Switch Pitchers

by Norman German

  The next batter was a left-hander. The loudspeaker squawked a name Bobby couldn’t make out. Hailing from a squawkish Major League team, Squawky Squawkson was rehabbing an injury to his right squawk. Bobby threw a fastball he fouled off. He thought he’d try to back him up with a slider and hope for a called strike. The batter swung. The slider still had enough hiccup to earn Bobby a routine groundball putout. The ball went by him and, as he started for the dugout, he watched his brother at second. The ball hit a bad spot and Bill booted it into right field.

  Everything shifted into fast motion. The runner on second was almost to third. Bobby ran home to back up Chozen. Nettles threw a strike to the relay man, and Scoop whirled and fired home. Five-by-Five was positioned to make the call, but the throw went wide and the ump had to skip over Chozen’s hands as he lunged for the ball. The umpire turned to watch Bobby field the ball and charge the plate. Off balance, Five-by-Five jumped back to avoid Bobby and almost fell into the runner, who slid around him just as Bobby made a dive for the plate. The umpire flung his arms out to keep his balance and called the runner safe. The score was tied, 1-1.

  Mr. Five-by-Five was the only man standing in the rising cloud of dust. Chozen started his argument from the ground and continued it in the umpire’s face. Five-by-Five performed a little dance step that swung Chozen around to shield his protest from the crowd. At a pause, the umpire said, calmly, “Mr. Chozen, this is a good, close game that just got closer. Now why don’t we resume play and see how it turns out?”

  With men on the corners, Bobby trudged back onto the mound. He wanted to save his arm for the ninth. He remembered throwing fourteen innings in a Laredo dust storm the previous year and Tycer getting the victory because he relieved him with the score tied.

  Bobby thought about pitching from the stretch, but he was more effective with a regular windup. He decided he would rather stay comfortable, focus on the batter, and give the runner second.

  Chozen signaled fastball, and Bobby shook it off. Chozen rolled through 4, 2, 3, then back to 1. Bobby waved off all of them. Chozen paused for a second and flared out five fingers. Bobby looked at the sign, then leaned over and squinted to make sure he was seeing it right. He remembered he had another pitch in Little Rock, a screwball, but he hadn’t thrown it in five years. Trying it now might yank his elbow out of socket. He had messed with a knuckleball in high school, but dropped it because it threw off his other pitches.

  Bobby was frozen on the mound.

  Having no idea what to do, he looked over Chozen’s shoulder into the grandstands. On the top row, a lone boy was pointing, shielding the secret sign with his palm. Throw to first. Instantly, Bobby knew he was right. He turned and fired, picking off the runner who had already taken for granted that second was his gift.

  Bobby stepped off one battlefield onto another. He was batting first in the top of the ninth. As he was selecting a bat, Bill slapped him softly and said, “Sorry about the error.”

  “It’s only on a scorecard,” Bobby said. “It’s not like it’s a war.”

  It was an old exchange and the two made it without looking at each other. As Bill turned away, Bobby heard him singing just below Harry Chozen’s radar.

  That man (my, my!)

  Can really jump it for a fat man.

  Bobby couldn’t remember the next words and paused on the threshold of the dugout to listen.

  Boys, the trouble is there’s no way of knowin’

  Whether he’s comin’ on . . . or goin’.

  Bobby smiled and stepped onto the field. It was his first at-bat since he had taken Wiseman to school for knocking him down. A Major League pitcher would have retaliated, but Bobby had evened the score and knew Wiseman didn’t have the gumption to hit him and then face him again.

  Bobby worked him hard, fouling off three pitches before finally walking. Zig Emory was up next and he was streaky. He hadn’t gotten a hit tonight, so Bobby thought he had better not count on him. Bobby carefully watched Wiseman’s southpaw motion. On the third pitch, he watched the catcher. Bobby figured he couldn’t have much of an arm or he’d be in Triple-A. Plus, this late in the game, his legs would feel like lead. Just as Wiseman started his motion toward home, Bobby put his head down and drove for second. He slid and let his speed hitting the bag stand him up. He beat the throw by two steps.

  Ziggy was walking to the dugout with his head down, so Bobby knew he had struck out.

  The speaker squawked out Bill German’s name. Second baseman. Throws right, bats left.

  Bobby looked over at Schroeder, the Roughnecks’ second baseman. He was shading towards first for the left-handed hitter. “Come on,” he said to himself to Bill. “I’ve seen you do this umpteen dozen times.” Then he recited what they had been saying to each other since Little League. “You’re good. But you ain’t that good. But you’re good enough.”

  Bill waited for his pitch and drove it into right. Bobby rounded third glancing at first. The throw wasn’t there yet but it was on its way. The ball reached home just before Bobby and he tried to slide outside the tag. He was about to sweep the plate with his left hand but saw the catcher’s mitt swinging around so he pulled it back and as he went by the plate he reached in with his right and touched home.

  Chozen sent Hardie Nettles in to pinch hit and Nettles made contact with a ball no one else would have swung at. It produced one of those incredibly high pop flies that make Double-A outfielders stagger around like drunks and make scouts draw lines through their names. But this drunk caught it. Now all Bobby had to do was preserve his one-run lead for three more outs.

  C. O. Blanden, the Roughnecks’ potbellied third baseman, carried a telephone pole to the plate and Bobby made a fool out of him with two curves and a fastball.

  Next, he threw two fastballs to Spencer before he caught up with the third and fouled it into the stands. Chozen signaled changeup and Spencer drove it hard just outside the third-base line. Chozen indicated curve. Bobby threw it in the dirt. Suddenly, Bobby felt the sand in his uniform from sliding into home. The grit reminded him that he deserved this win, but it also felt like ants were marching across his skin. He plucked at the uniform.

  Some toddlers wear down slowly, fuss awhile, and are helped to bed. Others tire quickly and fall asleep while eating, their mouths still chewing an imaginary morsel. Bobby was a pitcher of the latter sort. One pitch was effective, the next headed for the moon.

  Chozen signed for a slider and Bobby shook it off. When the changeup left his hand, he knew it was a mistake. The next time he saw the ball, it was shrinking against the blackness above the left-field lights. Charlie Harper was almost to the fence when the ball hit and bounced over for a ground-rule double.

  Bobby felt like a man who had been told he was going to be shot and only got stabbed. It was a wound, but it wasn’t mortal. He banged his heel on the mound. His shoe didn’t feel tight, but it felt good to bang his heel on the packed dirt.

  He hated pitching from a stretch. He leaned over and looked for the sign. Fastball. He waved it off. Chozen ran through the changeup, the curve, the slider, and came back to the fastball. Bobby couldn’t believe four pitches was all he had. He squeezed his eyelids tightly shut, then opened them for a second look. Nothing had changed. He threw the fastball. The batter was late but managed a right-field single that moved Spencer to third.

  Chozen called timeout and jogged to the mound.

  “You tired, Bobby?”

  “Hell yeah, I’m tired.”

  “You want to finish the game?”

  “Yes.”

  “You sure? You look a little uneasy.”

  “I’m okay. Just need to get my focus back.”

  “Look,” Chozen said. Bobby looked. “Take your uneasiness.” Bobby nodded. “And transfer it to the batter.” Bobby nodded faster.

  Chozen turned and headed for the plate. Bobby reached out to pull him back, but it was too late. He thought Chozen was about to tell him how to transfer his uneasiness to the batt
er.

  When life was going smoothly, Bobby sailed through it in style, unruffled by any of the usual concerns: money, bills, children, a job. His work was playing the game he loved. When Bobby hit troubled waters, though, he was happy to look to someone else for guidance. During those times, he was always waiting for direction, for directions, for a direction. What should I throw, where should I go, what should I do, who should I love, and on through all the big questions of life.

  The advice he got this time was: Take your uneasiness and transfer it to the batter. It was like expecting a fastball and getting a curve.

  Bobby checked the runners on first and third. One out. He hated to pitch from a stretch. Transfer your uneasiness to the batter. The batter didn’t look nervous and he didn’t look intimidated. He looked determined. Bobby kept looking at the batter waving the tool of his trade like he planned to use it well and soon.

  Bobby placed his foot on the rubber, then looked at the ball. His tool. When he looked back toward the plate, for the first time in his life, he did not look at the catcher. He did not look for a signal. He looked right into the eyes of the batter, then back at the ball, then back at the batter.

  The bat stopped.

  Bobby didn’t know what Chozen had signaled. Didn’t care. He threw the best fastball he had left and he threw it with authority and the batter hit it hard to second, where Bill fielded it, dropped it, picked it up and backhanded it to Scoop, who in one motion caught it, pivoted, jumped to avoid the slide, and threw to first.

  It was not the best game Bobby had ever thrown, but his win-loss record was now 2-1, and he knew a pitcher could live a long time on that ratio.

  Chapter 11

  BOBBY sat quietly on the bench watching his friend Leo Tycer pitch fluttering knuckleballs to frustrated batters. He was thinking of returning the pitch to his repertoire. Many thought of the knuckler as a novelty pitch and the man who threw it as a clown. Even Chozen joked about needing only one finger when Tycer was on the hill. Still, Bobby mused, it would give batters something extra to worry about when facing him.

  “You won your game last night?” Roberto asked.

  Bobby nodded and drew on his cigarette. The two pitchers had been sitting for three innings in a shrinking triangle of shade, Bobby waiting for the Cuban to talk first. Roberto migrated with the shade until he was close enough to Bobby to speak without raising his voice.

  Surprised at Bobby’s subdued reaction, Roberto said, “You are not happy you won?”

  Bobby slowly exhaled the smoke. “I’m happy I didn’t lose.”

  Roberto watched Bobby out of the corner of his eye. To Roberto he looked like a thoughtful man as he smoked his cigarette while studying Tycer’s motion.

  “Do you not like to pitch, Mr. Bobby?”

  Bobby was not the kind of man who talked about his feelings with his friends. Or even his family. When Bill returned from the prison camp that June, Bobby held his brother hard, one time, crying on the porch until there was nothing left. Then they never spoke about it again, though the aroma of lantana still raised the memory.

  Bobby looked over at Roberto. “It’s the way I make my living.”

  “You are kidding me, man. This is the greatest game in the world.”

  “Yes, it is. But games don’t really matter and baseball is nothing more than a chess game with live pieces and a bigger audience.”

  Roberto looked at the veteran as if he could not believe what he was hearing.

  “How can you say this great game does not matter?”

  Bobby was setting him up like a batter.

  “What’s the big spectator sport in Spain?”

  “I am from Cuba.”

  “I know. What do they like to watch in Spain? Besides bullfighting.”

  “Football,” Roberto said, “but it is not like American football. Here, it is called soccer.”

  “So baseball doesn’t matter to them.”

  Roberto thought about this for a while.

  Bobby threw him the next question like an outside curve. “Has anyone in Spain even heard of Warren Spahn?”

  Roberto opened his hands out. “It is hard to say.”

  “I don’t know the name of a single soccer player, in Spain or anywhere else,” Bobby said. “Don’t know and don’t care. It doesn’t matter to me.”

  “But it matters to them.”

  Bobby looked out at Tycer squinting in the sun to see his target in the strip of shade. “So if we decided that throwing a dead pig as far as possible mattered, then you’d want to be the best dead-pig thrower that ever lived?”

  Roberto thought Bobby might be one of those crazy ballplayers. Maybe he had been hit in the head with a line drive. He had heard of such things.

  Bobby continued, “Pig throwing doesn’t feed a poor boy. Or cure disease. And it won’t bring back a dead brother.”

  “I do not know about this pig throwing, Mr. Bobby, but baseball makes people happy.”

  Bobby was unimpressed. “And since every game has a loser, it makes exactly as many people unhappy.”

  “Yes, but it takes their mind off their cares.”

  “And gives them different cares for a couple of hours. Players actually fight over bad calls. Fans, too. If you watched this game from a cloud, you’d see how stupid it is—people hurting themselves over things that don’t matter a damn. Then, when they leave the ballpark, their real problems come back, and they’ve thrown away the money they should have thrown at the problem.”

  Roberto thought of the poor spectators in Cuba, how they dressed for games like they were going to church, how their money might have gone to more important things than clothes and a ticket. Roberto frowned. “Mr. Bobby, I have never thought of these things in such a way.”

  The two watched Leo Tycer wind up and throw. His standup delivery of the knuckleball made it look like he was playing catch with a child. The batter swung, connecting with a loud crack. Roberto jumped from the bench and clutched the fence. He saw Lamar Cagle flying towards deep right center. The Big Chief lost the ball in the sun for a second, then caught it with an awkward stab. While the players ran for the dugout, the fans cheered.

  “If Cagle had missed that, they’d have crucified him,” Bobby said. He stubbed his cigarette out against a metal post. “Roberto.” Bobby had unveiled his plan to Harry Chozen on the bus the night before.

  “Yes, Mr. Bobby?”

  “Why don’t we finish our chat over a friendly beer after the game?”

  Roberto smiled. He was relieved Bobby was not going to talk nonsense again.

  “This friendly beer,” Roberto said, “it is a thing that matters in this state of Louisiana?”

  “If it’s friendly, it matters.”

  “Muchas gracias, Mr. Bobby. You name the place and I will be there.”

  “How do you say ‘Green Frog’ in Spanish?”

  “Rana verde. I have heard of this place. It is on Broad Street, no?”

  “Sí,” Bobby said, kidding him.

  The noise of the players entering the dugout interrupted their banter.

  In the seventh inning, with Lake Charles ahead 3-0, the Pelicans deciphered Leo Tycer’s knuckleball. When the score was 3-1 with runners on second and third and only one out, Chozen called Tycer off the mound and let Bill German mop up. The Lunkers won 4-2 and moved into sole possession of fourth place in the Gulf Coast League, two games behind the Lafayette Guzzlers.

  * * *

  Bobby bumped the tires of his blue and white Bel Air over the curb and saw Roberto standing, tall and still, by the door of The Green Frog. A large window-unit air conditioner chilled the interior of the club. Bad ventilation trapped the odor of beer and stale cigarettes. The two stepped from the afternoon heat into the dank, smoke-filled establishment and walked to the bar. Bobby caught the eye of the bartender. Ray Fontenot smiled and hurried past other customers waving dollar bills at him.

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Bobby. What can I do for you?”

  “Set us
up with a couple of Jax beers.”

  “Sure thing.” When Ray glanced at Roberto, the smile slid off his face. By the time Bobby finished flipping bills from a small roll and looked up, Ray’s blank face had hardened. “Bobby,” he said sympathetically, “you know we don’t serve—.”

  Bobby threw an extra dollar on the bar. “Ray,” he said. “This ain’t a spade. This is our new flamethrower, Roberto. He’s a Cuban.”