Harry and I lugged everything into the clubhouse. We’d spent the morning at Ellard’s Sporting Goods Emporium on Main; it claimed to have the largest stock of baseball equipment in the West. George Ellard, a regular on the club’s cricket squad, gave us wholesale rates, which was fortunate since lately we’d had a rash of broken bats. We bought a dozen of the finest: six willow, five ash, one elm—Brainard claimed he could only hit with elm—with handles prewrapped and sleek barrels ready to be branded with players’ initials. I’d already burned SF on the heaviest ash model.
We also bought a box of balls, six bases, a half dozen sets of brass spikes, a copy of Beadle’s Dime Book with current rules—Sweasy had torn up Harry’s old copy when an ump’s ruling went against him in the last Olympic game. Also a supply of elastic bands for our stockings—Harry had considered garter belts, but I talked him out of it—and several cane-handled cricket bats.
“Congratulations on your booth,” he said, and went on to confess that he’d failed as a concessionaire himself. The previous winter, after the club had flooded the Union Grounds to form its annual skating pond, Harry had sold coffee, canned peaches, New Orleans oysters, and even—surprisingly—hot whiskey drinks. Despite offering baseball on ice and other attractions, the club hadn’t made a dime. “You, though,” he said, “seem to know what people want. Such bold ideas!”
I smiled modestly, as if bold ideas were my forte. “More coming,” I said, and hoped it was true; Johnny was scouting future projects that day.
“I’ve tried the new fungo bat,” Harry said. “I’m improving.”
I’d had the lumber company turn a slender hardwood fungo. With it I could put a ball inside a twenty-foot radius anywhere on the field. I used it to give Andy the extra work he wanted on deep drives. Harry had seen its applications immediately and put me to work drilling all the outfielders.
Otherwise he treated me like everybody else, working me each day till I dragged. At night my muscles jerked as I heard him yell, “Runner on second, one out!” In part his purpose was to keep us from getting big heads. Not an easy task, given the mounting hoopla. Repeatedly he advised caution in accepting merchants’ favors, restraint in drinking—the specter of Hurley hung over us, though Harry never referred to him—and avoidance of gamblers.
Heat descended on the city. Blistering, sweltering, lung-searing heat. Pavement and brick sidewalks burned through shoe leather. Dung in the streets flaked into particles and was swept up by sultry air currents off the river to mix with soot and form a toxic, eye-stinging dust; people walked outside with their heads completely covered. Horses collapsed on the cobblestones, unable to pull streetcars or buses up the steep hills even in double and triple teams. Each day the papers carried lists of people who’d succumbed to sunstroke. Air-conditioning, I fantasized, sweating from morning to night. Cold showers . . .
Ice was in tremendous demand. Floated down canals in great blocks from Lake Erie each winter, it was packed in sawdust and stored in underground icehouses. Now its price shot to unprecedented heights. Johnny and I had been trying to add sodas to our Union Grounds fare. The soda-water business, a fairly new industry, was booming. Inexplicably, nobody had yet come up with ice-cream sodas. At first Johnny thought I was crazy mixing the two, but after a few tentative sips, followed by deep pulls and considerable lip-smacking, he pronounced me a genius. Our trouble was that rocketing ice costs boosted our selling price to thirty-five cents each. We decided to try it as a luxury item, figuring that the swells accompanying satin-bedecked women with silk parasols could well afford it.
In the middle of one of the very hottest days, in a burst of inspired bravado, I had Johnny deliver two ice-cream sodas—packed in a frosty ice bucket and topped with fresh cherries—to Cait and Timmy. I told him to wait while they tasted it and say, “With Mr. Fowler’s compliments.”
When he returned he said, “Miz O’Neill didn’t exactly brighten up, but she took a sip, then called the boy in, and the boy gulped his down and said it was the bulliest thing he’d ever tasted. Then Miz O’Neill sipped some more, and they both agreed it was real cooling.”
“That’s all?”
“Well, then she washed everything. Then she sat down brisk-like and wrote this.” He reached inside his patchwork coat—Johnny’s unchanging costume made no concession to heat or cold—and handed me a slip of paper.
Written in a rounded, flowing hand, it said:
Mr. Fowler,
Andy tells me that you give in a spirit of honest friendship. We take your offering in that spirit and we are grateful.
Caitlin O’Neill
I read it a dozen times, my eyes lingering on “we are grateful.” “I think she fancies you,” Johnny said. I was flabbergasted. “You do?” “But she don’t know it yet.”
Thursday, July 22, was one of those mornings when information pours in and for days afterward sifts and settles into place. I woke up sweating—for the eighth straight day the heat showed no sign of breaking—and stiff from Harry’s sadistic workout the previous evening. At least we were now practicing after the hottest part of the day.
I tugged the bell rope to have coffee and the morning papers sent up. On the third page of the Enquirer I was astonished by a small item.
A TRIAL OF THE “AERIAL STEAMER”
Several citizens to-day witnessed a private trial in the open air of the aerial steam-carriage Avitor. The steamer rose in the air about seventy-five feet, the machinery operating successfully, buoying up and driving the vessel forward at a considerable rate of speed. A public trial of the Avitor will be had on Sunday next.
It was reprinted from the San Francisco Chronicle—what a strange rush I felt seeing that—and datelined a few days earlier.
I searched the other papers for corroborating items and found one in the Gazette, reprinted this time from the San Francisco Times, whatever that was, which added that the Avitor was a 40-foot working model; its inventor, Mr. Frederick Marriott, fully expected to complete a 150-foot passenger version soon. He now stood “where Fulton did when he made his first steamboat.”
Sure, I thought.
And yet part of me wanted it to be true. With my grandparents I had watched the astronauts set foot on the moon. Grandpa hadn’t seemed impressed; Grandma wanted to watch “Lassie” on another channel. I understood better now. Given what they’d seen—autos, airplanes, radio, TV, the Bomb—the space program must have seemed tame. Space-suited NASA employees were distant. Thundering over a field in a crate of wood and wire and fabric—that could be you! I suddenly wanted to see Marriott’s flyer. Maybe he would scoop the Wright brothers this time around.
Downstairs a letter from Twain awaited me. It was postmarked Hartford and addressed only to Sam’l Fowler, c/o World-Beating Red Leggers. It had duly been routed to Cincinnati, delivered to Champion, and forwarded to me.
Dear Sam,
Abundant & fulsome considerations have prevented my writing sooner. To put it plainer, I’ve been in a humor to lie low. Even plainer, I’ve been scared eight points out of my wits. I jump like a cat at every sudden noise. You’ll reckon me a sap head for such carrying on. Livy’s family is at the heart of it—no, rather, her sweet unquestioning trust in me. If the slightest shadow fell now, with our engagement booming forward like it is, I’d blow my head off. Ten thousand times I’ve cursed myself for telling you that story. But then I think of our money & feel all secret & smug like a boy after stealing the pie from the window. But then I start brooding on the consequences all over again & I dive into a perfect swamp of gloom & imagine the Langdons finding out and falling on me like a thunderbolt. Oh, I am a raw specimen of desperado!
You can’t imagine the upheaval you stirred here. For days nothing could hold up one-tenth to events at the cemetery. Rumors had the Rebs coming back for vengeance, Quantrill’s Raiders or their ilk starting in with graves & next would come the banks & then homes . . . well, it went on & on. The local rag printed “clues”: dug-up earth around the grave & the splintered coffin top & horses racing down outlying roads & banshee screams & corpses lit up like lamps—oh it was a booming tide, a torrent. Then this ad appears:
Sizable cash award offered for information concerning whereabouts of missing war revenue rightfully ours.
Elmira’s Fenian Circle was given as the place to contact. Well, as you can imagine, that started everything up again at full paddle, & THEN it reached a PERFECT HOWL two days later when Costigan was found in his office with his throat slashed.
I put the letter down, stunned, picturing Costigan in the sweltering office; he’d played me cleverly, taking the money, knowing all along he would set me up. When I escaped they must have figured he’d crossed them too. Or maybe they’d just wanted to silence him. His throat cut. I shuddered. Jesus, for somebody trying not to meddle with history I was doing one hell of a job. I read on numbly.
You can’t imagine the fuss that kicked up. Folks talking the downfall of civilization, pent-up Christians looking to the imminent appearance of Satan in Elmira Township. Nor can you picture the sweat I was in, fearing every minute that Robert was witnessed bringing back the nags & that he’d be forced to spill everything. I paid Solomon’s treasure to button his mouth, but the Fenians could surely unbutton it.
Naturally you were the object of considerable speculation. (I mightily appreciated you passing yourself as a duke, by the way.) The constable got quite an itch to find you once he’d traced the livery wagon. Lately some others showed up asking about you too. From what you told me, I reckon I guessed their identity—one a large-sized hard-smiling Irish sport with red hair and washed-out eyes; the other a poison-mean breed who raises your neck-hair just to glance on him. I don’t have to tell you to watch your step with those two. They tried not to show it—I observed them from Elmira’s billiard palace, where I am wont to demonstrate my modest skills to neophytes—but I could tell they want you the worst way.
Again I lowered the letter. How had Le Caron been sprung so fast? What the hell kind of network had I gotten myself tangled in? I prayed it didn’t extend this far.
Twain finished by congratulating me on pulling the whole thing off. He swore that for security purposes he planned not to touch any of his share “for years & years.”
In August he still intended to visit California. Meanwhile he was looking for a newspaper to buy controlling interest in. The first four hundred copies of Innocents Abroad were finally off the press. It was a handsome, big volume, he said, and he was mortally sick of the whole thing.
I will follow your progress in the National Game. (How could I not? The exalted feats of your red-hosed mates are trumpeted over the continent like’ installments of Homer’s epic!) Some day, when our venture is no longer fearsome & merely the stuff of old men’s lies, we’ll drink champagne and chuckle. Meanwhile, fasten all latches & burn this to powder!
It was signed “SLC”
I didn’t burn it, of course. Wondering if he’d read about the Avitor, I tucked the letter into the drawer that held my important possessions: the note from Cait, the tiny red stocking emblem I’d received at the reception banquet, and my gun.
We played the Buckeyes that afternoon. Allison’s mother was seriously ill, and he’d left that morning for Philadelphia. Harry asked me to catch.
With security tightened at the gates, we collected virtually a hundred percent on admissions that afternoon. The booth ran out of wares midway through the contest. Several hundred satisfied customers were introduced to our new delights: big German pretzels and ice-cream sodas. We netted over two hundred bucks—but I nearly had to take Johnny to a hospital afterward. Physically exhausted, he said he’d swallowed the smoke from three hundred frying hamburger patties.
The game was hardly artistic. Using our new bats, we hammered fifty-three hits including ten homers. I went only three for ten—fewest hits among the Stockings—but I made them count, lining a double over short, banging a homer off the top of the fence, and later clearing it with a towering shot down the left-field line. I have a wonderful sense-memory of it—the shivering impact up my arms, the recoil of the heavy bat, the deep THOCK!
In the final inning a pitch got by me and rolled back to the foot of the Grand Duchess. As I chased it down, a boy’s voice yelled, “Quick, Sam!” I threw to Brainard, covering the plate, then turned and saw Timmy looking down. I gave him the thumbs-up sign, then found myself staring beyond him into Cait’s eyes. It couldn’t have lasted long—a second, two seconds—but in that interval some kind of throbbing, eerily familiar energy pulsed between us. I forced myself to turn away, realizing afterward that I hadn’t noticed whether O’Dono-van was there.
The next pitch produced a foul tip that tore the nail halfway from my left index finger, effectively capturing my attention. At game’s end, when I finally looked again, they were gone. I felt let down.
Stockings 71, Buckeyes 15.
The Forest Citys arrived at one in the morning. Champion had let me know he didn’t want to be disturbed, so I met them at the Indianapolis & Lafayette depot. The Rockford players greeted me pleasantly, except for Spalding, who gave me a fish-eyed glance.
“Say,” said Bob Addy, “we hear Allison ain’t gonna catch agin’ us.”
“That’s how it looks.”
“You kept the score book before, so you’re the first substitute?”
“That’s right.”
He looked significantly at my bandaged finger. “Why, that’s good for us, then.” He laid a country-boy shit-eating grin on me. “Real good.”
Even with the heat wave finally breaking, we should have known better than to expect an off day between games. To Harry, if baseball was your profession, that’s what you did, six days a week, like any other job. So with juniors filling some positions, we played a long intrasquad game Friday afternoon. Allison was definitely gone till next week. Brainard and Sweasy were AWOL from practice. Harry looked more than a little pissed off.
I was starting to worry about Brainard. While it was true that everybody but Andy and Mac tried to beg off practicing occasionally—even George, to Harry’s consternation—Brainard was becoming chronic at it. His jealousy of George verged on the obsessive, and his sizzling of us, always barbed, was becoming cynical and deadly. I’d noticed too that his eyes were bloodshot a number of afternoons. Where, I wondered, did he spend his nights?
Because of my damaged finger Harry spared me from playing catcher or first. I spent the afternoon shagging flies in center, unsure whether Harry’s reminders to Andy and Mac not to leave me unguarded ultimately boosted or undercut my confidence. But I did know I was finally hitting with authority. Getting my weight into them, I unloaded a series of shots during my turns at the plate. Too bad there weren’t pinch hitters or DHs. I’d’ve been awesome. I think Harry wished something similar after I’d belted the second homer against the Bucks. True, it had come on fat pitching, not Spalding’s, but still . . .
That night, after making sure the Forest Citys’ needs were met at the Gibson—they had skipped Champion’s city tour to work out on the Iron Slag Grounds—and stopping by Gasthaus zur Rose to see that Johnny and Helga had the next day’s concessions ready, I directed my hack driver to the West End. He looked at me questioningly as we stopped in front of Cait’s boardinghouse. Staring at the wisteria-laced veranda, I made up my mind and told him to wait.
Timmy answered my knock. “It’s Sam!”
Inside, feet shuffled and chairs scraped. Timmy dashed away, leaving me in the foyer. At length Cait appeared, her hair in a scarf. She wore a plain pleated gray dress. When she spoke she sounded tired.
“It’s not a proper hour for visiting, Mr. Fowler.”
Flustered by the green-eyed gaze, feeling bulky as a moose this near her, I blanked out what I’d rehearsed.
“I wanted to talk,” I blurted.
She said nothing.
“Look, I don’t really know how to visit properly,” I said hopelessly. “What I mean is, I don’t have visiting cards to send, there’s no phone—”
“Phone?” She tilted her head.
“I’m sorry, I just mean—”
Timmy rescued me by appearing and declaring urgently, “They don’t believe it’s the real article, Sam!”
“What article? Who doesn’t?”
He held up his ball. “My pals won’t believe it’s truly from one of the Stockings.”
“Well, that’s one reason I dropped by,” I said, glancing at Cait. “Come to the game tomorrow and we’ll get it signed.”
“That’d be grand!”
“Timothy, enough for you now,” Cait said. “Go inside, please.”
“But, Mother—”
“Away with you.”
“Bye, Sam.”
“He talks of nothing else,” she said. “It’ll be the death of me.”
“Yet you brought him out yesterday.”
She sighed and said, “It’s not in me to deny all that a boy loves. Andy’s long been his hero.”
“Is that the only reason you came?”
She looked away. “I mustn’t neglect my boarders.”
“Cait—Mrs. O’Neill—I’m not sure how to express it, but since I first saw your picture I’ve had this strange—”
“Caitlin!” said a peremptory voice within.
O’Donovan. Sonofabitch!
She stiffened. “I must go.”
“Boarders?”
“He is a boarder. I’m thinking I needn’t explain myself to—”
“Cait!” boomed O’Donovan. “What’s keeping you?”
The parlor door swung open. O’Donovan’s eyes narrowed as he recognized me. Before he yanked the door shut I glimpsed three or four men sitting inside.
“What in hell are you doing here?” he demanded.
I smiled into his glare.
“Come in,” he told Cait. “I’ll handle this.”
She turned to face him. “It’s not quite finished I am.” Her tone offered no compromise.
He frowned and said, “I’ll be just inside.” He looked at me darkly. “Call if you need me.”
“Thank you, Fearghus,” she said. She swung back toward me when he had gone. “Do you see the strain you put me to?”
“That’s not my intention.”
“What is it, then?”
I hesitated, sure that O’Donovan was listening. Then again, did it really matter? “When I first saw your picture I felt this funny pull, as if I were supposed to meet you, or had known you before, or—” I stopped, aware of some quality in her eyes changing.
“Known me before?” She tucked a wisp of hair beneath her scarf. On her ring finger I saw a thin silver band bearing a heart design.
“Yes, well, not exactly. I mean, there’s this feeling of unfinished business. Yesterday I thought maybe you felt it too.” I groped for amplifying words, found none. “I guess that’s really all I wanted to ask. Whether you’ve felt the same, or if it’s just me.”
She regarded me silently.
“Look, I don’t mean to mess up your arrangement with O’Don—”
“I have no arrangements” she said hotly. “And I think it’s time you leave now, sir.”
“All right, but answer me.”
She shook her head, small quick movements.
“You felt something, didn’t you?”
She raised her face defiantly. “Mr. Fowler, what you are trying to do is not welcome.” Her voice was shaking. “You have no right to do this to me!”
I knew it would have been disastrous to try to touch her. But I also knew that I’d never wanted anything more than I wanted to take her in my arms just then.
“Whatever’s happening, it’s not just me doing something to you,” I told her. “It’s happening to both of us.”
She brushed the air with her fingers, as if to say what did it matter. I could hear her breathing in the ensuing silence.
“Please, bring Timmy tomorrow and have dinner with Andy and me afterward.”
A sound escaped her, a combination of sigh and sob. “I’ve just now said to you—”
“Just do it,” I urged. “Don’t be afraid.”
I left before she could answer. From inside the hack I looked back and saw her standing in the dim hallway, slender and rigid.
I ran newspaper ads touting the Forest Citys as “Crack Champions of the Northwest” and told Johnny to increase booth supplies a third in expectation of a sellout crowd. Champion, following my design, had had carpenters install the nation’s first scoreboard atop our right-field fence: a wooden billboard with a walkway on which boys waited to hang the green metal plaques bearing white numerals on the hooks for innings. No longer would spectators strain to hear the scorer’s megaphoned shouts. Dubbed the “telegraph board,” it proved to be instantaneously popular.
The trouble was that only three thousand came out. A top-level opponent should have drawn more. I concluded that the small-town Illinois squad simply couldn’t match the pull of a top eastern club. Several times during the contest I saw Champion gazing dolefully at me. I could guess his thoughts: Would we lose our shirts on all this new stuff? He looked positively funereal when Johnny ended up donating our unsold sausages and beef patties and buns to the Home for the Friendless. On the positive side, our latest innovation, a primitive version of Cracker Jack, was a budding success, though we hadn’t gotten the blend of caramel, molasses, and corn syrup quite right yet.
During the game itself I was too busy to give off-diamond developments much thought. The Forest Citys showed up in new uniforms—again I was struck by this amateur club’s affluence—with gray checked pants and ice-white shirts. From their grim demeanor it was clear they wanted to take us. And that with Allison gone, they thought they could do it.
Harry won the toss and sent them up. Barnes stepped to the plate and checked our defense. Harry had pulled a switch: he was pitching, Brainard catching, I manning center. It was risky, but it made sense. Brainard didn’t possess a particularly strong throwing arm behind the plate, but he had quick hands and was savvy—and Harry’s slow twisters wouldn’t tax him. With Andy, George, or Mac catching, we’d sacrifice a great deal in the field.
The crowd buzzed and applauded Harry in his old position in the box. Shouts came for the “Old Vet” to show his pluck. Anticipating Brainard’s speedballs, the Forest Citys overswung on Harry’s dew-drops and went one-two-three in the first.
“So much for the Sucker State!” somebody yelled.
But we started off no better against Spalding, who worked smoothly, mixing speeds and brushing the corners. He obviously had a “book” on us after being knocked around in Rockford. George and Gould popped up; Waterman did likewise, but his dropped safely behind second. That brought me up in Allison’s place.
There was no on-deck circle. Strikers generally took a few swings in front of their bench—as much to demonstrate stylish form as to loosen up. Our bench, painted bright red, of course, was situated in the shade of the Grand Duchess on the first-base side. I’d been swinging vigorously, trying to spot Cait and Timmy among a profusion of red parasols and handkerchiefs and hats.
“Sam!” said Harry. “Spalding’s in form. Legs!”
Which meant that since runs might be hard to come by, we’d be aggressive on the bases. I stepped in and looked for the sign. Harry touched only the white parts of his uniform: take. I watched Spalding’s first pitch blur past, scarcely able to pick up its spin. Waterman sprinted for second. The ump yelled, “Warning, striker!” Addy, fumbling in his haste to nail Waterman, dropped the ball. He swore and took his place again. I missed Spalding’s next blazer by half a foot. Addy was up and throwing as Waterman scrambled for third. The peg had him cold, but he bamboozled the third baseman with a gorgeous hook slide. Just bring him home, I thought, waving the bat and digging in. I fouled off a low inside pitch and barely held back on a shoulder-high hummer. Then Spalding laid one down the pipe. With visions of sending it into space I strode forward—and realized too late he’d taken something off it. I tried to correct, swung awkwardly, and missed badly. Strike three. Shit!
“Don’t get rattled,” Harry told me. “Bear down in the field. We’ll be fine.”
Bats warmed up in the second. Forest City pushed across a run on slashing hits to right center, which I was glad to let Mac play. Harry singled in our half, stole second, and scored on Andy’s liner to right. Andy swiped second and was doubled in by Sweasy, who scored on Mac’s sacrifice fly.
Forest City came back in the third on Spalding’s double, tallying three runs and regaining the lead. They whitewashed us again—twice in three innings they’d done it, an ominous trend. I fouled out to Addy my second time up. I wasn’t the only one having trouble solving Spalding. The Stockings popped his rising fastballs up repeatedly, and the few grounders we managed all seemed to go straight to Barnes at short.
In the fourth, Brainard, playing agilely behind the plate, ran down a foul bound, and Mac speared a sinking liner to snuff a rally. We laid a goose egg on them in turn, and finally touched Spalding in our half, scoring four runs; with two out I stepped to the plate with Waterman again on third. Spalding, working me inside and out, finally got too cute. Timing an outside change-up, I drilled it up the right-center alley. The ball slammed off the fence and caromed among the carriages. By the time the outfielders retrieved it I’d slid into third. We led 8-4. Andy led cheers on the bench. The crowd roared. It was one hell of a moment. Standing there tingling and grinning, I wanted them all to be up there in the stands: Cait impressed, Timmy yelling his head off, O’Donovan seething.
Refusing to be blown out, the Rockfords came back stubbornly with three runs in the fifth. They were aided considerably by me. I went deep for Barnes’s long fly, couldn’t hold it, then overthrew the cutoff, allowing Barnes to circle the bases. The next Forest City crushed one off the fence, a mile beyond Andy. When a hard-hitting lefty moved to the plate, Harry waved us over in a shift as severe as any ever put on for Ted Williams. Sure enough, the batter lined to Sweasy in what normally would have been the hole between first and second. We came in to take our licks—and got whitewashed again, on sensational fielding by Barnes.
“He’s getting on my nerves,” George complained, having a rare bad day at the plate.
Barnes was getting on all of our nerves. So was Spalding. The Rockfords trailed us like grim shadows.
Stockings 8, Forest Citys 7.
In the sixth, Harry and Brainard changed places. Brainard, tentative in the box without Allison’s reassuring presence, walked the first Forest City. The second punched a hit-and-run single past Sweasy. Two infield outs produced a run. Only an acrobatic stop and snap throw by Waterman saved another. In the bottom half we regained our bare lead on Mac’s double and a seeing-eye single by Gould—who then brought Harry as close to cursing as I’d seen him by getting himself picked off first. My usually imperturbable mates showed signs of cracking.
In the next moment a foul off George’s bat caught Addy full in the face. Blood spurted from his nose as he sagged to the turf. I thought he’d been brained. We ran to him; his nose was smashed, his cheek already swelling. I brought ice from the booth. At length he staggered to his feet and insisted on playing. It was plucky, everybody agreed. In my estimation it was also fairly stupid. Nobody asked me.
When Addy led off the seventh, Harry pulled us in a bit, figuring the injury had sapped his strength. But the stocky hitter connected on a high pitch and drove it far over my head. Again they had knotted the score, 9-9.
I led off in our half. Spalding glowered, mindful of my triple last time. Brush-back fastball, I guessed. As he strode into his motion I adjusted my stance. The ball blurred toward me, rising slightly and spinning inside—but not as far as Spalding intended. I swiveled into it and whipped the bat. CRACK! The ball rocketed into the blue summer sky. It hung for a long moment above the left-field fence before dropping lazily into Kenner Street.
I wish I had videotape of it. I wish shutters and film had been fast enough to capture any of the lovely sequence that followed as I rounded the bases and was mobbed at the plate. The Commercial—bless Millar’s florid soul—would term it “a grand old hit,” one of the “longest ever made on the grounds,” and the Gazette would say that “Fowler, a new hand, filled Allison’s place admirably.” I stashed the clippings in my special drawer.
A grown man hitting a ball over a fence. Silly, probably, but for an instant of existential joy, a moment of pristine sensation, it was hard to beat. Andy was all over me. Mac and George and Gould bobbed around me like toys on a string. Harry nodded as if it had been no more than he’d expected. Brainard, Waterman, even Sweasy, pumped my hand. Heady stuff. No wonder old-timers don’t want to quit.
The crowd stayed frenetic as Harry followed with a ringing double. Andy grounded out, but Brainard drove a ball into the corner and circled the bases when it skipped past the right fielder. They shut us down then, but we’d scored three.
Stockings 12, Forest Citys 9.
If there were any justice it would have ended there, with me the day’s hero. But it didn’t. The Forest Citys jumped all over Brainard in the eighth. The first hitter smashed a liner that I botched trying to play on the hop; he took second and scored on Spalding’s grounder that George fielded cleanly but slipped setting himself to throw. The next batter doubled, sending Spalding home. Addy followed with a slow bouncer that George charged, picked up beautifully, and whipped to first. But Gould was astride the bag. Addy lowered his head, broken nose and all, and plowed into the big first baseman, knocking him flat. The ball whizzed past. Addy scrambled all the way to third while the other Forest City scored. Four runs in. We were behind now, and getting clobbered.
Harry changed places with Brainard again. He got his first man to pop to Sweasy. As the second stepped in, he motioned me toward right. Sure enough, a lazy fly came directly at me.
“Got it?” yelled Mac, running toward me.
“Yeah, mine!” I caught the ball and saw Addy tagging up at third. Bypassing the cutoff, I threw to the plate with all my strength. Addy, trotting in leisurely, was astonished as the ball whistled to Brainard on one bounce. Again he put his head down and crashed into a defender. Brainard made the tag and held the ball. But the umpire ruled that Addy—sprawling supine, out cold—had touched the plate first. Brainard stalked off furiously. Sweasy rushed in, foaming with rage, threatening to punch the official. Harry wrestled him away.
“Throw was a dinger, Sam!” yelled Andy from left.
The next hitter fouled out to end the inning. They’d scored five runs and led by two. Then, rubbing it in, they whitewashed us in the bottom of the eighth. Another zero went up on the new telegraph board.
Stockings 12, Forest Citys 14.
An ominous stillness settled over the stands. The next minutes held the fate of our 29-0 win streak, the longest ever. Not to mention Cincinnati’s position in the sporting world.
Sweasy cursed loudly as we started toward the field. Harry told him to be quiet and gathered us together.
“What’s required,” he said, looking each of us in the eye, “is that we try our best. Play hard and fairly. Every moment. This inning is no different from any other.”
If so, I reflected, why was he saying it now?
“God willing,” Harry concluded, “we will prevail.”
“Let’s dose ’em with our ginger!” Andy yelled, thrusting out his hand. We clasped ours over his and yelled as we burst away toward our positions. I bellowed with the rest, energized. The Forest Citys looked at us sardonically.
I’d seen each Stocking carry the club at one time or another with clutch fielding, hitting, running. But I’d never seen us enter a ninth inning trailing. Now that the chips were truly down, would one of us be able to rise to the occasion?
I soon found out.
Pitching brilliantly, Harry treated the Forest Citys to an amazing assortment of floaters. They cocked their bats, crouched, poised, lunged, swung ferociously—and went down in order.
“Now,” he said, when we reached the bench, a smile playing on his lips, “it’s our turn to test their mettle.”
I then had to face a central fact I’d tried to keep out of my mind until that moment: I would lead off the bottom of the ninth. I hefted my bat as the crowd’s clamor built into a chant.
“Home RUN! Do it AGAIN! HOME RUN!”
God, wouldn’t it be sweet? No, don’t think about it. Meet the ball. Get on base. Two to tie. Three to win. I stepped in and swung in level grooves, concentrating.
Spalding didn’t give me a thing I could handle. I looked at off-speed teasers on the corners, then misjudged a rising fastball and popped it straight back to Addy. So much for storybook. Three fucking pitches. I walked back to the bench, staring at the ground. The stands were eerily silent. I almost wished they’d booed.
“Lift your head, Sam,” said Harry on his way to the plate. “You’re a Red Stocking!”
God bless you, Harry Wright.
“START IT, HARRY!” bellowed George. I’d never heard either of the Wrights exhort the other on the diamond. But this was no time for sibling restraint.
I forgot my own failure in the drama of this new confrontation: thirty-four-year-old Captain Harry battling the nineteen-year-old phe-nom. Spalding worked the edges cautiously. Harry waited, poised gracefully, no sign of tension; the man should have been an Olympic athlete. He stepped, swung, and met a low fastball smoothly. We jumped to our feet at the crack of the bat.
“I knew it!” George exulted.
The ball slashed over Barnes’s straining fingers into left. My voice was lost among the others. Mac pounded my back as Andy strode purposefully to the batter’s box.
“Come on!” I yelled. “You can do it!”
The crowd was up now, imploring. Spalding, abandoning finesse, came at Andy with nothing but heat, bent on overpowering the smallest Stocking. Andy took a ball, watched a strike, fouled off four consecutive fastballs—timing the big pitcher and wearing him down. Harry took off from first as Spalding came in with another fastball. Choking up on the bat, Andy spanked the ball into right. Again we leaped up as Harry made third easily, and now the tying runs were on the corners, our fastest man on first. I felt myself beginning to hope.
Brainard stepped to the plate, toothpick waggling. If he was nervous he didn’t show it. Noise erupted from the crowd. From third Harry flashed a sign to Andy and Brainard, but I couldn’t believe I’d seen correctly: STEAL!
Spalding looked in, concentrating on Brainard. Harry got an enormous jump and broke for the plate at the instant Spalding moved into his windup. Andy simultaneously sprinted for second. Brainard leaned forward, masking Harry’s approach until the last possible instant. Then he stepped back as Harry dove headlong for the plate, his body stretched in the air, one arm reaching beneath Addy, who had caught the rising pitch and plunged to make the tag. There was a pileup and a curtain of dust.
The umpire spread his arms. “Safe!”
I nearly peed my pants. I’d never seen anybody try a stunt like that under those circumstances. Maybe Jackie Robinson did it, I don’t know. But nobody—NOBODY—could have beaten Harry that afternoon. The play galvanized us. I could almost feel energy draining from the Rockford players as a big white 1 appeared on our peg on the telegraph board.
Stockings 13, Forest Citys 14.
Brainard shook Harry’s hand matter-of-factly and stepped back in. With the crowd still vibrating over the double steal, he poked Spalding’s first pitch safely into left center. Andy sprinted home well ahead of the throw. The game was tied.
“It’s curious,” said George on the bench. “Brainard’s not big, fast, or strong. He’s certainly not dependable—yet he beats you. Last year when I was on the Morrisanias and the Stockings upset our cart here, it was Brainard made the winning run. Same thing against the Mutes on the tour, remember? I’ll wager he does it again.”
Just as he said it, Sweasy sent a looper that fell short of the charging left fielder and just beyond Barnes’s clutching fingers. Brainard, running hard, slid across the plate to pull out the victory, 15-14.
Instead of 29-1 we were 30-0.
After the final outs, the crowd spilled onto the field, mobbing us. We dispensed with songs and cheers and ran for the clubhouse. The glum visitors challenged us to games in Chicago and Rockford the following week. After wrangling free lodging and a fat slice of gate receipts, Champion accepted.
Timmy waited at the gate. “We got here in time to see you make your run, Andy!” he yelled.
Great, I thought. It meant he had missed my homer and seen me pop up in the clutch.
I looked up the lane and saw Cait. She seemed to float toward us in a pale green dress that set off her jet hair and jewel eyes.
“I couldn’t keep Tim home,” she said. “He’d have burst.”
“You oughtn’t be here alone,” Andy said.
“You struck well,” she replied, ignoring what he’d said. “The ladies cheered you again.”
“Sam knocked a homer,” Andy said. “Clean over the fence.”
“You DID?” Timmy said.
“It’s a worthy thing to do?” Cait asked.
Timmy explained a home run.
“I saw you perform that, did I not?” Her tone suggested that since I’d shown myself capable of it, why make further fuss?
“Yes,” I said. “Are you accepting my invitation?”
She shook her head. “I must go straight back.”
“I see.” I tried to hide my disappointment. “Maybe there’s time to take Timmy in the clubhouse. Most of the team’s still there.”
“Could I?” he implored. “Please, Mother?”
Her answer nearly caused my mouth to fall open.
“Would you take him, Andy? I want a word with Mr. Fowler.”
Andy said he’d be delighted. As they moved off, we stood silently.
Birds sang in the nearby elms. Dusk was coming on. I tried to imprint in my memory the freckles sprinkled on her nose and cheeks.
“I believe I owe you an answer,” she said gravely.
“You do?”
“I thought about little else last night,” she said. “I wanted to deny what you said about something happening to both of us. But I cannot keep denying what I know inside to be true.” Her tone softened. “Even should I not want it so.” She paused. “This must sound quite the mystery.”
“I’m not sure,” I said.
“‘Tis strangest of all that it was going on well before you arrived. Although I didn’t know for a certainty till the night you first appeared with Andy.”
“Know what, Cait?”
The green eyes held depths into which I could have plunged and lost myself forever.
“That someone very like you, Mr. Fowler, would be coming to me.”