Field of Fantasies

by Rick Wilber

  So we were ahead 4—0 in the final inning, and the other team came up determined to catch us. Gregor was tiring at last, and he walked a couple, then hung a curve, and their big pitcher got into it and clocked it far over my head. Now I do okay charging liners, but the minute a ball is hit over me I’m totally lost. So I turned my back on this one and ran for the fence, figuring either it goes out or I collect it against the fence, but that I’d never see it again in the air. But running on Mars is so weird. You get going too fast and then you’re pinwheeling along trying to keep from doing a faceplant. That’s what I was doing when I saw the warning track, and looked back up and spotted the ball coming down, so I jumped, trying to jump straight up, you know, but I had a lot of momentum, and had completely forgotten about the gravity, so I shot up and caught the ball, amazing, but found myself flying right over the fence.

  I came down and rolled in the dust and sand, and the ball stayed stuck in my glove. I hopped back over the fence holding the ball up to show everyone I had it. But they gave the other pitcher a home run anyway, because you have to stand inside the park when you catch one, it’s a local rule. I didn’t care. The whole point of playing games is to make you do things like that anyway. And it was good that the pitcher got one, too.

  So we started up again and Gregor struck out the side, and we won the tournament. We were mobbed, Gregor especially. He was the hero of the hour. Everyone wanted him to sign something. He didn’t say much, but he wasn’t stooping either. He looked surprised. Afterward Werner took two balls and everyone signed them, to make some kind of trophies for Gregor and me. Later I saw half the names on my trophy were jokes, “Mickey Mantle” and other names like that. Gregor had written on it, “Hi, Coach Arnold, Regards, Greg.” I have the ball still, on my desk at home.

  Long before Jack Kerouac coined the term "Beat Generation" and went "on the road" with Neal Cassady to gather material for the famous book of the same name, he was a baseball fan. At thirteen, he invented a fantasy baseball board-game to play, using teams named after automobile brands and featuring statistics for each player that helped determine the outcome. "Ronnie on the Mound" was published in 1955 in Esquire magazine at the height of Kerouac's fame from the success of On the Road. The story was based on that early form of fantasy baseball from Kerouac's youth and is reflective of his athletic childhood, where he played several sports, and quite well, along with inventing fantasy versions of baseball players, teams and games.

  Ronnie on the Mound

  Jack Kerouac

  DURING INFIELD PRACTICE THE Chryslers are out on the field in their golden-yellow uniforms and the warm-up pitcher is little Theo K. Vance, bespectacled and scholarly, testing out his blazing fireball at catcher Babe Blag-den, the veteran of more years in the league than he’d care to admit to any babe he tried to pick up last night in the Loop—it’s a spring night in Chicago, the occasion a crucial game between the Chicago Chryslers (tied for the league lead with St. Louis at 21—11 all) and the Pittsburgh Plymouths, the usual door mats of the league now rejuvenated not only with a new manager, old Pie Tibbs, an all-time all-star great centerfielder and slugger, but with new additions like the kid outfielder Oboy Roy Turner, the steady rookie Leo Sawyer at short (son of veteran Vic Sawyer) and their new star pitcher Ronnie Melaney just up from the minors with a dazzling record and rumors of a blazing fast ball. It’s May in the Loop town, the wind blows softly from the lake, with a shade of autumnal coolness in the air presaging the World Series excitement to come, even the lowly Plymouths at a 14-won and 18-lost record hoping to be up there by that time now that they have that new wild line-up—but it’s just really another game, another night, the usual gathering, cigar smoke in the stands, hot dogs, the call of beer sellers, the latecoming fans, the kids yelling in the bleachers (Friday night) and the old umpire like W. C. Fields in black coat and bursting pants bending to brush the plate as on a thousand other occasions in his old spittoon life—but the thrill runs through the crowd to see the rookie making his debut on the big-league mound: Ronnie Melaney, nineteen, handsome, with dark eyes, pale skin, nervous hands, rubbing his hands down his green-striped trousers, kicking the mound, handling the rosin bag and eyeing the bright lamps all around the stadium, newspapermen in the press box leaning forward to report his showing. Old Frank “Pie” Tibbs is out there on the mound giving Ronnie last-minute pats on the pants. “Take it easy kid, these Chryslers can be beat just like the bushwallopers back home.” “Thanks, Mr. Tibbs,” gulps Ronnie as he takes a step off the mound and pretends to fiddle with his shoes as the umpire calls “Batter up” and the stands vibrate with the excitement of the opening pitch of the game. The first batter will be Lefty Murphree the new sensation, called a “sophomore,” in his second year of play with the Chryslers, whose speed (16 doubles) and general .300 hitting has skyrocketed the Chryslers up to top tie position, a murderous hitter, second in the league also in stolen bases with 9 (behind the incomparable Pancho Villa of Los Angeles), a left-handed beauty, stepping in now with a delicate pinch at his cap tip and a knock on his spikes and a spit to the side, as the old umpire handles his bellywhomper and straightens it out and prepares to half squat to squint at that pitch and call 'em straight. Now Murphree is in the box leveling his bat around in easy aiming strokes and is the first big-leaguer to be looking down the slot at Ronnie Melaney.

  The sign is for a fast ball. Let ’em see it, boy! thinks the catcher (antique Jake Guewa of thirty years on the very same Pittsburgh team—a hard, browned, seamy little man with guts of iron, a weak hitter but a clutch hitter, who maybe after six games hitless and arid can suddenly win a game with an unobtrusive single in the bottom of the ninth). “Come on Daddy Kid!” Ronnie dangles the ball from his strong right hand, nods, steps on the rubber, winds back and forth a little rock, throws up the left leg, comes around like a whip and balls one in straight at Murphree’s strike zone and Murphree swings a mean white bat and the ball whistles past the umpire’s crowned noggin for a bang-in foul strike into the screen and umpire J. C. Gwynn raises right hand and shouts “Streeike!” and the game is on and the crowd goes “Whooee!”

  Old Jake Guewa takes a peak at the bench and Manager Pie Tibbs gives him the sign for a curve; Ronnie’s curve is a good one with a hopper, many’s the old seamed scout watched it from behind the screen in the Texas League. Ronnie nods and gulps, he likes to concentrate on his fast ball, but orders are orders. He winds back and forth as a gust of wind comes and ripples the flags around the stadium, someone whistles, someone hoots and the white pellet is seen flying home high in the night toward the tense Murphree—the umpire throws up his left arm, yells, “Ball one” and the crowd goes, “Oh, oh.” Guewa has the ball where it exploded plow into his glove, holds it aloft as such, walks a few feet ahead of the plate, says something to Ronnie, who strains to listen and comes forward a few steps. Guewa fires it at him, hard, as if to wake him up, turns and goes back with the inestimable sorrow of the baseball catcher to squat and as if to sigh again behind that old plate and Murphree knocks the spikes with the bat (one and one is the count, the kid’s first major-league count), grits his teeth, sets that foot back on the rubber and sees the sign for fast ball and says to himself, I’ll burn this guy right down! and whams it around, wild and high again. “Ball Two!” “Hey!” yells the crowd. “He’s wild!” “Throw the bum out!” “Where’d you get the bushman!” “Come on, kid, settle down!” “He’s got fire in that ball but we better call the fire dee-part-ment”: laughter, discussion, conversation between women about how cute he is, kids yelling with glee about nothing they can understand, a bottle breaking somewhere far back in the johns. Melaney is behind in the count and now he begins to sweat and takes the sign for sinker and nods gravely—he’s afraid to look toward the bench where maybe now Manager Tibbs is frowning. Murphree strands in there, leveling the bat around, careful as a hawk, eyes right on Ronnie, chewing with no feeling. Ronnie winds up and delivers with his heart as big as a toad: strike down the middle which
Murphree only glances at, because he’s had his own orders to let this one go by—the ball has come in high, like a vision, but sunk in across the chest perfectly spotted, landing in old Guewa’s glove like a shot of a gun, phew! “Yay!” yells a fan. “He’ll make it! You’ll be awright baby!” And now the count is two and two and Jake gives the sign for a fast ball, Ronnie steels himself, remembers the calm with which he used to deliver pitches like this on drowsy afternoons in Dallas and Fort Worth and even before that in the Sunset League in Arizona, and in a dream he lets go his next pitch, high, too high, just off, ball three! And now it’s a full count.

  Manager Pie Tibbs is staring anxiously toward the mound, trying to think what to order; finally he sends the sign to the catcher, curve ball, who transmits it to Ronnie, who gulps because a curve ball is harder to control—But I’ll make it true! There is a silence now in the stadium, you can hear little clicks of teletypes up in the press box, and small familiar sounds like a distant car horn in the street, and the usual whistles and catcalls: “He’s a bum left, let ’im have it!” “Another two-bagger, boy!” (These cries are from the Chrysler bench, from Hophead Deane the crazy first-baseman and from utility men like Ernie Shaw and veteran Johnny Keggs and kids like Phil Drayton the speed-boy pinch runner.) Ronnie winds up now and lets her go at Lefty Murphree, who’s ready and raps the bat around and connects with a dead knock that signifies he’s topped the ball and it bounces down in front of him and goes skittering straight at first-baseman Wade Hazard who just stands as if knock-kneed to let it pop into his glove and if he misses with the glove the knees’ll stop it; it sticks in his glove and nonchalantly (almost spitting) he straightens up and trots to the first-base bag well ahead of the racing, smoky Murphree, out, and Murphree streaks across the bag a dead pigeon and Ronnie Melaney’s first man up has grounded out to first.

  But here comes mighty Herb Jangraw to the plate; a second ago he was kneeling and spitting with three bats between his big mitts, dreaming of something else, waiting for his turn, now here he comes for his licks and it’s only the beginning of Ronnie Melaney’s career in the world. The crowd lets out a yowl of joy to see the old-time great slugger in a slump this year, but still as explosive as ever potentially, a man who has hit home runs out of sight in every ball park in the league, six-foot-four, 210 pounds, a rangy body, mighty arms, a great, ragged, ruinous face—drinks cases of beer by himself, a big jaw, a big cud, a big splurt of brown tobacco juice on the green fresh grass, he doesn’t care, hitches his mighty pants and steps in, also left-handed, but with an immense long 45-inch bat that puts the fear of God into Ronnie to see it. “Phew,” says the kid—only one out and two to go, and then only one inning and eight to go, and then only one game and thirty, forty for the year, and then only one year and twenty to go (if lucky) and then death O Lord. Jake Guewa steps out a ways, winks at Ronnie, gives him the sign for a sinker, goes back and squats; the old umpire leans in, Ronnie toes the rubber, rocks, rocks one time extry, throws up the left leg and bums one down, twisting his wrist as hard as he can to make that sinker sink dear God or Jangraw’ll golf it out of sight and Pittsburgh. He does golf it, hits it with a woodsy whack, it goes arcing weakly to the left, the third-baseman Joe Martin makes a leap but it means nothing, he knows he can’t get it, he even lets his good glove go as a sign of O well; the glove sails up and the ball sails out to left field, where Oboy Roy scutters up to recover it and fires it to second at little Homer Landry, as Jangraw gallumps down to first and makes a halfhearted turn and goes back to stand on the bag with a single to left, arms akimbo and spitting brown juice and nodding as Wade Hazard makes a smiling remark at him and the first-base umpire yells some joke and the fans are buzzing and sitting down again. But what now? What with the next batter, the mighty Babe Blagden, one of the greatest hitters of all time and currently batting .323—in only 29 games he’s had 31 hits and already delivered 8 homers (3 behind Jangraw) and catching up to the league leaders after he’d originally decided (in the spring) to give up active playing and be a coach, then persuaded to pinch hit, which he did with three home runs in a row or so, and so now back in the regular lineup and booming as good as ever.

  Now Manager Pie Tibbs is stalking up and down before the bench with that familiar walk of his, well-known to two generations of baseball fans, that cat stalk, only now there are lines in his face and he has to decide weighty issues. The fans are jeering Ronnie, “It’s only the beginning kiddo!” “Let’s see that famous fast ball, Babe loves that fast ball!” “Beer! get me cold beer!” A cold sweat is on Ronnie’s brow, he wipes it away like grease, he rubs his hands in the sand, on the rosin bag, something’s wrong with his body juices—I’ve gotta get outa this inning! he. prays—he gets the sign and gets ready to deliver.

  It’s a fast ball, fast as he can make it, to catch Blagden off balance; Babe is a right-hand powerhouse and swings with his wrists alone. He likes it and steps in with a short dusty push of his cleated foot and toothpicks the bat around and clacks it a weak popup into the air off the mound which Ronnie himself takes with a reassuring hand wave to the others. “I got it,” he calls.

  So Jangraw is left standing on first base and now there’s two outs and can Ronnie make it? Babyface Kolek, the recent hot hitter of the league rewarded with cleanup spot on the Chryslers, is stepping in and the stands are in an uproar. Kolek is such a clever clutchhitter Manager Pie Tibbs is worried and comes out to the mound to talk to Ronnie; Pie is also worried about the kid’s debut, his beginning inning will be so important in his development, besides who wants Jangraw sent around from first to score and put the Chryslers out ahead in the first inning.

  “Boy, I want you to take it cagey with this Kiolex, he’s a mean little bastat, let him have an assortment, start with a curve and keep it outside.” “Yessir, Mr. Tibbs.” “Lissen, kid, I don’t have to come out here in the first inning, but I notice you’re nervous ... let old Jake tell you what to do now, aim straight.” Ronnie, in a dream, toes the rubber, eyes Jangraw leading off first. Pie is back in the dugout, sitting, hunched, watching, Ronnie pumps fast and pours her in, at the lefthanded, squatting, keen-eyed Kolek, who lets it by his letters for a perfect strike. “Two more boy!” yells Jake Guewa, whanging the ball back, smarting Ronnie’s hand. He pours another one in high, the count is even and still in the balance—“Just a few more pitches!” He sweats . . . now he pauses, wipes his hands, wishes for a drink of water, or a Coke, swallows, takes the sign for change-of-pace fast ball and again checks on big Jangraw on first, with Wade Hazard hovering behind him, both doing a little, slow, big-man hop. Ronnie turns his face from them and his arm responds, hard, whiplash, down-the-wrist twists, the ball sails home, sinks too far, low, for ball two—“What’s the matter with me! Do I have to do everything in this world?” “Come on, kid!” yells the old third-base coach Pep McDill who’s been with the Plymouths since the beginning of time, now a bow-legged pot-bellied old-timer with no real cares but plenty of sympathy, whom Ronnie as a kid had seen skittering around shortstop in Pittsburgh like a little rabbit. Sighing, Ronnie does the fast rock and comes in with his sinker Kolek’s eyes light up and he lunges for it, his right foot shows the cleated sole Ronnie sees the bat come around and blinks as it explodes hard and whistles over his head and into center field where Tommy Turner is running like a smooth hare to recover and whip it on down to third, after some difficulty, and even slow-footed Jangraw has made it to there on the long single and there are men on first and third and two out and things are tight.

  O Lord, thinks Ronnie, I'll get the boot sure, starting off like this! Manager Pie Tibbs looks for the first time toward the bull pen in left field, this he’s never done before. That’s the sign, thinks Ronnie, his heart sinking. Another boner and I’m out in the showers. It will be K. L. Jordan facing him, bespectacled, bookkeeperish thin, but one of the most consistent hitters in baseball, currently whacking .307 in 32 games, with a slew of clutch hits to his credit, a dangerous man, the whole Chicago line-up pack
ed with enthusiastic dynamite. Jake Guewa gives the sign for fast ball, Jordan’s weakness; it will be a case of bum him down. Ronnie eyes the men on first and third one after the other, pauses, the whole game hinges on his action, and he blows her in and Jordan likes it and easily, with an expression of glint in his spectacles though there is unconcern on the face itself, and placks it down on the grass where again it rolls to Wade Hazard at first who leaps, startled to see it, and goes over a few feet and takes it in and trots a few feet to first and steps on the bag, sealing Ronnie’s courage into the records—and Ronnie slowly walks off the mound, letting off a big sigh that can be seen deflating his chest from the farthest gloomiest seat in the upper deep center-field bleachers, and as he does he takes one side look of longing at his wife in the stands and she holds up her fingers in the sign of “All straight,” and Ronnie is made.

  Wilbur Schramm is most famous for being one of the critical founders of the scholarly study of communications and mass communications. In those fields his work is considered foundational and legendary. What is sometimes forgotten is that he got his start as a creative writer and even founded the famous Iowa Writers'Workshop at the University of Iowa in 1936. He won the O. Henry Prize for short fiction in 1942, and in 1944 he published this story in the Saturday Evening Post. Disarmingly witty and charming, "My Kingdom for Jones" can easily be read as a pointed satire on baseball's struggle to integrate the game in the 1940s.