by Wes Tooke
Mr. Churchill stepped forward, his eyes locked on Satch. “Your coming has been foretold,” he said. “Are you the greatest pitcher in all the land?”
“I be the man,” Satch said.
Mr. Churchill smiled broadly. “Excellent. We hear that you possess wondrous powers. Can you demonstrate a few of them for us? Your magical hesitation pitch, perhaps?”
“It depends,” Satch said. “I only demonstrate my powers to true believers.”
People had been emerging from storefronts and pouring out of the little alleyways that fed onto Main Street, and Satch cocked his head toward the growing crowd. The response was a loud shout and a smattering of applause. Satch smiled to himself and then got out of the convertible and walked over to the mound that Mr. Churchill had built in the street. As Satch made a big production out of stretching his arm, Nick’s father emerged from the crowd, a catcher’s mitt on his hand. Nick stared at him, wondering how he’d managed to get his wounded thumb into the stiff leather.
“Here it comes, folks,” Mr. Churchill shouted. “The infamous hesitation pitch.”
Satch started his windup, his hands going down as his leg went up, but then—right at the top of his motion—he froze, balancing neatly on one foot.
“What’s the matter?” Mr. Churchill asked after a moment. “Are you scared to throw the ball?”
“Not scared,” Satch said. “Just pondering.”
“Pondering what?”
Satch turned his head just slightly so he could look at Mr. Churchill. “I am hesitating right now so I can cogitate on how I am going to throw my hesitation pitch.”
The crowd laughed. When it was silent again, Mr. Churchill waved impatiently at Satch. “Well, don’t cogitate all day,” he said. “Throw a strike!”
Satch whipped his body toward the glove and the ball flashed out of his hand—maybe not his best fastball, but still moving like it wanted to get somewhere. As the ball cracked into the mitt, the crowd, which had been steadily growing, went wild. Satch bowed and Mr. Churchill gave him a proud smile.
“That was wonderful,” he said. “Do you have anything else in your bag of tricks that you might be able to show this amazing crowd?”
Satch scrunched up his forehead. “Well, I have my internationally famous chicken ball.”
“Chicken ball?”
“Yes, sir. The very same ball that I threw for the king and queen of England and the king and queen of Spain. And I’ll tell you . . . them royalty just ate it up.”
“I’d like to see a chicken ball,” Mr. Churchill said. “But I don’t know about the rest of these good people.” His eyes scanned the crowd. “What about you? Do you want to see a chicken ball?”
This time the cheer echoed up and down Main Street—loud enough that they probably heard it all the way out on the Indian reservation. Satch smiled and then ambled back to the mound. When he was in position, he bent over at the waist, staring in at Nick’s father. He made a show out of shaking off the first sign—and the second—but he nodded firmly at the third and then came to a set, his glove at his chest and his eyes glaring at the catcher’s mitt. His leg moved back and his hands rose as if he were starting his windup, but then he paused and returned to the set. The crowd muttered. Satch took a breath and then his leg and hands moved again, but again he stopped.
Nick glanced around him at the crowd—people were leaning forward, mouths open, totally focused on the lanky man standing on the makeshift mound. Nick looked back just in time to see Satch start a third windup. He paused again, and the crowd grumbled, louder this time, but then Satch’s leg kicked up and his arm whipped toward the catcher’s mitt. Nick looked for the ball, his eyes straining in the twilight, but instead he saw a strange, floppy figure flying down the street—
It was a rubber chicken. It made it halfway to Nick’s father and then skidded to a stop in the dirt, its legs akimbo and neck twisted at a strange angle. One of the horn players from the band made a strange sound with his instrument—a bawk, bawk, bawk—and suddenly the crowd erupted with laughter. People were slapping their knees and bending over and pointing at the chicken, tears running down their faces. It was absolute pandemonium.
“Ladies and gentlemen, you saw it right here in downtown Bismarck,” Mr. Churchill bellowed. “The infamous chicken pitch! And if you want to see more amazing feats, come on down to the ballpark tomorrow, where you can see these fine boys play the best ball anywhere in the Dakotas. Heck, maybe the best in the world.”
The brass band started playing and the crowd pressed toward Satch, and for the next twenty minutes Nick was giving away flyers as fast as his hands could move. He finally ran out just as the crowd was reduced to dregs. Mr. Churchill was still talking to a few people, but Satch was getting into his convertible, alone. Nick walked over to him.
“That was pretty funny,” he said when he was within earshot.
Satch looked at him and grinned. “I figured it would go over like gangbusters. This is a farm town, and farmers are the same everywhere. Simple folk like simple jokes.”
“You’ve done this before?” Nick asked.
“Only in every little town south of the Mason-Dixon Line. And it didn’t matter if the crowd was black or white. . . . If they were the kind of folks who knew the business end of a chicken, they’d laugh.” Satch gave Nick a look. “Churchill said you were trying to give away a mess of flyers.”
“Yup,” Nick said. “And I gave away all of them, which means I get to go on the next road trip.”
“Good.” Satch paused. “And what about that deer oil? You try it?”
“It felt like someone set fire to my leg,” Nick said. “But I walked without my brace.”
Satch smiled again. “Attaboy. We’ll get you back on that pitching mound yet.”
Nick nodded, but he didn’t really believe it—there was a big difference between running out of a house because your leg was burning and playing baseball. But it was awfully nice that someone thought he could be a pitcher again. Especially since that someone knew more about pitching than anybody for hundreds and hundreds of miles.
Nick awoke the next morning with a smile on his face. Every day that he got to see Satch pitch felt like Christmas, but today was particularly special, since the flyer had promised that Satch was going to strike out the first nine men or the fans would get their money back. His father left for the ballpark right after breakfast, but Nick still had to do the chores, so he rushed through sweeping the cabin and cleaning the ash from the stove. When he was done, he sat on his bed with his pants rolled up staring at his brace. Fragments of his doctor’s orders echoed through his head: “The correction will happen gradually. . . . It’s important to stick with the program. . . . Don’t push yourself too far or too fast. . . .”
Nick undid the straps of the brace, tore it off his leg, and shoved it deep under his cot. He rolled down his pants to disguise his decision and then limped out of the cabin before he could second-guess himself. For the first half of the walk to the ballpark he was too excited and nervous to really notice how his leg felt, but as the adrenaline gradually wore off, he began to pay attention. It was kind of like the sensation you got when you’d been carrying a heavy bag for a while and then put it down—good, but also weird. As he got close to the ballpark, Nick stumbled a few times as his knee got tired, but he didn’t mind. The feeling of freedom was worth it.
Mr. Churchill was standing by the door of the office when Nick arrived, a big smile on his face as he looked at a line of people that had already formed in front of the ticket booth.
“Standing room only today,” he said as he gleefully rubbed his hands together. “I can feel it.” He glanced at Nick. “You think you can match what you did with the programs last time?”
“I’ll try,” Nick said.
Nick got the programs from the office and then returned to his previous position near home plate. By the time the team finished batting practice, the stands were already full and he’d sold most of his t
hick stack. Nick had occasionally glanced at the bull pen next to the home bench, where Satch was warming up, and he’d noticed that Satch seemed more serious than usual today—he wasn’t joking with the other players or focusing on anything other than Quincy Trouppe’s mitt.
As Satch walked out to the mound at the top of the first inning, a buzz ran through the ballpark. Nick squatted next to the railing, as close to the field as he could get, the programs once again forgotten by his side as the leadoff batter settled into a crouch. The first strike was a blur of a fastball on the outside corner. The second strike was a curveball that broke so sharply that the batter ducked out of the way before the ball nicked the inside corner of the plate. And the third strike was another outside fastball, which the overmatched batter swung through before turning around and trudging back toward the dugout.
And that was how the first three innings went. Satch wasn’t showboating or joking or messing around—he was throwing pure gas so accurately that Quincy never had to move his mitt more than an inch or two. Nick watched the show, totally mesmerized. There was an art and a rhythm to the way Satch pitched: The ball moved up and down, inside and outside, and just when a batter seemed to think he’d figured out the pattern and guessed a pitch, Satch would adapt. The first eight men struck out on just thirty pitches—with only two foul balls—and as the ninth man walked toward the plate like a condemned prisoner, the crowd rose to its feet.
“Come on, Satch!” Nick heard himself yelling. “One more!”
Satch started off with another fastball on the outside corner. The batter swung, almost apologetically, but somehow the bat managed to find leather and with a sickly crack the ball sliced toward right field. Nick and everyone else gasped as they tracked its flight, trying to figure out if it would be fair or foul. And then it landed, right next to the line, and the umpire’s voice rang around the park: “Foul ball!”
The batter couldn’t have touched the next two pitches if he’d been swinging a barn door, and as the third strike slapped into Quincy’s glove, the crowd roared. Satch was already walking off the field, and he tipped his cap as he took his seat on the bench.
“Unbelievable,” a man sitting next to Nick yelled. “I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t seen it with my own two eyes!”
The next innings felt like a carnival, and Nick sold his last program in the bottom of the eighth with Bismarck leading 12–0. He was terrified of losing the money he had collected before the end of the game, so he went back to the little office, where he found Mr. Churchill sitting at his desk, a cigar sticking out of the side of his mouth.
“Aren’t you supposed to be managing?” Nick asked.
Mr. Churchill smiled. “I’d say they seem to be managing just fine without me.” He cocked his head to the side. “Listen to that. You hear it?”
Nick listened for a long moment. “The crowd?”
“That’s the sound of satisfied customers. We offered them a deal today that they couldn’t lose. . . . Either they got to see baseball for free or they got to see something great. And Satch sure gave them something great. Now these people are going to go home and tell all their friends about what happened here today, and we’ll be sold out for the rest of the season. That’s an absolute guarantee. Because nobody wants to miss the chance to see something special.”
Nick just nodded. After a short pause he reached into his pocket, pulled out all of the dimes and nickels he had gotten from selling the programs, and put them in a big pile on the desk. His pants felt ten pounds lighter when he was done. Mr. Churchill looked at the pile and smiled.
“You keep this up and you’re going to have to come to my lot and start selling cars,” he said. He picked out one of the nickels and slid it across the desk. “Go buy yourself a pop. My treat.”
“Thank you,” Nick said as he returned the nickel to his pocket.
Mr. Churchill flicked his head at the door. “You better go fast or you’ll miss the end of the game.”
Nick bought a Coke from the booth beneath the bleachers and then went up into the stands. A good portion of the crowd had left after Satch had come out of the game in the seventh inning, leaving lots of empty seats, and he chose a spot near third base. The Coke was so cold that it had little flecks of ice stuck to the glass bottle, and Nick relished the fizz on his tongue and the quick rush of sweetness. The last time he’d had a soda was at Christmas, when the hospital gave them out as a special treat.
Barney Morris pitched the top of the ninth. He had a good fastball—although obviously not as good as Satch’s—and he would mix in a knuckleball to keep the hitters confused. Nick loved the unpredictability of the knuckleball and had tried to throw it back when he was pitching, but his hands hadn’t been big enough yet for the grip. He glanced down at his fingers, wondering if that was still true, and missed the final pitch—another swinging strikeout, the seventeenth of the game for the opposing team’s overmatched batters.
As the crowd flooded toward the exits, Nick allowed himself to be carried by the tide. He dropped the empty Coke bottle into a crate near the gate and then stood motionless for a moment, wondering if he should go back to Mr. Churchill’s office for another assignment. Just then someone bumped into him from behind, and Nick stumbled forward. He tried to catch himself, but his bad leg buckled and he rolled into the dirt.
“Sorry,” a voice said.
Nick pushed himself to his feet before looking to see who had knocked into him. And then he froze—it was Tom and Nate, his old friends from school. They were staring at him, their mouths hanging open.
“Hey,” Nick said. His voice sounded high in his ear.
“Hey,” Tom said as Nate continued to stare. “We thought you were still at the hospital.”
“I got out yesterday,” Nick said. He didn’t mean to lie, but he also didn’t want to admit that he had been in Bismarck for almost a week.
“Are you . . . better?” Tom asked.
Nick hesitated. “Yeah.”
“My mom said you almost died,” Nate said, the words coming in a rush. “She said the doctor told her that you had the highest fever he’d ever seen.”
“I don’t know,” Nick said. “I don’t remember much about being sick.”
In the awkward pause that followed, Nick decided that he had been right about not wanting to see his old friends—it was just too weird. Life in Bismarck had kept moving along, and now he was just a stranger whose name they happened to know. Nick was about to say good-bye when a familiar face emerged from the gate of the stadium: Emma. She smiled when she noticed him and walked over to their little group.
“That was amazing,” she said. “I don’t think Babe Ruth could have hit Satch today.”
Tom and Nate turned their wide-eyed stares to her as if she were some strange alien that had swooped down from the sky—they probably weren’t used to hearing a girl talk about baseball.
“Yeah,” Nick said after an awkward moment. “He was great.”
Emma’s hand touched his arm. “My mom wants to know if you and your dad want to come over for dinner sometime.”
“Maybe,” Nick said. “I’ll have to ask him.”
“Okay.” There was another awkward pause. “Well, I’ll see you back home.”
Emma turned and headed back down the lane toward the house. Tom and Nate watched her walk until she was out of earshot, and then both of their heads whipped toward Nick.
“Why were you talking to her?” Nate asked.
“She’s my new neighbor,” Nick said.
Tom raised an eyebrow. “You never used to talk to girls.”
“She’s nice. And she likes baseball.”
“Is she your girlfriend or something?”
“No!” Nick said. “She’s just my neighbor.”
Nate elbowed Tom, a grin on his face. “Maybe that’s really why he went to the hospital. He caught cooties from a girl.”
“Well, that part’s true,” Nick said. “It was the worst case of the cooties they’d
ever seen. They had to give me shots and everything.”
Tom and Nate both laughed, and Nick felt a sudden rush of relief. Maybe everything wasn’t so different after all.
“So when are you going to start pitching again?” Tom asked.
Nick felt the smile disappear from his face. “I don’t know. I figured I’d have to wait until next season.”
“No way,” Nate said. “Remember when Alex broke his leg? He got to join a team in the middle of the summer.”
“I forgot about that.”
“We need a good pitcher,” Tom said. “So . . .”
“Sure,” Nick said. “I’ll think about it.” But that was another lie—no matter what Satch had told him, Nick knew he couldn’t pitch, not if his bad leg couldn’t even hold him up when a kid bumped into him from behind.
Nick wasn’t sure whether Mr. Churchill had meant what he said about letting him travel with the team, but two days later when his father returned from practice, he pulled the duffel out from under his bed and tossed it on the cot.
“Pack,” he said. “We leave tonight.”
Nick tried to keep from glowing as he grabbed some clothes. He had always imagined that barnstorming would be a grand adventure—traveling from town to town to play local teams in front of crowds who rarely saw strangers. He had just finished packing when the sound of a car horn echoed from the street, and his father grabbed the duffel and walked outside. Nick followed, making sure to close the cabin door tightly. A blue Plymouth Sedan and green Chrysler Airflow were parked in front of the house. Mr. Churchill and the white players were stuffed into the Plymouth—it was so full that it looked like a door might pop off—and Satch and the five other black players were in the Chrysler. Bags were lashed to the roofs of both cars with thick cords.
“Hop on in,” Mr. Churchill shouted. “The road calls!”
