The fifty-seven thousand seats are empty. Sounds echo softly around the place-the muffled engine of a small mower, the laughter of a groundskeeper, the distant hissing of a spray washer cleaning seats in the upper deck, the 4 train rumbling by just beyond the right-field wall, the pecking of a hammer near the press box. For those who maintain the house that Ruth built, the off days are cherished, wedged between the nostalgia of Yankee greatness and the promise of more to come.
Some twenty-five years after he was expected to arrive, Ron Williamson stepped up from the bench in the Yankee dugout and onto the brown crushed-shell warning track that borders the field. He paused to take in the enormity of the stadium, to soak in the atmosphere of baseball's holiest shrine. It was a brilliantly blue clear spring day. The air was light, the sun was high, the grass so flat and green it could have been a fine carpet. The sun warmed his pale skin. The smell of freshly cut grass reminded him of other fields, other games, old dreams.
He was wearing a Yankee cap, a souvenir from the front office, and because he was a celebrity at the moment, in New York for a segment on Good Morning America with Diane Sawyer, he was wearing his only sport coat, the navy blazer Annette had hurriedly purchased two weeks earlier, and his only tie and pair of slacks. The shoes had changed, though. He'd lost interest in clothes. Though he'd once worked in a haberdashery and offered ready opinions about what others wore, he didn't care now. Twelve years of prison garb does that to you.
Under the cap was a bowl-cut mess of bright gray hair, thick and disheveled. Ron was now forty-six but looked much older. He adjusted the cap, then stepped onto the grass. He was six feet tall, and though his body showed the damage of twenty years of abuse and neglect, there were still hints of the great athlete. He strolled across foul territory, stepped over the dirt base path, and headed for the mound, where he stood for a moment and gazed up at the endless rows of bright blue seats. He gently put his foot on the rubber, then shook his head. Don Larsen had pitched the perfect game from this exact spot. Whitey Ford, one of his idols, had owned this mound. He looked over his left shoulder, out to right field, where the wall seemed too close, where Roger Maris had placed so many fly balls just far enough to clear the fence. And far away in deep center, beyond the wall he could see the monuments of the greatest Yankees.
Mickey was out there.
Mark Barrett stood at home plate, also wearing a Yankee cap, and wondered what his client was thinking. Release a man from prison, where he'd spent twelve years for nothing, with no apologies because no one has the guts to admit wrongdoing, no farewells, just get the hell out of here and please go as quietly as possible. No compensation, counseling, letter from the governor or any other official; no citation for public service. Two weeks later he's in the midst of a media storm, and everybody wants a piece of him.
Remarkably, Ron was holding no grudges. He and Dennis were too busy soaking up the richness of their emancipation. The grudges would come later, long after the media went away.
Barry Scheck was near the dugout, watching Ron and chatting with the others. A die-hard Yankee fan, he had made the phone calls that set up the special visit to the stadium. He was their host in New York for a few days.
Photos were taken, a camera crew filmed Ron on the mound, then the little tour continued along the first-base line, drifting slowly as their guide rambled on about this Yankee and that one. Ron knew many of the stats and stories. No baseball had ever been hit completely out of Yankee Stadium, the guide was saying, but Mantle got close. He bounced one off the facade in right center, right up there, he said as he pointed to the spot, about 535 feet from home plate. "But the one in Washington was further," Ron said. "It was 565 feet. Pitcher was Chuck Stobbs." The guide was impressed.
A few steps behind Ron was Annette, following along, as always, sweating the details, making the tough decisions, cleaning up. She was not a baseball fan, and at that moment her primary concern was keeping her brother sober. He was sore at her because she had not allowed him to get drunk the night before.
Their group included Dennis, Greg Wilhoit, and Tim Durham. All four exonerees had appeared on Good Morning America. ABC was covering the expenses for the trip. Jim
Dwyer was there from the New York Daily News.
They stopped in center field, on the warning track. On the other side was Monument Park, with large busts of Ruth and Gehrig, Mantle and DiMaggio, and dozens of smaller plaques of other great Yankees. Before renovation, this little corner of near-sacred ground had actually been in fair territory, the guide was saying. A gate opened and they walked through the fence, onto a brick patio, and for a moment it was easy to forget they were in a baseball stadium.
Ron stepped close to the bust of Mantle and read his short biography. He could still quote the career stats he had memorized as a kid.
Ron's last year as a Yankee had been 1977, at Fort Lauderdale, Class A, about as far away from Monument Park as a serious ballplayer could get. Annette had some old photos of him in a Yankee uniform, a real one. In fact, it had once been worn by a real Yankee in this very ballpark. The big club simply handed them down, and as the old uniforms made their sad little trek down the minor-league ladder, they collected the battle scars of life in the outposts. Every pair of pants had been stitched in the knees and rear end. Every elastic waistband had been downsized, enlarged, smudged with markers on the inside so the trainers could keep them straight. Every jersey was stained with grass and sweat.
1997, Fort Lauderdale Yankees.
Ron made fourteen appearances, pitched thirty-three innings, won two, lost four, and got knocked around enough so that the Yankees had no trouble cutting him when the season was mercifully over.
The tour moved on. Ron paused for a second to sneer at the plaque of Reggie Jackson. The guide was talking about the shifting dimensions of the stadium, how it was bigger when Ruth played, smaller for Maris and Mantle. The film crew tagged along, recording scenes that would never survive editing.
It was amusing, Annette thought, all this attention. As a kid and a teenager, Ronnie had craved the spotlight, demanded it, and now forty years later cameras were recording every move.
Enjoy the moment, she kept telling herself. A month earlier he'd been locked up in a mental hospital, and they were not sure he would ever get out.
They slowly made their way back to the Yankee dugout and killed some time there. As Ron absorbed the magic of the place for a few final minutes, he said to Mark Barrett, "I just got a taste of how much fun they were having up here."
Mark nodded but could think of nothing to say.
"All I ever wanted to do was play baseball," Ron said. "It's the only fun I've ever had." He paused and looked around, then said, "You know, this all sort of washes over you after a while. What I really want is a cold beer."
The drinking began in New York.
From Yankee Stadium, the victory lap stretched to Disney World, where a German television company paid for three nights of fun for the entire entourage. All Ron and Dennis had to do was tell their story, and the Germans, with typical European fascination with the death penalty, recorded every detail.
Ron's favorite part of Disney World was Epcot, at the German village, where he found Bavarian beer and knocked back one stein after another.
They flew to Los Angeles for a live appearance on the Leeza show. Shortly before airtime, Ron sneaked away and drained a pint of vodka. Without most of his teeth, his words were not crisp to begin with, and no one noticed his slightly thick tongue.