Switch Pitchers

by Norman German

  Chozen tried not to be offended, but he couldn’t help feeling the young Cubanola was digging at him on purpose. The road straightened for a bit and he took his left hand off the wheel.

  “See this?” Chozen crossed his arm over his chest and spread the hand out to Ricardo. It was missing the little finger.

  Ricardo stared blankly at the hand. All his life he had seen fishermen and farmers with missing digits, old cane cutters without a single whole finger, sugar mill workers with mangled hands, the remaining fingers pointing in all directions.

  Drawing the hand from Ricardo back to the wheel, Chozen said, “Lucky for you that’s my catching hand. But that still leaves me only five fingers to signal eight pitches—”

  “Nine, sir,” Ricardo interrupted. “I not show that Meester Greeg everything I have. He I not like so much.”

  Just before the entrance to the port, Chozen swerved sharply north onto the old drawbridge spanning the Calcasieu River. The bus tires sizzled on the cement, then roared as they crossed the metal grating. To see what had happened, Ricardo popped his head out of the stairwell like a jack-in-the-box. He realized they were crossing a drawbridge and was sitting down again when the new bridge caught his attention and he popped back up.

  Arching across the blue horizon, the bridge seemed to rise from a fairytale. Two stocky cement supports emerged from the water on opposite banks like the white legs of a Colossus. From the marshy land on either side, girders and I-beams crisscrossed to form triangular ramps leading to the apex, a truss canopy of silver latticework whose east and west extensions, reaching across to embrace each other, fell just short of consummation like two frustrated lovers.

  Construction of the bridge, conceived by Huey P. Long in 1932 during his last year as governor, was delayed by several years of lawsuits based on embezzled state and federal funds, contract fraud, and labor strife. The land was cleared and the foundation prepared when World War II broke out and Uncle Sam mustered the steel workers into service at Chennault Air Force Base east of Lake Charles. In 1949, the concrete legs were finally “stuck in the mud,” as Governor Earl K. Long, the safely dead Kingfish’s brother, phrased it. Then more delays: too many riveters falling out of the sky, union protests, disappearances, injunctions, then months of the old shell game—where’s the money, who’s got the money? Finally, a year of uninterrupted work in 1951 and now the bridge was scheduled for a ribbon cutting by September.

  “¡Hombre, vaya puente!” Ricardo blurted out. “Wow, that is some bridge.”

  Harry Chozen looked with disgust at the structure. “It ain’t a bridge till it’s finished.” The bridge grew larger as he drove the half-mile where Highway 90 curved to the west. “Till it’s finished, it’s just a couple of diving boards.”

  Ricardo’s mouth opened like a child’s. Turning like a compass needle as the bus veered west, he looked up at the incomplete bridge and stared until it shrank from his sight.

  The rumble and rolling sway of the bus rocked a few players to sleep in the sultry afternoon. The others played cards or read comic books. Charlie Harper read his Bible. Only Ricardo, popping up and down every few minutes, remained fascinated by the scrubby prairie, sickly cattle, second-growth pine, and local birds.

  Finally, Chozen had enough of his antsy jack-in-the-box. “Ricardo,” he said sharply.

  “Sir?”

  “What did you have for dinner, Mexican jumping beans?”

  “No, sir. I had a hotdog and a split banana at Zesto. Do you know of this place, Mr. Chozen, sir? They have—how to say?—twisting fried potatoes and cokes with—”

  “Ricardo.”

  “Yes, sir?”

  Chozen thought of how long it would take to explain what Mexican jumping beans were and why they jump. “Forget it,” he said. “It was a joke.”

  * * *

  Before the game, Chozen worked out his signals with Ricardo. They cataloged his pitches, then Chozen said he would touch the ground for number five and Ricardo would add the next show of fingers for six, seven, eight, or nine.

  Ricardo pitched well in the first two innings, showing the Beaumont Roughnecks every weapon in his arsenal: a big rainbow curve that buckled the knees of left-handed batters and snuck in for backdoor strikes on righties, a screwball that stood up the righties reaching for the backdoor curve, a deviant slider, a dancing knuckleball, two moving changes off a slow fastball, a dying quail drop, and an eephus pitch that parachuted from twenty feet high down the open hatch on the roof of the strike zone.

  In the third inning, the junkballer got touched up for a couple of singles and a double that drove in Beaumont’s first run. On the bench, Chozen coached his new hurler.

  “Always throw the changeup outside. You throw it inside, the batter can pull his wrists in and hold up long enough to get around on it for a single off the handle. You throw it outside, the batter can’t hold up, and if he does get a piece of it, he’s got no power.”

  The Lunkers brought home a man in their half of the fourth to tie the game at one apiece, but Ricardo got rapped for a triple and two singles before the first out. Chozen ran out to the mound.

  “Ricardo, you have to start pitching from the same spot on the rubber. Some of these batters are ex-Major Leaguers. They’ve batted around now and know which pitch is coming based on where you throw from.” Ricardo looked dejected. Chozen poked him with his catcher’s mitt. “You listen to what I say, Ricardo, and you’ll be a big strikeout pitcher in Double-A.”

  The Roughnecks put three more on the scoreboard in the fifth. Ricardo threw his glove under the bench and drank five cups of water before sitting down. Bobby glanced at his new pitching mate out of the corner of his eye and smiled. Ricardo was sweating like a killer on an execution day in July.

  Wearing his glove, Bobby reached it to his lips and took a sip from the half pint of Wild Turkey buried in the pocket. Chozen had told his veteran southpaw to watch the new lefty from the bench and tell him anything he thought would help. Bobby was a quiet man who didn’t mind taking instruction, but he did not like to give it. He was never sure enough about anything to make the assumption he could teach someone else.

  Bobby took another hit from the bottle. Looking out at the mound, he said, “You got to hide your pitches better.”

  Ricardo was leaning over with both elbows on his knees. “Me? You are talking to me?”

  Bobby nodded once. “White ball against black skin stands out like a fly in a bowl of milk.”

  Ricardo studied the littered floor of the dugout.

  Bobby raised his glove. “Look.” Ricardo watched as Bobby positioned the glove. “When your glove’s open like this, the base coach can see your grip on the ball and signal the pitch to his hitter.” Bobby dug his left hand into the glove. “Do it like this. And no matter what you’re about to throw, keep your glove and pitching arm in the same position.”

  “Sí,” Ricardo said. “That I will do from now.”

  Bobby nodded. “Winding up, keep the ball in your glove, then hide it behind your body during delivery. That prevents the batter from seeing the position of your fingers on the ball.”

  “Muchas gracias, Mr. Bobby. I must work on that.”

  Bobby swiveled on the bench to face Ricardo. He held his glove up, facing his upper chest. “Now,” he said. “Can you tell what I’m about to throw?”

  Ricardo studied the glove and the angle of Bobby’s forearm as it disappeared inside the pocket.

  “I cannot tell,” Ricardo said. “It could be a curveball or maybe it is a fasbol.”

  “Not a curveball or a fastball.” Bobby whisked the glove away to reveal the bottle of bourbon. “It’s a highball.”

  Ricardo didn’t understand the joke until Raul explained it to him, but he pitched better in the sixth inning. In the seventh, after Beaumont roughed him up for three more runs, Ricardo threw batting practice until Raul, Bill, and Lambert ended his nightmare with a 6-4-3 double play.

  “They’re standing in on your curv
e,” Bobby told Ricardo as the exhausted pitcher stood by the cooler and drank cone after cone of water. “I make sure to throw one wild pitch per inning, either right at or just behind a batter. That way, you keep them off the plate, off balance, and afraid. By the sixth, I’ve put every batter in the dust at least once.”

  “Mr. Bobby,” Ricardo said while filling a white cone, “for a nice man, you are not so nice when you pitch, no?”

  In the eighth, with the score 11-2 and men on the corners with only one out, Ricardo ran out of gas. He motioned to his catcher for a conference. When the manager reached the mound, Ricardo said, “Mr. Chozen, I am fatigued. My arm is dead and my legs they shake when I start to wind up. It is all that running after the bus I do before the game.”

  “Ricardo, you’ll be a big strikeout pitcher in Double-A. And if you listen to Bobby, you’ll be a good groundball and pop-up pitcher in Triple-A. But for now, you listen to me. Your reporting late made me overwork my pitchers early in the season. It’s a miracle none of them got injured.” Chozen looked over his shoulder to check the umpire’s patience. “Now. You’re going to pitch till you finish this game or get carried off on a stretcher with a heat stroke. That ought to give you a feel for what you put my pitchers through. And when you’ve finished taking your medicine like a man, you make damn sure you’re not late for the rest of the season. Understand?”

  “Yes, Mr. Chozen. Please to tell me how to get out of this inning.”

  “First, you got to accentuate the positive.”

  “How I do that?”

  “By being happy you’ve got a job.”

  Halfway to the mound, the umpire directed, “Play ball!”

  Chozen motioned for his pitcher to walk with him, then hid his mouth with the catcher’s mitt. “Second, brush this guy back, then throw him three straight curves. He took a fastball to the head when he played for the Senators and never got his nerve back. If he snags one of your curves, he’ll hit into a DP.”

  And that’s exactly what happened.

  In the top of the ninth, the last Lunkers batted like they wanted to save energy for the nightcap of the double-header. Ricardo lost his first game 17-3.

  Chozen kept his catcher’s equipment on for the next game. He walked down the dugout like an old soldier with a heavy backpack. Bobby slid over to make room next to Ricardo, who sat with his back against the cool cinderblocks, a wet rag on his forehead.

  Chozen sat and rested for a while, then spoke. “Ricardo.” The exhausted pitcher leaned forward, letting the rag slide off his forehead into his hand. His eyes looked at Chozen as if they didn’t recognize him. Chozen slapped him on the knee with his right hand and kept it there. “Ricardo, you’re going to be a big strikeout pitcher in Double-A. And if you listen to Bobby, you’ll be a good groundball pitcher in Triple-A.” Chozen reached back and tapped Bobby to signal the coming joke. “Listen or not, though, you’re gonna get your ass shelled in the Majors.”

  Ricardo was offended but couldn’t muster enough energy to make a convincing protest.

  “Why I not can become a pitcher of the May-yor Leagues?”

  “Because you’re missing the big pitch,” Chozen explained. “All that junk is great, but the fastball sets it up. Without the inside gasser to move those Big Leaguers off the plate, they’ll pick you apart like a school of piranhas coming off a two-week fast.”

  Chapter 9

  “BATTER up!” the umpire shouted to start the nightcap of the double-header.

  Cyrus Vance left his seat on the bench to look toward home plate. “Well, twirl my turban,” he said, “I thought I recognized that voice.” Cyrus broke into the popular song: “‘Well, twirl my turban, man alive! Here come Mister Five-by-Five!’”

  “Aw, horseshit,” Bobby said.

  Mr. Five-by-Five was the corpulent umpire with a tiny strike zone. Bobby hadn’t seen him since his Triple-A days in Little Rock, but he knew that umpires, like players, rose or fell with their talent.

  “His strike zone probably shrank as his waistline grew,” Cyrus said. “Then they sent him down on a cattle car.”

  “Yeah,” Bobby said. “He won’t give you the inside or outside corners, and that’s where I make my living.”

  “Nothing high in the strike zone either,” Cyrus added.

  Bobby shook his head. “Right, but at least that makes you a better pitcher. Keeps you from throwing the high fat one.”

  Cyrus launched into the song again. Several players joined in while Bobby fell silent. Hardie Nettles and Bill German stood and sang, pointing up and down, then left and right during the routine.

  Mister Five-by-Five,

  He’s five feet tall and he’s five feet wide.

  He don’t measure no more from head to toe

  Than he do from side to side.

  Harry Chozen patrolled down to the silly end of the dugout. “All right, boys. Y’all cut that stuff out. You know that kind of talk always comes back on you.”

  Bobby watched the Beaumont Roughnecks’ star southpaw strike out Charlie Harper. He knew he would have to throw his best game of the season to beat Keith Wiseman. Wiseman had only a mediocre fastball, but his arm, developed by four years of javelin throwing at Lamar State, carried him into the late innings with full strength.

  Bobby’s money pitch was also a fastball, even though the injury had sapped ten miles per hour from it. After healing the arm over the winter of 1946, he made his comeback playing Class D in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, was traded up in midseason to B somewhere in Minnesota, then threw a year of A ball in Amarillo, Texas. What he lost in speed, he made up for with control and knowledge. It was a hard climb to Double-A, but it was a class his pride could live with and it suited his comfort zone.

  Fingers two and three on Chozen’s hand were Bobby’s middling curve and good changeup. Chozen added finger four for his weak slider. Bobby had no fifth pitch. He had a screwball before the injury changed the position of his fingers, but now the fadeaway moved in a horizontal plane, and only a couple of inches.

  Wiseman went through the next two Lunker batters quickly, so Bobby had to rush to finish his cigarette. Walking to the mound, he shrugged his shoulders several times, trying to get his uniform top to feel right. He remembered the first batter. He had played right field for the Houston Buffs last year. Kopp. He didn’t remember his first name, but he was a sucker for pitches high and outside. Bobby threw the first pitch, a fastball to test the low outside corner. The umpire wouldn’t give it to him. Bobby received the ball from Chozen. As he walked up the mound, Bobby noticed his right shoe felt tight. To stretch it, he banged his heel against the hard dirt.

  Chozen called for an inside-corner fastball. Bobby knew his manager was also trying to establish the strike zone. Chozen didn’t have to move his mitt to catch the throw. The ump called it a ball.

  Bobby took a deep breath and looked into the blackness over the left-field light rack. He knew it was going to be a tough night. He reached down for the rosin bag and barely touched it. Chozen signaled curve and Bobby dropped it in for a called strike. Well, twirl my turban, Bobby thought, at least strike is still in his vocabulary.

  Chozen poked two fingers down again. Bobby waved it off. He threw a fastball that had just enough downward movement to draw a two-hopper to short for the first out.

  Two more fastballs put the second batter down in the count. Chozen asked for a changeup, which the batter drove foul over the left-field fence. Bobby wasted the next pitch outside. The rubber didn’t feel comfortable. His uniform didn’t sit right. He stared down the barrel of the strike zone at four fingers. He shook off the slider. “You must be joking,” he said to himself. He shook off the curve. Chozen paused, then shot a lone index finger down for the fastball. He positioned the catcher’s mitt low on the outside corner. Bobby knew the ump wouldn’t give it to him, so he threw closer to the middle third of the strike zone. The batter smashed the ball into left field for a single.

  As he massaged the ball, Bobby looke
d toward left field, then first base. He hitched his left shoulder several times. He took his stance and waited for the signal. Fastball. He checked first. Pitching from the stretch always took a little off Bobby’s fastball, so he pushed off the rubber for some extra speed. The ball sailed over Chozen’s head and the runner took second.

  Bobby drove his right heel into the mound to stretch the leather and loosen up his shoe. He looked toward home to receive the ball. He would be able to tell from the return if Chozen was angry. Instead, he saw the manager clacking his armor out to the mound.

  Chozen placed the ball in his pitcher’s glove. “What’s the matter, Bobby? You look like a squirrel in heat.”

  “Can’t get comfortable.”

  Chozen slapped him on the arm with his mitt. “Just transfer some of your nerves to the ball. You’ll be fine.” He turned and jogged back with the confidence of a catcher who had calmed a thousand pitchers.