We arrived in West Troy with the rising sun at six in the morning. Eyes sagging, brain woolly, body aching, I paraded with the others onto the platform, where we stood huddled in the crisp air for over an hour. Nobody from the Haymakers showed up.
Champion paced fretfully. “A deliberate insult!”
“They acknowledged our telegram?” Harry asked.
Champion nodded, mouth pinched.
We boarded the first scheduled streetcar this hushed Sunday. A conductor in natty gold braid stood on the rear platform beside the brake and took our two-cent fares. As I faced him, my mind suddenly filled with the ghostly figure I’d glimpsed as I collapsed on the station dock. Suddenly I seemed to be stepping up simultaneously into a bright yellow horsecar and a dark green cable car—with twentieth-century San Francisco bustling all around me, vivid and real even as an overlay on the Troy surroundings. The illusion faded almost at once, but I had felt the first hints of the milkiness: it was like peering through a wall suddenly grown translucent. Too much Mrs. Sloan’s, I thought—and hoped that was all there was to it.
Out on the front platform the driver slapped leather reins against the horses’ haunches—a sharp, fleshy sound—and we set off along the broad street. My hands trembled all the way to the Troy ferry building, an elongated wooden labyrinth. Another fare put us aboard a skiff rigged with a light sail; oars were secured below the gunwales.
“Yez can row, for speed,” the skipper said.
We ignored the oars, drifting leisurely on the Hudson’s calm gray surface. I began to relax again. Mist rose around us. To our right, the massive Watervliet Arsenal bristled with cannon. Directly ahead, the low forested hills of Troy City looked under attack by phalanxes of brick buildings swarming up from the water’s edge.
“What’s that?” I pointed to a huge new structure.
“Ironworks, I think,” Waterman said. “Ask George.”
I did. And got my ears filled. In the twenties, George said, a Troy housewife snipped the soiled collar from her husband’s shirt to avoid washing the entire garment—and thereby created a new industry. Detachable cloth collars, later celluloid, had poured forth to an eagerly waiting nation.
Now Troy was a booming steel-manufacturing center, not yet superseded by Pittsburgh. The city’s flood of wartime manufactures had included the metal plates that girded the Monitor.
The smokestacks were quiet this morning, but as we drew close I saw them looming everywhere, thrusting above the factories like black fingers.
We checked into the Mansion House, a small inn near the river that boasted a fine table and comfortable beds. I lay down on mine, took out my Mrs. Sloan’s, and had a healthy pull.
“What are you doin’?” Andy demanded.
“Hair of the dog.”
“I don’t want you drinkin’.”
I was silent.
He stood over me. “I mean it.”
“For Chrissakes, Andy—”
“It was runnin’ your life, wasn’t it, Sam?”
“I don’t believe that’s any of your—”
“It is my concern.” His green eyes glittered, “Drink killed my father. I’m not temperance, Sam, but it’s time to put things on the square. You fall into the bottle, you say good-bye to me.”
I stared at him, Mrs. Sloan already starting to muddle my brain. “Killed your father?”
“Drink did it. You understand what I’m sayin’?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I understand.”
In the afternoon I awoke to a babble of noise. Andy rose from a writing table.
“What’s the commotion?”
“They discovered we’re here.”
“Who?”
“Townfolk, already in a sweat.”
I looked through the window. A throng of people worked at stretching a banner across the street: unions over Cincinnati! The Haymakers, Andy said, were officially the Unions of Lansingburgh, a suburb north of Troy City. Cheers erupted as a dummy with red feet was elevated on pitchforks and suspended from the hotel’s eaves, where it dangled at the end of a noose.
“They’re pretty intense,” I said.
“Wait’ll the sporting crowd shows up. This is our biggest match before we get to Brooklyn. Last year the Stockings came here and drubbed the Haymakers twenty-seven to eight. They been freezin’ for revenge ever since. Built a crack team—same as we’ve done.”
“Who’s favored?”
“Oh, the pool sellers’ll always puff the East club. ’Specially since the Haymakers think they’re going to take the whip pennant this year.”
“What’s that, the championship?”
“Yes, the flag. The top club keeps it till they lose twice in a match of three. Then it goes to whoever beats ’em. The Haymakers think it’s as good as flyin’ over their grounds already.” He laughed. “We’ll have somethin’ to say about that.”
Again I felt excitement at the prospect of a tough clash. “You nervous about tomorrow?”
He shrugged. “Are you?”
“A little.”
“I’ll likely fret some.” The green eyes regarded me calmly. “It’s natural. But there’s a prime thing to keep in mind.”
“What’s that?”
“We didn’t come all the way out here to get warmed.”
I smiled at his single-mindedness. “I’ll try to remember that.”
We spent the day quietly. Andy and the other Catholic players went to Mass, while Harry, Champion, and a few others took in an Episcopal service. Brainard, Sweasy, and Waterman disappeared to explore more secular pursuits.
I occupied an overstuffed divan in the Mansion House lobby and tried to make sense of the news. The Troy Times carried a piece on the Stockings’ victories in the young season, lifted almost verbatim from Millar’s stat-laden press release. Why were sportswriters always nuts about numbers?
The front pages were devoted to a national peace jubilee scheduled in Boston the following week. Grant and his cabinet would be there. Choirs fifteen thousand strong would sing in the week-long event. Overseas, England’s Parliament was hotly debating disestablishing the Irish Church, while in Cuba the guerillas continued their struggle against Spanish rule. From the Far West—grouped with items from Calcutta and Madagascar—General Custar [sic] had telegraphed to scotch rumors of his demise at the hands of the Pawnee.
I wrestled with the problem of foreknowledge, remembering that the blond cavalry commander met his fabled end in June 1876, almost exactly seven years ahead. Should I try to warn Custer? Use any argument that might spare all those lives? Would he listen? Did I have the right to interfere with events? Minding my business suited my temperament and seemed more sensible, but even doing nothing I risked altering history. My presence here was doubtless an alteration in itself.
Had I asked for any of this?
The Haymakers sent neither delegates nor carriages on Monday. We ate shortly after noon. The atmosphere was tense. Sweasy tried, “Say, ‘d you hear the one about the Yankee peddler and the farmer’s fat daughter?” In unison, Waterman and Allison told him to shut up.
Up in our room I spread out the accessories Harry had given me: a jock strap of stiff webbing with attached tie strings, a thick leather belt, red stockings, and elastic bands.
By wearing the belt—it was so wide and rigid it felt like a girdle—low on my hips I managed to make Gould’s pants stretch below my knees. The flannel jersey felt heavy as a blanket. My wrists extended from the sleeves like a scarecrow’s and the shoulder seams cramped my armpits. With spiked shoes in hand—mine half a size small—we walked on stockinged feet, a silent procession moving down the boardwalk to the horsecars. Bands of ragged boys and older tobacco-spitting youths swarmed around.
“Youse jakes’ll get whipped!” they yelled. “The Haymakers’ll lay over you milk-and-water bastids!” They hurled dirt clods with insults and darted close to spit at the windows. A street scene out of Dickens. When Champion wasn’t looking, Sweasy gave them the finger.
We moved along River Street through North Troy, an industrial scape with steel mills, carriage works, and steam-powered knitting factories. Many of them were letting workers out early to see the game; they lined our route, faces pallid, some already lurching drunk-enly. The streets resonated with animals and vehicles, pedestrians, shouts and curses and cracking whips. Sweating cops on horseback tried to free intersections.
We crawled past a cemetery, past the huge Ludlow Valve Works, into Lansingburgh. Tree-shaded lanes ascended from the Hudson. Lining them were Dutch Renaissance mansions with steep roofs and narrow windows, and bristling with gables, towers, and ironwork.
We reached open land. The Haymakers’ grounds lay in a natural amphitheater formed by sloping hillsides. Fences hadn’t been erected, but the crowd formed a dense barrier around the playing area. Millar estimated ten thousand on hand, and more were flooding in. Already the noise level was formidable.
George Wright grinned at me, excitement flashing in his eyes, and said, “How’s this for high?”
It was a high. Imagine the most exciting day of early summer when you were young and everything was vibrant and the world teemed with possibilities. That was the afternoon we had, clear and sparkling, breezes heightening the air’s crispness. Perfect for baseball. I felt like I was thirteen again. We pushed through the crowd. Before us lay the field, a green mat surrounded by swirling color and sound.
Harry stopped and grouped us. His eyes met mine, moved briefly to those of the others. “We know what these fellows are,” he said, his words barely audible. “Let’s show them our ginger today.” Head high, he turned toward the field. We marched in single rank, eleven abreast, in rough step. Andy was on my left, Hurley my right. Our crimson stockings flashed across the grass. From the crowd came an anticipatory roar.
Into the grinder, I thought.
And I had a sudden and very clear realization that there was nowhere else I’d rather be.
The Haymakers were not in evidence. We spread over the diamond to warm up. George and the others began their flashy routine, but here it brought jeers. George pirouetted and tipped his cap. His cockiness buoyed me. The hotter things were, the happier he looked. He was a truly joyous competitor—or just plain crazy.
Andy tossed blades of grass to assess the wind. He asked me to throw balls over his head for him to take going away. His accurate return throws bounced in gently, away from my sore hand. Nearby, in the shade of a large wooden grandstand, a cluster of canvas-topped booths lent a carnival touch. Near some I recognized pool sellers from their pads of wager slips and unceasing cries of odds—which currently favored the Haymakers at better than two to one. I asked Andy who operated the others.
“Thimbleriggers,” he said scornfully. “Punchboard operators, three-card monte sharps.” With visions of quick wealth they systematically separated factory workers and farmhands from their meager coins and bills.
The gambling element sported gaudy outfits, twinkled with diamond stickpins, twirled ivory-handled canes and umbrellas, and showed off an array of ultrafashionable headwear from stovepipe “plugs” and fedoras to derbies and boaters. Among them prowled bejeweled women in satins, silks, and velvets. Their faces were white with powder, their lips blood red, their eyes predatory.
A momentary hush descended on the booths. People fell back as a cream-colored barouche drawn by matched white mares approached. A man stepped out looming powerful and dark, his jaw shadowed blue though smooth shaven, his eyes deep and probing beneath thick brows. His tan suit was elegant and he carried a gold-knobbed walking stick.
He offered his arm and a woman stepped out, skirts bunched, boots gliding down the coach’s steps. I stopped breathing as I tried to memorize her. Ringlets of ash-blond hair peeked from a scarlet cap, glinting pale gold in the sunlight and framing her oval face. A gray satin dress with scarlet trim set off alabaster skin and large blue-violet eyes. Her mouth was wide and sensual, her lips full. She smiled. The afternoon took on even more radiance.
“Who are they?” I asked Andy.
“Congressman Morrissey,” he said. “I’ve never laid eyes on even the half of her before.”
I resolved on the spot to find out about Morrissey and his companion. Especially the companion. As they promenaded to the grandstand she looked toward the diamond. For an electric instant my gaze touched hers. I stared, transfixed. She glanced away, then to my surprise tilted her chin and turned back to meet my eyes. Some spark of intense blue-violet energy flashed. I wanted her desperately—and was sure she knew. She tossed her head and laughed—a glimpse of white teeth and pink tongue—but I couldn’t tell whether at me or in response to Morrissey.
“My lord,” Andy whispered. “Ain’t she some dry goods? Did you see her lookin’ at me?”
“At you?”
“Sure as sin she was sparkin’ Mrs. Leonard’s boy. Ain’t she some belle? Ain’t she . . . darling?”
It sounded almost sacred. I glanced at him. He looked goofy. No matter that she was light-years out of his league. No matter that she was on the arm of one of the state’s most powerful men. No matter that she’d actually been looking at me. Poor deluded Andy.
“Here, what’s this!” Harry yelled.
We threw with guilty haste. Then a loud voice sounded nearby. “So he’s a damned revolver!” Red Jim McDermott stood pointing at me with grim satisfaction. “For a fact we’ll be investigatin’ this, have no fear!”
Harry moved over quickly. “Investigate what?”
“Faith, an’ you needn’t play-act, Mr. Holier-Than-Thou Wright. Fleshin’ out your nine with a revolver, is it? You’ll get what you deserve!” He strode after Morrissey.
Harry frowned at me. “You came from another club?”
“Are you kidding? Do I look like I’ve been playing?”
“Yale,” Andy reminded me.
“You’re wearing our colors now,” Harry said. “Yale is no concern to me, but if you were affiliated with any but a college club during the past sixty days, the Haymakers can claim this match by forfeit.”
“No problem,” I said. “McDermott could scour the globe for fifty years and find no trace of me playing ball.” Or anything else about me, I thought.
“Given Red Jim’s temperament,” Harry said, “that’s a good thing. Very well, I believe you.”
A roar burst forth as the Haymakers careened on the field in carriages decked with bunting and streamers. In the grandstand a brass band began to play. Girls in farm dresses held pitchforks to form an archway through which the Haymakers ran to home plate. They wore long brown corduroy pants, black spiked boots, and white jerseys. I didn’t like their looks: a burly, hard-eyed lot, bigger than us.
A man with a megaphone stepped forward to announce them one by one. Hurley accompanied the introductions with sketches of those likely to cause us trouble.
“STEVE BELLAN, CENTER FIELD.” An olive-skinned, black-haired athlete who smiled calmly as he sized us up.
“Esteban Enrique Bellan,” reported Hurley. “Comes from a rich Havana family. Played at Fordham when I was with Columbia. He’s a safe hitter, not heavy. Quick on the base paths. He’ll rip you if you don’t watch his spikes.” Hurley spat a stream of tobacco. “Course all the Haymakers’ll do that.”
“They will?”
He nodded judiciously. “Especially if they’re playing to win—like today.”
Great, I thought.
“WILLIAM ‘CHEROKEE’ FISHER, PITCHER.” A dour bullet-headed individual with gimlet eyes, close-cropped blond hair, and droopy mustache.
“They say he can split a board with his tosses. He pitched for the Buckeyes in Cincinnati last year and hates the Stockings, but has yet to beat us. If you ever strike against him, be set to low-bridge. Fisher can be dead wild when it suits him.”
“Wonderful,” I said.
“MART KING, THIRD BASE . . . STEVE KING, LEFT FIELD.” Hulking, moon-faced brothers with massive shoulders and biceps bulging from their rolled sleeves.
“Mart’s the younger and meaner, already big as a firehouse. They live for home runs and fancy catches. Generally spoiling to fight, too; give one of ’em a queer look and both of ’em ’ll lay into you quicker’n powder.”
“CLIPPER FLYNN, RIGHT FIELD.” In his late teens, body whippet lean, features chiseled a bit too fine, loving the figure he cut as he mugged and winked at the stands, drawing young girls’ giggles and their escorts’ glares.
“He’s easy bought, it’s said. Got caught using a false name with the Putnams in ’sixty-seven. He’s plucky enough, though not the ace he thinks. He’s heavy at bat and runs hell-to-split.” Hurley spat again. “I’d give a half eagle to watch Andy humble him in a footrace. Then I’d render him an Irish hoist—my boot to his ass.”
The Haymaker captain was announced last. The crowd rumbled in anticipation. “WILLIAM CRAVER, CATCHER.” He thrust a massive fist upward, an animal-like man with a thick torso set on squat, powerful legs. A black mustache curled up the sides of his oblong jaw. The smile on his meaty lips was not reflected in cold, wide-set eyes that scanned us above a mashed-in nose.
“Will Craver’s every brand of trouble you can imagine. During the Secesh war, when most of us were home playing ball as lads, he signed on as a drummer boy. Saw four years of hell and came out twisted. Temper’s short as piecrust now, and he’s said to take pleasure from seeing pain—’specially when he’s the cause of it.”
I reflected on that for a long moment. “Sounds like he needs a padded cell, not a ball field.”
“‘Padded cell’?” Hurley looked amused. “Don’t mistake me, Craver’s a first-rate ballist. Strikes with the heaviest. Throws down runners like operating a gatling gun. He’s steady and fearless.”
Sure, I thought, psychos often are.
“Crooked, though,” Hurley added. “Owned by Morrissey and McDermott—but hell, the whole club is. And he’d never blink at hippodroming.”
“At what?”
“Playing to the odds, maybe even losing, to cash in.”
“You mean he’d throw this game?”
“No, they’re backed by the big sporting money today; he’ll play square. They’re freezing to humble us, too.”
I gazed at the burly figure. “He’s built like a bull.”
“He’s called ‘Bull’ Craver by some. But I wouldn’t care to say it to his face.” Hurley looked at me expectantly. “‘Cheated of feature by dissembling nature . . . I that am not shaped for sportive tricks.’”
“Richard the Third?”
“Not half bad!” He seemed startled. “You show rare promise, Fowler.”
While Harry and Craver met, the band blared marches. The music was ill-suited to baseball, suggesting to me more the supercharged atmosphere of college football.
“Will they play the anthem?” I asked.
“The which?”
“‘The Star-Spangled Banner.’”
“Oh, the national ballad. What for? This is a ball match, not the Senate.”
At least one bit of jingoistic idiocy hadn’t yet lodged in the national psyche, I thought.
The captains’ negotiations dragged on. By the rules, home teams proposed umpires; visitors approved. Harry flatly rejected Craver’s first choice. The rules also stipulated that a visiting club provide the game ball subject to a host’s concurrence. Craver refused our dead ball, insisting on a Ryan Bounding Rock, the liveliest ball in existence, certain to maximize the Haymakers’ slugging over our fielding edge.
The captains finally parted. Harry returned and said, “P and S.” Which turned out to mean we’d be using a Peck & Snyder New Professional Dead Ball, livelier than ours, less elastic than the Ryan. Harry bent over the score book to enter the name of the compromise umpire, one J. Feltch, from nearby Cohoes.
From its outset the game was a war. Harry won the toss and sent the Haymakers to bat. As Brainard ambled to the box, toothpick in place, the jockeying began.
“There’s Brain-hard, the gut-bellied tit!”
“His pitching motion comes from planing privy seats!”
“He could use it to jerk off his whole nine!”
They guffawed and poked each other. Brainard paid no attention. Bellan, their leadoff man, stepped in and watched a rising belt-high fastball split the plate.
“Warning!” shouted the ump. “Next I’ll call!”
“Call what?” Allison demanded.
“Wide.”
“WHAT!” Allison jumped in the air. Brainard rolled his eyes and studied the sky.
Bellan took three more pitches—an ominous sign of things to come: thirteen Haymakers, including leadoff men in virtually every inning, would walk that afternoon. Whenever Brainard protested—technically illegal, since only captains were supposed to dispute umpires’ calls—the Haymakers launched fresh verbal assaults.
Suggesting that Brainard’s “jimjams” (wildness) had genetic roots, they proceeded to stock his family tree with startling possibilities.
Finally the pitcher turned in exasperation and said, “Go to damnation!” Champion recoiled in shock at our table. A different reaction came from Bull Craver. He stepped from the Haymaker bench and snarled, “Shut your goddamn flyhole, Brainard, or I’ll shut it quick!”
“These guys are incredible,” I said to Hurley.
“They’re low is what.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, “on the evolutionary scale.”
Again he looked at me in surprise. “You know Darwin’s work?”
“Where I come from,” I said, “it’s old stuff.”
Bellan stole second and took off for third on the next pitch. Allison rifled the ball to Waterman, who made a sweeping tag. The ump ruled Bellan safe. Waterman spat a brown stream into the dust between the official’s shoes.
We got a break on the next play. When Fisher walked, Bellan, forgetting a recent rules change, trotted home, accustomed to advancing on walks as modern runners do on balks. Allison promptly tagged him. The Haymakers protested, to no avail.
Mart King, swinging hard enough to fell a tree, bounced a ball back to Brainard and slammed his bat to the turf, shattering its handle in a shower of splinters. Brainard abetted his fury by delaying until King was two strides from the bag before throwing him out. The hulking Haymaker glared at him. After another walk, Clipper Flynn stepped in with a theatrical stance, bat cocked like a rifle, face profiled to the grandstand.
“Oh, ain’t he the cheese?” said Hurley disgustedly. “Puffing himself before the home folks.”
Flynn swung at the first pitch. The ball rose on a line toward left. At shortstop George vaulted high. With an outstretched hand he knocked the ball down, scrambled after it, and threw with all his strength. Ball and runner converged on Gould, who reached with an outsized left hand. The ball materialized in it almost magically and Gould jammed it into Flynn’s neck, thrusting him bodily from the baseline before his foot could strike the bag.
“Out!” the ump yelled.
The Haymakers screeched and charged the official. Flynn clutched his throat and wheeled angrily toward Gould. He reconsidered as the blond first baseman stared at him, mustache bristling.
“How’s that to start!” Hurley chortled. “Dropped a duck egg on the bastards!”
I knew by now that holding an opponent scoreless in an inning carried the emotional weight of, say, a rim-rattling slam dunk or a quarterback sack on a crucial down. Newspapers invariably reported the number of “whitewash” innings.
The crowd was properly subdued as George moved to the plate. “Hi, Cherokee,” he said, grinning. “We miss you back home—ain’t nobody we enjoy lickin’ so much.”
The glum pitcher responded with a fastball at George’s head. Its speed was terrifying; I barely saw a pale blur. With lightning agility George bailed out and hit the dirt. He climbed back up, still grinning. “I guess you recall me, too.”
Fisher threw at him again, this time targeting his knees. George skipped backward. Fisher scowled. Another blazer, even faster, at George’s throat.
“Christ!” I jumped to my feet. “He’s trying to cripple him!”
Harry pulled me down. “We’ll not descend to their level.”
“But your brother—”
“George knows what he’s about; he’s faced determined men since he was twelve. We play as gentlemen. That language won’t do.”
I felt like a child. How did the man generate all that force without raising his voice?
George picked himself up again. “You’ve lost a little spunk off your hot one, Cherokee.”
Fisher scraped his spikes in the box and this time threw behind George’s head—a murderous ploy since a hitter’s reaction is to fall back—but George seemed to expect it. He bent forward, placed his bat neatly on the plate, and strolled to first.
Wondering how Fisher could be so flagrant, I asked if a batter was awarded first after being hit by a pitch.
“Only on a fourth wide,” Hurley said. “Otherwise strikers’d jump in the path of every toss, especially slow ones.”
No wonder, then. The rules gave Fisher a license to head-hunt.
Rattled by George’s daring leads, unable to hold him closer, Fisher uncorked an 0—2 pitch six feet over Gould’s head. With the runner on, Craver was close behind the plate. Gould alertly swung, just as he’d practiced in Harry’s drill. By the time Craver chased the ball down, George perched on third, Gould on second.
“You cut a fine figure from over here, too, Cherokee,” called George.
Fisher tunneled the next pitch in the dirt. Craver swore and sprinted after it. George trotted home. Gould scored on Allison’s infield hit, but our rally ended when Waterman stumbled—I’d have sworn Craver tripped him coming out of the batter’s box—and was thrown out easily.
Stockings 2, Haymakers 0.
In the second Craver smashed a scorcher to left, stole second—he covered ground with surprising speed—and was doubled in by Steve King. King in turn scored on a hit, then Sweasy snatched a low liner and doubled the runner to end their threat. In our half, Flynn chased down Andy’s deep fly, Brainard singled and was forced by Sweasy—who misread Harry’s signals and tried to steal, only to be gunned down by Craver. A whitewash for them. The crowd perked up.
Stockings 2, Haymakers 2.
Things got worse in the third. Mart King hit a pitch so hard that he shattered a second bat. The ball screamed through Waterman’s legs for a double down the line. Overconfident, the big Haymaker was nailed by Allison on a lumbering attempt to steal third. But a succession of walks and hits followed. Craver came up again and skipped a grounder toward short. As George charged it, a runner slowed in front of the ball. It hit his leg and caromed into left. Haymakers circled the bases.
“Interference!” I yelled. “Runner’s out!”
“No,” Hurley said, scoring the play in his book.
“But it was deliberate!”
“Doesn’t matter, ball’s alive.”
There were times, I reflected, when I might as well be watching a ball game on Mars.
The Haymakers took a 6-2 lead. We fought back in the bottom half, hits by Allison and Harry scoring two. Andy went to the plate with Harry on third and two out.
“Give it a ride, buddy!” I yelled.
Fisher surprised him with an off-speed ball that Andy swung under and blooped down the right-field line. Sprinting over, Flynn extended one hand casually—and fumbled the ball. Andy had already rounded first and Harry had scored when the umpire suddenly yelled, “Foul!” To my astonishment, Harry pivoted and sprinted back for third. Flynn got the ball there ahead of him. The ump thumbed Harry out.
“Good grief,” I said. “You mean to tell me you gotta get back on fouls?”
“Do I look like Beadle’s Dime Book?” Hurley snapped. “Why don’t you learn the damn rules?”
On the field Harry protested the tardy foul call. It did no good. Three innings gone.
Haymakers 6, Stockings 4.
The gambling booths were bustling as men shouted and jostled, drunks staggered, and odds makers chanted, “Haymakers! Three to one!” The cries grew strident as the number willing to bet on us dwindled.
I scanned the crowd for Morrissey and the woman. They sat in a cluster of extravagantly plumed spectators. His dark head was tilted back, laughing; she leaned against him, smiling and petite. God, she was something. As I stared I became aware of another figure. McDermott, the red-haired gambler, was pointing at me. They followed his arm to look in my direction. McDermott clenched his fist in a slow challenging gesture.
Had she not been looking, I’d have moved my lips: Fuck you.
The fourth was a disaster for Andy. He fumbled Fisher’s leadoff fly and then threw wildly. Fisher sprinted all the way around. Berating himself, Andy later misjudged Craver’s hooking shot, which allowed another run. Only brilliant heads-up play by George, who deliberately dropped a pop-up and launched a double play—no infield-fly rule existed, naturally—kept the lid on for us.
Haymakers 8, Stockings 4.
The pool sellers boomed a new litany: “HAYMAKERS! FOUR TO ONE!”
Struck by a tantalizing idea, I asked Brainard whether the odds referred to the ratio of runs.
“No, just who wins,” he said wearily. “They think we’ll fold up our tent, so they’ll risk four dollars to every one on us.”
“Are we gonna fold?”
He glanced up sharply. “What brand of question is that?”
“I’m asking your opinion.”
“What’s it matter?”
“Depending on your answer, I might want to borrow fifty to bet on us.”
“Hush, Sam,” he whispered, his eyes darting. “I can’t spot you cash for that. Champion’d be fit to—”
“I’d take all risk,” I broke in. “At those odds I could double your fifty, pay Andy back, and still have money to spend.”
“Double my fifty, you say?”
“Yeah, you got it?”
“Not here.” He glanced at the cash box. “But you do, close at hand.”
“Cover me if we lose?”
He reflected. “You got collateral?”
“Hell, Asa, when we win you’ll get—”
“I’d settle for ‘Home in the Valley’ and that other ballad.”
“I told you, they aren’t mine.”
He shrugged and worked a clod from his spikes.
“Damn it,” I said. “Look, you think we’ll win?”
He nodded slowly.
“Okay, what the hell. But just one song: ‘Home on the Range.’ For your fifty—and only if we lose.”
“I guess that’s hunky with me.”
“Done.”
Suppressing a paranoid vision of Brainard throwing the contest to claim the song, I counted the day’s take. Nearly a thousand. I palmed five gold eagles and closed the box. “Gotta hit the privy,” I told Hurley. “Keep an eye on the money.”
I borrowed a sweater from Millar to cover my jersey and headed for a rear booth out of sight of our table. My timing was perfect. When I returned with a betting slip tucked inside my belt, the odds were tumbling before a barrage of Stocking blows. Capitalizing on two hits each by Andy, Brainard, and Sweasy—and several atrocious errors by Mart King—we stunned the Haymakers with ten runs.
But they came at a price. As Andy sprinted home the second time, a premonition told me to watch Craver. He stood disgustedly, hands on hips, just behind the plate. When Andy crossed before him he shifted as if to take an incoming throw. His spike crunched down on Andy’s heel. Andy staggered, his leg buckling for an instant. When he came to the bench, he was limping.
I started up, my brain on fire. Andy blocked me and said, “I’m all right.”
His face was pale. I bent to look at the wound. His stocking was ripped just above the heel of his left shoe. I saw a splotch subtly darker than the crimson fabric spreading over his Achilles tendon.
“Get your shoe off, we’ll ice that.”
“No, it’ll swell. I’m just scraped.” He stared into my eyes. “Don’t try to keep me from playing, Sam.” .
I reluctantly returned to the table.
The Haymaker sluggers, righties all, were pulling Brainard hard now. Craver lashed a drive to left center that Andy, practically hobbling, could not intercept. By the time Harry retrieved it, three runners had crossed the plate. Following a conference, Harry moved to left, Mac to center, and Andy to right.
“Why doesn’t he take Andy out?” I demanded.
“Needs him as a striker,” Hurley said calmly.
The Haymakers soon struck again—in several senses. With another run in and the corners occupied, the first-base runner took off on Brainard’s pitch. While Allison whipped the ball to Sweasy, Craver broke from third on a delayed steal. Sweasy handled it with textbook perfection, stepping in front of second and pegging back to Allison.
But before the catcher could turn for the tag, Craver lowered his head and blindsided him. The ball shot straight up as Allison folded to the ground, Craver touched home while the other Haymaker sprinted to third. When Allison regained his feet, his eyes were glassy. Like Andy, he refused to come out.
Stockings 14, Haymakers 13.
We were at game’s midpoint, clinging to the lead. For us it was becoming a question of attrition. In the fifth, Fisher quick-pitched George, got a prompt return from Craver, then hurled the ball squarely into George’s back as he protested to the ump. No longer smiling, George retaliated by slamming a drive inches from Fisher’s head and hook-sliding safely into second on a daring challenge of Bel-lan’s strong arm. Later in the inning, Andy, mouth set in a grim line, clubbed a pitch into the right-center alley—normally at least a double for him, but now he held up after limping to first. Brain-ard and Sweasy followed with hits; we came out of the frame with three runs.
Stockings 17, Haymakers 13.
In the sixth Harry took the pitcher’s box, Brainard’s arm stiffening from hundreds of pitches. The switch proved disastrous. After the predictable leadoff walk, Bellan and Flynn smashed triples into the ring of spectators around the outfield. Craver stepped in later with runners on and drove them home with a ringing blow to center. An infield hit moved him to third. It didn’t take a genius to see what would come. “Double steal again,” I told Hurley.
Sure enough, Craver barreled toward the plate like a runaway train. Sweasy’s throw came late this time, and Allison stepped safely aside. Craver laughed at him as he scored their ninth run of the inning.
Haymakers 22, Stockings 17.
In our half George stretched a looper into a double and scored on Brainard’s hit. Andy singled up the middle—and hobbled so slowly that Bellan in center nearly nipped him at first. Harry finally replaced him with Hurley. Andy protested, his face drawn, his bloody legging bulging ominously.
“Better not to risk a serious injury,” I told him, patting his shoulder. He knocked my hand away and stalked off.
Brainard returned to the box in the seventh, throwing erratically and giving up two quick scores. The crowd’s jeers and swelling volume seemed to parallel our dwindling confidence. Brainard muffed an infield dribbler. Sweasy dropped a ball and had to be restrained from chasing Bellan when the Cuban spiked his toe rounding second. Harry misjudged a sinking liner in center. Waterman capped things by taking a bad-hop smash squarely in the balls, writhing on the turf within the sheltering circle we formed.
Andy took over Hurley’s score book chores. He didn’t resist when I packed his ankle in ice from a lemonade vendor. The swelling looked bad.
“Sorry, Sam,” he muttered.
“No problem.”
We watched glumly as Craver drilled his sixth hit. When he reached third they pulled the double steal again. This time, on Harry’s instructions, Brainard took Allison’s peg in the pitcher’s box and threw it immediately back. Craver slid furiously, spikes high. As Allison made the tag, Craver kicked him hard, sending him reeling to the turf. Pants torn, thigh bleeding, Allison scrambled to his feet. He still held the ball.
“Safe!” yelled the ump.
Waterman and Allison charged him. He took refuge behind Craver, who stood mockingly on the plate. Waterman crouched and cocked his arm. Harry grabbed the third baseman before he could swing. It was a while before things calmed.
An outrageous idea started to form in my mind, something I’d once heard or read. I turned to Andy. “I think I know a way to use that delayed steal against them.”
“How?”
“I’ll need a prop,” I said. “Watch the box.”
Minutes later I was back with a piece of sponge I’d paid a hack driver a nickel to tear from his seat. Outrageous price, but my bargaining position was poor. I set about trimming it to the desired dimensions.
George carried us in the seventh with two amazing fielding plays, one an over-the-head snatch of a fly to short left, the other an off-balance throw from deep short after backhanding a skidding grounder. We needed the clutch plays badly. We were in trouble.
Haymakers 29, Stockings 22.
The crowd’s cheers and the pool sellers’ hawking cries battered our ears. Undaunted, George led off the bottom of the seventh with a double over third. Gould lofted a high pop that the Haymaker second baseman lost in the sun. Waterman’s fair-foul chopper paralyzed Mart King at third, scoring George and putting Stockings at the corners. Allison stepped in.
And then it happened.
He topped a roller in front of the plate. Craver sprang for it, spun, and dove at Gould, who slid in ahead of his tag. Snarling, teeth bared, Craver bounded to his feet. Allison was halfway to first. Craver cocked his arm. The ball thudded against the rear of Allison’s skull. He toppled without a sound. Fisher retrieved the ball and tagged him as he lay unmoving.
Gould and I carried him to the shade beneath the grandstand, where at length he sat up groggily. On the field both clubs surrounded the ump, who finally ruled Allison out. At that point Champion wanted to withdraw from the field. Harry would have none of it.
“We’ll take their measure,” I heard him argue as I returned. “Here on their grounds with their chosen official. We’ll show them what it means to have ginger.”
Andy and I looked at each other with the same unspoken question: Would all the ginger in the world be enough for us to take the Haymakers?
“Fowler!” Harry called. “Sam Fowler!”
“Here!” My voice sounded strange.
“We need you now,” Harry said. “You’re in for Allison.”