Switch Pitchers

by Norman German

  The game was close until the seventh inning, when Big Chief Cagle cleared the loaded bases with a standup double that boosted the score, 6-2.

  Between innings, Carlton announced that the hotdogs were selling like hotcakes.

  “That don’t count as a cross-sports metaphor,” Bill joked.

  “Still,” Chozen said in one of his rare non-game comments, “you wouldn’t say hotcakes were selling like hotdogs, now would you?”

  Chozen escaped from the dugout into the eighth inning with the Lunker fans chanting, “Ah-lay-mahn! Ah-lay-mahn! Ah-lay-mahn!”

  In the top of the eighth, facing the second batter, Ricardo hopped off the mound like he’d pulled a groin muscle.

  Great, Chozen thought as he made his way out to his pitcher.

  “What you got, Ricardo?”

  “It is a sting in my elbow.”

  Chozen looked at his sparsely populated bench, then out at Cagle in center field, then back to Ricardo, who was rubbing his left elbow.

  “Can you throw with your right for a couple of innings?”

  “I think it is no problem.”

  After serving up a couple of doubles and a solo homer, Ricardo recorded his final victory of 1952, bringing his win-loss total to a first-ever 12L/3R-8. Twelve wins left-handed and three right-handed, against eight losses.

  If Bobby pitched well the following day, the Lake Charles Lunkers would win their first Gulf Coast League Championship.

  Chapter 25

  AFTER his warm-up pitches, Bobby was sitting on the bench waiting for the game to begin when he heard Darnell call out.

  “Mr. Bobby!”

  Even though Bobby was despondent, he brightened at the sound of the voice. He stood and worked his way through the men to the end of the dugout. Darnell poked a piece of paper through the fence.

  “A nice lady gave me a dime to deliver this.”

  It was common for fans to send the players notes of encouragement, often with money attached, sometimes with a phone number and lipstick impression, so Bobby wasn’t surprised. He unfolded the paper and read it. “Wishing you the best of luck tonight. Irene.”

  “You want me to send a message back, Mr. Bobby?”

  “No. Thanks, Darnell.”

  “All right, Mr. Bobby. Throw hard and keep ’em low.”

  “I will,” Bobby said, distracted.

  “Mr. Bobby?”

  Bobby looked up.

  “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

  “I don’t know. What?”

  Darnell took off his green-and-gold striped cap and pressed his head against the fencing.

  Bobby rubbed it with his left hand, then with his right. “I’m gonna need double luck tonight,” he said.

  “Naw, Mr. Bobby. Just rear back and rock-n-fire, rock-n-fire.”

  The Lunkers stormed the field to the cheering of a spillover crowd. Bobby made a few easy throws, then waited for the first batter. He tried to look inconspicuous as he scanned the grandstands for Irene. He found her midway down the first-base line, three rows up. To wave hello, he shot his pitching arm skyward and shook it as if loosening up. Irene glanced to her side. Earl was talking to Louis. She gave Bobby a quick wave.

  Bobby was grateful to have Scoop and Bill behind him. He was afraid of aggravating his tender shoulder if he threw his best fastball in the early innings. Throwing as few pitches as possible, he planned to try for groundouts and pop-ups. He knew it would take a tactical gem and incredible luck to win the game. The edge was taken off his nervousness when the first two batters grounded to short and second.

  Bobby walked to the back of the mound and picked up the rosin bag. Looking out at left field, he took a deep breath and saw two doves skim above, then drop into, the darkening treeline. He imagined the birds going home to nest and took the sight as a good sign.

  Left-handed shortstop David Thibodeaux, skinny but quick as a squirrel, batted third. Bobby knew him as a sucker for high fastballs. He just wasn’t sure whether he would fly out on a slow fastball. He looked to see what Chozen would signal.

  Fastball, high.

  So he remembered, Bobby thought.

  Bobby shook it off. Chozen shifted to show his irritation. When he settled, he called curve. Bobby wasn’t so sure about the curve. Thibodeaux was choking up like he intended to spank anything easy over the infielders’ heads. Bobby waved off the curve. Chozen gave the sign for changeup. Bobby rejected it. Chozen signaled slider. Bobby thought no, but he didn’t have anything left to choose from.

  He decided to fake a wild throw behind the batter’s head. He threw and the visiting fans booed and hooted their displeasure. But the pitch did its job. For strike one, Bobby threw an inside curve that buckled Thibodeaux’s knees. Then he made him reach with the short bat for a slow fastball on the outside corner and polished him off with a gravity-defying changeup that crossed the plate at fifty miles an hour. Bobby was grateful to get out of the inning without facing the Pelicans’ cleanup man, Big Jan Decker.

  Judge Carlton capped the inning with a rap of his gavel. “Ladies and gents, if Bobby threw his changeup any slower, it would go backwards.”

  New Orleans had saved its best pitcher, Trader Hornn, for the crucial game. At thirty-five, he had visited the Major Leagues half a dozen times. With a 15-5 record, he believed he had one more bounce in him, and he was planning to use this final game to showcase his big-league stuff. Before the game, the judge elaborated on his longstanding uncertainty about whether to call Hornn a veteran rookie or a rookie veteran.

  Both teams scattered a few hits, but the score was still 0-0 when the breaker to the ballpark lights was thrown after the fourth inning. Bobby’s arm was starting to hurt, though his curve and slider still had good movement. He felt relieved he had endured into the night portion of the game, when the batters would not see the ball as sharply.

  In the fifth inning, the Pelicans put two runs on the board and the Lunkers responded with as many in the bottom half. In the sixth, with three balls and no strikes against the Big Swede, the first batter of the inning, Bobby had to deliver a strike. Decker hit it over right center with fifty feet to spare.

  The judge’s voice came over the loudspeaker. “I wish I were saying this about one of our fine Lunker sluggers, folks, but I think Decker hit that aspirin into the ether.”

  Lake Charles stranded two in their half of the sixth, and the score remained 3-2 going into the late innings.

  Bobby struggled in the seventh. The familiar shoulder toothache was settling in deep, and he hurt with every pitch. He tried to ignore and mask his pain, but he knew he could not hold out much longer. The 4-2 score favored the Pelicans as the Lunkers came to bat in the bottom of the seventh.

  Throughout the summer, Ricardo had been carefully studying Bobby’s pitching motion. In the previous inning, he detected his friend’s trouble. In Spanish, Ricardo called to Raul, who was batting first. He told him to work Hornn for a long count to give Bobby as much rest as possible.

  Trader Hornn was annoyed to the point of distraction by the time he walked Raul in seventeen pitches. Deg sacrificed Raul to second.

  Zig Emory stepped to the plate. “All right, Ziggy,” Chozen called out, making sure the pitcher heard his taunt, “let’s drive Scoop around the horn!”

  Hornn almost drilled a fastball through Emory’s head. Chozen smiled, knowing he had rattled the pitcher into losing his composure.

  Ziggy didn’t drive Scoop around the horn, but he got him there, and Bill brought him home on a broken-bat blooper to shallow right.

  The score was 4-3, Pelicans, when Bobby took the mound in the eighth inning after a good rest. He dispensed with the first batter by throwing a slow curve on the outside corner for a strike, then following it with an inside changeup, making him fist a slow liner to Emory at third.

  With the weak end of the lineup approaching, Bobby thought he would escape the inning unscathed, but the number eight batter worked him deep in the count, and he felt his should
er-ache rising like an over-yeasted cake.

  After walking the batter, Bobby did something he had done only one other time in his career. With the weakest batter at the plate, just as Bobby was looking for the signal and twirling the ball by his side, he dropped it. The balk put runners on first and second with only one out.

  Jack Mitchell, the batter who had hit a leadoff home run against Bill in the first game of the series, stepped to the plate. Bobby carefully nibbled around the corners with curves and sliders, but Mitchell finally caught one off the end of his bat and drove in a run to increase the Pelican lead, 5-3.

  With runners on the corners and the squirrelly Thibodeaux on deck, followed by the Big Swede, Bobby needed the next batter to hit into a double play. He fished around with curves, trying to induce a ground ball. The batter stayed with him, drawing two balls and fouling off four good pitches. With the count 2-and-2, Bobby tried to fool him with a changeup. Mitchell drove it over Scoop’s head, making the score 6-3.

  Chozen called “time” and ran out to the mound.

  “Dammit, Bobby,” he said as he arrived. Then he realized he had nothing else to say. Bobby looked at the deep impression of the catcher’s mask circling his manager’s bulldog face. “Dammit, Bobby, just accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, and quit farting around with Mr. In-Between.”

  Bobby hung his head. “Yes, sir.”

  “Tell me what I’m trying to say.”

  Bobby picked up the rosin bag and bumped it up and down in his hand while looking off in the distance beyond the left-field lights. “Throw the fastball and forget the curve and the change.”

  “Right,” Chozen said. “You hurting?”

  “No, I’m all right. I just have more confidence in my curve right now.”

  “And those batters have confidence hittin’ it, so give it a rest.”

  As he waited for Chozen to take his position, Bobby wondered what was ahead of him even if he won the game—a year or two of Major League ball, going, at most, 5-9 or 6-12 before being sent down again?

  As he looked up at Thibodeaux maliciously waving his choked-up bat, Bobby knew he was not in a good frame of mind to throw. He tried to stir up some anger, but the well was dry. What did he have to be mad about? He searched the stands for inspiration.

  Irene was leaning over Earl, laughing and talking to Marlene. He saw Darnell entertaining the crowd, earning his money by winding up with a high kick and throwing a strike with a bag of peanuts to a fan several rows up. Bobby smiled as the spectators applauded his protégé.

  As he looked homeward, Bobby’s heart fell. Chozen stabbed one finger down for a fastball.

  Bobby checked the on-deck circle. No change there. A small, distant part of his brain was amused that Decker was on deck. Bobby didn’t want to, but he had to throw a good fastball to Thibodeaux, and he knew it would hurt.

  The fastball, with almost no movement, was just fast enough to cause Thibodeaux to chip it off the end of his bat towards Emory for a 5-4-3 double play. Anxious for their at-bat, the Lunkers ran off the field. Bobby walked. The pain from throwing the fastball had stunned him, dominating his mind.

  Judge Carlton’s voice scratched from the loudspeakers. “In their half of the eighth inning, the Lunkers come to bat in a tight spot. Our sturdy southpaw is first up with the Pelicans leading by a field goal, six-to-three.” The voice went on, but that was all Harry Chozen heard. The tension of the game, then the football metaphor, triggered something in Chozen that had been simmering all year. Still in his catching gear, he stormed out of the dugout and through the gate towards the press box.

  “Well,” Bill said. “What’s eating him?”

  “The Judge done spewed one too many of them cross-sports things,” Cyrus Vance explained.

  “Wha’d he say? I wasn’t even paying attention.”

  “The Pelicans are ahead by a field goal.”

  Bill laughed. “Why, that’s just colorful announcing. Good God, nothing to get all worked up about.”

  Lamb Daniels, the fading veteran who had sat the bench much of the season, spoke up. “Tell you what, Peanut Butter. Win or lose this championship, let’s kill that double-talking bastard.” He was half serious.

  “Sounds good to me,” Vance joked.

  “Shake on it,” Daniels said. Vance shook to please Daniels, then worked his way to the water cooler to escape the frustrated man’s festering anger.

  By the time Chozen returned from the press box, Bobby had gone down swinging. No one knew what Chozen had said to Carlton, but his voice sounded like a feeble old man’s as he reported blandly that Zig Emory was up next. If you can judge a man’s fear by the paleness of his face, you could hear the judge’s fear in the pallor of his voice.

  Darnell showed up for his usual round. “You look whupped, Mr. Bobby. Can I get you anything?”

  Bobby glanced up. “Yep, you can get me a new arm.”

  Crouching down, Darnell asked in a low, secret voice, “Hurting again?”

  “Like a truck run over it.”

  Darnell winced. “Can’t Mr. Chozen get you some relief?”

  “There’s no one left, Darnell.” While Chozen was visiting the press box, Bobby had jotted an apology on the back of Irene’s note: “Sorry. I just can’t make it happen tonight.” He passed the slip of paper to Darnell to give to Irene.

  Zig Emory singled, Deg Grose walked, and Bill German leaned his shoulder into a curve to load the bases. That quick, the Lunkers were back in the game. Charlie Harper, leadoff man and religious leader of a team not interested in following, stepped to the plate like he had a calling. If he did, he missed it, going down in three swings.

  With two outs and the bases loaded, Harry Chozen stepped to the plate still nursing his anger at Judge Carlton. After taking the first pitch for a called strike, he backed one foot out of the box and checked his nine-fingered grip on the bat. The manager worked his hands around the neck like he was wringing water from a dry towel. He released all of his wrath on the next offering and hit a towering shot to deep left-center. When the ball finally came down, the left and center fielders crossed signals and let the ball fall between them. Chozen was nearly to second and two runs had already scored, making it 6-5, Pelicans.

  Standing on second waiting for Hardie Nettles to settle into the batter’s box, Chozen glared up at the judge, daring him to mix his hit with another sport.

  “That’s a double for player-ma-manager Harry Chozen,” Carlton said. His voice stuttered at “player-manager,” fearing a mixed metaphor.

  Nettles took the first pitch for a close ball. He took the next for an enthusiastically called strike. Then another called strike. Trader Hornn knew it no more than Nettles himself, but the Lunker right fielder was waiting for a bad ball to hit. There was something about being down in the count that struck fear in the heart of Hardie Nettles. With a 1-and-2 count, Hornn could afford to waste a bad pitch. Nettles connected with the low outside fastball to double in two runs.

  The Lunkers took the lead, 7-6.

  Trader Hornn took his wrath out on Lamar Cagle, the League’s homerun king, by hitting him on the first pitch. Raul would later describe his at-bat by using a phrase from the Mexican league: “I killed the rally by hitting a little hog-fart that trickled two feet in front of the plate.” The catcher picked it up, skipped a step towards the mound, and threw Rules out by twenty feet.

  With a one-run lead, the Lunkers stormed the field for the top of the ninth inning—perhaps their last defensive inning of the year. The long half inning of rest had not diminished the pain in Bobby’s arm. Still, he felt he could make it through the inning if the wheel of fortune turned his way. The first batter beat out a slow grounder to third. The second donked a one-hopper to the mound. Bobby mishandled it and threw wide to his first baseman, who took his foot off the bag to field the ball. That put runners on first and second.

  Climbing the hill, Bobby was astonished for the hundredth time in his career by how fast things could g
o wrong in baseball. He knew he would have to spend some fastballs to get out of the jam.

  Four pitches later, two of them fastballs, he had his first strikeout and the worst arm ache he had ever experienced. He hated pitching from a stretch. Approaching the rubber, he plucked at his shirt and looked at the runner on first.

  Five throws later, the count was 2-and-2. Bobby thought of wasting a pitch to see if the batter would go for it, but he vetoed the idea as soon as it came up. He didn’t have many good pitches left in his arm and couldn’t afford to waste any. Chozen called fastball and Bobby shook it off for a slider, which was translated into a line drive come-backer that bounced off his chest and fell to the ground. He picked up the ball, checked to see if he could throw out the lead runner at third, and threw to first for the second out.