by Chaim Potok
He sensed my annoyance. “I wasn’t bragging or anything,” he said, looking hurt. “I just wanted to know what you thought.”
“They can hit,” I said.
“They’re murderers,” he said.
I watched Sidney Goldberg let a strike go by and said nothing.
“How’s your hand?” Davey Cantor asked.
“I scraped it.”
“He ran into you real hard.”
“Who is he?”
“Dov Shlomowitz,” Davey Cantor said. “Like his name, that’s what he is,” he added in Hebrew. “Dov” is the Hebrew word for bear.
“Was I blocking him?”
Davey Cantor shrugged. “You were and you weren’t. The ump could’ve called it either way.”
“He felt like a truck,” I said, watching Sidney Goldberg step back from a close pitch.
“You should see his father. He’s one of Reb Saunders’ shamashim. Some bodyguard he makes.”
“Reb Saunders has bodyguards?”
“Sure he has bodyguards,” Davey Cantor said. “They protect him from his own popularity. Where’ve you been living all these years?”
“I don’t have anything to do with them.”
“You’re not missing a thing, Reuven.”
“How do you know so much about Reb Saunders?”
“My father gives him contributions.”
“Well, good for your father,” I said.
“He doesn’t pray there or anything. He just gives him contributions.”
“You’re on the wrong team.”
“No, I’m not, Reuven. Don’t be like that.” He was looking very hurt. “My father isn’t a Hasid or anything. He just gives them some money a couple times a year.”
“I was only kidding, Davey.” I grinned at him. “Don’t be so serious about everything.”
I saw his face break into a happy smile, and just then Sidney Goldberg hit a fast, low grounder and raced off to first. The ball went right through the legs of the shortstop and into center field.
“Hold it at first!” Mr. Galanter screamed at him, and Sidney stopped at first and stood on the base.
The ball had been tossed quickly to second base. The second baseman looked over toward first, then threw the ball to the pitcher. The rabbi glanced up from the book for a moment, then went back to his reading.
“Malter, coach him at first!” Mr. Galanter shouted, and I ran up the base line.
“They can hit, but they can’t field,” Sidney Goldberg said; grinning at me as I came to a stop alongside the base.
“Davey Cantor says they’re murderers,” I said.
“Old gloom-and-doom Davey,” Sidney Goldberg said, grinning.
Danny Saunders was standing away from the base, making a point of ignoring us both.
The next batter hit a high fly to the second baseman, who caught it, dropped it, retrieved it, and made a wild attempt at tagging Sidney Goldberg as he raced past him to second.
“Safe all around!” the umpire called, and our team burst out with shouts of joy. Mr. Galanter was smiling. The rabbi continued reading, and I saw that he was now slowly moving the upper part of his body back and forth.
“Keep your eyes open, Sidney!” I shouted from alongside first base. I saw Danny Saunders look at me, then look away. Some murderers, I thought. Shleppers is more like it.
“If it’s on the ground run like hell,” I said to the batter who had just come onto first base, and he nodded at me. He was our third baseman, and he was about my size.
“If they keep fielding like that we’ll be here till tomorrow,” he said, and I grinned at him.
I saw Mr. Galanter talking to the next batter, who was nodding his head vigorously. He stepped to the plate, hit a hard grounder to the pitcher, who fumbled it for a moment then threw it to first. I saw Danny Saunders stretch for it and stop it.
“Out!” the umpire called. “Safe on second and third!”
As I ran up to the plate to bat, I almost laughed aloud at the pitcher’s stupidity. He had thrown it to first rather than third, and now we had Sidney Goldberg on third, and a man on second. I hit a grounder to the shortstop and instead of throwing it to second he threw it to first, wildly, and again Danny Saunders stretched and stopped the ball. But I beat the throw and heard the umpire call out, “Safe all around! One in!” And everyone on our team was patting Sidney Goldberg on the back. Mr. Galanter smiled broadly.
“Hello again,” I said to Danny Saunders, who was standing near me, guarding his base. “Been rubbing your tzitzit lately?”
He looked at me, then looked slowly away, his face expressionless.
Schwartzie was at the plate, swinging his bat.
“Keep your eyes open!” I shouted to the runner on third. He looked too eager to head for home. “It’s only one out!”
He waved a hand at me.
Schwartzie took two balls and a strike, then I saw him begin to pivot on the fourth pitch. The runner on third started for home. He was almost halfway down the base line when the bat sent the ball in a hard line drive straight to the third baseman, the short, thin boy with the spectacles and the old man’s face, who had stood hugging the base and who now caught the ball more with his stomach than with his glove, managed somehow to hold on to it, and stood there, looking*bewildered and astonished.
I returned to first and saw our player who had been on third and who was now halfway to home plate turn sharply and start a panicky race back.
“Step on the base!” Danny Saunders screamed in Yiddish across the field, and more out of obedience than awareness the third baseman put a foot on the base.
The yeshiva team howled its happiness and raced off the field. Danny Saunders looked at me, started to say something, stopped, then walked quickly away.
I saw Mr. Galanter going back up the third-base line, his face grim. The rabbi was looking up from his book and smiling.
I took up my position near second base, and Sidney Goldberg came over to me.
“Why’d he have to take off like that?” he asked.
I glared over at our third baseman, who was standing near Mr. Galanter and looking very dejected.
“He was in a hurry to win the war,” I said bitterly.
“What a jerk,” Sidney Goldberg said.
“Goldberg, get over to your place!” Mr. Galanter called out. There was an angry edge to his voice. “Let’s keep that infield solid!”
Sidney Goldberg went quickly to his position. I stood still and waited.
It was hot, and I was sweating beneath my clothes. I felt the earpieces of my glasses cutting into the skin over my ears, and I took the glasses off for a moment and ran a finger over the pinched ridges of skin, then put them back on quickly because Schwartzie was going into a windup. I crouched down, waiting, remembering Danny Saunders’ promise to his team that they would kill us apikorsim. The word had meant, originally, a Jew educated in Judaism who denied basic tenets of his faith, like the existence of God, the revelation, the resurrection of the dead. To people like Reb Saunders, it also meant any educated Jew who might be reading, say, Darwin, and who was not wearing side curls and fringes outside his trousers. I was an apikoros to Danny Saunders, despite my belief in God and Torah, because I did not have side curls and was attending a parochial school where too many English subjects were offered and where Jewish subjects were taught in Hebrew instead of Yiddish, both unheard-of sins, the former because it took time away from the study of Torah, the latter because Hebrew was the Holy Tongue and to use it in ordinary classroom discourse was a desecration of God’s Name. I had never really had any personal contact with this kind of Jew before. My father had told me he didn’t mind their beliefs. What annoyed him was their fanatic sense of righteousness, their absolute certainty that they and they alone had God’s ear, and every other Jew was wrong, totally wrong, a sinner, a hypocrite, an apikoros, and doomed, therefore, to burn in hell. I found myself wondering again how they had learned to hit a ball like that if time for the
study of Torah was so precious to them and why they had sent a rabbi along to waste his time sitting on a bench during a ball game.
Standing on the field and watching the boy at the plate swing at a high ball and miss, I felt myself suddenly very angry, and it was at that point that for me the game stopped being merely a game and became a war. The fun and excitement was out of it now. Somehow the yeshiva team had translated this afternoon’s baseball game into a conflict between what they regarded as their righteousness and our sinfulness. I found myself growing more and more angry, and I felt the anger begin to focus itself upon Danny Saunders, and suddenly it was not at all difficult for me to hate him.
Schwartzie let five of their men come up to the plate that half inning and let one of those five score/Sometime during that half inning, one of the members of the yeshiva team had shouted at us in Yiddish, “Burn in hell, you apikorsim!” and by the time that half inning was over and we were standing around Mr. Galanter near the wire screen, all of us knew that this was not just another ball game.
Mr. Galanter was sweating heavily, and his face was grim. All he said was, “We fight it careful from now on. No more mistakes.” He said it very quietly, and we were all quiet, too, as the batter stepped up to the plate.
We proceeded to play a slow, careful game, bunting whenever we had to, sacrificing to move runners forward, obeying Mr. Galanter’s instructions. I noticed that no matter where the runners were on the bases, the yeshiva team always threw to Danny Saunders, and I realized that they did this because he was the only infielder who could be relied upon to stop their wild throws. Sometime during the inning, I walked over behind the rabbi and looked over his shoulder at the book he was reading. I saw the words were Yiddish. I walked back to the wire screen. Davey Cantor came over and stood next to me, but he remained silent.
We scored only one run that inning, and we walked onto the field for the first half of the third inning with a sense of doom.
Dov Shlomowitz came up to the plate. He stood there like a bear, the bat looking like a matchstick in his beefy hands. Schwartzie pitched, and he sliced one neatly over the head of the third baseman for a single. The yeshiva team howled, and again one of them called out to us in Yiddish, “Burn, you apikorsim!” and Sidney Goldberg and I looked at each other without saying a word.
Mr. Galanter was standing alongside third base, wiping his fore-head. The rabbi was sitting quietly, reading his book.
I took off my glasses and rubbed the tops of my ears. I felt a sudden momentary sense of unreality, as if the play yard, with its black asphalt floor and its white base lines, were my entire world now, as if all the previous years of my life had led me somehow to this one ball game, and all the future years of my life would depend upon its outcome. I stood there for a moment, holding the glasses in my hand and feeling frightened. Then I took a deep breath, and the feeling passed. It’s only a ball game, I told myself. What’s a ball game?
Mr. Galanter was shouting at us to move back. I was standing a few feet ta the left of second, and I took two steps back. I saw Danny Saunders walk up to the plate, swinging a bat. The yeshiva team was shouting at him in Yiddish to kill us apikorsim.
Schwartzie turned around to check the field. He looked nervous and was taking his time. Sidney Goldberg was standing up straight, waiting. We looked at each other, then looked away. Mr. Galanter stood very still alongside third base, looking at Schwartzie.
The first pitch was low, and Danny Saunders ignored it. The second one started to come in shoulder-high, and before it was two thirds of the way to the plate, I was already standing on second base. My glove was going up as the bat cracked against the ball, and I saw the ball move in a straight line directly over Schwartzie’s head, high over his head, moving so fast he hadn’t even had time to regain his balance from the pitch before it went past him. I saw Dov Shlomowitz heading toward me and Danny Saunders racing to first, and I heard the yeshiva team shouting and Sidney Goldberg screaming, and I jumped, pushing myself upward off the ground with all the strength I had in my legs and stretching my glove hand till I thought it would pull out of my shoulder. The ball hit the pocket of my glove with an impact that numbed my hand and went through me like an electric shock, and I felt the force pull me backward and throw me off balance, and I came down hard on my left hip and elbow. I saw Dov Shlomowitz whirl and start back to first, and I pushed myself up into a sitting position and threw the ball awkwardly to Sidney Goldberg, who caught it and whipped it to first. I heard the umpire scream “Out!” and Sidney Goldberg ran over to help me to my feet, a look of disbelief and ecstatic joy on his face. Mr. Galanter shouted “Time!” and came racing onto the field. Schwartzie was standing in his pitcher’s position with his mouth open. Danny Saunders stood on the base line a few feet from first, where he had stopped after I had caught the ball, staring out at me, his face frozen to stone. The rabbi was staring at me, too, and the yeshiva team was deathly silent.
“That was a great catch, Reuven!” Sidney Goldberg said, thumping my back. “That was sensational!”
I saw the rest of our team had suddenly come back to life and was throwing the ball around and talking up the game.
Mr. Galanter came over. “You all right, Malter?” he asked. “Let me see that elbow.”
I showed him the elbow. I had scraped it, but the skin had not been broken.
“That was a good play,” Mr. Galanter said, beaming at me. I saw his face was still covered with sweat, but he was smiling broadly now.
“Thanks, Mr. Galanter.”
“How’s the hand?”
“It hurts a little.”
“Let me see it.”
I took off the glove, and Mr. Galanter poked and bent the wrist and fingers of the hand.
“Does that hurt?” he asked. “No,” I lied.
“You want to go on playing?”
“Sure, Mr. Galanter.”
“Okay,” he said, smiling at me and patting my back. “We’ll put you in for a Purple Heart on that one, Malter.”
I grinned at him.
“Okay,” Mr. Galanter said. “Let’s keep this infield solid!” He walked away, smiling.
“I can’t get over that catch,” Sidney Goldberg said.
“You threw it real good to first,” I told him.
“Yeah,” he said. “While you were sitting on your tail.”
We grinned at each other, and went to our positions.
Two more of the yeshiva team got to bat that inning. The first one hit a single, and the second one sent a high fly to short, which Sidney Goldberg caught without having to move a step. We scored two runs that inning and one run the next, and by the top half of the fifth inning we were leading five to three. Four of their men had stood up to bat during the top half of the fourth inning, and they had got only a single on an error to first. When we took to the field in the top half of the fifth inning, Mr. Galanter was walking back and forth alongside third on the balls of his feet, sweating, smiling, grinning, wiping his head nervously; the rabbi was no longer reading; the yeshiva team was silent as death. Davey Cantor was playing second, and I stood in the pitcher’s position. Schwartzie had pleaded exhaustion, and since this was the final inning—our parochial school schedules only permitted us time for five-inning games—and the yeshiva team’s last chance at bat, Mr. Galanter was taking no chances and told me to pitch. Davey Cantor was a poor fielder, but Mr. Galanter was counting on my pitching to finish off the game. My left hand was still sore from the catch, and the wrist hurt whenever I caught a ball, but the right hand was fine, and the pitches went in fast and dropped into the curve just when I wanted them to. Dov Shlomowitz stood at the plate, swung three times at what looked to him to be perfect pitches, and hit nothing but air. He stood there looking bewildered after the third swing, then slowly walked away. We threw the ball around the infield, and Danny Saunders came up to the plate.
The members of the yeshiva team stood near the wire fence, watching Danny Saunders. They were very quiet. The
rabbi was sitting on the bench, his book closed. Mr. Galanter was shouting at everyone to move back. Danny Saunders swung his bat a few times, then fixed himself into position and looked out at me.
Here’s a present from an apikoros, I thought, and let go the ball. It went in fast and straight, and I saw Danny Saunders’ left foot move out and his bat go up and his body begin to pivot. He swung just as the ball slid into its curve, and the bat cut savagely through empty air, twisting him around and sending him off balance. His black skullcap fell off his head, and he regained his balance and bent quickly to retrieve it. He stood there for a moment, very still, staring out at me. Then he resumed his position at the plate. The ball came back to me from the catcher, and my Wrist hurt as I caught it.
The yeshiva team was very quiet, and the rabbi had begun to chew his lip.
I lost control of the next pitch, and it was wide. On the third pitch, I went into a long, elaborate windup and sent him a slow, curving blooper, the kind a batter always wants to hit and always misses. He ignored it completely, and the umpire called it a ball.
I felt my left wrist begin to throb as I caught the throw from the catcher. I was hot and sweaty, and the earpieces of my glasses were cutting deeply into the flesh above my ears as a result of the head movements that went with my pitching.
Danny Saunders stood very still at the plate, waiting.
Okay, I thought, hating him bitterly. Here’s another present.
The ball went to the plate fast and straight, and dropped just below his swing. He checked himself with difficulty so as not to spin around, but he went off his balance again and took two or three staggering steps forward before he was able to stand up straight.
The catcher threw the ball back, and I winced at the pain in my wrist. I took the ball out of the glove, held it in my right hand, and turned around for a moment to look out at the field and let the pain in my wrist subside. When I turned back I saw that Danny Saunders hadn’t moved. He was holding his bat in his left hand, standing very still and staring at me. His eyes were dark, and his lips were parted in a crazy, idiot grin. I heard the umpire yell “Play ball!” but Danny Saunders stood there, staring at me and grinning. I turned and looked out at the field again, and when I turned back he was still standing there, staring at me and grinning. I could see his teeth between his parted lips. I took a deep breath and felt myself wet with sweat. I wiped my right hand on my pants and saw Danny Saunders step slowly to the plate and set his legs in position. He was no longer grinning. He stood looking at me over his left shoulder, waiting.
