But Sharon grabbed his shirt tightly in her good fist, stopping him.
“Forget it,” she hissed. “If Frank takes me out now, it’s all for nothing.”
Buck paused, understanding creeping slowly upon him. “Of course. You still…”
Sharon put her hand to his lips, smiling again. “Just strike this next sonofabitch out, willya? I got to go to the can. And besides, we need a Grouper in the record book.”
Buck nodded. “We will do our best,” he said, and he thought he could detect a slight lessening of the pain. When he turned again to the plate, he was careful to avert his gaze from the ominous figure behind the screen. He locked his eyes on Lucco and refused to acknowledge the pounding in his arm. The Mice had sent up a pinch hitter who was now being announced as the American League leader in slugging percentage from a decade before. The man, who was himself gray at the temples, switched his bat implacably and glared back at gray Buck, who had a sudden vision of a tidal wave sweeping across Golden Years Lake, swamping him and his sailboard, dragging him down to a watery grave.
He shook his head to clear his mind and took a deep breath. He turned for a last look at Sharon, then back to the batter, focussing on throwing the curve.
It was a pitiful effort that dangled like an apple on a stationary branch, ready to be splattered into sauce. The one-time slugging king smiled a thin smile and strode into the ball, driving it far over the short fence in left, a shot which curved foul only at the last instant. The crowd released its breath in a collective sigh, and Buck mopped his forehead. When he hurried to deliver the second pitch, the perspiration was still trickling down his arm.
Halfway through his motion, he felt the ball slip–it rose into the night sky a good twenty-five feet, and then, as if guided by an invisible hand, fell incredibly over the outside corner of the plate. The umpire signaled strike, the Mice dugout screeched in protest, the amazed batter shook his head, and the crowd roared and rose to its feet in anticipation.
Buck took the return throw from Lucco, then stood juggling the ball and biting his lip. He wondered if his arm could stay attached to his body for even one more pitch. He wondered further if Hartford would be willing to sign on a pitcher with one wing detached. Then, he tried to see himself ping-ponging away at Golden Years Village: one-armed, a lopsided flywheel of retirement. Still stalling, he turned to survey the team behind him.
Pisby pounded his glove and tried to set a determined jaw. Sharon was biting her lip as she held her glove hand stiff at her side. Minoso jiggled up and down at third base chattering a steady stream of Spanish. Even Wattles, knee deep in the fog covering the outfield by now, appeared alert and had joined the others in calling encouragement.
As he stared out at them, the roar of the crowd rose, and Buck turned back to see Hasslebrow vaulting over the rail at the third base line. Once on the field, the owner turned back to the jammed stands and, of all things, began to orchestrate a cheer. It was a simple chant the owner was calling for, imploring the team to go! Go! GO!
As cheers rolled over him and the calls of his teammates pecked counterpoint from behind, it began to dawn on Buck what was happening. They were, for their various personal reasons, all counting on him. The players behind him and Hasslebrow in front and all the people in the stands and down the lines. Counting on him! Relying on him in a way that even his fractured mother had not.
He took a deep breath and shook away the pain. He had another of the unbidden visions: he and others were in a Golden Years activities room, shrouded in spider webs, coated with dust, still as mummies while an instructor droned on about the joys of needlepoint. Buck blinked himself back to reality. He knew it was time to throw.
Though he could not remember his motion, the result was clear enough. The umpire’s hand shot up, the slugging king slumped down at the plate and the stands went wild. Hasslebrow rushed to the mound and joined the others who would carry their hero from the field, but Buck stayed the group with a simple gesture toward the scoreboard. “We’ve still got some runs to score, now, don’t we?
With the help of the bull-shouldered umpire and Hasslebrow’s pleading on the PA, most of the fans were finally coaxed off the field. Even then, there was another slight delay as a pair of elderly men ran shoeless across the outfield holding a hastily painted sheet which proclaimed “Grey Power.” The Mice took the field smartly, however, and the pitcher fired sizzling warmups with a smug look on his face, until he looked up to see Sharon trotting toward the mound.
His jaw dropped as she neared him, and when she leaned close on tiptoe to whisper at his ear, the young man colored mightily. By the time the Mice manager had come storming from the dugout, Sharon was already back at the plate, swinging her bat and beaming out at the flustered pitcher. “TIME!” The Mice manager thundered. “We protest again! Double protest on this game, ump!”
As the manager began a heated conference with his pitcher, Sharon turned to the Grouper dugout innocently. “I just told him what a good pitcher he was,” she called to Wattles. “And that I thought he could use a bat pretty well too.”
Pisby rose to protest, but Wattles yanked him back to the ground near the on-deck circle. “Just good baseball strategy, son.”
“Play ball!” cried the umpire, ordering the Mice manager from the field.
The Mice pitcher, barely able to glance at the plate, looped four consecutive pitches high into the screen. After two more conferences with his manager and eight additional pitches, the first three Grouper batters stood on base. Following yet another conference, which featured the pitcher pleading from his knees and the manager ripping his cap in half, the fourth Grouper took a called third strike, and Wattles strode to the plate, batting fifth.
Pisby stood on first, yelling encouragement. “How ‘bout a little rap, slugger!”
“Say hey!” Minoso called from second.
“Come on, Billy, smooth-stroke it.” It was Sharon’s throaty voice from third.
But Wattles went down on three pitches, swinging from the heels at the last, a curve ball that hit the dirt a foot in front of the plate.
“That’s you, now, Pops!” Lucco’s voice boomed from a dark corner of the dugout.
“Me?” Buck protested. “Surely there’s a pinch hitter for the pitcher in such a spot?”
“Not in this league, Pops.” Wattles grinned as he handed Buck his own bat. “Use this one. All kinds of hits left in this baby.”
Buck wandered to the plate, his heart pounding. Sharon and Pisby and Minoso looked in expectantly. The pitcher, back in control now, grinned as Buck toed the plate, then fired a sizzling fastball at his ear. With his heart gone dead, Buck ducked, but the ball caught his poised bat and ricocheted back against his temple.
Stars danced before his eyes, and the umpire’s call of “Strike!” floated like dream talk to his ears. He was still in a daze as the next pitch smoked down the heart of the plate for a called strike two, and in desperation, he lifted his hand and wobbled out of the box. Though he would not look up, he felt the heavy gaze of the Slo Pitch tycoon from the screen at his back.
“Time!” the umpire called, and the stands set up a great buzzing as Buck fought to clear his head. He worked at the stiff batting helmet, which seemed to have shrunk to a steel band at his throbbing temples, and as he struggled with it, he felt a strange crackling in the cap’s lining. Puzzled, he lifted it from his head to check, and as he did, a familiar yellow slip of paper fell from the sweatband and drifted to the ground between his feet. Though his eyes were slow to focus, Buck realized immediately it was his waiting list receipt, proof of his place in the Golden Years pecking order, somehow moved from the toe of his street shoe where he’d kept it hidden in the deepest recess of his padlocked locker, to its naked spot in his batting cap.
“Billy and I put it there for good luck.” It was Sharon’s voice drifting in from third as Buck bent, trembling, to retrieve the fragile document. At first, he felt he might shout out in anger at them. They had no
business fooling in his private things, he thought, but then a terrible jab of pain sunk into his shoulder.
He looked to the dark sky, immediately regretting his anger. They were his friends. They were simply trying to help. Some players used rabbits’ feet, others refused to change their underwear, and he had been given his receipt for a better life, a logical charm in his case. It was surely part and parcel of the complex cosmic weave, an appropriate final touch.
He smiled at Sharon, who blew a kiss back from the bag. He turned to the dugout next, and there was Wattles on the top step, shouting at him to knock the goddamn cover off. He could hear the roar of encouragement from the crowd as well, but when he turned he found that he could not see them past the glare of the lights on the field. He hesitated, wondering if his sight was failing at this crucial moment.
“Come on, Pops. You’re the hero now. I leave for the Slo Pitch League in the morning.” It was Wattles, at his elbow suddenly. Buck looked to his other side and found Lucco there, catcher’s mask perched atop his head.
“I wouldn’t want to hold him back,” Lucco nodded. “Billy got a hell of a deal.”
“And Sharon goes as well?” Buck looked quickly at Wattles.
“Not a chance,” Lucco broke in.
“She’s going to Hartford, with me.”
“The ump says he’ll marry ‘em at home plate, if we ever get this game finished,” Wattles added, as the manager broke into an embarrassed smile.
Buck turned to look toward third, and Sharon called back her answer before he could ask. “Maybe I’ll go to Hartford, maybe not,” she cried. “I got a lot of options, now.” She raised a clenched fist in happy salute above her head.
“Play ball,” the umpire bellowed then, scattering the conference that had taken shape at the plate. Buck nodded, praying for steadiness to return to his limbs.
As he turned back to the plate, he paused for a moment, remembering a story he had lived so long ago, a tale of a young boy in a nowhere town who had managed an impossible feat.
Buck glanced out toward the mound and, for a moment, thought he saw the slender, ageless form of Mr. Leroy Paige standing there.
“Told you I’d be seeing you, Buck,” the unflappable Satchel seemed to say. Buck opened his mouth, then blinked and saw at once that he’d been wrong. It was the Mice pitcher who still toed the rubber, and the gaze he sent toward the plate was anything but calm.
Buck stepped up and lifted his bat, pointing to a spot beyond the fence in fog-shrouded center field. The Mice pitcher sneered in disbelief, but Hasslebrow would appreciate the gesture, Buck was sure. Over the increasing roar of the crowd came Wattles’ voice.
“Don’t worry, Mr. B,” the boy called. “Whatever happens, I’m gonna get you a hell of a deal in Slo Pitch.”
“Thanks,” Buck answered, over his shoulder, “And I appreciate the offer.” His eyes were steady on the pitcher, his head cleared up at last. “But I couldn’t leave this club. They’ll need a manager with some experience. And I can use the work, you know.”
With one hand he wadded up the waiting list receipt–giving up the idea of dying, turning back to doing–and spun to give it a little underhand toss toward Wattles, just as the Mice pitcher kicked and made his delivery.
Buck could have protested the pitch, but there was no need. He turned in plenty of time to swing, a motion that seemed to have begun somewhere around 1939. He heard the crack, felt the solid impact along his forearms, all the way to his aged shoulders.
The crowd began to roar and Buck knew. Had he bothered to look, he would have seen the ball soaring up and outward, tracing a shower of golden sparks as it flew. But he did not, for he preferred the vision of it in his mind’s eye, where it would burn perfectly and, forever. He acknowledged the cheers that rained down with a wave, then lowered his head, and began to circle the bases, just a few years late, he thought, but so much better than never.
About the Author
LES STANDIFORD is the author of Spill, Done Deal, Raw Deal, Deal to Die For, Deal on Ice, Presidential Deal, Black Mountain,and Deal with the Dead. He contributed to the national bestseller Naked Came the Manatee, as well as the serial novel The Putt at the End of the World. He is a past recipient of the Frank O’Connor Award for Short Fiction and a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship in fiction. Standiford is director of the creative writing program at Florida International University in Miami, where he lives with his wife and their three children.
Standiford, a lifelong baseball fanatic, was fascinated with the Negro Leagues from his youth. He remembers watching Larry Doby and Luke Easter play for his beloved Cleveland Indians and still counts among his most prized possessions one of the first Satchel Paige baseball cards. He recounts memories of a visit the fabled pitcher made to his hometown of Cambridge, Ohio, as a barnstormer during the twilight of his career. Standiford recalls, “Paige had to have been pushing 60, but he was still amazing. I stood behind the backstop to watch his pitches come in and it was like nothing I’d ever seen. This easy, deceptive motion, and then BAM! I can still remember the explosions in the catcher’s mitt. Paige’s team went up against a collection of local all stars, and it was no contest all the way. In the final inning, though, a local player did something I would have never thought possible. Paige delivered a pitch and this kid nailed it, sent it out of the park over the left field fence, about 375 feet away. The final score was about 17-1, and you might theorize that Satchel just served one up on purpose, but what would it matter if you got to go around saying for the rest of your life that you once hit a home run off Satchel Paige.”
A Brief History of the
Negro Leagues
In the beginning, baseball was a gentlemen’s game, played by amateur athletic clubs for leisuretime recreation. Among the early amateur teams in the game’s evolution toward professionalism were black aggregations. However, after the close of the 1867 season, the National Association of Baseball Players voted to exclude any club with a black player. Thus the sport remained a predominantly white pastime.
In 1869, although not bound by the amateur agreement, baseball’s first recognized professional ballclub, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, fielded an all-white team. The Red Stockings’ diamond success led to an increased interest in baseball, and professionalism spread rapidly. In 1871 the first professional league was formed, but again all the players were white.
Within a year, however, the complexion of the game changed when Bed Fowler became the first black professional player, albeit with a nonleague team. Other Americans of African ancestry followed in his footsteps, and soon there were numerous black professional ballplayers playing on otherwise all-white teams. Fleet Walker, a black catcher, even appeared with a major-league ballclub in 1884. Such situations were not devoid of racial incidents, and Cap Anson’s refusal to play against a black pitcher, George Stovey, in 1887 is representative of the era’s prevalent mind-set.
In that same year, the International League’s Board of Directors voted not to approve any subsequent contracts with black players. This official action postdated baseball’s national agreement and, although some black players continued to play with other teams, the league’s position eventually led to the “gentlemen’s agreement” of total exclusion of black players from baseball. This unwritten understanding carried the same impact of enforcement as a written policy and was firmly entrenched in baseball tradition in 1946, when Jackie Robinson reintegrated America’s game.
With black players experiencing restricted access to white ballclubs, the first black professional team, the Cuban Giants, was organized in 1885. In some instances during their formative years, the Cuban Giants and other early black teams played as a city’s representative in an otherwise white league.
The nadir of black baseball occurred in the early 1890s, when only one professional black ballclub was operating. As more black teams began to organize and interest expanded, two hubs of black baseball emerged: one centered around Chicago in the Midwest an
d another along the Philadelphia-New York City axis in the East. During the deadball era, black teams continued to operate as independent ballclubs, playing series with each other and also booking white semipro teams as well.
In 1920, Rube Roster founded the first enduring black baseball league, popularly christened the Negro National League. Acting as a virtual czar, he nurtured the league into maturity and was almost solely responsible for the success the league enjoyed. After Foster’s debilitating illness and death in 1930, the league became rudderless from a void in leadership and, following the 1931 season, fell victim to the Depression.
A second league, the Eastern Colored League, was organized in 1923 and enjoyed a half decade of relative prosperity before imploding in 1928. During the league’s tenuous existence, four Negro World Series (1924-27) were played between the two black major leagues. A replacement league, the American Negro League, was formed the following year but disbanded after only one season, returning the eastern teams to an independent status.
The Depression years weighed oppressively on black baseball franchises, creating chaotic conditions. The 1932 season suffered most extensively from the country’s economic problems, as teams dissolved and players scattered in all directions trying to relocate with a solvent franchise. Those ballclubs that survived either maintained a delicate economic balance by “scuffling” across the country on barnstorming tours or by affiliations with a new league.
One attempt to continue black baseball on the previous organizational level was the formation of the East-West League, but the effort collapsed in midseason. Another haven for players proved to be the Negro Southern League, a previously minor league. With the influx of players from the defunct Negro National League, the Negro Southern League was accorded major-league status for the 1932 season.
The next year some stability was renewed, primarily through the efforts of Gus Greenlee, when the second Negro National League was established and the East-West All-Star game inaugurated. The All-Star game became an annual classic and proved to be the biggest single event in black baseball each season, surpassing even the Negro World Series in interest and attendance.
Opening Day: Or, the Return of Satchel Paige Page 6