All-Star
All-Star
By Darel La Prade
Otsego Lake glimmered in the early morning sun, and a soft breeze from the northeast ruffled the water to create tiny waves that lapped the shore with a monotonous cadence.
The few cars on Lake Street hardly disturbed the hush. Except for a jogger in white shorts and a speed walker pumping her arms like pistons, no one else was outside. It was Thursday, September 9th, an unusually quiet weekday morning – the day after Induction Day, and the village of Cooperstown appeared to be sleeping in after celebrating yesterday’s ceremony.
The radio reported that, unlike last year, when the festivities had been canceled for fear of Covid, baseball fans packed the grounds of The Clark Sports Center to see Derek Jeter, Larry Walker, Ted Simmons, and Marvin Miller immortalized in the Hall of Fame.
Barbara looked away from the lake, and a golden supernal light suffused the spires of three church steeples above the trees and the roofs of the houses. The trees were already tinged with red and yellow; autumn would be early this year. Blair Nelson stood with his back to her. He had parked the truck a block away and they had walked to the Otesaga Resort Hotel.
She touched his neck, tanned a dark reddish-brown after the summer’s season and from the last two weeks practicing in the Arizona sun. She gently scratched between his shoulder blades. He didn’t turn to face her.
“I know why we came to Cooperstown,” Barbara said. “But why are we standing in the parking lot for this place, a place we could never afford, anyway?”
“I don’t know,” Blair said. “I thought he might be staying here.”
They had spent the night at a shabby motor lodge outside of Cooperstown. After starting in Phoenix three days ago, they had driven all the night before but failed to reach Cooperstown in time. Blair had been beside himself with disappointment. He had slept turned away from her. She wanted to talk; he told her he needed to sleep.
They woke before the sun rose. He got up in the dim light, and with barely a word, dressed in his uniform pants, navy sleeves, and flip-flops. He had his baseball cap turned around backward. To her, he looked like the All-State All-Star he had been in high school. But that was seven years ago. He was 25 now.
She shivered and wished she had worn a sweater. Wind off the lake blew her hair over her right eye. She pushed it behind her ear, feeling tired.
“We came to see his induction ceremony,” Blair said. “You know that. We — I — wanted to see Jeter inducted into the Hall. But we missed it. I don’t know why my luck is always so bad.”
Barbara lifted her hand to his shoulder and attempted to turn him toward her. “The truck’s timing belt broke,” she said. “We were lucky we found someone who could fix it for cheap and get us back on the road again so quickly.”
“I say it was my rotten luck,” Blair said.
She put her arms around him and he drew her close to him. She emitted a low cry. “Not so tight,” she said.
He let her go.
“He isn’t staying here,” Barbara said. “Why torture yourself?”
“Because he’s the man. The Captain,” Blair said. “Twenty years in pinstripes. More than 3,000 hits. If he wasn’t the greatest shortstop of all time, then definitely the winningest. Seven times in the World Series, five world championships.”
“How many games have we heard together on the radio?” she said. “Sometimes I hear John Sterling in my dreams. I know more about Derek Jeter’s career than ninety-nine percent of Yankee fans.” Barbara pressed her cheek against his chest, then stretched her neck and kissed his chin. “I used to read Baseball Weekly just as faithfully as you,” she said and smiled.
She still had an old copy of the newspaper from July 2014. It contained an article mentioning Blair had been drafted and signed by the Yankees, right out of high school. “Blair Nelson is rated by Yankee scouts as an above-average prospect,” the report said.
“And remember when Jeter played his last game in Boston,” she said. “Remember?”
As a late graduation gift, Barbara’s parents had taken them that September, after Blair’s first months in an instructional camp, to Yellowstone National Park. On the afternoon of Jeter’s final game in Fenway, they were climbing Eagle Peak.
“Before reaching the summit, we left you sitting on a big rock in a meadow so you could listen to the game over the internet on Dad’s phone,” she said. “Jeter went one for two, didn’t he?”
“Blair,” Barbara said, paused, then continued: “Do you really believe you’ll make it?”
He stepped away from her and stared across the lake again.
“I won’t unless I give it my all,” Blair said. “I’ve got the size, the speed. They even assigned me number 70, the same number Jeter had when he was proving himself.” And after a moment, he said in a softer voice, “It’s my dream.”
“But Jeter was in New York when he was 20, the starting shortstop at 21. You are 25 and still playing for the Tampa Tarpons.” No sooner had she spoken than she regretted it.
Without looking back, Blair hurried off toward downtown Cooperstown. She wanted to run after him but she realized if she did she’d get sick.
Barbara wondered if Blair blamed her for not advancing. He had told her once that one of his coaches had shaken his head upon learning she and Blair lived together. “A woman’ll drain you like a battery, son,” the coach had said. They joked about it.
She knew where Blair would go. She found Doubleday Field on her phone’s GPS and started walking in that direction.
She reached Doubleday Field just after the grounds crew arrived and had unlocked the gates. She went under the stately red brick archway in the center of the V-shaped brick facade that ran left and right down each of the baselines. She passed through shadowy light and climbed up to the uncovered grandstand, three rows back, even with third base, the place she always sat when watching Blair play shortstop.
Barbara looked up at the flags on the roof then down to the field. The groundskeepers had turned on the sprinklers. The grass in the outfield was a shimmering emerald green, and the powdered chalk that marked the foul lines glowed with an intense purity. Sheltered from the steady breeze, Barbara felt warm and happy. The grandstand bench beneath her started to vibrate ever so slightly, the vibrations intensifying as each of his steps brought him closer to her.
“Barb,” Blair said. “You’re here.”
“Where else would I be?” she said.
He sat next to her and she rested her head on his shoulder.
“I know,” Blair said, leaning into her. “I know. I’m glad.”
Barbara shivered. Blair put his arm around her. “As I was walking,” he said, “I realized for the very first time, I can’t see myself here. Not really. I can’t see us here.”
“Blair,” she said, “I need, you need to —”
“It’s alright. I know,” Blair said. “We’ll raise an all-star.”
Darel La Prade has spent more than 40 years as a newspaper journalist. He is a husband, father, grandfather, and a life-long fan of the New York Yankees, as well as a committed, still-living Deadhead who remembers when. In 1975, he graduated from Washington & Lee University, and in the 1980s he studied the art of writing short stories with Peter Taylor at the University of Virginia. He lives in Milford, DE, with this wife, Constance, and their French bulldog, Ida Mae Tarbell.
Jason David Córdova lives in Puerto Rico as an illustrator and painter. Some of his art can be seen on Instagram at @jasoni72. You can visit his shop on Red Bubble.
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