours later Everett Manning stood behind home plate, sweat sliding down his jaw into his mouth and his knee throbbing, feeling like a hammer banging beneath his bones: bottom of the ninth, down to the final out, the Phillies up by two. Hot-headed Alex Brooks came to the plate. The Red Sox third baseman hadn’t hit well the whole series and closer Kal Drummond was hoping for continued luck as he stood erect, rolling the ball around in his long, powerful hand, and ignoring the fatigue he felt. He looked in at Everett who revealed no fear at all. He gave an encouraging nod, as Kal made a good pitch, down and away, but didn’t get the call. It was a close one and Kal slapped his glove in annoyance. Everett stayed calm, but he felt tears welling and burning his eyes. He wasn’t sure if it was from the pain or pure emotion.

The score: 7-5 and no one on base. Everett felt the tension as if it was slicing him in half, but all his adrenaline was going into what he had to do. Winning the World Series was a breath away.

The crowd of furious, still slightly hopeful Red Sox fans shook Fenway Park with their applause and raucous chanting. They were numb to the chill of the air and wouldn’t have known if the sky was falling.

“Sox, Sox, Sox...,” they howled in unison.


The pitch, a 3-2 fastball to Alex Brooks, and he makes a catastrophic mistake by jumping anxiously on the first pitch and barely getting a piece of the ball.

The ball: right to Woodrow at third base who simply had to take a few steps to retrieve it, then quickly gets back to first base. Game over...

Everett charged toward Kal as the team flew wildly toward them both. He felt something physical lift from inside him, his breath coming out in gasps of laughter, exhaustion and relief.

In the clubhouse the requisite shower of champagne, water and Gatorade soaked everyone as the glare of the news cameras swirled around in a blinding blur. Everett did his best to serve the media searching for witty quotes and emotional blathering for the morning sports page, but he quickly found himself in a corner calling Kate on his cell phone.

“Katie!” he practically sang and much louder than he meant to.

Kate sniveled and laughed, “Well, you did it kiddo.” A lump formed in his throat. It hit him that he was talking to his first real fan and his first coach.

“I couldn’t ‘a done it without you, Katie. Can you believe it? Jesus.” Everett laughed again and took a large sip from a plastic cup of champagne. “I gotta go, but I just wanted to thank you...and hear your voice.” Katie laughed a little and sniveled again.

“This is your moment...enjoy it, Everett. You deserve it.”

Everett was so close to asking if she’d spoken to Bernard, but stopped himself and they said their goodbyes. He sipped his beer and turned to look at the sea of elated faces.

At two in the morning Everett drunkenly shuffled into his hotel room, wanting only to pass out. But within moments of standing there in the darkness, he felt a sense of dread sneak in. He was suddenly furious his father had not called and with little hope to checked his messages.

To his utter shock Everett hears his father’s voice. Bernard called early that afternoon, just after Everett had left. Bernard cleared his throat and began to speak in his deliberate, emotionless tone.

“Hi there...well, wanted to wish you the best of luck, Everett. You’ll do a great job, I’m sure...I’m sure. I suppose I’ve already missed you. At any rate if you get this, good luck.”

Everett’s massive hand trembled as he quickly dialed his father’s phone number taking deep, broken breaths. It rang twice before being picked up. But it’s Kate’s voice he hears answer.

“Katie...what are you doing there?” he asked, with slightly slurred speech.

Kate stuttered for a moment, then began. ” Everett, Dad died of a heart attack earlier today...he collapsed in his room. He called me and said his chest felt tight and I came right over. It took me all of ten minutes...he was lying face down by the phone. Gone,” she said as her voice cracked. “I didn’t want to tell you when you called from the clubhouse...I wanted you to...just have a moment to celebrate.”

“When did he die?”

“It was around, uh...I guess a little after nine.”

He thought for a moment then muttered, “Fourth inning.”

After telling her he’d be on the next flight, he hung up.

Everett sat in the wake of this news and became acutely aware of how completely and utterly silent everything was. Finally he heard the sound a door closing in the distance. He swallowed hard then picked up the phone. Everett retrieved his father’s message, then listened again...and again...and again.

The sun was coming up before he finally drifted helplessly to sleep, the phone laying on the bedside table.

A few days later Everett stood stoically over his father’s coffin at The Resurrection of Our Lord Church in upstate New York; he placed a folded sheet of paper next to his father. It was a poem he once wrote about him, entitled “Battles.” Everett lay it next to his other contribution, the glove he used to win the World Series.

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