I backed away, timed things, and then, as he snapped the towel forward I reached out and snatched it, the tip searing my palm. I jerked and the towel came away. He was, I saw, astonished at my quickness—he backed off, somewhat afraid for a second.
“No more,” I said.
He moved toward the sink. “Okay, then. It’s your turn—see if ya can hit me.”
“No more,” I said, and I let the towel drop across the foot of the bed.
He spat. “You ain’t got enough spirit, you and your fancy words all the time.” He slipped into his undershirt. “Playing the piano like a—” He had found the word, but he seemed puzzled by it. “Sure, like a sissy, no matter what.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “But this was the last time.”
He laughed at me. “That’s what you think,” he said. He buttoned his shirt and stepped to me, his nose almost touching mine. “You’ll come when I tell ya to come. I know what makes you tick. I know why ya didn’t change your name and play with us.” He jabbed me with his forefinger, just below my throat. “You were scared, that’s what.”
“I’ll beat you today,” I said. “You’ll never touch me. I’ll beat you today and every day, whenever we play against each other. I’ll hit the ball farther than you ever hit it. I’ll—”
He was laughing at me. “Now I heard everything,” he said. “You’ll come when I tell ya to come. Sure ya will, and you know why?” He waited for me to answer, then saw that I would not. “The Babe may be dumb, but he ain’t that dumb. You know why? Because ya like the color of my skin, that’s why.” He watched my face for a second, and then waved a hand at me. “I had that figgered out a long time back. Shit. I ain’t so dumb as you think, with all your fancy words.” He slipped into his jacket, and then, looking at me from the mirror above the sink, he put his straw hat on and cocked it to one side. “C ’mere,” he said.
I did not move.
“C ’mere,” he said again.
I stayed where I was, at the other end of the room, next to the window. “Okay then,” he said, and he came to me. I had never seen him angry in this way. I had, I saw, reached him, though I did not know what it was that I had said, or done, which had allowed me to. He took one of my ears in each hand and he pulled my head to his. I strained, but he was stronger than I was. His lips pressed against my mouth so hard that I felt my teeth cutting into my lips, drawing blood. His eyes were wide open, and his hands dropped to the small of my back, where he locked his right hand on his left wrist and squeezed. I heard myself moan, and then he let go. “Shit on you,” he said. “I know what you want from me. “He was at the door.” Can’t even look me in the eye now, like a man. You’ll come when I call. “He shook his fist at me. “I ain’t that dumb.”
When, a few hours later, I stepped onto the playing field, I saw that he was leaning against the third base dugout while he ate a hot dog. I heard his high-pitched laugh and saw that the fans, crowding against one another, were holding hot dogs in the air toward him, above one another’s heads. His teammates were on the field, warming up—shagging flies and playing pepper. His stomach protruded and he rested his left hand on it, proudly, grinning from ear to ear. He looked to me, more than ever, like a tanned pig.
Bingo tossed the ball to me for our warm-ups, and I wasted no time drilling the first pitch into the pocket of his glove. The fans on our side of the field whistled and shouted to me in Spanish, telling me how fast I was. Ruth looked our way and doffed his cap in my direction. “Hey kid,” I heard him call. “Want a hot dog?” He laughed hysterically then, and his fans laughed with him. I kicked and threw again, harder.
“Gonna melt that arm,” Johnson said to me. “Gonna burn yourself out, you go that fast. You want to pace yourself, boy.”
He jogged past me without waiting for a response. His body moved easily, powerfully. He joined Kelly down the right field line and Jack Henry picked up a fungo bat and hit the ball in their direction. “You see the way that mean eats, “Jones exclaimed, looking over my shoulder.” I heard it before but now I believe it. He ate twelve of them hot dogs already—now I believe it!” He watched me throw a ball. “Ooo-eee,” he cried. “Ain’t that sweet. We in the money today, honey. You own that man, gonna put him in your pocket.”
“All of them, “I said.
“That’s right too, honey. All of them,” Jones said. “I like the sound of that—mean, like old Brick. You gettin’ that meanness, by and by. You gettin’it.”
“All of them,” I repeated.
“Easy now,” Bingo called. “Just let it loose. Easy now. Bring it home easy.”
When I took the mound for the start of the first inning, I was aware of nothing except my desire to strike out every man who would face me. Jones and Barton and Massaguen and Dell were talking to me from behind, Bingo was cooing to me from in back of the plate, the fans were cheering for the first man—Joe Dugan, the Yankee third baseman—but all the sounds seemed very distant. I kicked, reared back, and fired the first ball for a strike. Then the second. Dugan tried to get set to bunt, but the third pitch was already by him and Bingo whipped it to third base. It sped around the infield and came back to me. Koenig was in the box, and Ruth waited in the on-deck circle on one knee, smiling at the ovation the fans were giving him. “Bam-bi-no!” they chanted. “Bam-bi-no!”
I was beginning to sweat, and the dampness on my skin, under my uniform, felt good. Bingo showed me a spot high and inside, and I realized that he had probably picked off a bunt sign. I pitched it where he showed me his glove, Koenig squared around and, his hands a foot or so apart, he pushed the bat at the ball, popping it weakly toward me. I caught it and returned to the mound. “Give it here! Give it here!” Jones yelled, and then I realized that I was in such a hurry that I had forgotten to toss it to him.
Ruth stepped into the batter’s box, on the left side of the plate, and stroked the bat through the air. The crowd was standing, loving him. He tipped his cap, then bent over and picked up some dirt. His legs were extraordinarily skinny, and I wondered for an instant at how I could have loved a man who was so physically grotesque. With Gehrig, who had joined the Yankees in 1925, now a regular, and their leading runs-batted-in hitter (having driven in one hundred and seventy-five during the 1927 season), Ruth, who was faster than Gehrig, was batting third in the order instead of fourth. “He’s just posin’ for his picture,” Jones called. “Everybody know how you own that man. Everybody know.”
His stomach bulging, Ruth set himself at the plate, the bat cocked behind his left shoulder, the crowd roaring its encouragement. I pumped and reared back, shifted sideways, kicked, and realized suddenly that something was different—he was not smiling. The ball stuck in my hand. I tried to let it go, but I could not lift my fingers; my left foot struck the ground in stride, my arm still suspended stiffly in back of my ear, my body in a hopelessly awkward position—I strained, and felt the ball scrape by my fingers, low and into the dirt, some twenty feet in front of me. It scudded in the grass, and bounced harmlessly past home plate. The Yankee players laughed at me, the crowd hissed, but he merely stood there, unsmiling. “You take your time now,” Bingo said, stepping in front of the plate and rubbing dirt into the ball with his bare hands. “Don’t be nervous now. You take your time now, pitch it to me.”
I turned away and faced the outfield. Johnson stood nonchalantly in right field, hands on hips, and I could see him smiling. Rose Kinnard adjusted the visor of his cap. Kelly pounded the pocket of his glove and shouted something I could not hear. Did I want to have him hit me? Was it possible that I was trying to succumb to his power on the playing field, so that…
I toed the mound and looked toward home plate. He was waiting for me, taking practice swings, wanting to hit the ball. He cared. I closed my eyes, to stop the world from moving in circles, and I squeezed the ball as hard as I could. I tried not to look at him. I pumped again, reared back, and I was suddenly home: I felt the dizziness disappear, I saw the black hole in Bingo’s glove,
I felt my body loosen, and I let the ball go. It flew. He swung late and missed, his body twisting all the way to the left so that he seemed, almost, to be looking backward. I believe that I smiled then, though I cannot be sure. He glowered at me. I took the ball and fired it again, low and away, nicking the outside corner for a called second strike. He stepped out of the batter’s box.
Bingo showed me the heart of the plate, waist-high, and I did not aim. My head was clear, his image gone, and only his penguinlike body waited for me at the plate. I heard myself grunt as I released the ball and saw the white line head downward, then crack and rise. I did not have to wait. He started his swing, but the ball was already by him, and I was walking to the dugout. I saw him hurl the bat down, angrily. In the dugout Jack Henry sat next to me, talking about the Yankee weaknesses, about the book he had on them, but I nodded politely and did not let his words come into my head.
“All of them,” Jones said to me, laughing. “You said the word, and I believe that too.”
Jones stepped out of the dugout, swinging two bats. Wilcey Moore, who’d led their league in earned run average, was the pitcher, and he set our men down one-two-three in our half of the first. This pleased me too. It would be a good game, and I relished what was to come. In their half of the second, I set down Gehrig, Meusel, and Lazzeri, and Moore set us down one-two-three also, striking out Johnson and Kinnard. Ruth’s eyes, I knew, were on me, and I gave away nothing. I tried to make each pitch go faster than the one before, and I felt my body warming to the day, feeling as whole and strong as it ever had. In the third inning I struck out the bottom of their order on eleven pitches.
I batted second in our half of the third, and the crowd cheered for me. The outfield played me deep and straightaway. I let the first pitch go by for a strike. Moore was fast, but my eyes were doing their work and I was able to follow the ball all the way, from his hand to the plate. The second pitch was inside and chest-high. I stepped into it, my left foot a few inches toward third base, and it was as if, a few feet in front of the plate, suspended over the grass, the ball had stopped: I whipped my arms around, delivering all the power that was in me, and the instant I connected, I knew, and the crowd knew, that the ball was long gone. I followed through and then stood at home plate, watching the ball rise against the background of white and red and yellow that were the shirts of the fans in the left field grandstands. I watched the ball continue to rise, above the level of the grandstand, and I was aware of heads turning upward to watch the ball soar against the blue sky, and disappear across the top of the ballpark. Then they gasped—the crowd did—as if they were one man. I started toward first base, my head swimming, and I saw him in right field, unnoticed by everybody else, kicking at the grass.
When I rounded third base, my teammates were out of the dugout applauding for me. Barton, coaching at third, shook his head from side to side as I went by. “I never seen one that far,” he said. “I never did.” I crossed home plate and, beaming with pleasure, walked to the dugout, remembering to tip my cap to the fans. “Hey Gringo!” one of them called, hanging across our dugout, his hands cupped around his mouth. “You better than Bambino.” He was a young boy, perhaps fifteen years old. His features were sharp and small, like a Caucasian’s, but his skin was the color of Johnson’s skin: a deep dusty black. He turned from me, shouted to the crowd, and they took up his chant, clapping their hands, stamping their feet, and sounding my name. “Grin-go! Grin-go!”
“That ball not goin’ to come down till tomorrow,” Jones said as I ducked into the dugout. “You laid the powder on, honey.”
Jack Henry shook my hand and sat down, somewhat stunned. “I saw John Henry—Lloyd—hit one once when we were playing down here in thirteen, and I didn’t think I’d ever see one hit so far again, but you did it. “He glanced to his right.” Old Brick has been around a long time too—I ‘11 bet—”
He stopped. Johnson spat tobacco juice onto the dirt in front of the dugout. “Sure,” Johnson said, looking at the playing field. “He hits good.”
I sat still, urging myself to calm down, trying to concentrate on what was going on on the playing field. Massaguen, batting in last position, singled to right. With Jones at the plate, Jack Henry gave the hit-and-run sign for the third pitch, and Jones poked the ball down the right field line. Then, with men on first and third, Kelly lined out to the third baseman.
I waited as my teammates picked up their gloves and trotted onto the field, and then I forced myself to walk very slowly to the mound. The crowd cheered for me. “Grin-go—Grin-go—better than Bam-bi-no!” I heard them call and the chant gave me immense pleasure. It was the top of the fourth inning, and no man had reached first base: I had given up no runs, no hits, no bases on balls, and there had been no errors. Three men had batted in each of the first three innings, and I had only to do the same thing—set the same nine men down—two more times, and I would have pitched, against the supposed best team in the world, the perfect game.
The numbers spun around in my head, the nine-inning game divided into thirds, each third containing three innings, each inning containing three men, each man receiving three strikes—but the instant Dugan stepped into the box and I started my motion, my head was clear. I thought of nothing. I was there. I struck Dugan out on three straight pitches. I got Koenig on a checked-swing grounder to second. Ruth was at the plate again, and I could not have been happier. I did not bother teasing him. I did not even think of him as I kicked and threw. He swung at the first pitch, and missed. The crowd made noises. He stepped out of the batter’s box and rubbed dirt on his hands. The boy who had first called me Gringo lay across the roof of the dugout, on his stomach, taunting Ruth. “Grin-go—Grin-go—better than Bam-bi-no!” he cried, and I could tell that the shrill voice had slipped under Ruth’s skin. I could sense, also, that my own teammates, poised in the field behind me, were aware of the special quality of the game—they were quieter than usual, tensed, and it was—I could hardly believe it—Barton who I heard yell toward the plate, with a confidence I would never have believed he possessed: “You can’t see that ball, nigger man—our man blows it by you. Oh but you just a poor nigger man, standin’ there doin’ nothin’.”
I saw Ruth’s eyes widen. Jones whooped from third base, and realizing that the word had angered Ruth, he used it also. “You own that nigger, honey,” he called to me. “Oh but you own that man.”
Ruth crouched slightly, coiled and ready to swing. I pitched and the ball moved like a rocket. His anger made him chop at the ball and it cracked into Bingo’s mitt for a second strike. “I feel the breeze,” Jones called. “Ain’t never felt so good—that nigger sure fans the breeze!” I had the ball back from Bingo and I did not wait for Ruth to step out of the box. His right foot moved, however, as if he wanted to, but he was too late. I had started my motion and he tried to adjust, to set himself for me, but he was as good as dead. I fired the ball with all my strength, low, and he lunged forward, only to have the ball hop as it had never hopped before, hitting Bingo in his glove a good foot above the spot where Ruth’s bat had passed. “Ooo-ee,” Jones cried, and he ran from the field. On top of our dugout the boy was standing, his arms stetched above his head, as if he were a banderillero, and dancing up and down, he drove invisible darts into a nonexistent animal. I saw handkerchiefs and hats swirling in multicolored circles. I sat in the dugout and watched him run, pigeon-toed, to his position in right field.
We did not score any runs in our half of the fourth, and in the top of the fifth I set down their side again, striking out Gehrig and Meusel, to bring my total of strikeouts for five innings to ten. I batted second in our half of the inning, and slashed the ball toward the hole between first and second. It took a wicked bounce at the edge of the infield grass, and just as I thought it would continue through toward him, I saw Lazzeri fly through the air, spear the ball glove-handed; from a sitting position on the outfield grass, he threw to first base. I was out by a step. “Good wood, though,” Rose said to
me as I returned to the dugout. He smiled at me with a tenderness I had never before seen. “Take a look,” he said, and he pointed to second base where Lazzeri, glove off, was blowing on the palm of his hand.
Bingo’s hand touched my shoulder. “Gone to have to soak my hand tonight, but that’s okay. You keep throwin’. They ain’t gone to touch you.”
I nodded and, as I sat by myself, leaning forward so that I could feel the warmth of the sun, I realized that my teammates were feeling close to me—closer probably than they had ever felt. As was the custom, they said nothing to me about the fact that I had given up no hits, but by their very silence I knew that they were aware that I had a perfect game going, and I felt that they knew how intensely important it was to me that I pitch that perfect game. “Goin’ to get you some insurance,” Kelly said, passing me on his way to pick a bat from the bat rack, but we watched Barton fly easily to Meusel in left; the fifth inning was over, with our team still leading 1 to 0.
Ruth was ambling in from his right field position as I walked to the mound. “Tony stole one from ya,” he called to me. “He don’t have no fits between two and four in the afternoon.” He tried to laugh then, but his laugh was forced. “Grin-go! Grin-go!” the boy called, as Ruth continued toward his dugout. “Better than Bam-bi-no! Grin-go! Grin-go! Better than Bam-bi-no!” I warmed up, preparing to face the bottom third of the Yankee order, and though it was the weakest part of their line-up, I warned myself about not letting up. When Combs stepped into the box to begin the inning, I took Bingo’s sign for a duster and fired the ball, without second thoughts, for Combs’s chin. He hit the dirt, his bat sailing backward in the air. I pitched again, inside, and though the ball was over the plate, I had Combs backing away for a called strike. He was easy after that: another pitch inside, for a ball, and then two quick ones on the outside and one man was down. Benny Bengough, the Yankee catcher, a shrewd hitter, stepped into the box. My first pitch was perfect, low and away, slicing the outside corner, but Bengough—the crafty Jew, as he was called—was moving with the pitch, and he laid a perfect bunt down the third base line.
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