by Gish Jen
“We are here because we believe anything can happen in a ball game,” answered Woody. “You can get a guy and all his stats but give him a stick to swing, and you still don’t know what will happen.”
“You mean, any two-bit player can up and hit a grand slam, you never know?” said Rube Foster.
“Yes,” said Woody. “Now get out there before I get the pink lounge pants out.”
And to everyone’s surprise, game two went better. Team AutoAmerica may have only been getting base hits, but they were getting players on base, and the players were advancing. What’s more, they were stealing more bases, perhaps because they ran even when the odds were against them—something that seemed to throw the ChinRussians off—as well as bunting in situations where it didn’t necessarily make sense. And on defense, the Team AutoAmerica pitchers were eschewing fastballs in favor of their off-speeds: the ChinRussians, after all, could hit hundred-mile-an-hour balls no problem, and the faster the ball, the more likely it was to boomerang right out of the park. As they seemed to take an inning to adjust to a new pitcher, too, Woody’s approach now was to switch pitchers as often as he could. And with all this, as well as a number of catches that could only be called miraculous, Team AutoAmerica managed to win the second and third games. They lost the fourth, but then, in a fourteen-inning fifth game, won again before badly losing the sixth.
* * *
—
The count, then, was three games each when, finally, in the last game, Woody started Gwen.
“You are the one,” she told us later that he told her. “No one could have predicted you, and now no one can predict what you’ll do. This is the moment. Go.” And, “Do it for your mom.”
The crowd roared and leapt to their feet when she took the mound. At last, the Daughter. The Secret Weapon. The Hidden One.
Can-non! Can-non!
Black Tea! Black Tea!
Can-non! Can-non!
Black Tea! Black Tea!
This was not in the Surplus sections. But the Surplus sections were way up in the nosebleeds. The Netted fans, whose seats were lower down and whose sections outnumbered the Surplus sections five to one, were another story.
“Ignorance, not malice,” Gwen told her glove. She was a rock; she had to be. Their words washed over her.
* * *
—
Up until now, Eleanor and I had watched all the games on NetScreen, poised to run to the stadium if Gwen was called in. But finally, here we were at a live game. We were astonished by the crowds and the hawkers and the banners. And the noise!—we had never heard such noise. It had been windy in the morning, and some had hoped that the wind would continue since the ChinRussians, accustomed to Managed Weather, had seemed to struggle with the gusts. But the blasts were dying down, and while they could return, there was no knowing for sure.
Afraid that Eleanor would be recognized, Woody had arranged for us to enter the stadium via a back way, during the team introductions. And, as we all hoped, we had managed to take our seats without incident. Now, sitting in the first row behind the dugout, Eleanor was wearing dark glasses and a brimmed hat—just the sort of disguise that signaled I am a disguise but that nonetheless seemed to be working. Even sitting, as she was, right in front of me, the very most conspicuous person in the Netted section, no one seemed to pay her any mind. If only she were not wedged between Winny and Ondi’s father, who, needing their laps for their SmartGuns, hogged their armrests with their elbows. Eleanor might as well have been stuck in a middle seat on a MoonJet full of football players: there she was, with a linebacker to either side. Happily, as if having anticipated this situation, she had brilliantly brought her knitting, which she now produced. To calm her nerves, she said—making it clear that any attempt to crowd her would result in the crowder being continually bumped and grazed by the needles’ capped ends. It was a message only slowly absorbed, perhaps because both men were drinking. But eventually, she saw victory. They retracted their elbows.
Sitting behind her, I had to smile although, stuck as I was between Ondi and Jill, I hardly shared her situation. Quite the contrary, to a degree that took me a bit aback, I realized that though they had both lived among the coppertoned—indeed, had themselves been coppertoned—for most of their lives, neither woman was now comfortable brushing elbows with me. Were people’s sensitivities so quickly shaped by their rung on the social ladder? I was astonished. They did afford me the perverse satisfaction not only of fully occupying both my armrests, but of knowing that, if I so desired, I could encroach even farther on their space—that if I let my elbows drift, the women would, inch by inch, pull away, folding themselves in over their purses. And so, I will confess, I did, exploiting with relish my repellent force.
Still, I wished I were sitting next to Eleanor. And for all my anxiety around Eleanor’s situation, just to watch Gwen’s warm-up throws—just to watch her rock back and wind up then lunge and release as she always had, but at the dead center of this enormous bowl of humanity—was so deep a thrill that, had this been an old-time movie whose reel had suddenly jammed, we would not have demanded our money back. Gwen! Eleanor leapt out of her seat, cheering, as did I, and we weren’t the only ones. The crowd thundered so loudly it was hard to make out what it was saying. I blessedly thought I heard just
Can-non! Can-non!
USA! USA!
But in any case, it wouldn’t have mattered. Gwen looked down and when she looked up again, it was with her prosecutor face. She had a game to pitch.
* * *
—
The lead batter was an orange-eyed man with enormous shoulders. Gwen looked at him as though she, too, could RetinaZing. As for her message, it was one anyone could read. I’m going to get you. He raised his goatee as if to answer, I’m not afraid of your fastball. But it wasn’t a fastball. It was her cutter. Strike one. Next she served him another cutter, a little lower. Strike two. Then, just when he may have thought he knew what was coming: a two-seam fastball. He walked away from the plate with his goatee held high but his eyes cast down.
Two more batters followed. And just like that, it was three up, three down—the first inning. I did think my heart might burst with pride, even as I thought, inexplicably, of the word “dispense”—a word I had never been able to quite get across to my students, way back when. If only they could have come to this game. Then they could see how a pitcher might “dispense” with the batters. Meanwhile, people were back on their feet, cheering, as was I. Only Ondi still sat, her fingers flying over her handphone.
“She’s working!” she said. “The Secret Weapon is working! Go, Gwen!”
Normal enough behavior. Of the crowd, only Eleanor and I could appreciate how ironic it was, actually, for Ondi to be cheering her old friend on in this apparently wholehearted way. Was there a nefarious postgame scheme in the offing? Maybe it was paranoid to think so; certainly, Ondi gave no sign. In fact, eyeing her from the next seat, I thought her extra-sharply absorbed in the way that people are when they have a special investment in a game—as maybe she felt she did, having done so much to get Gwen out there? In any event, she was looking down as much as up, maybe more.
“The ChinRussians can hit a fastball of any speed, but they don’t know what to do with Gwen,” she said. Was she speaking to me and Jill or reading what she had just read or Sweeted? I couldn’t tell.
“She’s killing them,” I said. Jill agreed.
“Go, Gwen!” she cheered. She squeezed the sides of her daisy-dotted handbag.
In the next half inning, Team AutoAmerica did not score but did at least get a couple of hits. Then Gwen returned to the mound. She threw a curveball, a fastball low and inside, and a changeup. The strikes began to accumulate. And then she’d done it again. Nine throws, no hits, no walks; the stadium was roaring. Just as Ondi said, the ChinRussians truly did not know what to do with her.
“Do you know what she’s going to throw?” I asked Ondi. “Because I’m not sure I do.”
Ondi looked up from her handphone long enough to toss her hair back and answer. “I did see most of those pitches coming. Not all of them. But I can tell you what I’d probably call, and I can tell you what I know she’d shake off, and I can tell you whether she was likely to try something new or fall back on the tried-and-true. I don’t always know what the new pitch will be. And I don’t always know what the safer bet would be. But, yeah, I have some idea what she’ll do.” Her head curved back down, her attention contracting so exactly to the size and shape of her screen that it was as if someone had selected “Attention” and then hit “Fit to screen.”
“It’s a good thing you’re not in a position to tell the ChinRussians,” I joked.
She shrugged. “Why would I do that?”
She Sweeted on.
Gwen gave up no hits in the third inning.
She gave up no hits in the fourth.
“Per-fect game,” the crowd was chanting. “Per-fect game! Per-fect game! Per-fect game!”—something I found a bit jarring. Long ago, no one ever dared utter a word if a perfect game was in the offing, for fear of jinxing the pitcher. But there it was; times had changed. And in the meanwhile, Team AutoAmerica was hitting steadily: One single. Another. Another. Other games of the series had also resembled the tortoise and the hare. But in this one the tortoise was sure enough slowly scoring. Even Gwen managed a base hit, helping to bring a teammate home. Team AutoAmerica had one run. Two runs. Three.
It was a game like none of the others, a miracle.
Gwen gave up no hits in the fifth inning. In the sixth.
The stadium was thundering so loudly that had someone in an orbiting SpaceHotel reported hearing the crowd, I would not have been surprised. I could hear that some of the Netted were still yelling Black Tea! Black Tea! But mostly they were chanting, as were the Surplus and as were we,
Gwen-nie! Gwen-nie!
USA! USA!
Gwen-nie! Gwen-nie!
USA! USA!
* * *
—
We had already shouted ourselves hoarse but of course continued shouting all the same, voice or no voice. Indeed, even Winny and Nick were cheering—like Ondi’s enthusiasm and Jill’s, a reassuring sign, I thought.
By the seventh-inning stretch, the score was 5–0 and the game seemed, as Nick commented, AutoAmerica’s to lose.
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Eleanor as, packing up her knitting bag, she stood to go to the bathroom.
I wanted to accompany her but Winny insisted on the honor, and she acquiesced graciously.
“It can’t be ‘Give me liberty or give me death’ over everything,” she said.
“I just thought you might like to be able to go to the bathroom without an armed guard,” I said.
“Oh, I don’t know.” She shrugged. “Do you want anything?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” I shrugged back. “Maybe a CreamShake? What do you think?”
If she noticed my use of First Person Timid, she gave no indication.
“CreamShakes are full of sugar,” she said. “But all right. If I survive the line at the ladies’ room, I will brave the drinks line as well.”
And off she and Winny went, laughing.
Team AutoAmerica was up at bat now but not doing well; Ondi, Jill, and I watched in dismay. Had their luck turned? And by the third batter, Winny and Eleanor still hadn’t come back.
“Where are they?” Looking up from her handphone, Ondi leaned forward and tapped on her father’s shoulder with her silver nails.
Nick mumbled something.
She tapped again.
“What?” he barked.
“Where are they?”
“Gone fishing, I expect,” he said, more clearly. He threw his head back, emptied his bottle, stood, and headed unsteadily back into the stands. Jill looked concerned.
“Go with him,” she told Ondi.
But Ondi shook her head. “I don’t want to miss the game. You go.”
Jill hesitated.
A pop fly. Team AutoAmerica was retired.
“Where are Eleanor and Winny?” I said.
Ondi frowned but did not answer. If she was at all disconcerted, it wasn’t so disconcerted that she stopped Sweeting as Gwen, back on the mound at the top of the eighth, dispensed with the first batter. The second batter connected with the ball—a foul. Then he hit another foul, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another—an astonishing seven fouls in all before finally she struck him out. Next, the third batter, too, managed to get a bat on the ball, sending it deep into right field. It was just lucky that Diego, sliding on his stomach as the ball came over his shoulder, managed to catch it, his glove outstretched on the ground. I remembered having seen him do this once before, while playing for the Underground League—his glove like the pan of a frying pan, and the ball a fried egg. But to see it done in the Olympics! He clambered to his feet and, Diego-style, kissed the ball before sending it back to Gwen. The crowd was in a frenzy. Di-eg-o! Di-eg-o! it chanted as the replay went up on the screens and the announcer announced, “And ladies and gentlemen, that was Diego Smith, of Team AutoAmerica, making a catch for the history books!” I could not believe Eleanor had missed it. The Lookouts were here, as were just about all the Leaguers, and the League technical team, and Eleanor’s legal team, but still. Where was Eleanor? And if only the ChinRussians didn’t now continue to connect with the ball, as though they’d somehow adjusted—as if they had finally found a way to predict Gwen. It did not bode well for the ninth inning.
Ondi seemed tense, but as the ChinRussians retired Team AutoAmerica in short order she was no longer Sweeting.
Where was Eleanor?
“I’m going to look for them,” I said.
“No,” said Ondi. “You stay here.”
And to my amazement, she sprinted up the stairs and out of the section, reappearing, a minute later, right below our seats, in the AutoAmerica dugout. How did she talk her way down there? And where was Eleanor? Where was Winny? Where was Nick?
Top of the ninth. Still 5–0, Team AutoAmerica, with three batters to go. The first batter up was batting lefty. Gwen threw a curveball with a wicked drop. Strike. Next, she threw a fastball, high and tight. The batter flailed—strike two. And then, of all things—almost for fun, it seemed, though in truth it was a bit of a risk—she threw a knuckleball. Renata’s pitch, and a pitch Gwen wouldn’t want to be defined by, but nothing anyone would have expected. Strike three.
Two outs to go. There was a lot of grumbling when the next pitch was called a strike, but there it was. Strike one. As for the next throw, that would have been a strike before the strike zone was shrunk but was now called a ball. Was that in compensation, conscious or unconscious, for the first call? Gwen showed no sign of irritation but there was no ambiguity about what followed: two clear strikes, one on either side of the plate.
Now Team AutoAmerica needed just one more out to win. The noise in the stands was so loud that the stadium itself seemed to be roaring.
Enormous and golden skinned as any of the ChinRussians, Vladimir Santiago was originally from the Dominican Republic but more recently from Moscow. He had hit five home runs already this series, including those two early grand slams, and of the various exaggerated types presented by his team, he was the player begging to be called flamboyant. He sauntered up now to home plate holding the bat by its knob; he swung it like a cane. Then he stopped and upended it so it stood straight up from his open palm, balancing it like a magician. The crowd roared as he dropped it down into his two hands and took his batting stance, winking at Gwen and chewing gum. Since she had struck him out twice before in the game batting lefty, he was now batting righty. A recommendation an algorithm might make, but
a mistake, as Gwen said later. Figuring he was a bit slower batting on this side, she fed him a fastball, low and away. And, sure enough, he was late on the pitch. Strike one. Then—having, she hoped, shaken his confidence in his decision to switch sides, and figuring he was probably left-eye dominant—she snagged him with a changeup. Strike two.
Now he was glaring as if his Zing could kill; it could be the last pitch of the game but he was not going to go quietly. He pushed his gum to the front of his mouth so that it protruded lewdly; he bobbled it tauntingly up and down. At the same time, he choked up on the bat for better control, squatted a bit to shorten up his stride, and moved closer to the plate to help cover outside pitches. So he was on the defensive but also almost daring Gwen to throw inside, where her slot was so tight she could well hit him—which she would not have minded doing, of course, except that it would put him on base.
She took his dare and threw a front hip cutter.
Foul.
She did it again.
Foul.
Should she try it a third time? Could she do it without hitting him? Was it time to try something else?
Woody called a time-out.
Woody’s jog out to the mound was surprisingly leaden for a coach whose pitcher was poised to win the Olympics with a perfect game. He might be in his twenties but perhaps he really was, I thought, too old for Gwen. The infield came in, and you could see them all starting to confer animatedly. Where was Eleanor to witness this?
Whatever they were saying, Woody did not seem to be listening, and indeed maybe could not even hear them over the din of the fans.
Finish ’em up! Finish ’em up!
Gwen-nie! Gwen-nie!
Finish ’em up! Finish ’em up!
Gwen-nie! Gwen-nie!
The chanting was so loud, children were crying, and even many adults were holding their hands over their ears, including me.