by Philip Roth
Outstanding Freaks
Yes, “freak” is the word that some Americans will use to describe a man whose style of pitching is his own and no one else’s, a man who is unusual, unorthodox—in a word, an individualist. Well, if to be one’s own man, if to pursue excellence and accomplishment with all that is unique to your being is what is meant by “a freak,” then I guess O.K. Ockatur is a freak, all right. And so too, I submit, were the Founding Fathers of this country, so too were the great Greek philosophers, so too were the lonely geniuses who invented the wheel, the steam engine, the cotton gin, and the airplane. And so too is every hero in history who has lived and died by his own lights.
But perhaps what makes O.K. Ockatur “a freak” isn’t his unyielding individualism, but the determination he has displayed in the face of every conceivable obstruction, his courage in the face of the most heartbreaking adversity. Yes, perhaps it is his bravery that makes him “a freak”—perhaps it is that to which the fans are paying tribute, when they lean over the dugout roof and ery, “Hey it is a midget—I thought it was a monkey!” or when they write letters to him, unsigned of course, in which they tell him to go back to the sideshow. Well, that must be some sideshow, including as it does such freaks as George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Socrates, the Wright Brothers, and Thomas Alva Edison—in short, every man who has ever dared to pit himself against the ingrained habits and customs of his time, who has dared to brave the jeers of the rabble, the envy of the cowardly, the smugness of the complacent, the sarcasm of the know-it-alls, and the unremitting opposition of the vested interests.
Fails All But Dog
Mr. Mazuma, knowing as I did the extent of the abuse and ridicule that have been O.K. Ockatur’s daily fare since arriving in the big leagues, knowing too how even the most proud and independent of men may come to be poisoned by such venom, it was surely incumbent upon me to be understanding, if not forgiving, of his stronger moods. Surely it was not too much to ask that I overlook conduct that might vex an ordinary person, and grant remission where another might condemn. But I failed him, at the very moment that he most needed a friendly smile, a kind remark, a brotherly gesture of solidarity. I failed him, and failed as well: my wife; my teammates; you, Mr. Mazuma; the Patriot League; General Oakhart; Judge Landis; organized baseball; midgets throughout the country, many of them in important war work; those everywhere who have supported the midget in his drive for equal opportunities; and, last but not least, our soldiers across the Atlantic and the Pacific, hundreds of whom have written asking for autographed photos of me at the plate. I don’t think it is an exaggeration to say that I failed everyone everywhere, regardless of faith, creed, color, or size, who has clung to the vision of a better world, even as this bloody war rages on. And, of course, most unforgivable of all, I have failed myself.
Though it may seem insensitive of me to be momentarily lighthearted, may I add that just about the only one I seem not to have failed is my chihuahua pup, Pinch-hit, who has sat in my lap all the while I have been composing this letter, blissfully ignorant of the fact that his master is not the same man today that he was yesterday, and that he will never be again.
Bows Out
Mr. Mazuma, I fear that my usefulness to the Reapers has come to an end. Much as I continue to respect O.K. Ockatur as an athlete and a man, I cannot expect that, following today’s atrocious episode, we two will ever be able to resolve our difficulties amicably. And surely the last thing our team needs, in the midst of a battle for sixth, is a smoldering battle simultaneously taking place on the bench, between an occasional pinch-hitter and a starting pitcher who has not yet lost a game in the majors.
Nor do I think it would be in the interests of O.K. Ockatur himself, if I were to remain with the Reapers as his teammate. Mr. Mazuma, if any of what I have said here will cause you to rescind, or even mitigate, the punishment you have leveled upon O.K., perhaps that may repair to some degree the damage that I have done his reputation. But I do not really believe there is any way to meet his justifiable sense of grievance, or fully to restore his manly dignity, short of my departure from the club.
Great Wife
Because of “the gentleman’s agreement” that as we all know continues to exist among the other clubs, leaving the Reapers is of course tantamount for me to retirement from big league baseball. I only regret that I, who entered the drama of this great game so auspiciously, find myself exiting in disgrace. To be absolutely frank, for almost a week now, I have felt an increasing strain, and had begun to worry for my self-control. So too did my wife Judy, who I want to say now, has been a tower of strength right from the day I signed my Kakoola contract. Even though she dreaded the changes my new career would bring to our settled and comfortable domestic life, she knew that I would never be able to count myself a man if I refused to accept the challenge to break down the big league barrier against midgets. However, as each day she saw more and more evidence of my mental and moral faltering, she could not help but become alarmed, and only yesterday, fearful of just such an incident as erupted this afternoon, begged me to remain at home and take a rest.
Unfortunately, I did not heed her wifely wisdom, and told her that I owed it to the club to continue to play, regardless of my own inner turmoil. Had I the humility to have heeded Judy’s advice, a good deal of suffering would have been spared us all. But I would be less than honest if I suggested that it was ever within my power to relinquish a single second of the experience of being a big leaguer. Mr. Mazuma, the time has come for Bob Yamm to bow out of the great game of baseball, but I want you to know, sir, that for these three weeks that I have worn the Kakoola uniform, I have been, not merely the happiest midget, but the happiest man on the face of the earth.
Sincerely,
Robert Yamm
All Men Midgets
Yamm concluded his radio address with an appeal for “human solidarity and brotherhood under God, Our Maker.” “I say ‘Our’ Maker,” he continued, “though as we all know there are those in this country who would still have us believe that He who made the full-grown did not make the midget also. Well, let me assure these skeptics, that ever since my own Hour of Crisis began in the Reaper dugout at 3:56 P.M. Central Daylight Saving Time, I have heard His Voice, and it is not runty or pint-sized; let me assure the skeptics that He Who exhorts, chastens, and comforts me is not less a God, nor is He any other God, than He Who made and judges the fully grown. On high, there is but one God Who made us all, and to Him, all men are midgets.”
Overwhelming Reaction
Reactions to Yamm’s forty-two-minute address began coming in from around the nation almost immediately—sports authorities cannot remember another athlete who off the playing field has so captivated the country. Reaper owner Mazuma called Yamm’s speech “certainly one of the top ten farewell addresses I’ve ever heard and just possibly the greatest in history.” Mazuma declined to comment further at this time, except to say, “Whether it will be Bob’s swan song remains to be seen. The fans are yet to be heard from.” [See story on fan mail, “Christmas in September at Kakoola P.O.,” p. 26.]
Meanwhile a movement has gotten underway overnight to send Bob Yamm to Congress in the next elections. Republican and Democratic spokesmen declined to comment until Yamm makes known his party affiliation, but interest was more than apparent in the headquarters of both parties here. The sentiment seems to be that perhaps the time is ripe to send a midget to Washington.
“The tragedy of it,” said one highly placed political observer, who preferred to remain unidentified, “is that the midgets themselves have always lived scattered about, singly and in pairs around the country, and frankly haven’t shown much political savvy. I’m sure they’ve had other things to worry about, but banded together there’s no doubt they would have had one of their own kind in the House long ago. Whether full-grown citizens will elect a midget to represent them in Congress remains to be seen. Up until tonight I would have had to say no. With Yamm’s speech, it’s a new ba
llgame. He just could go all the way.”
From Hollywood comes word that three major film companies are already bidding for the movie rights to the Bob Yamm story. Talk in the film capital has it that Bob and Judy Yamm will agree to play themselves for one million dollars, with Bob writing the screenplay, to be called “All Men Are Midgets.” Part of the proceeds from the projected film are already earmarked to charitable organizations that aid needy and aged midgets.
Angela Trust Outspoken
Strong criticism of Bob Yamm’s speech came from Mrs. Angela Whittling Trust, owner of the Tri-City Tycoons, currently in first place in the Patriot League. Mrs. Trust is the outspoken widow of Spenser Trust, who forged Tri-City dynasties in baseball and banking. Of those owners opposed to midgets in the majors, Mrs. Trust has been the most unyielding and vociferous. Newsmen were called to her underground apartment in Tycoon Park at 11:00 P.M., where Mrs. Trust, 72, read the following statement from her wheelchair. Her hip was broken July 4, when she failed in her attempt to field a foul ball lined at her box.
Nix on Siamese
“I never heard such rubbish in my life,” Mrs. Trust’s statement began. “Just who does he think he is? This Mr. Bob Yamm has delusions of grandeur that would be offensive in a Tri-City Tycoon, but are utterly bizarre in a player who has pinch-hit a dozen times for a team battling to stay out of seventh, and is a midget besides, with no more business in the major leagues than a sword-swallower or Siamese twins. Yes, you can tell Frank Mazuma that Angela Trust is against Siamese twins too, in case he was planning to bring a pair of them up as a switch-hitter. I know, I am a terrible old New England biddy with a closed mind and the rest of that poppycock, but if Mr. Mazuma’s Reapers come to Tri-City, Mass., with a shortstop and a second-baseman who are joined back to back, he will find the door to the visitors’ clubhouse locked. I will forfeit the game, I would forfeit the pennant, rather than subject my team to any more of his shenanigans.
Calls Yamm Swiss
“Unfortunately,” the Angela Trust statement continued, “what we are witnessing in this country is what I would describe as an outburst of war hysteria. Suddenly anything goes. People are desperate for diversion. Reading the battlefront news I cannot say that I blame them. American women are in tears and cannot sleep. Families are separated, husbands and fathers and sons are gone. The strongest ten million men in America are not with us. We are trying to accustom ourselves to their absence. What could be harder? No wonder the nation appears to be losing its sense of proportion. Who would have believed just one month ago that two ill-tempered midgets dressed up in children’s uniforms, with absurd fractions on their backs, would fall to brawling in a major league baseball dugout—and then, and then, that one of them would go on the radio for a special broadcast, to bow out of baseball as though he were the King of England abdicating the throne. Yes, a country at war hungers for distractions of a strange sort, but I ask you, my fellow Americans: how much of this strangeness are we built for? We must maintain standards! We must return to our senses! We must not account a man ‘great’ who is nothing more than a presumptuous self-seeking midget with an elephantine sense of his own importance, cashing in during a time of national catastrophe. Truly, I have never in my life heard such cornstarch as he uttered tonight. Why, from the sound of it, you would think Mr. Yamm’s conscience was as delicately made as a five hundred dollar Swiss watch. You would think that nobody had a conscience in the world before he appeared at the microphone, with his perfect little wheels whirring away underneath that pretentious little pin-striped suit!
Sorry for Midgets
“Of course I’m delighted he’s out of baseball,” Mrs. Trust continued. “Good riddance. And his wife with him. Frankly, no baseball wife has ever given me a bigger pain in the neck than this one with her matching shoes and handbags. ‘Tower of strength’? Little fashion plate is all she is. Little clotheshorse. A Shetland pony in a child’s sunsuit. In this business, the towers of strength are the men on the field. That’s why they are there. That’s what people pay good money to see. It just will not do to start calling things what they are not. We do not need any more applesauce than there already is in the world. A midget is a midget. I am sorry for them that that has to be the case. I would not wish to be one myself. It must be ghastly. If it were up to me, there wouldn’t be any midgets in the world at all. But for some reason that is beyond my understanding, there are, and there is no sense pretending otherwise. As I said, luckily I happen not to be one, but if I were, I assure you I would know my place and have pride enough to make the best of it. And without whining, or what is even worse, going to the opposite extreme and pretending I was some special kind of saint because of it. That is what a tower of strength would do, in my judgment.
Won’t See Hubby Belittled
“Finally, I will not sit silently by while this sanctimonious, self-inflated, self-admiring, holier-than-thou, stuck-on-himself windbag of a midget announces to the entire country that in his opinion and God’s, all men are midgets. I have never heard anything so idiotic and insulting in my life. All men are not midgets. My husband, Mr. Spenser Trust, who built Trust Savings and Loan, Trust Guaranty Trust, Trust Mutual of Tri-City, as well as the Tri-City Tycoons and Tycoon Park, all before he died at the age of sixty-three, was not a midget in any sense of the word. Nor was my father a midget. He began life as a lumberjack at the age of twelve and by the time he was thirty-five was the greatest timber baron in North America. If the rest of the women in America want to sit idly by while someone calls their men a bunch of midgets, that is their affair. Maybe they know something I don’t. But nobody belittles my father or my husband and gets away with it.”
The day after Bob Yamm’s dramatic broadcast stunned Kakoola and the nation, the Mundys arrived in town. So rattled were the Reapers by the unlikely events of the preceding afternoon and evening, that the Mundys piled up more runs in nine innings than they ordinarily scored in a week, edging Kakoola 6–5 in the ninth. Roland Agni hit two home runs, bringing his season total to thirty-three (most by a Mundy in a single season since Gofannon), and with one on and two out in the last inning, Bud Parusha set a record of his own, lofting the first and only home run he or any other one-armed man would ever hit in the majors. Of course there was a stiff late afternoon breeze blowing in off the lake and out the left-field line, and the Kakoola left-fielder also helped to turn into a four-bagger what should have been an easy out by tipping the high pop-up off his mitt and into the stands—and then too the pitch Parusha swung at was described later by the disgusted Kakoola catcher, Ducky Rig, as “a Lady Godiva ball,” meaning it had absolutely nothing on it at all; yet none of this did anything to diminish the joy in Bud’s heart. Obviously under the sway of Bob Yamm’s radio address of the previous night, Bud told reporters that he was the happiest man on the face of the earth, and then beaming with pride, showed them the telegram that had arrived in the visitors’ clubhouse from Washington, D.C., signed “Eleanor Roosevelt,” and inviting him to be co-chairman along with her husband of the upcoming drive for the March of Dimes.
The Kakoola fans, no less distracted than their players, seemed for the moment not even to care about the loss that pushed their team yet another full game behind the Keepers. It was not to watch the seventh place Reapers take on the eighth place Mundys that a record-breaking forty-two thousand had assembled in Reaper Field on a weekday afternoon—rather, they had come, some from as far as two hundred miles upstate, to see justice done.
For nine full innings of play, whenever the Reapers came to bat, the fans began their voodoo-like chant. No wonder Jolly Cholly, throwing his usual wastebasket full of trash, was able to set the Reapers down looking inning after inning. The Mundys themselves were accustomed by now to all sorts of noise assaulting their eardrums when they stepped up to the plate, but the Reapers, for all that they were the property of showman Frank Mazuma, and might have been expected to be somewhat more inured to the outlandish, seemed actually to fall into a state
of hypnosis when the fans started in calling for the return of their hero. Ptah passed balls (two), Tuminikar wild pitches (two), Mundy fielding errors (five) were as nothing to the transfixed Reaper offense when forty thousand voices set the ball park to rumbling like the heart of a volcano: “YAMM! YAMM! YAMM! YAMM! YAMM! YAMM! YAMM!” Starving savages invoking their potato god for an abundant crop could not have offered up a more impassioned and sustained cry of yearning.
And by nightfall, the deity had delivered. “The fans have spoken,” announced Mazuma, his one piratical eye agleam. “As of six o’clock this evening, Bob Yamm, the Midgets’ Midget and now the People’s Choice, has been reinstated as a Kakoola Reaper. And, in a straight player deal, O.K. Ockatur has been traded to the Ruppert Mundys for slugging outfielder Bud Parusha.”
Those sportswriters who hated him of course derided Mazuma for compounding one cruel, corrupt publicity stunt with another. Clearly Mazuma had acquired Parusha—and in the process unloaded the washed-up dwarf—because of the telegram that had converted the Mundy right-fielder from a baseball curiosity into a symbol of courage on a par with the paralyzed President. And even more clearly, the telegram purportedly from Mrs. Roosevelt had been composed in his own front office by Mazuma and dispatched by some low-down pal of his in the nation’s capital … or so whispered his enemies, who claimed that it was only to spare the feelings of poor Bud Parusha that the First Lady, justifiably outraged, had nonetheless decided to allow the telegram to stand as her own—exactly as Mazuma had predicted to his cronies the tenderhearted Eleanor would behave! Admittedly, the name Parusha had once been to the Patriot League what Waner was to the National and DiMaggio to the American, but that was before Angelo and Tony, the Joe and Dom, the Big and Little Poison of the Tycoon outfield, went off to the wars; surely a woman as well informed as Mrs. Roosevelt understood that if Bud Parusha’s presence in the big time symbolized anything, it was only the awful depths to which the depleted leagues had fallen. Still, she held her tongue. Oh, that God damn Mazuma! He would even go so far as to shit on Eleanor Roosevelt and the March of Dimes in order to make himself a buck!
