danny orr

by Rob Bailey

Danny Orr was a closer for the Cubs at the top of his game. He knew it, too. He had a bobblehead of himself on his bedside table. He took the mound at Wrigley to the propulsive chords of Led Zeppelin’s "Kashmir." The bullpen was in foul territory back then. It was late afternoon. The Cubs didn’t install lights for another decade, after the league rescinded their home-field advantage for TV ratings. Danny, a righty, dug into the dirt beside the rubber and squinted in the sun, which hung over the upper deck. Kashmir faded out. The Chicago Cubs had a one-run lead over the Cincinnati Reds in game three of the NLCS, the Cubs representing the East and the Reds the West despite the map. The NL Central didn’t exist until ninety-four. The Reds in those days were known as the Big Red Machine for their dominance in the National League, and no one knew it better in that moment than Danny Orr.

He grips the ball across the seams and holds it behind his back. Three outs to win a trip to the World Series. Forty thousand people scream. Ken Griffey—Senior—steps into the left-handed batter’s box. Orr looks to his catcher for the signal. He flashes one finger, fastball, and sets up inside. Nothing over the middle of the plate. Of the seventeen inches across, Orr needs only the inch on either edge. He comes set. He works from the stretch, even with nobody on base, not uncommon for a closer. His left knee shoots up, and he pushes off the rubber. The replay would reveal his body to be elastic. The clean leather of a brand-new ball rolls off his fingertips. The pop of the glove. Strike one.

He’s used to the pressure. Ever since he was a kid, his parents expected perfection. In the classroom. On the ballfield. It became the norm. Other kids were jealous of him, and he was jealous of them. His identity to this day rests solely on his accomplishments. He catches the ball and returns to the rubber. The sun dips under the lip of the upper deck, still in his eyes. The screams melt into white noise. They want him to succeed, but how ruthlessly they will flip if he doesn’t. Failure is not an option. The catcher flashes two fingers, change-up, and sets up outside. Orr comes set. His left knee shoots up, and he pushes off the rubber. Griffey, looking fastball, swings an hour early, as though he were still in Ohio and forgot to account for the time change. Strike two.

Waste one. Not a slider in the dirt—that works better against a right-handed batter—but maybe a chase-me fastball. For the mid-seventies, Orr’s triple-digit fastball is anomalous. He credits training and genetics but neglects to mention the rage he channels right before he throws. The source varies. He kicks back the dirt beside the rubber and recalls fighting with his father, with his wife, with his two children. His father often says that pitchers aren’t really athletes. He’s amazed Danny can close, considering that he leaves everything open: the kitchen cabinets, the door to the bathroom, his marriage. In lieu of throwing his father’s marital shortcomings back in his face, Danny Orr fires a 103-mph fastball that rises above the red letters of Cincinnati stretched across Griffey’s chest, and he fouls it straight back to stay alive.

It’s not a matter of life and death, except in the eyes of Danny Orr. Win or what? his teammates chant when the coach calls his name. Or nothing, he answers like a soldier ready for war. Good luck telling him it’s just a game. Baseball ceased to be a game long ago. It paid for his multi-million-dollar Greystone on Fullerton, private school, and you can’t put a price on pride. He knows lightning doesn’t linger in a bottle, but he can pretend. In his prime, Danny thinks rarely of decline and often of himself. His talent, his potential, his proximity to the mountaintop. Every night before bed, he asks the bobblehead of himself on his bedside table if he'll be the greatest pitcher of all-time. His ceramic caricature stands dead center on what would be the mound, surrounded by those of Cubs' legends: Johnny Kling behind the plate, a clean-shaven classic with an upturned collar who won the World Series twice in the early nineteen-hundreds, a trophy that has eluded the organization since. Across the infield: Ron Santo, Ernie Banks, and Glenn Beckert, throwing to a second Ernie Banks at first. "Let's play two today," after all. Billy Williams in left, Hack Wilson in center, and Danny's good friend Andre Dawson in right. Every night, Danny asks that question, and every night, he looks at the grin of his ceramic likeness, flicks its chin, and mirrors its nod. Not only will he be the greatest pitcher of all-time—he'll bring the World Series back to Chicago. He grips the ball behind his back and looks for the sign. His catcher wants another fastball, this time on the outside corner, and he’s going to get it. Orr kicks and fires. Griffey slaps it to the opposite field, a single over the shortstop’s vaulting glove. One on, no out.

Joe Morgan at the plate. Morgan, a stocky second baseman, who made his major league debut over a decade ago with the Houston Colt .45s, flaps his back elbow in the left-handed batter’s box, his signature, and on the first pitch hits a bullet back at Orr. Danny Orr pinwheels his arms in a rapid rewind of his delivery. The ball spins toward the bridge of his nose in slow-motion. He can count the seams. In a flash, he’s back in his father’s den, where he stood at ten-years-old telling his old man, who smoked a cigar in his leather chair, an enthusiastic if disjointed story, which to this day has yet to conclude. Danny didn’t realize he was blocking the TV. The new color TV. Danny’s father, furious, whipped his ashtray at the boy, who caught it in his stomach and doubled over on his knees, coughing. His father turned up the volume. So it’s in true self-defense that Danny Orr snags the first out of the ninth. He shakes off the shock with a walk around the mound and mumbles to himself: "Pitchers are athletes."

Next up, in the heart of the order, is Reds’ catcher Johnny Bench. Sharp eyes, sharp jaw, and a cheekful of chewing tobacco beside his sideburn. He digs into the right-handed batter’s box, and Danny Orr spits in the dirt. The last time they faced each other was two months ago on the AstroTurf at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati, a round, cookie-cutter stadium that went up quickly and would come down in smoke in just thirty-seven seconds. Bench got the better of him then with a walk-off double in the gap, one of only two blown saves for Danny Orr all year, and he brought his anger home. What kind of a name is Bench anyway? he said to his wife in the kitchen. She was chopping veggies while he sat in a barstool at the granite peninsula, ruminating. She had been silent for half an hour, aside from the crunch of the veggies and the steady knock of the cutting board, but she finally let a thought escape.

"Seems like a perfectly fitting name to me," she said.

"Why?" he said, taken aback. "Because he belongs on the bench?"

"No," she said, still chopping. "Because I would sit on his face."

He stood from the barstool, grabbed its metal pole like a dumbbell, and threw it across the room. Shattered a lamp. The one with the stained glass from her family in Dublin. That was just the warning shot. She woke up with a dozen bruises and sent him to the store for more concealer.

His catcher calls another fastball and sets up outside. Bench, unlike Griffey, will try to pull the ball and potentially ground into a double play. Orr kicks and fires. A ball, just outside. He punches the inside of his glove, but he knows better than to argue. At least at work. Except that time in seventy-one, when manager Leo Durocher, Leo the Lip they call him, gave an impassioned speech in the locker room that devolved into calling Danny gay as a motivational tactic, and ended with Danny’s hands wrapped around the throat of his 65-year-old boss. Danny met him in his office later and persuaded him not to retire, let alone press charges.

A change-up this time, again outside. Bench, looking fastball, starts his swing prematurely and, in an effort to slow down, drags his bat weakly through the strikezone: 1–1. Orr goes back to the fastball, high and tight, but Bench wheels, ready for it, and hammers a fly ball down the left field line. Back, back, back, back, foul! A loud strike. Ahead in the count, the catcher calls a slider in the dirt. After that deep fly, Bench will be eager to get a hold of one. Orr kicks and fires. The way the slider curves, righty to righty, it appears at first to be on a silver platter. And if it hangs, it is. But the ball dives like a kamikaze, and the catcher slides like a hockey goalie blocking his five-hole.

Fuck. The ball flies past him and bounces off the brick backstop. The fans behind homeplate scream first. Leo the Lip points at second base. By the time the catcher corrals the ball, he doesn’t bother to throw, not worth the risk, only a pump fake to keep Griffey honest as he takes second standing up. With a 2-2 count and first base open, Danny Orr agrees to the fastball. Bench crowds the plate. Orr grits his teeth and throws at his head. The helmet cracks. Benches clear. The two catchers start jawing at each other, and the ump attempts to separate them. A mob of red and blue gathers around homeplate, pushing and pulling like the fluid contours of an amoeba. But nobody throws a punch. Not in the playoffs. A suspension or an injury at this stage of the game could cost your team a title. Umpires pull apart the amoeba, and red and blue return to their respective dugouts. Johnny Bench stumbles to first base, almost certainly concussed. The homeplate ump issues a warning to Danny Orr. Two on, one out.

Dan Driessen—next up—knocks the dirt from his cleats, digs into the left-handed batter’s box, and stares daggers at Danny Orr, who spits in the dirt. A double play would end it. Elicit a groundball. Orr nods sharply at the catcher’s sign: backdoor curveball. He heard his 16-year-old daughter sneak in the backdoor the other night. Two weeks after buying her a BMW, he took away the keys and made her cry. Daddy’s little girl is a double-edged sword: forever spoiled, forever infantilized. His wife didn’t criticize his approach for her own safety. His daughter yelled I hate you! and slammed the door and, through the door, yelled Go Reds! That little brat, he thought, though it actually meant more to him than her flippant hatred. His twelve-year-old son slept through it all. He’s still young enough to put all of his emotional stock in a game over which he has no control, still young enough to see his dad as a superhero.

Orr snaps his wrist, and the curveball bends from high and outside to the knees over the black. Driessen keeps his weight back and lets it pass. Strike one. Now its antithesis: a fastball high and tight. Orr kicks and fires. Driessen turns on it and his bat snaps in half. The barrel flies toward the shortstop, who runs to cover second. The ball, which caught the neck of the bat, rolls slowly through the grass toward the charging second baseman, who barehands it, pivots, and throws from his hip. The shortstop holds up his glove, a moving target as he approaches the bag. Johnny Bench, whose skull must still be rattling, plows toward second base and waits until he’s practically at the bag to slide, his back blocking the throw. He then further sacrifices his body, his left hand brushing the bag while his shins flip the shortstop like a turnstile. He doesn’t get the throw off. That would’ve been game.

With two on and two out, Tony Perez steps to the plate, the third consecutive future Hall-of-Famer. Orr could intentionally walk him and set up the force at home, but that would put a second person in scoring position. Worst case scenario, the Cubs will still get a chance to answer in the bottom of the ninth. The pitching coach emerges from the dugout for a visit to the mound. Orr takes a deep breath and lifts his mitt to his face to prevent lip reading. The pitching coach is curt and soon returns to the dugout.

Whatever he said didn’t help. Danny Orr, burning from the pressure and the rage, fires a fastball on the outside corner, and Perez lashes it down the right field line, smudging the chalk beyond first base and careening around the bullpen. One run is in. Andre Dawson throws a laser to the catcher, and they hold the runner at third. Tie game.

With first base open, Orr walks the bases loaded. George Foster, the All-Star left fielder, enters the left-handed batter’s box and digs in. Any kind of an out will do. The catcher signals fastball, but Orr shakes his head. Change-up? No again. Backdoor curveball then. Orr kicks and fires. Again, the ball starts high and outside, and again it bends, falling like a lead zeppelin. Orr has always liked that story: the way Robert Plant and company answered Keith Moon by owning his grave prediction. Orr feels a certain kinship. While everyone he knows expects perfection, every ten-cent journalist wants to prophesy his downfall. Foster's knees buckle. Strike one.

Fastball, low and inside. Foster gets a piece, and it bounces foul. Strike two. Ahead in the count, Orr floats a tantalizing change-up six inches outside, but Foster doesn't bite: 1–2. Back to the fastball. Orr kicks and fires and breaks his personal record—106-mph— a blur of red seams rising above the red letters of Cincinnati. Foster lurches and tries to check his swing. The catcher all but stands to reach the pitch then points with his mitt to the third-base ump for a verdict. The ump chops the air to signal safe: No swing.

The fans boo.

"Bullshit!" Danny yells from the mound.

"That was strike three!" Leo yells from the dugout.

The ump just stands there, pretending not to hear the forty-thousand-plus people, who, in that moment, wish he were dead.

Bases loaded, two out, 2-2 the count. Another fastball, this time on the inside corner. Orr nods. He thinks only of the present, but he feels all the compounded anger of the past. He spits in the dirt and grits his teeth. His last thought: Fuck everyone. He kicks and fires. Foster turns on it—the crack of the bat—and Orr feels a paper weight sink in his esophagus. A rocket over the second baseman, toward the big metal doors that interrupt the ivy. Andre Dawson leaps into the ivy with his arm outstretched. The ball lands just above the tip of his glove in the chain-link basket designed to save the bleacher bums, one of whom tosses the grand slam back into the outfield followed by a wave of trash: plastic pints, paper plates, everything. The grounds crew springs to action, patrolling the warning track with garbage bags, but in the eyes of Danny Orr, it has already piled up. Down four, the Cubs fail to score in the bottom of the ninth, and lose the next two games to squander a shot at the World Series.

—

Three weeks later, Orr wakes up on a Sunday morning in his multi-million-dollar Greystone and goes downstairs to make coffee. He opens the cabinet for a mug and pours himself a cup before the pot is done brewing. Each drip sizzles on the hot plate. He replaces the pot and sits in his usual barstool with the cup of steaming black coffee on the granite countertop. Halfway through his cup, Danny’s wife comes downstairs, yawning, her hair in a cute, messy bun.

"Good morning," she says.

He stares through the steam in silence.

"Thanks for making coffee," she says.

He sips from his cup, staring back at his reflection in the darkness.

"Remember to shut the cabinet next time," she says, selecting a mug and closing it.

Silently, he continues to stare, his face rippling in the black hole before him.

"Danny?" she says. "Did you hear me?"

He sets his mug calmly on the granite and looks up: "I heard you."

"Would you care to acknowledge that I spoke?"

"Not before I've had my coffee," he says, then mumbles: "those damn cabinets."

"You've had half your coffee," she says. "And we've talked about the cabinets."

"You talked about the cabinets."

"We agreed," she says, grabbing the pot and beginning to pour.

"To what exactly?"

"You never remember."

"I remember everything," he says, staring at the black hole. "I remember too much."

"So you're choosing not to close it?" she says, replacing the pot.

"Honey," he says, locking eyes. "I'm choosing to think about things that actually matter."

Her eyebrows shoot up: "This does matter."

"It matters to you."

"So it should matter to you too," she says, adding a dash of sugar to her coffee.

"By default?"

"Yes," she says, stirring in the sugar.

"Fuck no."

Again, the eyebrows: "But we agreed."

"Honey," he repeats with a dismissive sip. "Three weeks ago, I had a shot at the Series."

"There's always next—"

"How could I possibly care about kitchen cabinets?"

"You never listen to me," she says, opening the fridge, selecting the cream, and, with the slightest extra force, emphasizing how easy it is to shut the door afterward.

"I listen plenty," he says. "But it's a piece of oak."

"It's mahogany," she says, pouring the cream in a delicate spiral.

"It's fucking overpriced."

She stirs again and takes her first sip: "Maybe you're projecting."

He flares his nostrils, grits his teeth, and storms upstairs to their bedroom. He still calls it that, though they often sleep apart. He walks around the footboard to his side of the bed, the nightstand topped with a roster of bobbleheads. His visage grins back at him. He opens the drawer and removes his gun, a .38 Special. The barrel's as short as his fuse. He spins the cylinder, which glistens in the morning light. Then he closes the drawer—see, I did listen—and his roster of bobbleheads nods in agreement.

Photo of Rob Bailey

BIO: Rob Bailey has published fiction, nonfiction, and poetry in Glassworks Magazine, On The Premises (prize), The Under Review, The Write Launch, and Bridge Eight, among others. He earned his MFA from California College of the Arts. He lives in Chicago with his partner and their two pets.