The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop Read online

  Chancellor McCaffree opened the special ceremonies with anecdotes from Year XIX, his own rookie year as well as Brock's, and ex-Chancellor Woody Winthrop, a bit doddering but still a fine old gentleman, told how old Brock nearly kept him from winning the batting title that year, and then there were more introductions and more presentations and thundering ovations and cameramen scuttling over the scene like a troupe of hopped-up monkeys; and then out came the opposing managers, Barney Bancroft and Sycamore Flynn, and arms over each other's shoulders, they told what it meant to be a part of the Brock Rutherford Era, yes, they called it that, in front of everybody, the Brock Rutherford Era—spectacular! ecstatic! It was a day to forget your cynicism, boys, your sophistication, and shed a respectable tear or two! It was more than history, it was, it was: fulfillment!

  Over the loudspeakers came the announced line-ups. For the league-leading Knickerbockers:

  SS Scat Batkin (Rookie)

  2B McAllister Weeks

  1B Matt Garrison (Star)

  CF Biff Baldwin (Star) .

  RF WaltMcCamish (Star)

  LF Bran Maverly (Star)

  C Chauncey O'Shea (Rookie)

  3B Galen Musgraves

  P Jock Casey (Rookie)

  And for the hometown and second-place Pioneers (incredible ovations, almost impossible to hear the announcer):

  2B Toby Ramsey (Rookie)

  LF Grammercy Locke

  3B Hatrack Hines (Star)

  CF Witness York (Star)

  RF Stan Patterson (Star)

  C Royce Ingram (Star)

  SS Lance Wilder

  1B Goodman James

  P Damon Rutherford (Rookie)

  And then the game was on. Henry hastily jotted down the details of the pre-game ceremonies for later inclusion in the Book, then excitedly got the game under way. Frosty Young, Brock's old teammate and fellow rookie, and today the home-plate umpire, brought the ball, brand-spanking new and glowing white in the sunlight, over to Brock, and as all Pioneer Park—indeed the whole baseball world—roared its approval, Brock pitched the ball out to his son, waiting on the mound. Frosty jogged back behind the plate, adjusted his mask and guard, and squatting behind Pioneer catcher Royce Ingram, "PLAYBALL!" he cried.

  Bancroft, feeling edgy, too much spectacle maybe, decided to baby Damon today. If he got in any trouble, he'd pull him out. Lot of reasons. Too little rest. Too much pressure. And he didn't want him to get knocked around in front of the collective history-maddened eye that was on them, in front of his old man on his biggest day. Of course, he grinned, forcing himself to relax, to sit down, looking out there toward the kid on the mound: who said he was going to get in any trouble?

  Trouble! The first three batters to face Damon—Batkin, Weeks, and Garrison—all struck out! Oh my God! call out the cops! there's gonna be a riot! hold those fans back there! eight more innings, folks! hang on to your hats!

  Casey, caught up in the unbelievable fever of the moment, pitched like his old forebear himself, giving up a walk to Pioneer lead-off man Tobias Ramsey, then mowing down the next three. In the Knickerbocker dugout, fighting manager Sycamore Flynn clapped his players in off the field. "Now, let's hit this kid!" he barked, but he didn't know if he really meant it or not.

  "Oh, goddamn you guys!" he shouted, shouted the stands,

  the Pioneer players, at the Knicks. Don't bust it up! Take it easy!

  "Nothin' to it, Damon baby! Buncha pansies!"

  Sure, pansies! All Damon had to face in the second were three of the most formidable sluggers in all baseball: the Knicks' all-star outfield of Baldwin, McCamish, and Maverly. Bancroft sent a relief pitcher out to the bull pen—no, he didn't! Easy, boys! Easy, Barney! Here we go: throw! Hah! Well, anyway, Biff Baldwin didn't strike out: he popped up to catcher Ingram. Then McCamish lined out to left and Maverly sent a dribbler down the third-base line that Damon fielded himself—easy throw across the diamond to James: out! Henry, whooping insanely, danced around the kitchen, then— FSSST!—punched open another can of beer.

  Say, wait a minute! He looked it up: yes, Damon Rutherford now had a string of twenty-three consecutive scoreless innings, just sixteen short of the world record, a string of seventeen hitless ones, only six short of the record, and a fantastic run of fourteen perfect innings, two shy! Think of it! At least two new world records were riding on this ball game!

  "Okay, let's bring 'em in there, boys!"

  "A little pepper now!"

  "Come on, Stan baby, pop it outa the park!"

  "Send that Casey kid back to the minors!"

  "Let's dock Jock, Stan baby!"

  Again the first man up for the Pioneers, strapping Stanley Patterson, drew a base on balls. Casey was clearly nervous.

  "Hit him! Hit him! Hit him!" they shouted from the stands.

  The old Pioneers drank from hip flasks and clapped to get a rally going.

  "Knock Jock outa there!"

  "Kiss her clean, Royce baby!"

  "Let's chase Case to the showers!"

  "Wait him out! That ain't Fancy Dan, that's Gawky Jock!"

  But Ingram and Wilder looked at third strikes, and Goodman James grounded out, third to first. The dice roll for James was triple ones, which, under the right circumstances, was a triple play, and which, in any case, led now to the special Stress Chart.

  Oh boy! As if things weren't already wild enough! Referral to the Stress Chart always woke Henry up—now it made him sweat. Damon was pitching to rookie Knickerbocker catcher Chauncey O'Shea. Anything could happen. Two or three back-to-back home runs. A fight. Errors. Row with the umps. Impatient and reluctant all at the same time, urged on by the shouts from the fans and the players, Henry threw the dice: 1-1-1! three strike-outs at once! Or rather: three in a row! another perfect inning! the fifteenth straight! one away from the world record!

  The bleachers were in an uproar! It might be the greatest pitching duel of all time! The old-timer Pioneers and other players from the past were out of their seats. All but old Brock. He sat like a country gentleman, leather jacket open, grinning affably, hands folded between his knees, leaning slightly forward.

  "Rutherford! Rutherford! Rutherford!"

  Henry, though, had a strange tingle in his spine. His mouth had gone dry, and his heart, he knew, was racing. Damon's throw of triple ones, the second set of ones in a row, had brought the Extraordinary Occurrences Chart into play! This was the only chart Henry still hadn't memorized. For one thing, it didn't get used much, seldom more than once a season; for another, it was pretty complicated. Stars and Aces could lose their special ratings, unknowns could suddenly rise.

  Rain could end the game, a drunken fan could crack a player's skull with a pitched beer bottle, a brawl could break out, game* throwing scandals could be discovered, epidemics of flu or dysentery could ravage a line-up. But as he got out the chart to look at it, Henry could see only one line:

  1-1-1: Batter struck fatally by bean ball.

  And the first batter facing Jock Casey in the bottom of the third inning was the ninth man in the Pioneer line-up: Damon Rutherford!

  Henry was on his feet. He paced to the refrigerator, to the stove, to the sink, back to the table. He slapped the back of the chair with his hand. Incredible! He tried to swallow, couldn't. He went to the refrigerator, opened it. No more beer. Maybe Bancroft should pull the kid, repent of this crazy game, send in a pinch hitter. Don't be an idiot! No one on base and the boy's got another perfect game going. One inning from the world record.

  Of course, come on now, relax, there was only one chance in 216 that he'd throw a triple one. He could just as easily throw a triple six, for example: that was a line drive that struck and killed the pitcher. Was that what it was? Not just a duel of dynasties, but a real duel, a duel to the death between Jock Casey and Damon Rutherford? He saw the sun beating down, saw the sandy space of sixty feet and six inches between the rubber and home plate, saw these two great rookies facing each other, lean, expectant, saw the breathles
s masses, waiting for this awful rite to be played out.

  But no, of course not, they couldn't know. They could feel the rising tension, the terrific stress, the moment's ripeness, but that was all. Only Henry knew. The triple ones stared up at him from the tabletop. He looked away, tried to think of rain or flying beer bottles. Couldn't. No clouds in the sky. Delirious fans, but no malice there. Far from it.

  Of course, think now, it never happened before, why should it now? You're getting worked up about nothing. He could throw a 3-4-6, for example: triple and a steal of home plate. Win his own ball game.

  But, damn it, could he risk leaving him in there? No, somehow, he had to get him out of there! He sought for some excuse. Something Bancroft saw in the way the kid was exercising the bat as he moved toward home plate? A kind of slump or twitch in his pitching shoulder? Why not? look close, Barney! But who could he sacrifice in his place? Tuck Wilson? Rawlings? And listen! what if he pulled him and then—as had always been the case—Casey threw an ordinary number? The second no-hitter, which could smash nearly all the records in world history, would be out the window ... and all for nothing. He rinsed his cup out at the sink, poured himself a cup of cold thick coffee, saw how his hands were trembling. And what about Damon, getting jerked from the game like that, what would his attitude afterwards be? What would he make of it? There was more than one risk here.

  Henry returned to the table, leaned over his chair, studied the line-up. Some mistake... batter overlooked? He went over each throw. No, that was how it was: Casey pitching to Rutherford on the Extraordinary Occurrences Chart. There's nothing to be done about it, he said to himself. Play it out. He sat down, drank cold coffee, put the cup on the table beside him, reached for the dice.

  But then, suddenly, he remembered old Brock Rutherford up there in the stands, up there where all the bunting was, up there with all the old Pioneers from the Rutherford Era, and all those other great stars, all of them sitting up there, cheering up there, on this, Brock Rutherford Day at Pioneer Park, full of joy, aware of no peril, just the excitement, this great game, •wonderful boy, yes, shouting for young Damon to get a hit, and Henry leaped up and paced the floor again.

  "Let's get a rally going, Damon boy!"

  "Them ain't Knickerbockers, them's bloomers!"

  "Put some wood to it, sonny! Kill that bum!"

  And there was ragabag Jonathan Noon yelling for a hit, clapping his hands, on the move, never still, just like in the old days, "Come on, boy!" and everybody picking it up, Gabe Burdette howling like an Indian, Jake Bradley slapping his bald head—how small he looked outside his bar!—and that old clown Jaybird Wall pulling off his suit jacket and flapping it around and around like a flag: "Hot damn, son! Give her a ride!"

  Henry clapped his hands over his ears. He stood over his chair and stared down at his papers, at the scorecard, and at the three dice, gazing up at him, through him, as though with fearfully constricted pupils. Brock was eating a hot dog. He was joking with old Mose Stanford there beside him. Something about his own abysmal batting record. Then he finished the hot dog, took a drink of Coke, and leaned forward in all his ignorance to cheer his son on.

  Damon had stepped out of the batter's box. He was knocking the dirt out of his cleats with his bat. He glanced up at the stands, saw his dad there. Maybe he looked at the dugout, too —yes, he looked at the dugout, just in case, and Bancroft... did nothing, he smiled at the kid. And Damon looked away, stepped back into the box, worked his shoulders, set himself, fixed his steady gaze on Casey.

  Henry snapped up the three dice from the table and worked them around in his perspiring hand, but he couldn't sit.

  Couldn't swallow, couldn't think, could hardly focus on what he was doing. He wiped his face with his shirt sleeve. Get it over with, he said. Casey stepped up on the rubber, took O'Shea's signal, shook his head. Shook it again. Then he nodded.

  The dice felt sticky in his hands. He got a plastic cup out of the cupboard. A glass fell and broke. He put the dice in the cup, shook it. Cold hollow rattle. Casey stretched. The sun beat down, or maybe it was just the lamp—anyway it threw a withering glare off the papers on the table, made Henry squint his eyes, and he felt somehow he was up to something sinister. That's it, he chided himself, pile it on, you'll feel like a fool when nothing—he listened to the rattle, to the roar, held his breath, pitched the dice down on the table.

  He knew even before he looked: 1-1-1.

  Damon Rutherford was dead.

  No one moved. All stared at home plate. Damon lay there, on his back, gazing up at a sun he could no longer see.

  Impossible. He blinked, looked again.

  Brock sat. Head reared in shock and his face was drawn. He looked suddenly gray and old. He rose.

  He stepped back until he came up against the stove. But he couldn't get his eyes off the table. Now the others, Bancroft, the Pioneer regulars, Flynn, the old-timers, were moving, they were running toward the boy, pressing around, crying out. Do something!

  But do what? The dice were rolled.

  Casey watched—

  Henry was thinking, had to think, something, some way ... ? He was at the table again, leaning over the dice, trying to stop, trying to back up, force like the clashing of tremendous gears shrieked in his mind, the fans were all shrieking, they were crying and shouting, and he reached out—but no, he let them, he let it be, he had to, he stayed his hand, because the boy was dead, he was dead, Damon was dead. Damon Rutherford! "Oh no!"

  Barney Bancroft knelt by the boy, unable to believe, faced with those eyes that stared strangely past him, that lean beautiful wrist in one hand, wrist that threw the—crowding round, calling for doctors, yet knowing—"Stand back, please!" Right under the sun. Head cracked like an egg. Bancroft sought the communicative beat, found instead the ebb of warmth, the ebb of all warmth...

  Reporters moving now. Fennimore McCaffree, ash-gray and long-striding, darkly emerged from the masses, then into the Pioneers' ball-park office, to the phone.

  Bancroft let the wrist drop. It fell away. Barney stood, turned to Gabe Burdette and Willie O'Leary. He nodded up at Brock, stricken in the stands. They understood, went up there to be with him.

  The rookie catcher Chauncey O'Shea sat behind the body, mouth agape, eyes damp, and had he called . .. ? But Casey had shaken him off. Twice.

  Henry caught his breath, sank down into the chair, faced with the strange insistence of those staring ones.

  Brock standing paralyzed. Alone. Knowing, but not knowing, his fists balled in silent appeal. Staring down at his son, where, from a crouch, an old friend's face looked up, told him: no.

  "That's right," said McCaffree. "Funeral tomorrow." His long pale hand curved corroboratively out of black sleeve, white cuff, tips of fingers poised on the black phone's white dial. "We'll be there," the voice on the other end said softly.

  Old Sycamore Flynn, manager of the Knicks, at home plate,

  stood up. Glancing toward the stands, his eyes met Brock's. Was Brock looking at him, singling him out? Flynn looked away. He saw Burdette and O'Leary moving off. As though a shrinking. Henry felt it. O'Shea in tears there, and nobody coming near, but Casey—two times! And now quietly out there on the mound, he—

  Brock saw them, knew why they had come. Neither Gabe nor Willie said anything. They stood by him, but gave him leave by their silence to do it his own way. Their coming helped him move at last. He took a breath, giving what life he could to his suddenly aged and borne-down body, and started forward toward the field. The two friends trailed. The sea of bodies parted and they passed through.

  Henry sat again, chewing his fist, trying to keep the tears back. Couldn't stop them—Royce Ingram broke free, went for the mound, went for Casey. Yes! Casey hadn't moved, still stood by the mound, oddly aloof. Bancroft wanted to stop Ingram, but lacked the voice for it, crying himself and Flynn didn't know what to do either, it seemed out of their hands. It was clear now, yes, the rivalry, the secret grudge being nursed, the
signals shaken off, Casey had wanted it, and now Ramsey and Hines were following. The Knicks stood back. Under the sun. Pupils constricted. No, wait! But then York and Patterson stepped out. Casey watched them come. He didn't seem to care. He watched them converge. Locke. Wilson. James. Wilder. "Kill him!" they cried, they all cried, and now the fans—but a hesitation ... a moment... Bancroft stopped them, yes, no, he—Casey smiled! Oh the fool! Ingram hit him first. Smashed his bony face. Yes, it was a bony face with cavernous eyes and fat arrogant lips, mad, he was mad! Mad Casey staggered back. Hines threw one to the gut, doubling the killer forward. Patterson split his mouth with a crushing right, knocked him to the dirt. Henry wept, shredding paper, sobs racking him like insane laughter. James and Ramsey jumped on him, dragged the dirty bastard to his feet. Witness York—no! no! they didn't hit him—

  'No!"