Work Text:
May - September, 2010
Looks more like a linebacker than a baseball player, is what Lincecum thinks when Buster Posey, the Second Coming, gets called up from Fresno. The guy’s thighs are the size of an elephant’s. His ass is huge and square, and he has a neck-beard he doesn’t bother to shave. He has the pink cheeks and blue eyes of a boy scout; chews bubble gum; is married to a regulation-blonde Southern girl he’s been dating since high school. There are rumors, late-night drunken speculation, that he’s been juicing.
Lincecum remembers Posey vaguely from his time in Triple A, where Posey had a reputation for being a straight-edger and Lincecum remembers thinking someone needed to tie him down and pour a few down his throat. But that was awhile ago. Tim only pitched a few games in Fresno before getting called up, and since then it’s been a blur of awards and accolades; he hasn’t looked back. The pressure was pretty intense at first, but he’s gotten used to being called “The Franchise." He likes his face on the banners at Third and King.
So Lincecum participates dutifully in the jokes and ass-slapping when Posey is introduced to the team in a cloud of dizzying hype. But he makes sure he’s standing in the back, next to the door, away from the cameras. He catches Barry Zito in an eye-roll and they share a smile. Yeah. Linebacker, Lincecum thinks, or Jim Harvey, the high-school wrestler whose idea of fun was smashing Lincecum’s head into his gym locker. A cross between those two and the picture of Jesus in his Catholic-school catechism book. Buster Fucking Posey. The name itself is ridiculous.
//
That spring, Posey’s dogged by media everywhere he goes and he gets a lot of play at first base. Lincecum, who knows how players come and go, does his best to ignore Posey till midsummer, when the worst happens: the Giants trade Bengie Molina to Texas for a used-up reliever and a player to be named later. So yeah, Bengie’s not what he once was, he’s fat and slow and washed up, but Lincecum can’t believe they traded him. Lincecum cuts out early from Molina’s goodbye party when everyone’s still getting fucked up. He barely made it through watching Bengie clean out his locker earlier that day and he doesn’t trust himself. Bengie’s only been catching him two years but he still seems like the best parts of an older brother.
Lincecum keeps his head down, opens the second half of the season with a complete-game shutout of the Mets. But by August he’s falling apart, without his stuff for the first time in his young life. By the end of the month he’s zero and five. He feels lost out there on the mound. He can’t find his release point, his fastball is belt-high and wide, his breaking stuff isn’t.
And this is the problem with being The Franchise. All month long the Bay Area buzzes. Not just the sportswriters. Old ladies, venture capitalists, hairdressers, the guys selling garlic fries at the park - everyone’s agonizing over Lincecum’s slump. He stops taking his father’s calls and, after night games, he goes straight home and turns on the TV but doesn’t watch it. The whole team starts to drag. In frustration, Bochy calls in the rotation minus Cain. For emphasis, the skipper takes a baseball bat to one of the plasma TVs in the training room.
That August, Tim stops listening to the radio or watching SportsCenter, where he’s the story in a way he doesn’t want to be.
The problem is - Lincecum knows it but he can’t say it - the problem is Posey. Tim just fucking hates being caught by Captain America. The guy’s calling his games, critiquing his pitches, telling him how he should hit batters. Out on the mound, every time Lincecum waits for sign, he sees that hand flashing between those thunder thighs, and he can’t breathe. It’s bad memories, he knows: fear. And other things, things he doesn’t really want to think about.
In the clubhouse, he’s glad Buster doesn’t dress near him. In the dugout, he hangs with the starters, and he takes the bulkhead row on the plane. In the showers, where it’s hardest to avoid anyone, he keeps his eyes level and his mind elsewhere.
It’s not just that Posey’s now calling Lincecum’s games. In the month or so he’s been up from Fresno, the rookie’s already figured out how to hit major-league pitchers and he’s batting in all kinds of runs. So when Tim watches Buster peel off a two-run homer and trot the bases, he’s careful to remind himself, as the crowd is screaming: the guy’s slow, he’s muscle-bound, look at him pant, backwoods Georgia donkey-fucker.
Lincecum considers himself immune to the country pokiness of baseball. He’s no farm boy; he’s from the land of rain and grunge and airplane parts. He’s grown his hair long as a fuck-you to the doubters and good ole boys. He likes his image as a skateboarder, a stoner, a punk.
//
There’s not much privacy in baseball. So some days, instead of spending the whole game at the lip of the dugout with the other pitchers, Lincecum squats on the ledge above the bench, between the gum and the seeds. He has a good view from there, even with the surface of the field, where no one else can join him because no one else has his insane flexibility. It’s how he signals his teammates that he needs to be alone.
One day, Buster struts right up to Tim like he’s not even there and starts stripping off his catching gear, tossing it onto the bench, because he’s in the hole, batting fifth. He leans forward over the bench so they’re almost close enough to touch, his hands working at the buckles and velcro. It’s Cleveland, mid-August, sticky hot. Buster’s hair is wet with sweat and Lincecum can feel, can smell, the heat coming off him. When, abruptly, Buster looks up and meets his eyes, Tim’s surprised. Buster, who never has much to say, smiles at him, at first a little shyly, and then as though he’s up to something.
Lincecum isn’t about to let Buster get away with this. Keeping his expression blank, he spits a volley of sunflower hulls out the side of his mouth, pegging Buster on the chest. The rookie swears under his breath and moves off, shoving on his batting helmet.
But as he grabs his bat and starts up the stairs, Posey looks back over his shoulder and finds Tim’s eyes locked on his.
//
When the stink finally lifts in September, Lincecum isn’t sure why. He’s been working out more, running stadium stairs and lifting weights. But there’s more to it than that. He’s getting used to Buster. Taking sign from that hand between those legs has gotten easier. He’s starting to enjoy the rhythm of the ball thwacking into Buster’s glove, the way the guy lurks there behind the batter, popping up to snag pitches on those huge thighs like some kind of fucking Transformer.
- What the fuck - says Sergio Romo, giving him a friendly shove, as they’re dressing after the game, Lincecum’s first win since July.
- You smokin, man? Whassup with that shit? Romo has a huge shit-eating grin on his face. The fact that Romo usually has a shit-eating grin on his face doesn’t make it any less welcome. It’s not just a win. Tim’s filthy stuff is back.
- Can’t tell ya why, says Tim - it’s just there.
-The fuck it is, says Wilson, from the corner next to Cy’s dog bed.
He grabs Lincecum’s head in his tattooed arm and gives him a noogie. Lincecum knows better than to struggle, and Wilson releases him after only a perfunctory swipe of the knuckles.
It’s OK; in fact, it feels good. Everyone’s been avoiding him during his slump, and in the last three weeks he’s barely been touched.
//
When the Giants finally beat Texas, it’s November first. Tim’s spent the final agonizing inning of Game 5 heads-together with Barry Zito on the dugout lip. When the last batter's struck out and Buster’s ripped off his mask, the entire dugout vaults over the rail and hurtles onto the field.
On the mound, eighteen inches above the field, Buster lifts Brian Wilson into the air as though the big closer were a tiny cheerleader. Tim, watching, feels a stab - envy? - but it vanishes in the all the screaming, the jostling, the too-hard hugs. At one point Tim's teammates hoist him onto their shoulders, and he spikes the air with his index finger, his long hair flying, lights flashing, shutters clicking.
Buster’s not one of Tim’ lifters; he’s over on the edge of the crowd, talking to the press. Lincecum keeps Buster in the corner of his eye until they’re nearly ready to go into the clubhouse. Their eyes meet, and Buster stands waiting, clutching his mask and pads. When Tim slams into him, Buster lifts him clear. Tim has to fight the urge to put his legs around him.