The Conman by Mike Murphey

Author:Mike Murphey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Acorn Publishing, LLC
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Each starting pitcher charted the performance of the guy preceding him in the rotation, so Conor charted each of Gordon’s outings.

“You’ve got those guys falling all over themselves,” Conor told him as Gordon racked up his strikeouts. A groundball out or a long fly ball might produce the same result. Strikeouts, though, captured the attention of farm directors and GMs.

“Show me one of those,” Conor asked Gordon as they played catch between starts. Gordon’s offering dove down and in so sharply, Conor didn’t get his glove on it. The ball smacked onto the top of his left foot. Visions of Fat Brad’s bloody teeth danced in Conor’s head.

“Will you teach me?”

“Okay,” Gordon said, “here’s the first rule. From now on when you open a door, turn the doorknob the opposite way.”

Right-handed people turn doorknobs clockwise. Left-handed people turn them counterclockwise. This is the natural order of the universe. From that moment on, Conor Nash violated this rule. And, just as he’d thrown baseballs against a wall with single-minded purpose since second grade, Conor became obsessive about doorknobs. When confronting a doorknob, he seldom contented himself to twist it once and walk through. He counted three or four or five turns, as the person behind him—usually Kate—anticipated the actual opening of the door with the first turn and ran into him.

At parties, or waiting to be seated at a restaurant, Conor backed himself to a door, reached his left hand behind him, and twisted the doorknob with a vengeance.

“What are you doing?” Kate would ask.

“Nothing.”

“Yes, you are. You’re doing the doorknob thing. Stop it. People think you’re weird enough as it is.”

Conor worked on his screwball every day as he played catch before games. He integrated it into his bullpen routine. Finally, he began to get the movement he wanted, though the ball seldom came anywhere close to the plate.

“Try it in a game,” Gordon told him.

“I can’t,” Conor said, recalling the hell he’d put his catchers through when he suffered the yips. “I don’t think I can get it close enough for Darryl to catch it.”

“Ask him about it. Darryl’s good at blocking stuff. Sooner or later, you’re gonna have to do it.”

The next evening, Conor worked a no-ball two-strike count facing Buffalo’s clean-up hitter. The A’s held a five-run lead. So why not?

Darryl asked for a curve ball. Conor nodded—the prearranged signal that he’d try and make the ball go the other way.

Conor knew when it left his hand the ball wouldn’t reach home plate. It dove down and into the hitter, as Conor intended, but it bounced a good twelve inches short. It landed hard and caromed off Darryl’s chest protector.

But the guy swung at it! He missed it by at least two feet, then dragged his bat to the dugout, muttering and glaring at Conor the whole way.

An inning later, Conor threw a screwball again and produced the same result. The ball smacked short of of home plate, bounced high, and the hitter almost fell over swinging at it.

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