The ballpark was spectacular, a red-brick palace to the game. Fairfax could hardly believe his eyes. It was otherworldly compared to the wooden grandstands and flaking paint of Cartwright Stadium, where he had once played. At last, a ballpark fit for the Angels. Fit for Providence.
He stood before a grand doorway on the corner of the building, the entrance to the administrative offices of the club and stadium. Engravings filled the cornice, ballplayers frozen in different poses, bats, balls, and gloves expertly carved into the stonework. Above them, a small inscription read:
Gifted to the Providence Angels and a tribute to the legacy of my friend, Superior Judge Jacob Cartwright — Leopold Boase, in the year of our Lord MCMXX
Wyatt drew a sharp breath. He felt Ruth’s hand tighten on his arm. Together, they entered.
“My boy!” the elderly Leopold Boase exclaimed. He leaned his cane against the reception desk and spread his arms wide, embracing the sick man without hesitation.
*
It had taken a great deal of pleading to be here. Almost daily over the past several months, Wyatt had begged and bargained with his physician for permission to visit Providence.
The slow pace of life on the shores of Saranac Lake had done wonders for him in many ways. Though despite what the doctors told him, he wasn’t certain it made much difference to his illness, Wyatt suspected he would feel the same if he rested almost anywhere but he at least felt at peace. And the cool mountain air did sooth his chest. He had a clear mind now, the hellish nightmares of war had grown infrequent. He was sober and at peace.
He followed baseball news with studious devotion. He consumed everything he could from the Legacy Baseball League to the Pacific Coast Association. He subscribed to magazines, clipped articles, compiled scrapbooks. In every letter to Ruth, he asked for updates on his dear Angels. He had even taken to sketching and watercolor painting. Every sketch was baseball related. Though still an amateur, his ambition was to paint every ballpark he had once played in.
As is often the case with men, it seemed losing it all was what it took for Wyatt Fairfax to fall in love with what he once had. When he played it was a job, a chore, now unable to play, baseball was his life, perhaps life-line.
*
After a short tour of the stadium, Wyatt met his former teammates. Each embraced him as a hero or more like a fallen hero. When he had been in the club, there had been divisions and cliques, men who barely spoke outside their own circles. A clubhouse divided, sure some of those divisions still existed, but he knew he was the architect of much of the fracturing in years gone by. Now, reunited, they came together as one.
Wyatt took particular pleasure in watching batting practice, especially Bob Fox.
“You’re the finest hitter I’ve ever seen,” Wyatt told the second baseman.
“Thank you, sir,” Fox replied. “That means a lot, coming from you. You’re like royalty in this city.”
His own career, although cut-short, left Wyatt sitting 30th in all-time career batting average at .302. In the lean years of the 1910s, when reasons to cheer were few, his bat had often been the only joy for the Providence crowds.
Fairfax had not returned for personal glory, not for handshakes, back slaps, or well wishes. He came to see his beloved Angels play. To watch the art of pitching. The discipline of the batter. To hear bat on ball, to smell the grass, to simply partake in the communion of going to a ballgame. But when Boase and General Manager Bayman asked if he would lead the team out, he accepted. Not from ego, but simply to feel it once more, to feel the walk from clubhouse to field. A feeling he had so often dulled with alcohol in years past. Now he craved it, like a little boy.
As he led the Angels nine from the clubhouse, his heart raced like a steam locomotive. He clasped his hands tightly to hide their trembling.
The visiting men from Brooklyn stood before their dugout and applauded. The spectators grew louder, from a murmur to a thunder. Caps were tipped in tribute.
An overwhelming sadness filled this sick man. A crowd larger than the modest Cartwright Stadium had ever held, on its feet, for him. He tried to shout “thank you” but he could not hear the words leave his mouth. Again and again, he tried, unsure if he was even making a sound. His eyes burned and chest ached.
A firm pat on the back. His old friend Phil Beer handed him a ball, firmly placing it into his hands.
“First pitch.”
Beer trotted behind the plate.
Never in his life had Fairfax felt so undeserving. He had shown this team, the spectators and city, such little respect during his time as a player. At times he had resented it all.
He used the opportunity of an exaggerated, theatrical wind-up, to wipe his eyes and collect his emotions. Then he delivered the ball straight and true to Beer’s mitt. Pure relief. A grateful nod from Beer, and all the hundreds and hundreds of times he had tossed the ball to the pitcher seemed to rush through his mind. Once a mundane routine, now a moment to treasure.
As he made back for the dugout the applause picked up again, Fairfax was careful not to appear to linger, but he was careful to drink it all in. Every blade of grass, every grain of sand, the clean white lines, the bags, the team names on the scoreboard, the faces in the crowd. He took one last look.