32
I’m beginning to see Brooks Robinson in my sleep. If I dropped a paper plate, he’d pick it up on one hop and throw me out at first.
—SPARKY ANDERSON, SECOND BASE, PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES
At the bench, the All-Stars drank deeply and doused themselves with water. The rain had held off, but the afternoon had turned steamy.
“Who’s up next?” asked Phoebe Tolbert, who had come to the bench with fresh water.
“Evan, House, and Ned,” said Boon. “We’ll get ’em, Grandma, don’t worry.”
“House, get your arm back in that ice,” said Ruby. “It’s giving out. How are you going to bat?”
“It’s fine,” said House, plunging his arm up to the elbow in the ice water and wincing.
Mary Wilson handed out crispy clean T-shirts. “You boys are a mess!” she said, a delighted tone in her voice. “Change shirts!” They did.
While pies were cut, ice was replenished, and lemonade was poured, the Harmony Coronet Band played “America the Beautiful.” Melba Jane sang. Folks tried hard not to cover their ears. “Feel it, Melba,” whispered Finesse, “feeeeel it!”
“And crown thy good with brotherhood!” Melba crooned. She sounded like a sick seal. Finesse buried her face in her hands. The band marshaled bravely on.
“From sea to shining sea!” She was done. The audience erupted in thankful, thunderous applause. Melba’s face lit up like a Christmas candle. “Thank you so much!” she gushed. She picked up her clipboard to resume her duties. The bottom of the seventh inning began.
“Let’s get ’em!” shouted Lincoln. He handed Evan his bat.
The Redbug pitcher, Little Mikey McBrayer, chewed a wad of gum as big as his baseball. He spit all over the pitcher’s mound. Evan got a base hit. The All-Stars screamed and the fans jumped to their feet.
House came to the plate with his elbow throbbing. He let the first pitch go by.
“Ball one!” called Dr. Dan.
“Good eye! Good eye!” screamed the All-Stars. “Let him walk you!”
“Strike!” called Dr. Dan when the next pitch sailed over the plate.
House readjusted his stance and swung the bat across in a practice swing. He thought his arm might pull out of its socket if he really tested it, but he had to bat—he had no choice. He rested the bat on his left shoulder and nodded at Mikey. The pitch came, and House bunted it, a little tap toward the pitcher. But Mikey was ready. He raced for the ball, scooped it into his glove, and in one fluid motion burned it to first—House was out—and the first baseman shot it to second!
“Slide, Evan! Slide!” screamed House from the first-base line.
Evan threw himself forward and landed with a thud on the second-base bag.
“He’s out at second!” yelled Dr. Dan.
“Nooooo!” screamed the All-Stars, but he was. Evan was out.
“Double play!” moaned Finesse into the microphone. The sound carried across the ball field. “Two away!”
Evan and House ran off the field together and clapped each other on the back. “Good try, House,” said Evan.
“Good try, Evan,” said House. He plunged his arm into the ice water.
“Come on, Ned!” yelled the All-Stars. “Come on, Ned!”
Ned stood at home plate with a resolute look on his face. He bared his teeth at Mikey McBrayer. Mikey chewed his gum and nodded to his catcher, Jerry Brunner. And, one-two-three, Mikey threw Ned out-out-out. Phoebe Tolbert wept into her Snowberger’s handkerchief.
“Curses!” shouted Finesse. “No runs, no hits, no errors!”
“One hit!” corrected Dr. Dan. “Top of the eighth! It’s a tie! Six to six! Let’s get this show on the road!”
House lifted his arm from the water. Doc MacRee dried it quickly, stretched it gently, and said, “You be careful out there.” House nodded and trotted to the pitcher’s mound. The crowd cheered.
“Come on, All-Stars!” shouted the team and the fans. “Come on, All-Stars!” shouted Honey.
House closed his eyes and reached deep into his gut. He wrenched up whatever courage he could find there, slapped it onto his aching arm, and he pitched. The Redbugs hit every pitch, but the All-Stars were on high alert now—their pitcher was all but done for. A pop fly to Arnold in right field, a line drive to Cleebo at short, and a little at ’em ball to Wilkie at first.
“Three up, three down!” screamed Finesse as the Redbugs retired and the All-Stars came to bat. “It’s the bottom of the eighth inning and the All-Stars are on fire! House Jackson pulls it out of his hat and takes us the distance!”
House ran off the field and to the ice water cooler next to the bench. “Let me have a look,” said Doc MacRee.
Leonard Jackson looked over Doc MacRee’s shoulder. “Not good,” said Doc MacRee. “Get it in the water.” The cold water numbed the pain in the ligament, but it ripped at House’s skin. He grimaced but forced himself to keep his arm in the water. “Come on, All-Stars!” he hollered in a hoarse voice. “Who’s up?”
The Redbugs were on high alert right back. They, too, were carried high on the wind of the cheering crowd. Oh, to have fans! And, oh, to play out the game with such high stakes!
Boon Tolbert got some weight behind the bat and whammed a long one into deep center field. Redbugs outfielder John Caskey got under it and waited for it to fall into his glove.
“Disappointment rains!” cried Finesse.
Lincoln Latham went down swinging at strike three. Redbug parents jumped to their feet cheering at such fine pitching. All-Star parents jumped to their feet cheering at such fine swinging.
And then Cleebo strutted to the plate.
33
I am not what you supposed, but far different.
—WALT WHITMAN
Cleebo scraped his shoe on home plate like a horse pawing in place. He hit the dust from his feet with his bat. He spit. He swung the bat across the plate three times.
“I’m ready!” he announced to Mikey McBrayer. “Give me your best shot.”
“No outs!” tweedled Finesse. “Let’s get a hit, pretty please!”
“Can it, Frances, I’m tryin’ to concentrate!” growled Cleebo.
Mikey McBrayer gazed over the top of his glove and nodded his head in agreement with his catcher. He narrowed his eyes and reared back on his right leg, lifted his left, pulled back his right arm, and flung a curve at Cleebo that was high and outside.
“Hey, batter-batter-batter, swing!” screamed the Redbug outfield. And Cleebo swung.
“Swing and a miss, strike one!” boomed Dr. Dan, then “swing and a miss, strike two!”
Cleebo stepped out of the batter’s box and spit on his hands. He rubbed them together, stepped back in, and nodded to Mikey McBrayer.
“Take it easy, Cleeb!” yelled House. “Just meet the ball!”
Mikey McBrayer and Cleebo eyed each other. Mikey hiked up his pants, chucked the ball into his glove a few times, rolled his shoulders, spit, and he was ready. He checked in with his catcher, nodded, and threw a fastball straight across the plate.
Cleebo clobbered the ball. It went up. And up. And up. And Cleebo ran. And ran. And ran. The crowd was on its feet screaming.
Cleebo slid into first base. “He’s out!” yelled Dr. Dan. And when the dust cleared, everyone could see Redbug right fielder Curtis Ragsdale standing on tiptoe at the edge of the Methodist cemetery, his back plastered against Marie Kilgore’s tall obelisk of a gravestone, his arm stretched to the heavens, holding Cleebo’s ball in the tip of his mitt.
Cleebo leaped to his feet in disbelief. “It was a homer! It was a homer!”
The Redbug fans screamed their delight. Even the All-Star fans had to holler their congratulations—it was a beautiful catch.
“Three outs! That’s the inning!” called Dr. Dan, breathless himself with the excitement of it all.
“Top of the ninth!” Finesse sobbed into her microphone. She had lost all sense of decorum.
House groaned. N
o way was he going to be able to go back out there yet.
“Great hit, Cleebo!” the All-Stars cried as Cleebo ran across the field toward the bench.
“That’s my boy!” hollered Pete Wilson as Cleebo passed his family’s picnic blanket. Mary Wilson was in the greenroom. Pete stood up and clapped for his son.
Cleebo stopped and stared at his father. Streaks of dust ran in little rivers down his face where his tears carried them.
“You heard me,” said his father. “Nobody can take that hit away from you, son.”
Cleebo sniffed. He wiped his nose with the back of his hand.
“Now hold your head up,” ordered his father. “Go to work.”
Redbug fans cheered for Curtis. All-Star fans mobbed Cleebo. House and Finesse exchanged a look that told Finesse all she needed to know about House’s arm. She took matters into her own hands.
“S’il vous plaît!” called Finesse, as if she’d had a sudden inspiration. “I . . . I . . . I have forgotten my most im-por-tant number! It is coming to me as we speak!” She twirled up the stage steps, plucked the microphone out of its stand, and began to sing “Beautiful Dreamer” a cappella.
“This is completely unscheduled!” said Melba Jane.
The All-Stars understood what Finesse was doing.
“Is it time, Cleebo?” asked Boon.
“It’s time!” said Cleebo, easily distracted, completely recovered, and totally changed. He gestured to the All-Stars. “All right! It’s time!” And while Doc MacRee iced House’s arm, the rest of the ballplayers rushed the stage just as Finesse finished her song.
“But you don’t come on until the end of the game!” Finesse said.
“We got us a plan, too,” Cleebo said. And to the crowd he shouted, “We got tights!” From their pockets the Aurora County All-Stars pulled their flowered tights. They dangled them from their fingertips like streamers and then pulled them onto their heads and wore them like stocking caps under their baseball caps, which made their eyebrows bunch above their eyes like woolly worms. They laughed themselves silly while the crowd roared its approval and House’s elbow rested.
“Let me see it,” said Doc MacRee. He wrapped the elbow in a towel and began patting it dry.
“We been rehearsing our own number!” said Cleebo from the stage. He had changed into a pair of crisply pressed blue jeans.
“I give up,” said Melba Jane. She tossed her clipboard onto the stage.
“Clee-bo Wil-son!” Mary Wilson crossed her arms from where she stood next to a platter of fried chicken on her picnic blanket. Cleebo crossed his arms and stared defiantly at the Queen Poo-bah of the Mamas.
“Bravo! Bravo!” thundered Dr. Dan from behind home plate. “An innovation in the midst of our conglomeration!”
“Bravo!” called Finesse into her microphone.
Mary Wilson smiled a smile as wide as the Mississippi River as she considered her good fortune; her boy was on stage in a starring role. And his pants looked great.
House exchanged a look with his father and shrugged. “I don’t know what they’re doing.”
“Hit it!” yelled Cleebo. The Harmony Coronet Band struck up their rendition of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” and the boys sang it at the top of their lungs, swaying back and forth. They held up peanuts. They held up Cracker Jacks.
Then, in a moment of real spontaneity, Cleebo shouted, “This one’s for the Mamas!” Following his lead, the boys danced the second verse. Their arms ballooned like ballerinas. They stood on their toes. They twirled. They swung at “three strikes you’re out!” And they ran into one another until they had a seven-boy pileup on their hands and so much laughter they couldn’t breathe. House shook his head. He might have laughed if his arm didn’t feel as if it were coming off at the shoulder, the elbow, the wrist.
“That’s my boy!” screamed Mary Wilson. The Mamas were on their feet, hugging one another, peering at Dr. Dan to see if he was taking notes. Doc MacRee laughed so hard he got carried away unwrapping House’s arm.
“Ow!”
“Sorry!”
The boys received a rollicking standing ovation. The Redbugs laughed and pointed. Finesse clapped and bowed deeply in the boys’ direction. The boys bowed back. The ovation rang in House’s ears as he watched Doc MacRee finish with his arm. He winced as the last stretch was finished.
“We’re still gonna beat you, Redbugs!” shouted Cleebo.
“You just try!” yelled Redbug catcher Jerry Brunner. And the two teams were back to their benches, collecting their gloves, balls, bats, and resolve.
Leonard Jackson tugged on the brim of House’s baseball cap. He handed him his sunglasses. “I know it hurts.”
House shook his head. “It’s not bad.” He shoved on his sunglasses. It was bad. Even with the little time Cleebo had bought them, he wouldn’t last the inning. There was no way they could hold the Redbugs to no runs in the ninth.
His arm was done. It was dead as a doornail.
He told no one.
34
A lot of people in the ballpark now are starting to see the pitches with their hearts.
—LOS ANGELES DODGERS ANNOUNCER VIN SCULLY, CALLING SANDY KOUFAX’S 1965 PERFECT GAME
House faced the heat of the Redbug order in the top of the ninth inning: Larry, Curly, and Moe Fortin. Triplets. All of them power hitters.
“You okay?” asked Doc MacRee. House nodded and shook out his arm gently. The pain radiated from his shoulder to his fingertips, but it was worst in his elbow. He checked it for color. Not black. Yet.
“I can do it.” He tried not to cringe as he flexed his elbow.
“Just a few more pitches,” said his father. “Then you rest that arm.”
“Yessir,” said House. He would be only too glad to rest it.
“Come on, House!” sang Honey. Eudora Welty panted and wagged her tail.
House smiled at his sister from behind his sunglasses, took a deep breath, and trotted out to the mound.
“The pitcher’s mound is throbbing with action!” yelled Finesse. House glanced her way and shook his head. He didn’t bother with throwing the ball around the bases or warming up with Ruby. He saved every inch of his arm he could.
“I’m ready,” he said to the umpire.
“Batter up!” called Dr. Dan.
Larry Fortin stepped into the batter’s box and grinned at House. House gritted his teeth, got his signal from Ruby, and delivered the pitch through his pain. “Gaaaah!” he cried.
Larry hit the ball, a blooper into the infield. House scooped it up, but he couldn’t fire it off to Wilkie, so Larry made it to first base. “That’s all right! That’s all right!” yelled the team and the fans. “Hang on, House! Hang on!”
Curly popped a fly to Cleebo. Cleebo caught it like it was a baby falling out of the sky, with a sweep-back of his glove and a bow. All-Star fans cheered wildly. House could hardly remember the pitch. He wanted to cry with the pain. And that’s when Moe strode to the plate with the opportunity to put the Redbugs so far ahead they’d be untouchable.
House was dizzy with pain. Ruby signaled slow balls but House shook her off. He pulled Sandy Koufax to the front of his mind and he didn’t let him go. Look for me in every atom that you see. He closed his eyes and saw Sandy in his windup, delivery, follow-through. He saw his mother singing the symphony song as she brought in the sheets on a brilliant summer day. He saw Mr. Norwood Boyd in his bed, breathing his last in the first breath of day. He saw these things more clearly than he saw home plate.
Be with me. He sent the message out into the universe. He dug in his heel, reared backward onto his left leg, lifted his right leg high, pulled back his left arm, gave a loud grunt, and let himself pitch full out.
Moe swung.
“Oomph!” said Ruby as she caught the ball.
“It’s in there!” screamed Finesse.
“Strike one!” called Dr. Dan.
House would not allow himself to think about his arm. Again he pull
ed his vision to mind and threw on instinct, before he could think of anything else.
“Strike two!” called Dr. Dan. Fans rose; their voices broke as they cheered. House was ahead in the count: no balls, two strikes. One more strike and the All-Stars were back in the game.
House groaned loudly with the effort of his next pitch. He heaved it out, he let it go. And his arm let go, too. He was done in.
The fans and the ballplayers held their breaths. The pitch seemed to float in slow motion across the plate as Moe Fortin swung his bat clean and clear through the strike zone, as the pine made contact with the leather and the baseball sailed through the air, over House’s head, over Arnold’s head in right field, and over the heads of the tombstones in the Methodist cemetery, where it came to rest on the grave of Anton Land.
“It’s gone!” Finesse wailed. “A two-run homer!” Redbug fans went wild. The summer sun blazed out from behind the last of the morning’s clouds, as if on cue. Curly and Moe rounded the bases like they were on fire. The score was 8–6 Redbugs.
Cleebo threw his glove to the ground with a disgusted shout, then picked it up with a resigned sigh, and trotted to the pitcher’s mound. He clapped House on the right shoulder. “I’ve got it, House.”
House couldn’t argue. “Thanks.” He ran off the field to ballplayers on both teams slapping him on the back. “Good game, House,” they said, and “Not a problem, House, we’ll get ’em.”
Cleebo pitched the next three batters, and even without a shortstop, the All-Stars delivered. Mikey McBrayer hit a ducksnort into the short outfield and got on first, but the next two batters popped out, one to Cleebo and one to Ned in center field. The side was retired, and the All-Stars walked off the field facing an uphill battle to win the game in the bottom of the ninth. The batting order coming up was a tough one for the All-Stars: Wilkie, who couldn’t see well enough to get a hit, Arnold Hindman, who had a penchant for popping out, and Ruby Lavender, who was . . . well, a girl.
“Game’s over,” murmured Cleebo. He trudged to the All-Stars bench.
The Aurora County All-Stars Page 14
