The Legend of Mickey Tussler by Frank Nappi

Both were exceptional outfielders each could run like a deer and could hit every bag with a tracer from anywhere in the outfield. Milwaukee was going to be just a brief stop en route to the big show in Boston. They were both lionized by everyone in the Braves organization as the finest prospects they had. He and another young stud, Chip “Hollywood” McNally, had begun their careers in the American Association the same year. He recalled happily all of the attention he received those first few months. His life had tumbled well short of the aspirations he’d had during his playing days when he was touted as the best left-handed hitter since Ty Cobb. The cool air and Johnny Mercer’s “Sweet Georgia Brown” got his left foot tapping. He rolled down the window and hit the knob on the radio. Many times during the drive he’d felt like a rat, negotiating a series of narrow corridors, searching for the elusive prize at the end. The rows of fruit trees were endless and hypnotic. Murph’s eyelids were heavy and struggled beneath the weight of sleeplessness. Warren Dennison, the owner of the minor-league-affiliate Brewers, didn’t give a rat’s ass about him. Who was he kidding? Murph was inclined to consider the sentiment not so much a compliment but more as bullshit designed to cajole him into accepting another scouting trip that nobody else wanted. And that gratuitous line about him being a good man. It may have been true, all that Dennison had said, but the owner’s tone irked him. Murph’s stomach burned as he recalled the conversation. Feels like the whole world’s against us.” But everyone wants to be a soldier all of a sudden. We’ve lost our best prospects the last few years to Uncle Sam. “Do yourself a favor and get your ass out there and find something to help that sorry lot you call a team or I’ll be scouting for managers.” He paused deliberately for effect.

“I need you on this one, Murph,” the club’s owner explained. But there he was, still doing a job more commonly associated with guys half his age. Twenty-six years with the Braves organization he had played for them, coached, and was now in his third year as manager of their farm affiliate in Milwaukee. He rubbed his eyes with one hand-they burned from the firebrick sun that had slipped over the rolling hills of clover up ahead-and drummed the top of the steering wheel impatiently with his fingers on the other.

He had been driving all night, with nothing for company but endless rows of cornstalks, a diamond-dotted sky, and a brown paper bag whose torn front exposed the worn words Southern Comfort. The dirt beneath the wheels of Arthur Murphy’s car rose and swirled like the breath of angry giants, lingering in the heavy morning air even after his blue-and-white Plymouth Road King had disappeared around the bend like an apparition.

The Legend of Mickey Tussler by Frank Nappi