by Colby Cox
The city of WIlmington had been thrown into confusion. What began as a fun and exciting day over the Fury on the First turned into panic and anxiety. The party-like atmosphere changed to mass prayer sessions as those who flooded the downtown area helplessly had watched the shadowy darkness descend upon Whispers Stadium. They were completely cut off from whatever was going on inside and each cheer or jeer heard escaping from the ballpark was seized upon as a sign of good or portent of evil things to come.
Whatever Mycroft thought about as he watched the game unfold, it certainly never affected his appetite. Although the outfield vendor who served him was ecstatic with the tips he received, the journey back and forth to the top outfield seats lugging popcorn, beers, and lemonade left his legs rubbery.
28. Substitution
The Whispers bats hammered the ball all night long, but the DRH turned their extra base hits into easy outs. The only way to insure a ball hit to the outfield would not fall in a Wachorski brother’s mitt was to hit it down the line or over the fence. Noodles Nefosky turned double plays even when Sarge called for the hit and run.
Wilmington squeezed out some singles here and there, but it was never enough to drive in runs across the plate. Although Rube was successful at shutting the DRH’s offense down, their gloves were an untouchable force.
During the bottom of the seventh with two outs, what Sarge feared the most occurred. Angered by a double that the robot Wonder Boy lined past Mad Dog McCann, Scratch pulled his lineup from his pocket. He took the nub of a pencil and erased a name away from the list. The crowd watched in horror as DRH’s pitcher Bobby Boyles exploded into flames and vanished. As his charred uniform was removed from the field, a substitute stepped from the third base dugout and walked out to the mound. It was Charles Tanner Senior.
Sarge later blamed himself for what happened next, but when he turned his back to give some hitting advice to the rest of his team, he heard Mink’s familiar voice out on the field. Sarge turned to see his best friend march out towards Tanner. He held a bat.
“Tanner, you son of a bitch, get ready for the ass whooping of your dead life.”
Sarge hit the field in a dead sprint. He knew that Mink was tempting some evil forces with his stunt and he hoped he could stop him before Scratch decided to erase him from the field.
Mink raised the bat and was ready to strike when Sarge tackled him from behind. Right there, in the middle of the packed stadium, the two Whispers coaches fell to the ground. Scratch’s infield menacingly closed in on the scene and the entire Whispers bench poured onto the diamond in response. Fists and feet flew. A Wachorski Brother broke his front teeth while trying to bite Savoy Special. Stonewall Smith knocked Biscuit Wagner out cold with a catcher’s mask. Not wanting to be left out of the fun, Hooligan Pete hopped the fence and kicked an unsuspecting Mad Dog McCann square in his testicles. The crowd howled and let loose. The baseball field was rained down upon with beer bottles, cracker jacks, and seat cushions.
Tanner Senior pleaded with Sarge as the coach held Mink at bay.
“Sarge, please. I can’t stop Scratch. He has control over me. I’m his puppet. I have to obey him!”
As the melee raged, Scratch stood back and watched in disgust. He finally could not take anymore. His bet with Sarge Safran had turned out to be one of his worst ventures ever. He tossed his mitt off and raised his hands.
“Enough!”
Players from both teams were thrown across the field like bowling pins. Any fight left in them was gone. Scratch yelled for his men to get back to their positions and the rest sheepishly slunk through the blackness and into their dugout. Head paller Irvin Grodanski would have normally ejected everyone from the field, but he could tell by looking at Aldous Scratch that suspension of play was not going to be an option.
Sarge threw Mink over his shoulder and rodeoed the rest of his team to their bench. Lil Boner and Kid McCoy helped Biscuit to his feet. A knot protruded from the man’s scalp. The grounds crew rushed the field and began to clear the debris. The Whispers fumed on their bench with hanged-dog expressions while Sarge gave them the ass-chewing of their lives. Each player was sprayed with his tobacco spittle. Not a one of them dared to protest.
Once he wore himself out from all of the yelling, Sarge went to check on Tanner Junior. He was actually glad to see that the boy was still unconscious and hoped that he would never learn about his father’s pact with Aldous Scratch. Sleep was a blessing.
Sarge put a hand on Simon’s shoulder while the witch doctor readied a fresh cloth for Tanner Junior’s forehead.
“Simon, I don’t even know if you understand half of the stuff I tell you, but I want to thank you for everything you do around this nut house. I sure do appreciate it.”
Simon looked up at him and smiled.
Of course, if Sarge had seen Simon out on the field during the fight, he would have been playing a very different tune. When the bench clearing fracas began, Simon had placed himself right in the middle of it. Once he was able to get close enough to Tanner Senior, Simon opened up his nose bone and leaned his head to the side. The golden crown from the claddagh ring slid into Simon’s waiting hand. Simon then threw himself on the ground and like a stalking cat, he crawled next to the pitcher’s white spike and secretly tucked the crown into Tanner Senior’s shoe. With his mission completed, he rolled the entire way back to the Whispers dugout like a tumbleweed.
The grounds crew received a round of applause as they finished clearing the field. They dragged the last piece of loose refuse over to the Whispers bench. It was the cigar store indian. Sarge thanked the men and propped the wooden statue in the corner next to Tanner Junior. He turned his ire back towards his team.
“If I find out which one you bums drug that damn indian out there, I swear you’ll get the beating to end all beatings.”
He turned his back so the rest of the Whispers would not catch him smile.
After the delay, paller Grodanski swept home plate clean again and resumed play. Ralph Sankey stepped in against Tanner Senior, who threw from the full windup. The first pitch blew by Sankey and struck Stonewall Smith’s mitt with a crack. Mink and Sarge shot glances each other’s way. Tanner had thrown the ball hard twelve years ago, but he had never even come close to what they just observed. His second strike neared the speed of Lynchburg Lightning’s Nap Hill and the third was a wicked curve that left Sankey nothing but confused. As the Devil’s Right Hand walked off the field to switch sides, Sarge grabbed his mitt from the bench and leaned close towards Mink so no one would hear.
“If old man Tanner can keep that up for the next two innings, we are in some deep trouble.”
The eighth inning was a blur. The signals continued to follow their communication line from Haney Mane in the dugout, to No Legs Ruben behind the plate, and then finally to Rube Robinson on the mound, who turned them into action. Three visitors went to the plate and three were forced back to their darkened dugout where they faced the wrath of their coach.
It went no better for the Whispers, as Charles Tanner Senior made quick work of Erv Bream, No Legs, and Rube Robinson. He struck all three out with thirteen pitches. Sarge studied his old friend’s delivery. After a while it became too painful to watch. He could see that before, during, and after every pitch, Charles Senior was trying to fight off Scratch’s will. The pitcher wore a perpetual look of anguish across his face. There was even a bizarre moment during Rube Robinson’s at-bat when Tanner threw two consecutive pitches in the dirt. After the second, he fell to his hands and knees in agony. It looked as if he had been punched in the kidneys. He sucked air through clenched teeth.
Scratch yelled at him from first base.
“Damn you, Charles. Do not fight me! You are making this hard on yourself.”
Tanner then blew three straight fastballs past Rube for the out and the end of the inning. Sarge could never forgive Tanner for signing Scratch’s contract, but he could respect him for resisting his hold over him.
Now
the top of the ninth, the Whispers took the field for the last time. Rube Robinson threw a few easy warmup pitches and then, for the last few moments before play began, he breathed deeply and bounced the rosin bag up and down in his pitching hand. His shoulder throbbed, but he would never complain. He would do what he could. After that, it would fall in the hands of the Whispers offense.
Someone seated high in the crowd yelled out so all could hear.
“Come on, Rube! Strike those goons out!”
The plea got a spattering of applause, which slowly transformed into a chant. It was small and low at first, but as more joined in, it took off like a brush fire that consumed the entire stadium.
“Rube! Rube! Rube!”
He squinted his eyes against the bright lights and looked into the crowd as best he could. He felt the voices go right through him. It was as if the chant was coming down onto the field, as if it was right on top of him. Rube turned his head to wipe sweat from his chin and froze. Sarge stood at first, looking right at him. The coach chanted along with the crowd as loudly as he could.
“Rube! Rube! Rube!”
The pitcher turned on his heels and stared. Every teammate on the field - every player in the dugout. These men gave him the chance of a lifetime - a dream come true. They had stuck by him and backed him at every turn.
As the first DRH hitter made his way to the plate, Rube flexed his shoulder, pulled his cap tight to his brow, and waited for the signal from No Legs. Come hell or high water, he was not going to let these men down.
The determined rookie quickly dispatched Charles Tanner Senior and lead-off hitter Stonewall Smith. Everyone rose to their feet. The noise they made drowned out Max Cox’s megaphone but they did not need to hear it to know who was up next. He was the only hitter from the DRH who Rube had not been able to shut down.
Aldous Scratch nonchalantly strode onto the field. His uniform still sparkled and looked as if it was newly pressed. All the other players looked exhausted. They were covered in dirt, bruises, and blood. Scratch was as fresh as a daisy. He used his bat to knock dirt from the bottom of his white ankle high spikes and nodded to Rube that he was ready.
Everything Robinson had thrown at the man so far was ineffective. Scratch defied his slider, he clobbered his fastball, and he crushed his change-up. Since Haney Mane and No Legs could offer no advice through secret signals, Rube decided his best chance was to throw low junk. If he ended up walking Scratch, then so be it.
The difficulty in pitching professional baseball is that inches can make the difference. With his shoulder aching from throwing seven innings and change, Robinson released the ball. As soon as its stitching passed his fingers, he knew it was trouble.
What Rube meant to be a shin high dirt ball slipped from his grasp and became a waist high give-me usually only seen by batters during hitting practice. The Wilmington pitcher almost had enough time to regret his mistake before Scratch’s bat made contact. The ball screamed high over his head like a mortar shell. Rube did not turn to look. He was too afraid of what he would see.
The people in the outfield bleachers hopped onto their seats. The group directly between right and center just beyond the fence stretched their hands upwards in hopes of snatching the incoming homer. They clustered together and tracked the ball high into the lights.
Gary South ran full steam from center field. Wonder Boy, who was positioned far off the right field line when Scratch came to the plate, was already at the edge of the fence where it seemed the ball would cross over. Small puffs of black smoke billowed from the robot’s exhaust pipe. Its eye lights popped on and cut the night sky as it squatted to prepare for a last ditch leap.
Sarge helplessly watched from the infield. He felt worse for his rookie pitcher than he did for himself. He could see that Gary had a bead on the ball, but it looked as if it would clear the ten foot fence without problem.
When Doctor Bismark was later interviewed about the incident by the Wilmington News, he could not give a solid and definite answer as to why his Wonder Boy robot took the action it did. He espoused some physics and then proposed that the mechanical man’s proximity sensors may have felt threatened by the approaching Whispers center fielder, but deep down, the scientist felt in his heart that there was only one true and clear reason. Bismark thought his creation had become more than just a functioning replica of a person. During its tenure with WIlmington, Wonder Boy had learned what it meant to be human. His creation, deduced Bismark, had become a man.
Gary was in a dead sprint with his head turned toward the descending ball. He ran recklessly and was blind to the fact that he was on a direct collision course with the much heavier and much larger Wonder Boy. Mink watched from the dugout and grimaced at the pending impact.
In one motion, Wonder Boy’s eye lights clicked off and the robot lowered itself on a knee. Its mitt flew off of its hand, which was now extended towards Gary.
In full stride, Gary’s spike connected with the robot’s fingers and a rush of air shot from pistons as Wonder Boy jerked all of its mechanical force in an upward motion.
The Wilmington fans seated in the front row of the outfield were ten feet above Gary and Wonderboy. Their attention was upon the ball that made its way towards their seats. Several of them fell backwards into their stadium chairs and many drinks toppled as they reacted to the sudden appearance of a flying outfielder in front of their faces.
Wonder Boy launched Gary at least twenty feet high. The tattooed Yale dropout snatched the baseball cleanly out of the darkened sky with athletic poise. It was a thing of beauty to behold and would later become the topic of a 1934 poem to be considered for the Pulitzer prize. Gary’s landing, however, was a different matter all together.
South struck the ground with a sickening thud. The second base paller, Sarge, and Ralph Sankey sprinted towards him as Wonder Boy stood by. The paller and Sarge got to him first and Sarge carefully shook Gary’s shoulder.
“Gary, can you hear me?”
South slowly pulled his head from the dirt and spat a clump of grass out of his mouth. He held his mitt up to show the ball safely tucked inside its pocket. The paller theatrically disengaged himself from the crowd of Whispers now surrounding Gary near the fence. He had seen what he was looking for. He threw his thumb up and yelled his call for all to hear.
“Out!”
Those men and women who gathered outside of Whispers Stadium took the loud explosion of cheers and applause as a positive sign for their home team.
29. Bottom of the Ninth
Sarge and Ralph Sankey helped South hobble back into the dugout. Gary’s ankle was clearly broken. There was no way he would be able to hit. Sarge studied the right field scoreboard. It showed the ugly truth. It was three runs for the DRH, two runs for the WIlmington Whispers. Sarge was in dire need of base runners.
One run to tie.
Two runs to win.
No runs and he and Tanner Junior received one-way tickets to purgatory.
Sarge turned to his men. He stood on the second step of the dugout and stared at his players - he sized them up. Deep in concentration, the coach pinched at his bottom lip. A hundred scenarios played through his head. He watched Crazy Legs McCoy. His eyes then fell on Simon. Sarge glanced up from the witch doctor to see the wooden cigar indian staring back at him.
“For the love of God, would someone throw a towel over that thing’s head? It’s giving me the creeps.”
Sarge spied the field. Tanner Senior was still on the mound. After every warmup pitch he threw, Tanner glanced over at Sarge. When their eyes connected, Sarge could actually feel the sadness in Tanner’s heart. A question burned like red hot steel.
How could you let it come to this, Chuck?
It was the bottom of the ninth. It was do or die. The tension was palpable. Every person present felt the stress and excitement. They clenched tightly to their programs and anything else within arm’s reach. A few fainted, but no one came to their aid in fear of missing the action.
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Mink chewed his gum into powder and now tore hunks out of a popcorn box with his mouth and ground them into pulp with his teeth. Lil Boner burst into tears and threw his arms tightly around the wooden indian. He needed to be held.
Paller Grodanski called for play to begin and Savoy Special stepped to the plate. Tanner Senior looked in for his catcher’s signs and let the ball loose. The left-handed soulless soldier from Nebraska made mince meat of the Whispers robot. Five pitches later, Savoy Special walked back to the dugout dragging its bat behind it. It was the first out for Wilmington. The home team was running out of chances.
Dane Dugas was next. Determined to get wood on the ball, Dane choked up on the bat and chopped at Tanner’s first pitch. The crowd screamed when he connected. Dane ran for his life. The ball was a mean hopper headed towards shortstop. Noodles Nefosky charged it, gloved it, and chunked it sidearm towards first. Scratch stretched out with his glove fully extended. The ball and Dane converged at the bag almost at the same time. The first base paller yelled his decision.
“Out!”
Dane threw his head down and ran straight to Sarge. He shook uncontrollably.
“I’m sorry, Sarge. I’m Sorry. I swear I tried. I’m so sorry.”
Dugas was physically broken.
Sarge’s stomach felt like a cement grinder. He hated to see his team in such anguish and he tried to console Dane the best he could. He motioned for Mink to help. The smaller man put an arm around Dane and slowly walked him away to the other side of the bench.
The Whispers were now one out away from a loss. Scratch flashed his perfect smile Sarge’s way.
“Don’t be so glum, Sarge. Trust me, it won’t be as bad as you think.”