As the visiting team, we batted first.
Our lead-off man, Ducks Bunion, clapped on a helmet and strode up to the plate. Stump picked up a bat and headed into the on-deck circle.
“Let’s go, Ducks,” the guys and I called from the bench. “Give it a ride!”
Out on the mound, ace Haymaker pitcher Flicker Pringle rolled his trademark toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other.
He started Ducks with a trademark fastball. At least I think he did. The pitcher whipped the old pill so hard, I didn’t actually see anything. The ball whooshed like a steam engine as it cut through the breeze. Then came a firecracker pop as it slammed into the catcher’s mitt. Next I heard a sharp yelp that sounded like when Mr. Bones got underfoot and I accidentally stepped on his paw.
The yelp came from the Haymakers’ catcher, Hanky Burns.
It hurt to catch Flicker Pringle’s wrecking-ball pitches. Even the toughest catchers could only take an inning or two of it. That old fireballer ate them up like potato chips.
“STEE-RIKE ONE!” the umpire barked.
Flicker got the ball back and rolled that toothpick of his from side to side. I hated to see him do that. I knew from experience that he only flashed his toothpick when he felt good. And one thing and one thing only made Flicker feel good: striking out batters.
Two blazing pitches later, luckless Ducks trudged back to the bench, Flicker’s first victim of the afternoon.
Out in the bleachers, rowdy fans taped a red K to the wall. In baseball code, K stands for strikeout. Flicker had once notched seventeen of them in a single six-inning game. Not only that, but we were the team he had done it against. In the championship, no less. But that particular game didn’t end so well for the Haymakers. I knocked a ball out of the park in my last at bat, winning the pennant with a walk-off tater.
I’ll never forget the feeling.
Of course I won’t ever forget all the times Flicker struck me out, either. Those memories stung like jellyfish. I hoped to avoid his tentacles today.
“Forget it,” I told Ducks on my way out to take Stump’s place in the on-deck circle. “You’ll rip one next time.”
Up at the plate, Stump knocked the dirt out of his spikes. Flicker wound up and delivered smoke.
Stump started to swing, but the umpire cut him off.
“STEE-RIKE ONE!” he roared.
In the stands the crowd started punching around a beach ball. Bad idea. The wind grabbed the brightly colored ball and instantly blew it clear out of the park.
“Hit one that way!” I called to Stump as Flicker delivered another frightening pitch.
Stump surprised us all by squaring up to bunt. It took courage to bunt against Flicker. Or lunacy. You might as well jump into the path of a bullet.
Stump managed to deflect the incoming projectile, a neat little trick that probably saved his life. But it didn’t do much for his attempted bunt. The ball caromed wide down the first-base line.
“STEE-RIKE TWO!” the umpire hollered.
Expecting another fastball, Stump swung at the next pitch like the crack of dawn. He swung early.
Good idea.
Except crafty Flicker didn’t fling a fastball. He fooled Stump with a wicked changeup. The ball might as well have been trailing a parachute, it settled so gently into Hanky Burns’s mitt.
“STEE-RIKE THREE, YOU’RE OUT!” honked the ump.
Stump dragged himself back to our dugout looking like a kid heading home from school with a bad report card. Another red K appeared in the bleachers. The fans out there must have been using superglue to stick them to the wall. Nothing else could have withstood the gusts.
“BATTER UP!” cried the ump.
That meant me.
I took my favorite Louisville Slugger from Billy, rubbed the batboy’s head for luck, and strode to the plate. Flicker glowered down at me from up on the hill, that rotten splinter rolling from side to side in his mouth. Part of me wanted to knock it out with a scorching hit.
Another part of me just hoped to survive.
“Howdy, Walloper,” the pitcher drawled as I tapped the plate with my bat.
“Flicker.” I nodded at him.
“Get ready to have your socks blown off,” he said.
He could have been talking about the wind. It tugged at my uniform like it wanted to strip me down to my underwear. But Flicker didn’t care about the wind. He meant he was going to blow my socks off. With his fastball.
“We’ll see about that,” I said.
The All-Star pitcher wound up and hurled a high hot one.
Whoosh went the pitch.
Pop went the ball.
“Yowch!” hollered poor Hanky Burns.
“STEE-RIKE ONE!” barked the ump.
I was in no position to argue. All I saw was a vapor trail.
From the bench, my teammates shouted encouragement. “One swing, Walloper! One is all it takes.”
I banged down my helmet and cocked my bat. Flicker kicked. I watched the ball roll off his fingertips, flat, straight, true.
Yes! I thought.
I swung.
CRACK!
The ball leaped off my bat like Mr. Bones springs off the sofa when it’s time for a walk. Jackrabbit quick. Finding daylight between short and third, it settled into left field for a clean single.
Our bench exploded in cheers. You would have thought we had won the World Series, the way the guys hooted and hollered. Getting a simple hit off Flicker Pringle could have that effect. It happened so rarely, it felt like a major victory.
Velcro came up next.
“C’mon now, Velcro,” I called from first. “Drive me home!”
Flicker would have none of it, though. Raging now, his eyes smoky and hot like the eyes of some kind of demon, he shifted into overdrive. The ball flew from his hand in a blur.
“STEE-RIKE ONE!”
“STEE-RIKE TWO!”
“STEE-RIKE THREE!” the ump barked hoarsely, sounding like a Doberman with laryngitis.
The top of the first ended without a score.
To a steady chorus of cowbells, we grabbed our gloves and headed onto the field to play some defense. Our bats weren’t working yet. I hoped our gloves would be.
After tossing a few blades of grass into the air to get a read on the breeze, Slingshot opened with a fastball. Goosed by a tailwind, the ball blew past the Haymaker leadoff batter for strike one. Slingshot threw two balls after that, then another strike. With the count even at two and two, he broke out one of his muddy boots. That’s his name for a big, looping curve-ball that looks like it’s going to break inside and settle over the corner of the plate.
I grinned when I saw it coming, because I knew something about this pitch that batters never recognize until it’s too late. The ball never breaks. It stays outside. Which, according to Slingshot’s mom, is exactly where muddy boots belong.
The batter lunged and missed.
“STEE-RIKE THREE!” barked the ump. “YOU’RE OUT!”
The second guy up dropped a fly into shallow right field. Ocho would have caught it, but at the last instant a strong gust nudged the ball out of his reach. He plucked it off the grass and fired it to the Glove at second base, holding the runner to a single.
With one out and one on, Flicker Pringle came to bat. The crowd went bonkers. The stands sounded like the Salvation Army on Christmas Eve, so many bells rang. The fans knew, we all knew, that if there was one thing Flicker could do even better than throw the ball, it was hit the ball.
Slingshot stared in for the sign. Tugboat flashed his index finger. Slingshot nodded, wound up, and delivered an inside fastball for strike one. Next came ball one, low, then another called strike.
Ahead in the count, Slingshot decided to play it safe. Rather than giving Flicker something good to hit, he tried to goad him into a swing by nibbling at the corners. Flicker refused to bite. Not even a tantalizing muddy boot could get him to wave. The ump called balls two, three, and four, and Flicker trotted down to first base with a walk.
When he got there, he stomped on Gilly’s foot. “Oh, sorry,” he growled as Gilly winced.
What came next was even worse.