Chapter XXIII:
Restoration of the Team

SATURDAY NOON, THE day of Game Four, I shared luncheon with Ambrose, sans paramour. She had been such a fixture up till now that her absence piqued my curiosity.

“How fares your fair Lily?”

I had not thought such an innocuous query would have touched a nerve, but his brow darkened like a thunderhead. “Resting,” he grumbled. “For the remainder of the day… and night.”

Of a sudden I understood. Mistress Lily had grown so weary of Ambrose’s baseball sessions with me that the benefits of his company could no longer compensate. I smiled, for this was welcome news, and said:

“Then I pray she enjoys a pleasant rest. As for you and me, I propose that we make our game doubly interesting by doubling the stakes.”

He laughed heartily and long. When at last he could catch a breath, he said, “You do realize you owe me millions, don’t you?”

“My collateral is my team. If you win, the Knights are yours.”

“Or you win double what I’ve won from you.” He stroked his clean-shaven chin and gave me a hard stare with those cold gray eyes of his. “Something tells me I should cash in my chips and walk away now, while I can.”

“And yet the gamesman in you will not, for who can walk away from the chance to own a world-class ball club?”

By the cant of his eyebrows, I knew I had scored a hit even before he grinned and said, “It’s on!”

After Ambrose and I parted ways until we should meet at the game later that evening, I returned to my hotel suite to discover another welcome surprise: Sandy had arranged his tour of Knights farm clubs to include a visit to the Brittany Spaniels and was waiting to deliver his report to me in person.

Ah, sweet reader, never have I been so pleased to see anyone! Or to touch anyone, or kiss anyone, or—forgive me; I outpace myself.

I dismissed my staff until game time, bade Sandy hang out the “Ne Disturbez Pas, S’il Vous Plaît” sign, and we wasted no further time getting down to… business. Team business, too, once the business of our reunion was concluded to our deep and mutual, albeit temporary, satisfaction.

He had been parted from me not even a fortnight, and in that time I did not realize how much I had come to miss every facet of him, even unto his habit of talking at great length and breadth of detail regarding all matters baseball. It was like turning on a VRTV transmitter and watching the array of images stream into my brain, except with words:

“The Spaniels’ pitching staff is respectable; they’ve one closer in particular that I want to have Stan take a look at. They’re thin on outfielders, though. Any batter who grabs hold of a pitch will get a triple for sure, if not a homer. That’s exactly what their old nemesis, the Mont Saint-Michel Monsters, did to them in the first game I watched. Wasn’t pretty. Not pretty at all. I chewed their butts good afterward, and that put some hustle back in their bustle. In the next game, the shortstop snagged a line shot that I—and probably everyone else at the park—thought was sailing up the middle for a hit. Come to think of it, I need to bring that player to Stan’s attention, too. Ballpark facilities are getting a bit old; seats will need replacing in the next couple of years, but the place is otherwise clean and in decent condition. Attendance is good, so revenues are up, thanks to local VRTV advertising and a mail-in offer to get a rebate for the price of the third ticket with valid proof of purchase of all three, because who can remember to mail it, anyway?”

Dear Sandy. I stood beneath the fountain of his words, soaking them in and drinking my fill, restoring my soul.

The nearby church bell tolling vespers reminded me that I needed to set my plan into motion to ensure my Knights played extra hard during this, their fourth game against the Crocodiles. Lady Godiva of legend attracted attention curtained by her hair, perched atop the back of a horse; I prefer a mink coat and a limo. My challenge to the Knights in the visiting team locker room prior to the first pitch was simple: he who played best would win the prize concealed by the mink after the game.

I wish I had invented that ploy a lot earlier.

Ambrose was already ensconced in the Visiting Owner’s Box when Sandy and I arrived (slightly late on account of my having to conjure something a trifle more substantial so that I could shed the mink; it was, after all, June in the south of France), his binoculars trained upon God only knew what, and mumbling. I stepped closer to him, turned to imitate his angle, and raised my own field glasses. I could have used magic to bring the farthest reaches of the ballpark into focus, but learned long ago that was a quick way to draw suspicion upon myself.

As near as I could tell, Ambrose had to be scrutinizing the Crocodiles’ starting pitcher, who was throwing more wild pitches than a ship trapped on a stormy sea. I do not know what Ambrose was hoping to accomplish—he had no magical powers of which I was aware, and the syllables he was muttering sounded less like enchantments and more like half-formed epithets. I smiled to no one in particular.

The Crocodiles’ pitcher, the lefty who had demolished my Knights in Game Two, did settle down somewhat as the game got under way and managed to strike out the first two batters in the lineup. But that was all he got; D-Rock Skimmer was patient and drew a walk, and Duke Southmarch, my catcher, batting cleanup, clocked one into the left-field seats for the first two runs. With dozens of cameras floating and whizzing everywhere, the audience throughout the amphitheatre was treated to a gigantic-screen close-up shot as fans pushed and lunged over one another to snag the homer. The man who wrested the ball away from the other fans gave it to a boy sitting beside him. I sent Sandy to find the lad and give him a dugout pass so he could get his treasure autographed afterward. Some intelligent camera operator caught this excited exchange in close-up for the crowd, too, which in turn prompted a close-up of me—not the best image, with the safety glass in the way, but I smiled and waved none the less. A queen always smiles and waves; the masses love it. Ambrose, as a true (if retired) politician, being ever mindful of how he appears on camera, banished his scowl for a toothsome grin until the red light stopped flashing at us.

On the heels of that two-out rally, the rest of the Knights’ bats heated up nicely, even through three pitching changes. At one point, Sandy shot me a silent question regarding whether I was using magic on the players again; I shook my head, too delighted with the players’ improved hitting performances to take offense. The dry well of their past hitless innings had burst forth.

Kasef Ali, my starting pitcher, held the Crocodiles scoreless—though not hitless—through six innings when the bull pen took over. The relief men allowed three runs; but by this point it did not matter, for the Knights were already up by nine, six of the runs having been produced in the fourth inning alone. In innings seven, eight, and nine they added six more,—and I could have toppled Ambrose with a feather and sent him home in a wicker basket. To say my Knights had beaten the spread would be a gross understatement.

By game’s end, I was hard-pressed to choose one player upon whom to bestow my promised reward. So I did what any fair-minded team owner would have done: I selected an offensive MVP (catcher Duke Southmarch at five-for-six and four RBIs, including the first two of the game) and a defensive MVP (second baseman Dennis MacDougal at eight putouts and three assists), and invited them both into my dark-windowed limo for the promised private after-party.

Sandy understood; he was such a daisy.

This tremendous blow to Ambrose’s ego and fortune, I later learned, caused him to begin plotting against me in earnest. I suppose I should have expected it of him. At the time, however, I was having far too much fun to care.