Platinum Pohl - The Collected Best Stories

by Frederik Pohl

  The owner’s uncle clutched at Manager Fogarty as he was getting up to head for the field. “Wait a minute. What’s Boleslaw doing?”

  “Don’t you see? He’s chasing the outfield off the field. He wants to face the next two men without any outfield! That’s Satchell Paige’s old trick, only he never did it except in exhibitions where who cares? But that Boley—”

  “This is only an exhibition, isn’t it?” remarked the owner’s uncle mildly.

  Fogarty looked longingly at the field, looked back at the owner’s uncle, and shrugged.

  “All right.” He sat down, remembering that it was the owner’s uncle whose sprawling factories had made the family money that bought the owner his team. “Go ahead!” he bawled at the right fielder, who was hesitating halfway to the dugout.

  Boley nodded from the mound. When the outfielders were all out of the way he set himself and went into his windup. Boleslaw’s windup was a beautiful thing to all who chanced to behold it—unless they happened to root for another team. The pitch was more beautiful still.

  “I got it, I got it!” Andalusia cried from behind the plate, waving the ball in his mitt. He returned it to the pitcher triumphantly, as though he could hardly believe he had caught the Boleslaw screwball—after only the first week of spring training.

  He caught the second pitch, too. But the third was unpredictably low and outside. Andalusia dived for it in vain.

  “Ball one!” cried the umpire. The catcher scrambled up, ready to argue.

  “He is right,” Boley called graciously from the mound. “I am sorry, but my foot slipped. It was a ball.”

  “Thank you,” said the umpire. The next screwball was a strike, though, and so were the three sinkers to the third man—though one of those caught a little piece of the bat and turned into an into-the-dirt foul.

  Boley came off the field to a spattering of applause. He stopped under the stands, on the lip of the dugout. “I guess I am a little rusty at that, Fogarty,” he called. “Don’t let me forget to pitch another inning or two before we play Baltimore next month.”

  “I won’t!” snapped Fogarty. He would have said more, but the owner’s uncle was talking.

  “I don’t know much about baseball, but that strikes me as an impressive performance. My congratulations.”

  “You are right,” Boley admitted. “Excuse me while I shower, and then we can resume this discussion some more. I think you are a better judge of baseball than you say.”

  The owner’s uncle chuckled, watching him go into the dugout. “You can laugh,” said Fogarty bitterly. “You don’t have to put up with that for a hundred fifty-four games, and spring training, and the Series.”

  “You’re pretty confident about making the Series?”

  Fogarty said simply, “Last year Boley win thirty-one games.”

  The owner’s uncle nodded, and shifted position uncomfortably. He was sitting with one leg stretched over a large black metal suitcase, fastened with a complicated lock. Fogarty asked, “Should I have one of the boys put that in the locker room for you?”

  “Certainly not!” said the owner’s uncle. “I want it right here where I can touch it.” He looked around him. “The fact of that matter is,” he went on in a lower tone, “this goes up to Washington with me tomorrow. I can’t discuss what’s in it. But as we’re among friends, I can mention that where it’s going is the Pentagon.”

  “Oh,” said Fogarty respectfully. “Something new from the factories.”

  “Something very new,” the owner’s uncle agreed, and he winked. “And I’d better get back to the hotel with it. But there’s one thing, Mr. Fogarty. I don’t have much time for baseball, but it’s a family affair, after all, and whenever I can help—I mean, it just occurs to me that possibly, with the help of what’s in this suitcase—That is, would you like me to see if I could help out?”

  “Help out how?” asked Fogarty suspiciously.

  “Well—I really mustn’t discuss what’s in the suitcase. But would it hurt Boleslaw, for example, to be a little more, well, modest?”

  The manager exploded, “No.”

  The owner’s uncle nodded. “That’s what I’ve thought. Well, I must go. Will you ask Mr. Boleslaw to give me a ring at the hotel so we can have dinner together, if it’s convenient?”

  It was convenient, all right. Boley had always wanted to see how the other half lived; and they had a fine dinner, served right in the suite, with five waiters in attendance and four kinds of wine. Boley kept pushing the little glasses of wine away, but after all the owner’s uncle was the owner’s uncle, and if he thought it was all right—It must have been pretty strong wine, because Boley began to have trouble following the conversation.

  It was all right as long as it stuck to earned-run averages and batting percentages, but then it got hard to follow, like a long, twisting grounder on a dry September field. Boley wasn’t going to admit that, though. “Sure,” he said, trying to follow; and “You say the fourth dimension?” he said; and, “You mean a time machine, like?” he said; but he was pretty confused.

  The owner’s uncle smiled and filled the wineglasses again.

  Somehow the black suitcase had been unlocked, in a slow, difficult way. Things made out of crystal and steel were sticking out of it. “Forget about the time machine,” said the owner’s uncle patiently. “It’s a military secret, anyhow. I’ll thank you to forget the very words, because heaven knows what the general would think if he found out—Anyway, forget it. What about you, Boley? Do you still say you can hit any pitcher who ever lived and strike out any batter?”

  “Anywhere,” agreed Boley, leaning back in the deep cushions and watching the room go around and around. “Any time. I’ll bat their ears off.”

  “Have another glass of wine, Boley,” said the owner’s uncle, and he began to take things out of the black suitcase.

  Boley woke up with a pounding in his head like Snider, Mays and Mantle hammering Three-Eye League pitching. He moaned and opened one eye.

  Somebody blurry was holding a glass out to him. “Hurry up. Drink this.”

  Boley shrank back. “I will not. That’s what got me into this trouble in the first place.”

  “Trouble? You’re in no trouble. But the game’s about to start and you’ve got a hangover.”

  Ring a fire bell beside a sleeping Dalmation; sound the Charge in the ear of a retired cavalry major. Neither will respond more quickly than Boley to the words, “The game’s about to start.”

  He managed to drink some of the fizzy stuff in the glass and it was a miracle; like a triple play erasing a ninth-inning threat, the headache was gone. He sat up, and the world did not come to an end. In fact, he felt pretty good.

  He was being rushed somewhere by the blurry man. They were going very rapidly, and there were tall, bright buildings outside. They stopped.

  “We’re at the studio,” said the man, helping Boley out of a remarkable sort of car.

  “The stadium,” Boley corrected automatically. He looked around for the lines at the box office but there didn’t seem to be any.

  “The studio. Don’t argue all day, will you?” The man was no longer so blurry. Boley looked at him and blushed. He was only a little man, with a worried look to him, and what he was wearing was a pair of vivid orange Bermuda shorts that showed his knees. He didn’t give Boley much of a chance for talking or thinking. They rushed into a building, all green and white opaque glass, and they were met at a flimsy-looking elevator by another little man. This one’s shorts were aqua, and he had a bright red cummerbund tied around his waist.

  “This is him,” said Boley’s escort.

  The little man in aqua looked Boley up and down. “He’s a big one. I hope to goodness we got a uniform to fit him for the Series.”

  Boley cleared his throat. “Series?”

  “And you’re in it!” shrilled the little man in orange. “This way to the dressing room.”

  Well, a dressing room was a dressing room,
even if this one did have color television screens all around it and machines that went wheepety-boom softly to themselves. Boley began to feel at home.

  He blinked when they handed his uniform to him, but he put it on. Back in the Steel & Coal League, he had sometimes worn uniforms that still bore the faded legend 100 Lbs. Best Fortified Gro-Chick, and whatever an owner gave you to put on was all right with Boley. Still, he thought to himself, kilts!

  It was the first time in Boley’s life that he had ever worn a skirt. But when he was dressed it didn’t look too bad, he thought—especially because all the other players (it looked like fifty of them, anyway) were wearing the same thing. There is nothing like seeing the same costume on everybody in view to make it seem reasonable and right. Haven’t the Paris designers been proving that for years?

  He saw a familiar figure come into the dressing room, wearing a uniform like his own. “Why, coach Magill,” said Boley, turning with his hand outstretched. “I did not expect to meet you here.”

  The newcomer frowned, until somebody whispered in his ear. “Oh,” he said, “you’re Boleslaw.”

  “Naturally I’m Boleslaw, and naturally you’re my pitching coach, Magill, and why do you look at me that way when I’ve seen you every day for three weeks?”

  The man shook his head. “You’re thinking of Granddaddy Jim,” he said, and moved on.

  Boley stared after him. Granddaddy Jim? But Coach Magill was no granddaddy, that was for sure. Why, his eldest was no more than six years old. Boley put his hand against the wall to steady himself. It touched something metal and cold. He glanced at it.

  It was a bronze plaque, floor to ceiling high, and it was embossed at the top with the words World Series Honor Roll. And it listed every team that had ever won the World Series, from the day Chicago won the first Series of all in 1906 until—until—

  Boley said something out loud, and quickly looked around to see if anybody had heard him. It wasn’t something he wanted people to hear. But it was the right time for a man to say something like that, because what that crazy lump of bronze said, down toward the bottom, with only empty spaces below, was that the most recent team to win the World Series was the Yokahama Dodgers, and the year they won it in was—1998.

  1998.

  A time machine, thought Boley wonderingly, I guess what he meant was a machine that traveled in time.

  Now, if you had been picked up in a time machine that leaped through the years like a jet plane leaps through space you might be quite astonished, perhaps, and for a while you might not be good for much of anything, until things calmed down.

  But Boley was born calm. He lived by his arm and his eye, and there was nothing to worry about there. Pay him his Class C league contract bonus, and he turns up in Western Pennsylvania, all ready to set a league record for no-hitters his first year. Call him up from the minors and he bats .418 against the best pitchers in baseball. Set him down in the year 1999 and tell him he’s going to play in the Series, and he hefts the ball once or twice and says, “I better take a couple of warm-up pitches. Is the spitter allowed?”

  They led him to the bullpen. And then there was the playing of the National Anthem and the teams took the field. And Boley got the biggest shock so far.

  “Magill,” he bellowed in a terrible voice, “what is that other pitcher doing out on the mound?”

  The manager looked startled. “That’s our starter, Padgett. He always starts with the number-two defensive lineup against right-hand batters when the outfield shift goes—”

  “Magill! I am not any relief pitcher. If you pitch Boleslaw, you start with Boleslaw.”

  Magill said soothingly, “It’s perfectly all right. There have been some changes, that’s all. You can’t expect the rules to stay the same for forty or fifty years, can you?”

  “I am not a relief pitcher. I—”

  “Please, please. Won’t you sit down?”

  Boley sat down, but he was seething. “We’ll see about that,” he said to the world. “We’ll just see.”

  Things had changed, all right. To begin with, the studio really was a studio and not a stadium. And although it was a very large room it was not the equal of Ebbetts Field, much less the Yankee Stadium. There seemed to be an awful lot of bunting, and the ground rules confused Boley very much.

  Then the dugout happened to be just under what seemed to be a complicated sort of television booth, and Boley could hear the announcer screaming himself hoarse just overhead. That had a familiar sound, but—

  “And here,” roared the announcer, “comes the all-important nothing-and-one pitch! Fans, what a pitcher’s duel this is! Delasantos is going into his motion! He’s coming down! He’s delivered it! And it’s in there for a count of nothing and two! Fans, what a pitcher that Tiburcio Delasantos is! And here comes the all-important nothing-and-two pitch, and—and—yes, and he struck him out! He struck him out! He struck him out! It’s a no-hitter, fans! In the all-important second inning, it’s a no-hitter for Tiburcio Delasantos!”

  Boley swallowed and stared hard at the scoreboard, which seemed to show a score of 14-9, their favor. His teammates were going wild with excitement, and so was the crowd of players, umpires, cameramen and announcers watching the game. He tapped the shoulder of the man next to him.

  “Excuse me. What’s the score?”

  “Dig that Tiburcio!” cried the man. “What a first-string defensive pitcher against left-handers he is!”

  “The score. Could you tell me what it is?”

  “Fourteen to nine. Did you see that—”

  Boley begged, “Please, didn’t somebody just say it was a no-hitter?”

  “Why, sure.” The man explained: “The inning. It’s a no-hit inning.” And he looked queerly at Boley.

  It was all like that, except that some of it was worse. After three innings Boley was staring glassy-eyed into space. He dimly noticed that both teams were trotting off the field and what looked like a whole new corps of players were warming up when Manager Magill stopped in front of him. “You’ll be playing in a minute,” Magill said kindly.

  “Isn’t the game over?” Boley gestured toward the field.

  “Over? Of course not. It’s the third-inning stretch,” Magill told him. “Ten minutes for the lawyers to file their motions and make their appeals. You know.” He laughed condescendingly. “They tried to get an injunction against the bases-loaded pitchout. Imagine!”

  “Hah-hah,” Boley echoed. “Mister Magill, can I go home?”

  “Nonsense, boy! Didn’t you hear me? You’re on as soon as the lawyers come off the field!”

  Well, that began to make sense to Boley and he actually perked up a little. When the minutes had passed and Magill took him by the hand he began to feel almost cheerful again. He picked up the rosin bag and flexed his fingers and said simply, “Boley’s ready.”

  Because nothing confused Boley when he had a ball or a bat in his hand. Set him down any time, anywhere, and he’d hit any pitcher or strike out any batter. He knew exactly what it was going to be like, once he got on the playing field.

  Only it wasn’t like that at all.

  Boley’s team was at bat, and the first man up got on with a bunt single. Anyway, they said it was a bunt single. To Boley it had seemed as though the enemy pitcher had charged beautifully off the mound, fielded the ball with machine-like precision and flipped it to the first-base player with inches and inches to spare for the out. But the umpires declared interference by a vote of eighteen to seven, the two left-field umpires and the one with the field glasses over the batter’s head abstaining; it seemed that the first baseman had neglected to say “Excuse me” to the runner. Well, the rules were the rules. Boley tightened his grip on his bat and tried to get a lead on the pitcher’s style.

  That was hard, because the pitcher was fast. Boley admitted it to himself uneasily; he was very fast. He was a big monster of a player, nearly seven feet tall and with something queer and sparkly about his eyes; and when he came d
own with a pitch there was a sort of a hiss and a splat, and the ball was in the catcher’s hands. It might, Boley confessed, be a little hard to hit that particular pitcher, because he hadn’t yet seen the ball in transit.

  Manager Magill came up behind him in the on-deck spot and fastened something to his collar. “Your intercom,” he explained. “So we can tell you what to do when you’re up.”

  “Sure, sure.” Boley was only watching the pitcher. He looked sickly out there; his skin was a grayish sort of color, and those eyes didn’t look right. But there wasn’t anything sickly about the way he delivered the next pitch, a sweeping curve that sizzled in and spun away.

  The batter didn’t look so good either—same sickly gray skin, same giant frame. But he reached out across the plate and caught that curve and dropped it between third-base and short; and both men were safe.

  “You’re on,” said a tinny little voice in Boley’s ear; it was the little intercom, and the manager was talking to him over the radio. Boley walked numbly to the plate. Sixty feet away, the pitcher looked taller than ever.

  Boley took a deep breath and looked about him. The crowd was roaring ferociously, which was normal enough—except there wasn’t any crowd. Counting everybody, players and officials and all, there weren’t more than three or four hundred people in sight in the whole studio. But he could hear the screams and yells of easily fifty or sixty thousand—There was a man, he saw, behind a plateglass window who was doing things with what might have been records, and the yells of the crowd all seemed to come from loudspeakers under his window. Boley winced and concentrated on the pitcher.

  “I will pin his ears back,” he said feebly, more to reassure himself than because he believed it.

  The little intercom on his shoulder cried in a tiny voice: “You will not, Boleslaw! Your orders are to take the first pitch!”

  “But, listen—”

  “Take it! You hear me, Boleslaw?”

  There was a time when Boley would have swung just to prove who was boss; but the time was not then. He stood there while the big gray pitcher looked him over with those sparkling eyes. He stood there through the windup. And then the arm came down, and he didn’t stand there. That ball wasn’t invisible, not coming right at him; it looked as big and as fast as the Wabash Cannonball and Boley couldn’t help it, for the first time in his life he jumped a yard away, screeching.