The Best of Bova

by Ben Bova

  Oh, we won the first two games okay. But it wasn’t easy.

  And then the Commies used their first secret weapon on us. Women. It was like our hotel was all of a sudden invaded by them. Tall show-girl types, short little señoritas, redheads, blondes, dark flashing eyes and luscious lips that smiled and laughed. And boobs. Never saw so many bouncing, jiggling, low-cut bosoms in my life.

  What could we do? Our third baseman hurt his back swinging by his knees from the chandelier in his room with a broad in one arm and a bottle of champagne in the other. Two of our best pitchers were so hung over that they couldn’t see their catchers the next morning. And our center fielder, who usually batted cleanup, was found under his bed in a coma that lasted three days. But there was a big smile on his face the whole time.

  By the time the Cubans had pulled ahead, three games to two, Nixon called a team meeting and put it to us but good.

  “This has got to stop,” he said, pacing back and forth across the locker room, hands locked behind his stooped back, jowls quivering with anger.

  “These women are trained Communist agents,” he warned us. “I’ve been getting intelligence reports from Washington. Castro has no intentions of establishing friendly relations with us . . .”

  Somebody snickered at the words friendly relations, but quickly choked it off as Nixon whirled around, searching for the culprit like a schoolteacher dealing with a bunch of unruly kids.

  “This isn’t funny! If the Commies win this series, they’ll go all through Latin America crowing about how weak the United States is. We’ll lose the whole Caribbean, Central America, the Panama Canal —everything!”

  We promised to behave ourselves. Hell, he was worried about Latin America, but most of us had more important problems. I could just imagine my next salary negotiation: “Why, you couldn’t even beat a bunch of third-rate Cubans,” the general manager would tell my agent.

  More than that, I could see my father’s face. He had spent many years teaching me how to play baseball. He had always told me that I could be a big leaguer. And he had always asked nothing more of me than that I gave my best out on the field. I wouldn’t be able to face him, knowing that we had lost to Castro because we had screwed around.

  We went out there that afternoon and tore them apart, 11—2. That tied the series. The seventh and final game would decide it all.

  That’s when they brought out their second secret weapon: Raoul the Robot, the mechanical monster, the Czechoslovak chucker, the machine that threw supersonic fastballs.

  I thought Nixon would have apoplexy when the little robot rolled itself up to the pitcher’s mound to start the game. It looked sort of like a water cooler, a squat metal cylinder with a glass dome on top. It had two “arms:” curved metal chutes that wound around and around several times and then fired the ball at you. Fast. Very fast.

  Nixon went screaming out onto the field before our leadoff batter got to the plate. Castro ambled out, grinning and puffing his cigar. The huge crowd—the Havana stadium was absolutely jammed—gave him the kind of roar that American fans reserve for pitchers who throw no-hitters in the seventh game of the World Series. He turned, doffed his cap just like any big leaguer would, and then joined the argument raging at the mound.

  Nixon did us proud. He jumped up and down. He threw his cap on the dirt and kicked it. He turned red in the face. He raged and shouted at the umpires —two of them from the States, two from Cuba.

  The crowd loved it. They started shouting “Ole!” every time he kicked up some dirt.

  The umpires went through the rule book. There’s no rule that says all the players have to be human beings. So Raoul the Robot stayed on the mound.

  He struck out the side in the first inning. Leading off the second inning, our cleanup hitter, well rested after his three-day coma, managed to pop a fly to center field. But the next two guys struck out.

  And so it went. Raoul had three basic pitches: fast, faster, and fastest. No curve, no slider, no change-up. His fastballs were pretty straight, too. Not much of a hop or dip to them. They just blazed past you before you could get your bat around. And he could throw either right-handed or left-handed, depending on the batter.

  He couldn’t catch the ball at all. After each pitch the catcher would toss the ball to the shortstop, who would come over to the mound and stick the ball in a round opening at the top of the robot’s glassed-in head. Then the machine would be ready to wind up and throw.

  “Hit him in the head,” Nixon advised us. “Break that glass top and knock him the hell out of there.”

  Easy to say. Through the first four innings we got exactly one man on base, a walk. Their catcher adjusted the little gizmo he had clipped to his chest protector, and the mechanical monster started throwing strikes again.

  By the time the ninth inning came around, we had collected two hits, both of them bloop pop-ups that just happened to fall in between fielders. Raoul had struck out fourteen. Nixon was glaring pure hatred across the infield. Castro was laughing and passing out cigars in the Cubans’ dugout.

  Our own pitcher had done almost as well as the robot. But an error by our substitute third baseman, a sacrifice fly, and a squeeze bunt had given the Cubans a 1-0 lead. That one run looked as big as a million.

  Our shortstop led off the ninth inning and managed to get his bat on the ball. A grounder. He was out by half a step. The next guy popped up—not bad after three strikeouts.

  I breathed a sigh of relief. The next man up, Harry Bates, would end the game, and that would be that. I was next after him, and I sure didn’t want to be the guy who made the last out. I went out to the on-deck circle, kneeled on one knee, and watched the final moment of the game.

  “Get it over with, Harry,” I said inside my head.

  “Don’t put me on the spot.” I was kind of ashamed of myself for feeling that way, but that’s how I felt.

  Raoul cranked his metal slingshot arm once, twice, and then fired the ball. It blurred past the batter. Strike one. The crowd roared. “Ole!” The catcher flipped the ball to the shortstop, who trotted over to the mound and popped the ball into the robot’s slot like a guy putting money into a video game.

  The curved metal arm cranked again. The ball came whizzing to the plate. Strike two. “Ole!” Louder this time. Castro leaned back on the dugout bench and clasped his hands behind his head. His grin was as wide as a superhighway.

  But on the third pitch Harry managed to get his bat around and cracked a solid single, over their shortstop’s head. The first real hit of the day for us.

  The crowd went absolutely silent.

  Castro looked up and down his bench, then made a big shrug. He wasn’t worried.

  I was. It was my turn at bat. All I had to show for three previous trips to the plate was a strikeout and two pop flies.

  Automatically, I looked down to our third-base coach. He was staring into the dugout. Nixon scratched his nose, tugged at the bill of his cap, and ran a hand across the letters on the front of his shirt. The coach’s eyes goggled. But he scratched his nose, tugged at his cap, and ran his hand across the letters.

  Hit and run.

  Damn! I’m supposed to poke the first pitch into right field while Harry breaks for second as soon as the pitcher starts his—its—delivery. Terrific strategy, when the chances are the damned ball will be in the catcher’s mitt before I can get the bat off my shoulder. Nixon’s trying to be a genius. Well, at least when they throw Harry out at second, the game’ll be over and I won’t have to make the final out.

  The mechanical monster starts its windup, Harry breaks from first, and wham! the ball’s past me. I wave my bat kind of feebly, just to make the catcher’s job a little bit tougher.

  But his throw is late. Raoul’s windup took so much time that Harry made it to second easy.

  I look down to the third-base coach again.

  Same sign. Hit and run. Sweet Jesus! Now he wants Harry to head for third. I grit my teeth and pound the bat on the pla
te. Stealing second is a lot easier than stealing third.

  Raoul swings his mechanical arm around, Harry breaks for third, and the ball comes whizzing at me. I swing at it but it’s already in the catcher’s mitt and he’s throwing to third. Harry dives in headfirst and the umpire calls him safe. By a fingernail.

  The crowd is muttering now, rumbling like a dark thundercloud. The tying run’s on third.

  And I’ve got two strikes on me.

  Nixon slumps deeper on the bench in the dugout, his face lost in shadow. Both Harry and our third-base coach are staring in at him. He twitches and fidgets. The coach turns to me and rubs his jaw.

  Hit away. I’m on my own.

  No, my whole life didn’t flash before my eyes, but it might as well have. Old Raoul out there on the mound hadn’t thrown anything but strikes since the fourth inning. One more strike and I’m out and the game’s over and we’ve lost. The only time I got any wood on the ball I produced a feeble pop fly. There was only one thing I could think of that had any chance.

  You can throw, you goddamned Commie tin can, I said silently to the robot. But can you field?

  Raoul cranked up his metal arm again, and I squared away and slid my hand halfway up the bat. Out of the corners of my eyes I could see the Cuban infielders suddenly reacting to the idea that I was going to bunt. The first and third basemen started rushing in toward me. But too late. The pitch was already on its way.

  Harry saw it, too, and started galloping for home.

  I just stuck my bat in front of the ball, holding it limply to deaden the impact. I had always been a good bunter, and this one had to be perfect.

  It damned near was. I nudged the ball right back toward the mound. It trickled along the grass as I lit out for first, thinking, “Let’s see you handle that, Raoul.”

  Sonofabitch if the mechanical monster didn’t roll itself down off the mound and scoop up the ball as neatly as a vacuum cleaner picking up a fuzzball. I was less than halfway to first and I knew that I had goofed. I was dead meat.

  Raoul the Robot sucked up the ball, spun itself around to face first base, and fired the baseball like a bullet to the guy covering the bag. It got there ten strides ahead of me, tore the glove off the fielder’s hand, and kept on going deep into right field, past the foul line.

  My heart bounced from my throat to my stomach and then back again. Raoul had only three pitches: fast, faster, and fastest. The poor sucker covering first base had never been shot at so hard. He never had a chance to hold on to the ball.

  Harry scored, of course, and I must have broken the world record for going from first to third. I slid into the bag in a storm of dust and dirt, an eyelash ahead of the throw.

  The game was tied. The winning run—me!—was on third base, ninety feet away from home.

  And the stadium was dead quiet again. Castro came out to the mound and they didn’t even applaud him. The catcher and the whole infield clustered around him and the robot. Castro, taller than all his players, turned and pointed at somebody in the dugout.

  “He’s bringin’ in a relief pitcher!” our third-base coach said.

  No such luck. A stumpy little guy who was built kind of like the robot himself, thick and solid, like a fireplug, came trudging out of the dugout with something like a tool kit in one hand. He was wearing a mechanic’s coveralls, not a baseball uniform.

  They tinkered with Raoul for about ten minutes, while the crowd got restless and Nixon shambled out of our dugout to tell the umpires that the Cubans should be penalized for delaying the game.

  “This ain’t football, Mr. President,” said the chief umpire.

  Nixon grumbled and mumbled and went back inside the dugout.

  Finally, the repair job at the mound was finished. The infielders dispersed and the repairman trotted off the field. Castro stayed at the mound while Raoul made a few practice pitches.

  Kee-rist! Now he didn’t wind up at all. He just swung the arm around once and fired the ball to the catcher. Faster than ever.

  And our batter, Pedro Valencia, had struck out three straight times. Never even managed to tick the ball foul. Not once. Nine pitches, nine strikes, three strikeouts.

  I looked at the coach, a couple of feet away from me. No sign. No strategy,. I was on my own.

  Pedro stepped into the batter’s box. Raoul stood up on the mound. His mechanical arm swung around and something that looked like an aspirin tablet whizzed into the catcher’s mitt. “Ole!” Strike one.

  I took a good-sized lead off third base. Home plate was only a dozen strides away. The shortstop took the catcher’s toss and popped the ball into the robot’s slot.

  If I stole home, we would win. If I got thrown out, we would lose for sure. Raoul could keep pitching like that all day, all night, all week. Sooner or later we’d tire out and they’d beat us. We’d never get another runner to third base. It was up to me. Now.

  I didn’t wait for the damned robot to start his pitch. He had the ball, he was on the mound, nobody had called time out. I broke for the plate.

  Everything seemed to happen in slow motion. I could see the surprised expression on Pedro’s face. But he was a pro; he hung in there and swung at the pitch. Missed it. The catcher had the ball in his mitt and I was still three strides up the line. I started a slide away from him, toward the pitcher’s side of the plate. He lunged at me, the ball in his bare hand.

  I felt him tag my leg. And I heard the umpire yell, “Out . . . no, safe!”

  I was sitting on the ground. The catcher was on top of me, grabbing for the ball as it rolled away from us both. He had dropped it.

  Before I could recover from the shock, he whispered from behind his mask, “You ween. Now we have to play another series. In the States, no?”

  I spit dust from my mouth. He got to his feet. “See you in Peetsborgh, no?”

  He had dropped the damned ball on purpose. He wanted to come to the States and play for my team, the Pirates.

  By now the whole USA team was grabbing me and hiking me up on their shoulders. Nixon was already riding along, his arms upraised in his old familiar victory gesture. The fans were giving us a grudging round of applause. We had won—even if it took a deliberate error by a would-be defector.

  In the locker room, news correspondents from all the Latin American nations descended on us. Fortunately, my Spanish was up to the task. They crowded around me, and I told them what it was like to live in Miami and get the chance to play big-league baseball. I told them about my father, and how he had fled from Cuba with nothing but his wife and infant son—me—twenty-three years ago. I knew we had won on a fluke, but I still felt damned good about winning.

  Finally the reporters and photographers were cleared out of the locker room, and Nixon stood on one of the benches, a telegram in his hand, tears in his eyes.

  “Men,” he said, “I have good news and bad news.”

  We clustered around him.

  “The good news is that the President of the United States,” his voice quavered a little, “has invited all of us to the White House. You’re all going to receive medals from the President himself.”

  Smiles all around.

  “And now the bad news,” he went on. “The President has agreed to a series against a Japanese team —the Mitsubishi Marvels. They’re all robots. Each and every one of them.”

  RE-ENTRY SHOCK

  Normally I write my stories from a male point of view. My protagonists are almost always men. Caucasian men, at that. Chet Kinsman. Keith Stoner, of the Voyagers novels. Jamie Waterman, the protagonist of Mars.

  I have written about male characters who are black or Asian; Jamie Waterman is half-Navaho, although his Navaho heritage is pretty deeply submerged beneath his white Western upbringing. I have written about women characters, some of them quite strong enough to be the protagonists of their stories.

  But I’ve always found it difficult to see women characters (or non-Caucasian male characters, for that matter) from the inside. That’s w
hat I need to be able to do, for my protagonists. I have to be able to get inside their heads, deep into their souls, to make them work as protagonists.

  So when I started writing “Re-Entry Shock,” the protagonist was male. And the story wasn’t working. Something in my subconscious mind was resisting the story as I was trying to write it. Then a very conscious thought struck me. The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, the most literate market in the field, had just acquired a new editor: Kris tine Kathryn Rusch. I knew Kristine slightly; she is a fellow writer, and practically every writer in the field knows every other writer, at least slightly. It occurred to the business side of my brain that Kris might prefer stories with women protagonists. H’mm.

  Purely as an exercise in writing—and marketing—I went back to “Re-Entry Shock” and changed the protagonist to a woman. To my somewhat surprised delight, Dolores Anna Maria Alvarez de Montoya stepped onto the center of the stage and took over the story as if she had been meant to be its protagonist from the beginning of time.

  Which, of course, she had been.

  “The tests are for your own protection,” he said. “Surely you can understand that.”

  “I can understand that you are trying to prevent me from returning to my home,” Dolores flared angrily. And immediately regretted her outburst. It would do her no good to lose her temper with this little man.

  The two of them were sitting in a low-ceilinged windowless room that might have been anywhere on Earth or the Moon. In fact, it was on the space station that served as the major transfer point for those few special people allowed to travel from the Moon to Earth or vice versa.

  “It’s nothing personal,” the interviewer said, looking at the display screen on his desk instead of at Dolores. “We simply cannot allow someone to return just because they announce that they want to.”