Carnival Baseball

by Colby Cox

  While at college, Gary studied hard. He never drank alcohol, he refused tobacco products, he steered clear of fraternity antics, and he stayed far away from the young ladies who frequented campus. After completion of his freshman year, South had a perfect 4.0 academic record. It seemed that Gary South was on his way to a very bright future. That all changed drastically his sophomore year as Gary picked up two dreadful and socially unacceptable vices: baseball and tattooing.

  On a whim, Gary tried out for the Yale Baseball Club that February and found that he excelled at the sport. So much so, in fact, that he would spend all of his time practicing and playing. When he was not on the college field, he was in nearby parks with local clubs, shagging balls and smashing line drives. His athletic prowess in the game excelled. His academic endeavors, however, crashed and burned.

  Depressed by thoughts of failing out of school and the end of the baseball season, Gary found himself roaming the streets of New Haven a broken man. He did not know how he would ever break the news to his father. His life at Yale was over. Gary’s mind was so clouded with his burdens that he failed to notice where his feet were leading him. He looked up to find himself in a strange part of town. As he stretched his neck towards the corner of the avenue to obtain street names, he noticed a tiny sign resting on top of a doorway that was tucked in between a tavern and a five and dime store. The sign read “Tattoos.”

  Thirty minutes later, Gary was walking out of the place with a feeling of euphoria and a baseball the size of a silver dollar forever etched onto his right shoulder. The experience changed his mood considerably. As a matter of fact, Gary could not remember the last time he felt as good as he did at that moment. He felt he was suddenly his own man and his destiny was his to mold.

  Young Gary South left his powerful family behind and worked his way to Galveston, Texas, where he earned a position on the city’s minor league team as an outfielder. The coaches there were some of the best Gary Saw had ever played under and they were filled with all kinds of similes and metaphors to instruct him as to how to play the game to the best of his ability.

  “No, son, you are swinging at the ball like an anvil. You got to be a hammer, Gary. Be the hammer!”

  So, after practice, Gary found an underground tattoo artist and had a picture of a hammer inked onto his shoulder.

  “South! When you come up to throw that ball to home, you look like a slow-moving grizzly bear. You got to spring up like a snake about to strike. You got to be the snake, son!”

  A coiled snake was tattooed on his chest.

  “Be a jackrabbit, boy!”

  It found its way tattooed on his forearm.

  The amazing thing was, Gary found that with each new tattoo he paid to have painstakingly drawn on his body, he performed baseball at a higher level. He kept getting better and better. The problem, however, was that the good christian folk of Galveston did not like to go to the park on a Sunday afternoon and see their home team center fielder covered in blasphemous drawings. It was uncivilized.

  “Son, you got to show restraint when it comes to that stuff. Restraint like a lion!”

  Gary was canned.

  Once again, he found himself roaming city streets depressed. This time his feet led him to a banner that was tied to the side of a barber shop.

  “Open Try-outs for Carnival Baseball. This Friday.”

  Gary was picked up by the WIlmington Whispers. 1933 was only his second year with the team from Delaware. He was having some growing pains, but he felt he was coming into his own.

  Before the team had left for Lynchburg, Sarge informed Gary that he would start in the outfield against the Lightning. The Yale dropout was struck by an epiphany. He paid a visit to the Wilmington navy yard where a man named Oscar Grant plied a secret and illegal tattoo trade. Gary waltzed in and had the image of a lightning rod tattooed at the bottom of his neck. He was no fool. He did attend Yale, after all.

  South came around to score on a Sankey hit before the Lightning’s pitcher Johnny Johnson retired the rest of the Wilmington side.

  The entire game was a battle. Each inning was tit-for-tat. Wilmington’s lineup kept putting the ball in play and squeezing out runs. South simply shined with the bat in his hands. It was as if he somehow discovered a way to turn off Lynchburg’s god-like powers.

  Defensively, Mink was doing a respectable job. He controlled seven out of the nine Lightning hitters. The major obstacles of the day were the two speedsters at the top of their roster. Both Volt Jones and Hot Foot Clayton bunted each time they stepped to the plate. They could not be stopped. First baseman, Sarge, and third baseman, Erv Bream, were practically on top of them when they came to the plate. Each time, both hitters made it to first courtesy of their lightning speed. Two pitches later they would steal around to third. There was nothing that could be done but hope that the Wilmington bats stayed on fire.

  During the bottom of the eighth, Mink let a curve hang too long and Thunder Teasley stroked it over the right field fence. As fans in the bleachers scrambled for the ball, the other four of the original Lynchburg Five met the slugger at home plate. They brought a bolt of lightning down in a celebratory ritual. Thunder’s homer made it a six to five ball game with Lynchburg on top.

  Sarge called time and strolled over to the mound. He approached Mink and could see the exhaustion on his face. No Legs met the men on the mound. Mink’s uniform was soaked through and Sarge caught the sound of a little wheeze in his breathing.

  “All right, Mink. You pitched one hell of a game. You did good.”

  Mink refused to look at him.

  “Kiss my ass, Sarge. You ain’t taking me out.”

  Lightning’s next batter, Othello “Smash Mouth” Adams, eyed Mink and Sarge. He warmed up with three bats in his massive hands.

  Sarge hated these moments. He watched his pitchers pour their hearts and bodies into every pitch. They became so focused on the game that in their minds it was all about them. They considered themselves failures if he took them out. He tried to ease back into it with Mink.

  “Mink, come on. This is the toughest team to face in the league. You know that. You just went seven and two-thirds inning with them. You’ve done your best. I’ll bring in Boner. He’ll shut them done with the knuckle ball.”

  Mink looked into the sky and watched the veins of electric spread from one side of the stadium to the other. He had felt their energy and hum the entire game. Each time he threw the ball, static electricity shocked him something fierce. His fingertips went numb four innings ago. He took a deep breath and finally faced Sarge. He tipped his sunglasses down the bridge of his nose and gave the head coach a good hard stare. A shiver shot through No Legs when he saw Mink’s milky gray eyes. He thought they looked unnatural.

  “Sarge. We been to hell and back together. I love you like a brother. I don’t ask much from you, but I am asking you for this. Just give me this last batter. Let me finish a full eight. Then you bring in Tanner’s boy.”

  Sarge spat on Mink’s spikes that were encased in rubber booties.

  “All right. You pitch to Smash Mouth, but Tanner’s kid ain’t coming in. They’ll electrocute his ass via his golden arm. I can’t let that happen.”

  The home plate paller, Deacon Willard, lost patience with the pitching mound conference. He yelled at Sarge to start play or get thrown out.

  Mink burned with anger. He threw in a sweetener to get his way.

  “If I strike out Smash Mouth, Tanner comes in.”

  Inside, Sarge seethed. He wanted to knock his best friend into tomorrow. He stuck his face inches away from Mink’s and used his pointer finger to push the pitcher’s shades up the bridge of his nose so they covered his eyes. He growled.

  “You get three pitches to strike him out, ‘Anthony’. Then, and only then, does Tanner come in.”

  Sarge turned and stormed back to first base. Wilmington’s catcher No Legs was not certain what he had just witnessed, but he regretted that he ventured out from behind
the safety of home plate to see it.

  The crowd could sense that Mink was tired and they were surprised when he was not taken out of the game. Their applause became deafening as Othello stepped to the plate. He did not yield the lightning like Teasley, but he was a respectable hitting machine all the same. Smash Mouth led the league the year before in RBIs. He tapped the plate four times with his bat, stared Mink up and down, and readied himself.

  Mink mowed him down with three straight pitches, one, two, three.

  In the Whispers dugout, Mink and Sarge stood next to one another as they watched the famous Nap Hill take the mound for Lynchburg. Blue arcs shot through the air where the ball left his hand. It was the only thing they could see. Anything beyond the pitcher’s mound was lost in the thick blue fog that still billowed from time to time from SImon Says. Mink finally cut the silence.

  “Don’t ever call me Anthony again.”

  It took everything Sarge had to keep his stoic demeanor and not burst out in laughter.

  “Don’t ever tell me that you love me again. That’s just plain weird, Mink.”

  The little man’s face reddened.

  “I said like a brother, Sarge! Like a brother!”

  Sarge gave most of the credit to what happened next to Simon Says and his mastery over the mystic arts, because when Nap “Shocker” Hill stepped on the mound for Lynchburg, hitters were better off to not even bring a bat to the plate. Of the original five Lynchburg Royals that received their “gifts” courtesy of that fateful Fourth of July storm, Nap Hill was the most powerful. The other four were electrocuted by the residual forces that came off of the mighty bolt. Hill had taken a direct hit from it on top of his head. A tight burn mark ran down the man’s face. It was a permanent brand to commemorate the event.

  Hill was a good natured soul wore the mark with pride. He was a family man with nine children at home, four girls and five boys. They came to every home Lynchburg game with their mother and had reserved seats behind the Lightning’s dugout. A devout baptist, Nap refused to play Carny Ball on Sunday.

  The Lynchburg pitcher had already racked up twelve wins and two saves that year. He had no losses. Hill possessed three types of pitches: fastball, faster-ball, and fastest-ball. He never used the last two because nobody could hit the first one. Only two players in the history of his career had hit home runs against him. The first was Sarge Safran of the Wilmington Whispers. Sarge did it four years ago at a home game. The event made the headlines of every city paper. The second was Hooligan Pete of the Baltimore Bombers. Hooligan cranked one out of Lynch Park against Hill last season. The ball landed in the right field bleachers high into the crowd. The Lightning fans promptly ripped it apart, tossed it in a vendor’s sausage grill until it was burnt to a crisp, and then flung the ashes back onto the field.

  Dugas was the first Whispers batter unfortunate to face Shocker. He stood with his bat on his shoulder as two blue flashes of light screamed by him. It would not be fair to state that he watched the two strikes, because they traveled too fast for him to see.

  Dane decided to bunt when Nap was in the middle of his windup. Bunting on two strikes would normally be a giant no-no in any league, but he figured it was his only chance to make some sort of contact with the ball, and besides, it would look a lot better than striking out watching.

  The bat almost jumped out of Dane’s hands as a loud wooden knock jolted his forearms. A burn mark was left on its handle and the ball fell a few feet in front of home plate where it spun like a top. Dugas took off for first.

  Lynchburg catcher Oscar Clayton sprung into action. Dane was fast, but not fast enough to pose a threat of turning his measly offering into a single. Clayton threw his mask off and had plenty of time to throw Dane out, but the ball had so much spin on it that as the catcher tried to grab it, it shot loose of his grip and came to rest on the white chalk of the third baseline. The crowd groaned and Dane stood safely on first.

  Nap Hill could only smile and shake his head. Dane playfully yelled over to the Lightning’s pitcher as the ball made its way back to the mound. He asked Nap if anyone ever hit one so far against him. Nap thought about it and laughed.

  “No, sir. It can safely be said that no one has ever hit the ball that far against me.”

  Hill then soundly struck out both Sarge Safran and Biscuit Wagner on six straight fastballs. The air smelled of ozone.

  The majority of the crowd were up on their feet. About a third of them stretched, a third cheered on Hill to throw the last out of the game, and the final third crowded the exits of the park in hopes of beating the rest of the masses home. There were two outs and the Lightning were winning. One more and it was final. As far as they were concerned, the game was over.

  Wilmington’s tattooed wonder, Gary South, stepped into the batter’s box. He was three-for-three that day, but those hits were achieved while Johnny “Kid” Johnson stood on the mound. He now faced the one and only Nap “Shocker” Hill, the powerhouse pitcher of the League who had yet to lose a game. Hill didn’t throw just heat. He threw lightning heat.

  Unbeknownst to the legendary pitcher, however, when Gary stood in the dugout awaiting his turn to bat, he had watched Hill throw nine pitches; three to Dugas, three to Sarge, and three to Biscuit. Once the ball left Hill’s hand, its speed was so fast that it could not be seen. Gary only saw a flash of blue and heard a small pop as the air tried to get out of its way. So instead of focusing on the ball, Gary Tattoo South focused on the man who threw it.

  He noticed around the fifth pitch he watched Hill send towards home that when the Shocker reared back and released, his eyes darted upwards towards the heavens. On the sixth pitch, Gary saw that Hill’s lips moved as if he was saying something before his eyes shot skyward.

  During the seventh fastball, South had moved to the on-deck circle. He did not warm up by swinging his bat. He got down on one knee and studied Hill. He read Hill’s moving lips and thought he caught what Nap was silently saying before the pitcher let the baseball fly from his hand. On the eighth pitch, South was certain he had deciphered it and on the ninth and final throw, Gary timed the words and whispered them at the same time the pitcher did.

  “Lord Jesus, Son of God, have mercy upon me, a sinner.”

  When it was his turn to face Hill, South planted his feet in the back of the box. He immediately felt the static electricity that resonated between Lynchburg’s catcher and pitcher. His two-day old tattoo of a lightning rod on his neck burned as if it was on fire. Gary heard the hickory of his bat squeak as he tightly wrapped his knuckles around it and set them in a perfect line. He knew he would never see the ball, so he had to time everything perfectly.

  Nap Hill went into his windup. Just like every other pitch he delivered, he began to recite his favorite prayer, the one that gave him personal strength. He never realized that South whispered it with him.

  As soon as Gary mouthed the word “sinner”, he swung as hard as he could and hoped that he was right about his observations of the man on the mound.

  He was.

  Twelve thousand jaws dropped as the shot ripped through the muggy air. South’s bat split in two as white lightning sprung off of it. The force of the blow had warped the baseball and it wobbled higher and higher over the centerfield fence. People leaving the field craned their necks to see what all the commotion was about.

  The ball landed in the top seats of the outfield bleachers and was thrown back onto the field by a disgusted Lynchburg fan so quickly that it looked as if it had bounced.

  Nap Hill watched the young tattooed man round the bases in amazement as over half of the crowd scrambled to retrieve their programs and find out the name of the guy who just pulled off the unthinkable.

  When South rounded third, he caught Hill in the corner of his eye. The pitcher shot him a smile and tipped his cap South’s way. Gary grinned from ear to ear and nodded his respect back. He was then swarmed by the entire Wilmington Whispers roster in a thick cloud of blue smoke as he touch
ed home plate.

  Hill struck out No Legs Ruben on three pitches for the final out, but the damage was done. The Whispers were up by one run headed into the bottom of the ninth. Fans that left the park now clamored back through the entrances to regain their seats. They suddenly had a serious baseball game on their hands and no one wanted to miss the ending.

  13. Meddling Scratch

  Charles Tanner Junior stepped out of the dugout and onto the field. He wore long sleeves to try to hide the high shine of his metal arm. He hesitated a moment and looked towards Mink Cosgrove. Mink stood up off of the wooden bench. A bag of ice fell from his shoulder as he clapped his hands hard three times.

  “Come on, Tanner. You can do this, kid!”

  Tanner pulled his cap down low over his eyes and walked to the mound like a man on a mission. The Lynchburg dugout was empty. Their entire team stood out in front. They were a club full of pride and had yet to lose a home game that season. They heckled Tanner during his warmup throws. They clapped and stomped and their fans followed their lead. By the time Deacon Willard swept home plate and called “Batter up”, the place was a madhouse filled with nothing but static electricity and noise.

  Lightning’s Len Hooker stepped into the batter’s box and watched a mean fastball blow past him for a called strike. Sarge yelled encouragement to his rookie pitcher, but Tanner never heard him. The rookie heard nothing. He only saw No Leg’s mitt. He threw his forkball for strike two. Hooker had never seen a pitch like it before, not even from his teammate, Shocker Hill. Hooker choked up on his bat and squeezed in tight over the plate. He was on the defensive now, and had to get the ball into play. Tanner threw one that looked as if it would take the man’s head off. Hooker dropped his bat and dove for cover. The ball broke hard and caught the corner of the plate for strike three.