driffffting..."
Trisha waited, breath caught.
"Foul," Joe said at last, and she began to breathe again.
"But that was toooo close. Strawberry just missed a three-run homer. It went on the wrong side of the Pesky Pole by no more than six or eight feet."
"I'd say four feet," Troop added helpfully.
"I'd say you've got stinky feet," Trisha whispered. "Come on, Tom, come on, please." But he wouldn't; she knew that now for sure. Just this close and no closer.
Still, she could see him. Not all tall and ginky-looking like Randy Johnson, not all short and tubby-looking like Rich Garces. Medium height, trim... and handsome. Very handsome, especially with his cap on, shading his eyes...
except her father said almost all ballplayers were handsome.
"It comes with the genes," he told her, then added: "Of course a lot of them have nothing upstairs, so it all balances out." But Tom Gordon's looks weren't the thing. It was the stillness before he pitched which had first caught her eye and her admiration. He didn't stalk around the mound like some of them did, or bend to fiddle with his shoes, or pick up the rosin bag and then toss it back down in a little flump of white dust. No, Number 36 simply waited for the batter to finish all of his fiddle-de-diddling. He was so still in his bright white uniform as he waited for the batter to be ready.
And then, of course, there was the thing he did whenever he succeeded in getting the save. That thing as he left the mound. She loved that.
"Gordon winds and fires... and it's in the dirt! Veritek blocked it with his body and that saved a run. The tying run."
"Stone the crows!" Troop said.
Joe didn't even try to dignify that one. "Gordon takes a deep breath out on the mound. Strawberry stands in. Gor-don wheels... deals... high."
A storm of booing rose in Trisha's ears like an ill wind.
"Thirty thousand or so umps in the stands didn't agree with that one, Joe," Troop remarked.
"True, but Larry Barnett behind the plate's got the final say and Barnett said it was high. The count runs full to Dar-ryl Strawberry. Three and two."
In the background the rhythmic clapping of the fans swelled. Their voices filled the air, filled her head. She knocked on the wood of the tree-trunk without realizing she was doing it.
"The crowd's on its feet," Joe Castiglione said, "all thirty thousand of them, because no one has left the joint tonight."
"Maybe one or two," Troop said. Trisha took no notice.
Neither did Joe.
"Gordon to the belt."
Yes, she could see him at the belt, hands together now, no longer facing home plate directly but looking in over his left shoulder.
"Gordon into the motion."
She could see this, too: the left foot coming back toward the planting right foot as the hands - one wearing the glove, one holding the ball - rose to the sternum; she could even see Bernie Williams, off with the pitch, streaking for second, but Tom Gordon took no notice and even in motion his essential stillness remained, his eyes on Jason Veritek's mitt, hung behind the plate low and toward the outside corner.
"Gordon delivers the three... two... pitch... AND - "
The crowd told her, the sudden joyous thunder of the crowd.
"Strike three called!" Joe was nearly screaming. "Oh my goodness, he threw the curve on three and two and froze Strawberry!
The Red Sox win five to four over the Yankees and Tom Gordon gets his eighteenth save!" His voice dropped into a more normal register. "Gordon's teammates head for the mound with Mo Vaughn pumping his fist in the air and leading the charge, but before Vaughn gets there, it's Gordon with the quick gesture, the one the fans have gotten to know very well in just the short time he's been the Sox closer."
Trisha burst into tears. She pushed the power button on the Walkman and then just sat there on the damp ground with her back against the tree-trunk and her legs spread and the blue poncho hanging between them in its hula-skirt tatters. She cried harder than she had since first realizing for sure that she was lost, but this time she cried in relief. She was lost but would be found. She was sure of it. Tom Gor-don had gotten the save and so would she.
Still crying, she took off the poncho, spread it on the ground as far under the fallen tree as she thought she could wriggle, and then eased to her left until she was on the plas-tic.
She did this with very little awareness. Most of her was still at Fenway Park, seeing the umpire ringing Strawberry up, seeing Mo Vaughn starting for the mound to congratu-late Tom Gordon; she could see Nomar Garciaparra trot-ting in from short, John Valentin from third, and Mark Lemke from second to do the same. But before they got to him, Gordon did what he always did when he secured the save: pointed at the sky. Just one quick point of the finger.