One Last Time

            One Last Time

                                                John Maes

Jerry Berger walked up the stairs and onto the concourse overlooking the lush green playing field of County Stadium. He immediately noticed the crowd wasn’t going to be very large that night. 

Wow, thought Berger. Not a sellout after all. We could sneak down in front. Ushers aren’t gonna ask to see a ticket stub tonight – nobody’s gonna give a damn tonight.  

On any other occasion, Berger might well have given in to the temptation. Sitting down close – that was the place to watch a ball game. He liked being so close he could hear the infielders chattering encouragement to the pitcher, the coaches clapping and calling to the hitters, and the umpire howling out balls and strikes.

But tonight, Berger had a different agenda. With Zygwalt and Golaski behind him, he headed down the concourse to grandstand Section 16 and ascended several stairs up the aisle to Row G. He shuffled his way past sitting patrons until arriving at seat number eight. Yep, this was the one, he said to himself. He sat down, his two friends taking the flanking chairs. So important was it for Berger to have this seat, that had someone already been in it, he was ready with a ten-spot to induce the occupant to move. Berger was determined to be one of the few – if not the only one – to have been in  the same seat for the very first and very last games the Milwaukee Braves would ever play here. He felt content the distinction would appear to be his.

The memories of that first game raced before him like a sports newsreel: Ditching school on that sunny, chilly day in April of 1953; Yelling himself practically hoarse at the sight of the Cardinal right fielder lunging with futility after the 10^th inning game-winning homer to the delight of the 34,000 jamming the ballpark.

Tonight, in the same seat on a calm, warm evening 12 years later, he would witness the swan song.

He looked to his left and smiled at Zygwalt. The old high school buddy, in his early 30’s, was short and rotund with thinning hair and intense, piercing eyes that looked out from under horn-rimmed glasses.  Berger had always liked Zygwalt’s sarcastic, off-color jokes, which he usually followed with raucous laughter at his own attempted humor. He looked to his other side at Golaski, taller, lankier and more soft-spoken than his two old neighborhood buddies. During tense moments at a Braves’ game, Golaski would often clasp his hands in front of his face making him look to be in a cross between meditation and prayer.

 Los Angeles had just finished its final infield drill and the grounds crew was getting ready to drag and rake the dirt in preparation for the game. The sidelines were crowded with players throwing baseballs back and forth or doing last–minute stretching and wind sprints. The umpires appeared on the field. The barking of vendors commingled with the fresh, clean air of the new nightfall. The stadium lights cast a sharp, clean luminescence onto the field.

 Berger knew it was time for his pre-game ritual. He reached into his shirt pocket, pulled out a long panatela, rolled it in his fingers, gently clenched it between his teeth and applied a lighted match.

Zygwalt smirked and chortled, “There goes ‘ol Gerhard Berger lighting up his usual pre-game dog turd – just like always.”

Berger tossed his head back and laughed out loud. “You know I couldn’t do without it, Zyg. It can’t be a ball game without suds and a stogie!” They guffawed together. As Berger puffed slowly on the panatela, however, his mood turned somber. He was performing this rite for the last time. He lamented that all he saw and did here tonight would be for the last time.

“Well I’m here to boo my ass off tonight,” Zygwalt declared with sudden bitterness. “Aaron, Mathews, Torre, I don’t care. I still can’t believe they’re going.”

“But the players aren’t to blame for this, Zyg,” Berger countered. “Most of ‘em want to stay here and don’t want to leave. You know that.”

Zygwalt waved a dismissive right hand at his friend. “Ah, they’re all part of it – I’m booing!”

Golaski chimed in. “It’s those louses from Chicago that did this. They come up here, take over our team and, just for the money, they’re going to move to Atlanta because it’s a bigger television deal. They don’t care about us. I’m booing too, Zyg. But it’s those damn money grubbers from Illinois, not the players.”

Just then, a burly, middle-aged man with a flat top haircut leaned in and clapped Zygwalt on the shoulder. “You’re right, buddy. Let’s show these bums how we feel before they skip town on us.”

The chatter and murmur of the crowd quickly rose to a din as the Braves bounded from the first base dugout to their positions on the field. Reactions ranged from lusty jeering and hooting, to tepid applause to wild cheers. Whatever the sentiment, all but a few in the throng were now on their feet.

 Berger was again busily savoring those visages he would not see again. One more time he studied the square-jawed intensity and fiery eyes of Eddie Mathews warming up at third. He hoped to be granted a last look at the icy glare the slugger would cast toward the mound when he thought the pitcher was throwing too close. And just like so many times before, Berger marveled at the way Hank Aaron showed such athletic elegance while doing nothing more than waving his arms in a circle to get loose in right field. He even looks great just trotting back and forth from the dugout, Berger said silently. Oh, if only one of you guys could send the baseball into orbit tonight - just one more time.

Berger noticed with astonishment amid the din of the crowd that the normally long-winded, leather-lunged Zygwalt was not booing at all, but standing motionless and silent with arms folded.  Glancing to his other side, he saw Golaski, also on his feet in his familiar prayer-like bearing, saying nothing.

He turned again to Zygwalt, calling to him above the noise. “What’s the matter, Zyg? I thought you were booing.”

“Aw leave me alone, Berger,” he protested like a petulant child, his arms still cradled across his chest. “This is the last time I’m gonna see ‘em take the field. It ain’t easy to watch.”

 Berger silently agreed with him. Indeed, it was hard to contemplate that this once gigantic fan nation, which often filled every crevice of County Stadium, had shrunk to a mere shadow of its former self. Many sunny afternoons and starry nights had been spent here – in frigid cold and in blistering heat – happily embracing the mania that once thundered from all corners of Wisconsin.

Berger remembered well the beer-fueled pandemonium that exploded following the dethronement of the mighty Yankees in the ‘57 World Series. There were the thousands packing Wisconsin Avenue from the Marquette campus all the way through downtown. They celebrated, reveled and bathed themselves in the beauty of knowing that on this night, it was Milwaukee – yes Bushville - not New York, which sat atop the universe of baseball.  

The game was in the third inning and the atmosphere was now strangely taking on a veneer of the past. Kinda like the way it used to be around here, Berger thought. The booing had ceased entirely. Though undersized, the throng was now noisily cheering on every pitch. Chants of Let’s go Braves rose from the crowd.

 Nearby was the bugler. Roaming the ballpark tonight as he had been every year since the beginning, he could stir an already noisy gathering into a near frenzied mass with the exhortations from his horn. A collective yell of “CHARGE!” two, three – occasionally four straight times – was the response. He clearly appeared to be on maximum power tonight. Berger watched with satisfaction as the man moved along the concourse and blasted away. How could the bugler not be here on the last night? he thought.

Suddenly the game became the focus of monumental interest. The hometown players were clogging the bases and running with abandon. A grand-slam homer sent the crowd crazy as the Braves had amassed a 6-1 lead.

Zygwalt was now among the biggest noisemakers. He yelled, stamped his feet, clapped his hands and whistled loudly through his teeth. Obviously he and Golaski had totally forgotten their earlier promises. In fact, Zygwalt nearly yelled himself into voicelessness when the Los Angeles pitcher was removed from the game and walked off the field.  “Bye bye, Koufax, enjoy your shower and don’t forget to wash behind the ears!” he yelled with derisive laughter. “Too bad we didn’t do that to you a few more times over the years.”

Berger’s hands were now stinging from continued clapping. His voice too, was creaky from shouting at the happy developments that - for the moment - seemed to rise atop the pall of finality hovering over the evening. He was unable to stop applauding and yelling. He didn’t want to stop.  

 By the ninth inning, however, Los Angeles had clawed its way back into the contest, forced extra innings and took a 7-6 lead in the eleventh. The crowd, save for loud, lengthy ovations conferred on Aaron, Mathews and Torre during their final plate appearances, had been largely quieted.

Berger and his two buddies sat dejectedly as they watched the final out. The Dodger players rushed toward each other and engaged in a short but spirited celebration as they disappeared into their  dugout. It looked to Berger as though they could sense that the national league pennant would be theirs in a matter of days. Sadly, he knew too, that likewise within a matter of days, following a road trip to Houston, and to the west coast to end their season, the Milwaukee Braves would exist no more.

Even before the players had vacated the diamond, souvenir hunters stormed out, too many for the police and ushers to handle. Berger watched as one man produced a crowbar from under his jacket, pried up home plate and sprinted off with it. Two others were trying to dislodge the pitcher’s rubber while an elderly man knelt by first base scooping up vials full of infield dirt. In short center field, a youth who had pulled second base from its mooring, and attempted to flee, was tackled by an officer. A local news photographer snapped a picture at that moment that would run in the next day’s paper over a caption that read, Man caught attempting to steal second base.

The strains of “Till we Meet Again,” and “Auld Lang Syne” poured from the organ loft while most of the 12,577 spectators now filled the concourses and aisles heading for the exits. Berger, Zygwalt and Golaski were among them.

In front of them a teenage girl sobbed openly in her father’s arm. “I don’t want them to leave, Dad.”

Berger cast a glance toward the wall above the right field bleachers where a banner had been hung proclaiming, Good Bye Milwaukee Braves. From somewhere in the stands, came the bugler’s final recitation for the departing throng. It was the saddest, most haunting, forlorn rendition of “Taps” Berger would recall ever hearing.

Much of the crowd was now in the parking lot. Vehicle doors opened and slammed. Horns honked. Engines choked, sputtered and roared to life while headlights popped into illumination every second. Queues of cars, buses and vans slowly rolled along in mass exodus through a dusty haze. The swirling flashlight beams and tweeting whistles of traffic cops guided them forward.

The three companions had talked little as they walked. Golaski broke the silence as they neared Berger’s car. “So what are we supposed to do now, start following the Chicago Cubs?”

“Hah! That’ll be the day,” Zygwalt said with a snort. “I’ll have a cold one in hell before I do that!”

“Aw ease up, you guys, it might not be that bad,” Berger said attempting to soothe them. “I keep reading about that business group with the bigwig from Schlitz and that auto dealer guy, Selig, trying to get another team in here.”

Zygwalt place kicked an empty beer can sending it airborne several feet ahead of them before it returned to earth and clanked along several feet more. He spat and said laconically, “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

“Well until then, look at it this way – we still have the Packers,” Berger laughed.

He turned to Zygwalt as they reached Berger’s car and asked, “What happened, Zyg? You didn’t boo your butt off after all.”

“I don’t know,” Zygwalt shrugged. “I guess I just didn’t have the heart.”

“Tonight was your last chance.”

“Yeah, I know,” Zygwalt said, assuming the softest tone Berger had heard from him all evening. “And I’m kinda glad I didn’t take it.”

                                           ##################

John Maes, a native of Chicago, is a freelance/creative writer living retired in Austin, Tx.