The Celebrated No-Hit Inning

FrederikPohl

This is A TRUE STORY, you have to remember. You have tokeep that firmly in mind because, frankly, in some placesit may not sound like a true story. Besides, it’s a truestory about baseball players, and maybe the only one thereis. So you have to treat it with respect.

You know Boley, no doubt. It’s pretty hard not to know Boley, if you know anything at all about the National Game.He’s the one, for instance, who raised such a screamwhen the sportswriters voted him Rookie of the Year.”I never was a rookie,” he bellowedinto three mil-liontelevision screens at the dinner. He’s the one who rippedup his contract when his manager called him, “The hittin’estpitcher I ever see.” Boley wouldn’t stand for that. “Four-eighteen against the best pitchers in the Page 1

league,” he yelled, as the pieces of the contract went out thewindow. “Fogarty, I am the hittin’est hitter you ever see!”

He’s the one they all said reminded them so much of Dizzy Dean at first. But did Diz win thirty-one games in hisfirst year? Boley did; he’ll tell you so himself. But politely, and without bellowing… .

Somebody explained to Boley that even a truly great Hall-of-Fame pitcher really ought to show up for spring training. So, in his second year, he did. But he wasn’t con-vincedthat he needed the training, so he didn’t bother muchabout appearing on the field.

Manager Fogarty did some extensive swearing about that, but he did all of his swearing to his pitching coaches andnot to Mr. Boleslaw. There had been six rippedup contractsalready that year, when Boley’s feelings got hurtabout something, and the front office were very in-sistentthat there shouldn’t be any more.

There wasn’t much the poor pitching coaches could do, ofcourse. They tried pleading with Boley. All he did was grinand ruffle their hair and say, “Don’t get all in an uproar.” He could ruffle their hair pretty easily, sincehe stoodsix inches taller than the tallest of them.

“Boley,” said Pitching Coach Magill to him desper-ately, “you are going to get me into trouble with the manager. I need this job. We just had another little boy Page 2

atour house, and they cost money to feed. Won’t you pleasedo me a favor and come down to the field, just for alittle while?”

Boley had a kind of a soft heart. “Why, if that will makeso much difference to you. Coach, I’ll do it. But I don’tfeel much like pitching. We have gottwelve exhibi-tiongames lined up with the Orioles on the way north, andif I pitch six of those that ought to be all the warm-up I need.”

“Three innings?”Magill haggled. “You know I wouldn’t askyou if it wasn’t important. The thing is, the owner’s uncleis watching today.”

Boley pursed his lips. He shrugged.”One inning.”

“Bless you, Boley!” cried the coach. “One inning it is!”

Andy Andalusia was catching for the regulars when Boley turned up on the field. He turned white as a sheet.

“Not the fast ball, Boley! Please, Boley,” he begged. “I onlybeen catching a week and I have not hardened up yet.”

Boleslaw turned the rosin bag around in his hands and lookedaround the field. There was action going on at all sixdiamonds, but the spectators, including the owner’s uncle, were watching the regulars.

“I tell you what I’ll do,” said Boley thoughtfully. “Let’s see. For the first man, I pitch only curves. For the second Page 3

man, the screwball. And for the third man let’s see. Yes.

For the third man, I pitch the sinker.”

“Fine!” cried the catcher gratefully, and trotted back tohome plate.

“He’s a very spirited player,” the owner’s uncle com-mentedto Manager Fogarty.

“That he is,” said Fogarty, remembering how the pieces ofthe fifth contract had felt as they hit him on the side ofthe head.

“He must be a morale problem for you, though. Doesn’t heupset the discipline of the rest of the team?”

Fogarty looked at him, but he only said.) “Hewin thirty-onegames for us last year. If he had lost thirty-one he wouldhave upset us a lot more.”

The owner’s uncle nodded, but there was a look in his eyeall the same. He watched without saying anything more, while Boley struck out the first man with three sizzlingcurves, right on schedule, and then turned around andyelled something at the outfield.

“That crazyBy heaven,” shouted the manager, “he’s chasingthem back into the dugout. I told that”

The owner’s uncle clutched at Manager Fogarty as he wasgetting up to head for the field. “Wait a minute.

What’s Boleslaw doing?”

“Don’t you see? He’s chasing the outfield off the field.

He wants to face the next two men without any outfield!

Page 4

That’s Satchell Paige’s old trick, only he never did it exceptin exhibitions where who cares? But that Boley”

“This is only an exhibition, isn’t it?” remarked the owner’suncle mildly.

Fogarty looked longingly at the field, looked back at theowner’s uncle, and shrugged.

“All right.”He sat down, remembering that it was the owner’suncle whose sprawling factories had made the familymoney that bought the owner his team. “Go ahead!” he bawled at the right fielder, who was hesitating halfwayto the dugout.

Boley nodded from the mound. When the outfielders wereall out of the way he set himself and went into his windup. Boleslaw’s windup was a beautiful thing to all whochanced to behold it unless they happened to root foranother team. The pitch was more beautiful still.

“I got it, I got it!”Andalusia cried from behind the plate, waving the ball in his mitt. He returned it to the pitchertriumphantly, as though he could hardly believe he hadcaught the Boleslaw screwball after only the first weekof spring training.

He caught the second pitch, too. But the third was unpredictablylow and outside.Andalusia dived for it in vain.

“Ball one!” cried the umpire. The catcher scrambled Page 5

up, ready to argue.

“He is right,” Boley called graciously from the mound.

“I am sorry, but my foot slipped. It was a ball.”

“Thank you,” said the umpire. T”P_ next screwball was astrike, though, and so were the these sinkers to the third manthough one of those caught a little piece of the bat andturned into an into-the-dirt foul.

Boley came off the field to a spattering of applause.He stoppedunder the stands, on the lip of the dugout. “I guessI am a little rusty at that, Fogarty,” he called.

“Don’t let me forget to pitch another inning or twobe -

forewe playBaltimore next month.”

“I won’t!” snapped Fogarty. He would have said more, butthe owner’s uncle was talking.

“I don’t know much about baseball, but that strikes me asan impressive performance.My congratulations.”

“You are right,” Boley admitted. “Excuse me while I shower, and then we can resume this discussion some more. I think you are a better judge of baseball than you say.”

The owner’s uncle chuckled, watching him go into the dugout. “You can laugh,” said Fogarty bitterly. “You don’thave to put up with that for a hundred fifty-four games, and spring training, and the Series.”

“You’re pretty confident about making the Series?”

Fogarty said simply, “Last year Boley win thirty-one Page 6

games.”

The owner’s uncle nodded, and shifted position un-comfortably. He was sitting with one leg stretched over a largeblack metal suitcase, fastened with a complicated lock. Fogarty asked, “Should I have one of the boys put thatin the locker room for you?”

“Certainly not!” said the owner’s uncle. “I want it right herewhere I can touch it.” He looked around him. “The factof that matter is,” he went on in a lower tone, “this goesup toWashington with me tomorrow. I can’t discuss what’sin it. But as we’re among friends, I can mention thatwhere it’s going is the Pentagon.”

“Oh,” said Fogarty respectfully. “Something new from thefactories.”

“Something very new,” the owner’s uncle agreed, and hewinked. “And I’d better get back to the hotel with it But there’s one thing, Mr. Fogarty. I don’t have much timefor baseball, but it’s a family affair, after all, and wheneverI can help I mean, it just occurs to me that possibly, with the help of what’s in this suitcase “That is, wouldyou like me to see if I could help out?”

“Help out how?” asked Fogarty suspiciously.

“Well I really mustn’t discuss what’s in the suitcase.

But would it hurt Boleslaw, for example, to be a little more, well, modest?”

Page 7

The manager exploded, “No.”

The owner’s uncle nodded. “That’s what I’ve thought.

Well, I must go. Will you ask Mr. Boleslaw to give me a ringat the hotel so we can have dinner together, if it’s convenient?”

It was convenient, all right. Boley had always wanted tosee how the other half lived; and they had a fine dinner, servedright in the suite, with five waiters in attendance andfour kinds of wine. Boley kept pushing the little glassesof wine away, but after all the owner’s uncle was theowner’s uncle, and if he thought it was all right It must have been pretty strong wine, because Boley began tohave trouble following the conversation.

It was all right as long as it stuck to earned-run averages andbatting percentages, but then it got hard to follow, likea long, twisting grounder on a dry September field.

Boley wasn’t going to admit that, though. “Sure,” he said, tryingto follow; and “You say the fourth dimension?” he said; and, “You mean a time machine, like?” he said; but hewas pretty confused.

The owner’s uncle smiled and filled the wine glasses again.

Somehow the black suitcase had been unlocked, in a slow, difficult way. Things made out of crystal and steel weresticking out of it. “Forget about the time machine,”

saidthe owner’s uncle patiently. “It’s a military secret, Page 8

anyhow. I’ll thank you to forget the very words, because heavenknows what the General would think if he found outAnyway, forget it. What about you, Boley? Do you stillsay you can hit any pitcher who ever lived and strike outany batter?”

“Anywhere,” agreed Boley, leaning back in the deep cushionsand watching the room go around and around.

“Any time.111 bat their ears off.”

“Have another glass of wine, Boley,” said the owner’s uncle, and he began to take things out of the black suitcase.

Boley woke up with a pounding in his’ head like Snider, Mays and Mantle hammering Three-Eye League pitching.

He moaned and opened one eye.

Somebody blurry was holding a glass out to him. “Hurry up. Drink this.”

Boley shrank back. “I will not. That’s what got me into thistrouble in the first place.”

‘Trouble?You’re in no trouble. But the game’s about tostart and you’ve got a hangover.”

Ring a fire bell beside a sleeping Dalmation ; sound the Charge in the ear of a retired cavalry major.Neither will respondmore quickly than Boley to the words, “The game’sabout to start.”

He managed to drink some of the fizzy stuff in the Page 9

glassand it was a miracle; like a triple play erasing a ninth-inningthreat, the headache was gone. He sat up, andthe world did not come to an end. In fact, he felt prettygood.

He was being rushed somewhere by the blurry man.

They were going very rapidly, and there were tail, bright buildingsoutside. They stopped.

“We’re at the studio,” said the man, helping Boley out ofa remarkable sort of car.

“The stadium,” Boley corrected automatically. He lookedaround for the lines at the box office but there didn’tseem to be any.

“The studio.Don’t argue all day, will you?” The man wasno longer so blurry. Boley looked at him and blushed.

He was only a little man, with a worried look to him, and whathe was wearing was a pair of vivid orangeBermuda shortsthat showed his knees. He didn’t give Boley much ofa chance for talking or thinking. They rushed into a building, all green and white opaque glass, and they were metat a flimsy-looking elevator by another little man. “This one’sshorts were aqua, and he had a bright red cummer -

bundtied around his waist.

“This is him,” said Boley’s escort.

The little man in aqua looked Boley up and down.

“He’s a big one. I hope to goodness we got a uniform to fithim for the Series.”

Page 10

Boley cleared his throat.”Series?”

“And you’re in it!” shrilled the little man in orange.

“This way to the dressing room.”

Well, a dressing room was a dressing room, even if thisone did have color television screens all around it and machinesthat went wheepety -boom softly to themselves.

Boley began to feel at home.

He biinked when they handed his uniform to him, but heput it on. Back in the Steel & Coal League, he had sometimesworn uniforms that still bore the faded legend 100 Lbs. Best Fortified Gro -Chick, and whatever an ownergave you to put on was all right with Boley. Still, hethought to himself, kilts!

It was the first time in Boley’s life that he had ever worna skirt. But when he was dressed it didn’t look too bad, he thought especially because all the other players (itlooked like fifty of them, anyway) were wearing the samething. There is nothing like seeing the same costume oneverybody in view to make it seem reasonable and right. Haven’t theParis designers been proving thatfor years?

He saw a familiar figure come into the dressing room, wearinga uniform like his own. “Why, Coach Magill,”

saidBoley, turning with his hand outstretched. “I did not expectto meet you here.”

Page 11

The newcomer frowned, until somebody whispered in hisear. “Oh,” he said, “you’re Boleslaw.”

“Naturally I’m Boleslaw, and naturally you’re my pitch-ingcoach, Magill, and why do you look at me that way whenI’ve seen you every day for three weeks?”

The man shook his head. “You’re thinking of Grand-daddyJim,” he said, and moved on.

Boley stared after him.Granddaddy Jim? But Coach Magill was nogranddaddy, that was for sure. Why, his eldestwas no more than six years old. Boley put his hand againstthe wall to steady himself. It touched something metaland cold. He glanced at it.

It was a bronze plaque, floor to ceiling high, and it was embossedat the top with the words World Series Honor Roll. And it listed every team that had ever won the World Series, from the dayChicago won the first Series of allin 1906 until Boley said something out loud, and quickly looked aroundto see if anybody had heard him. It wasn’t some-thinghe wanted people to hear. But it was the right time fora man to say something like that, because what that

- crazylump of bronze said, down toward the bottom, with onlyempty spaces below, was that the most recent team to winthe World Series was the Yokahama Dodgers, and theyear they won it in was1998.

1998.

A time machine, thought Boley wonderingly, I guess Page 12

whathe meant was a machine that traveled in time.

Now, if you had been picked up in a time machine that leapedthrough the years like a jet plane leaps through spaceyou might be quite astonished, perhaps, and for a whileyou might not be good for much of anything, until thingscalmed down.

But Boley was born calm. He lived by his arm and his eye, and there was nothing to worry about there. Pay him hisClass C league contract bonus, and he turns up in Western Pennsylvania, all ready to set a league record for no-hittershis first year. Call him up from the minors and hebats .418 against the best pitchers in baseball. Set him downin the year 1999 and tell him he’s going to play in theSeries, and he hefts the ball once or twice and says,

“I better take a couple of warm-up pitches. Is the spitter allowed?”

They led him to the bullpen. And then there was the playingof the National Anthem and the teams took the field. And Boley got the biggest shock so far.

“Magill,” he bellowed in a terrible voice, “what is that otherpitcher doing out on the mound?”

The manager looked startled. “That’s our starter, Padgett.He always starts with the number-two defensive lineupagainst right-hand batters when the outfield shift goes”

Page 13

” MagUI!I am not any relief pitcher. If you pitch Boleslaw, you start with Boleslaw.”

Magill said soothingly, “It’s perfectly all right. There havebeen some changes, that’s all. You can’t expect the rulesto stay the same for forty or fifty years, can you?”

“I am not a relief pitcher. I”

“Please, please. Won’t you sit down?”

Boley sat down, but he was seething. “We’ll see about that,” he said to the world. “We’ll just see.”

Things had changed, all right. To begin with, the studio reallywas a studio and not a stadium. And although it wasa very large room it was not the equal of Ebbetts Field, much less the Yankee Stadium.There seemed to bean awful lot of bunting, and the ground rules con-fusedBoley very much.

Then the dugout happened to be just under what seemed tobe a complicated sort of television booth, and Boley couldhear the announcer screaming himself hoarse just overhead. That had a familiar sound, but

“And here,” roared the announcer, “comes the all-importantnothing-and-one pitch! Fans, what a pitcher’s duelthis is! Delasantos is going into bis motion! He’s comingdown! He’s delivered it! And it’s in there for a countof nothing and two! Fans, what a pitcher that Tiburcio Delasantosis! And here comes the all-important nothing-and-twopitch, andandyes , and he struck him Page 14

out! He struck him out! He struck him out! It’s a no-hitter, fans! In the all-important second inning, it’s a no-hitterfor Tiburcio Delasantos !”

Boley swallowed and stared hard at the scoreboard, whichseemed to show a score of 14-9, their favor. His teammates were going wild with excitement, and so was thecrowd of players, umpires, cameramen and announcers watchingthe game. He tapped the shoulder of the man nextto him.

“Excuse me. What’s the score?”

“Dig that Tiburcio !” cried the man. “What a first-string defensivepitcher against left-handers he is!”

“The score.Could you tell me what it is?”

“Fourteen to nine.Did you seethat “

Boley begged, “Please, didn’t somebody just say it was ano-hitter?”

“Why, sure.”The man explained: “The inning. It’s a no-hitinning.” And he looked queerly at Boley.

It was all like that, except that some of it was worse.

After three innings Boley was staring glassy-eyed into space. He dimly noticed that both teams were trotting off thefield and what looked like a whole new corps of play-erswere warming up when Manager Magill stopped in

‘ frontof him. “You’ll be playing in a minute,” Magill said kindly.

Page 15

“Isn’t the game over?” Boley gestured toward the field.

“Over?Of course not.It’s the third-inning stretch,”

Magill told him. “Ten minutes for the lawyers to file their motionsand make their appeals. You know.” He laughed condescendingly. “They tried to get an injunction against thebases-loaded pitchout. Imagine!”

“Hah-hah,” Boley echoed. “Mister Magill, can I go home?”

“Nonsense, boy!Didn’t you hear me? You’re on as soonas the lawyers come off the field!”

Well, that began to make sense to Boley and he actuallyperked up a little. When the minutes had passed andMagill took him by the hand he began to feel almost cheerfulagain. He picked up the rosin bag and flexed his fingersand said simply, ” Boley’sready.”

Because nothing confused Boley when he had a ball or abat in his hand. Set him down any time, anywhere, and he’dhit any pitcher or strike out any batter. He knew exactlywhat it was going to be like, once he got on the playingfield.

Only it wasn’t like that at all.

Boley’steam was at bat, and the first man up got on witha bunt single. Anyway, they said it was a bunt single.

To Boley it had seemed as though the enemy pitcher had chargedbeautifully off.the mound, fielded the ball with machine-like precision and flipped it to the first-base Page 16

playerwith inches and inches to spare for the out. But theumpires declared interference by a vote of eighteen to seven, the two left-field umpires and the one with the fieldglasses over the batter’s head abstaining; it seemed thatthe first baseman had neglected to say “Excuse me” to therunner. Well, the rules were the rules. Boley tightened hisgrip on his bat and tried to get a lead on the pitcher’s style.

That was hard, because the pitcher was fast. Boley ad-mittedit to himself uneasily; he was very fast. He was a bigmonster of a player, nearly seven feet tall and with somethingqueer and sparldy about his eyes; and when hecame down with a pitch there was a sort of a hiss and asplat, and the ball was in the catcher’s hands. It might, Boley confessed, be a little hard to hit that particular pitcher, because he hadn’t yet seen the ball in transit.

Manager Magill came up behind him in the on-deck spotand fastened something to his collar. “Your intercom,” he explained. “So we can tell you what to do when you’reup.”

“Sure, sure.”Boley was only watching the pitcher. He lookedsickly out there; his skin was a grayish sort of color, and those eyes didn’t look right. But there wasn’t anythingsickly about the way he delivered the next pitch, asweeping curve that sizzled in and spun away.

Page 17

The batter didn’t look so good either same sickly grayskin, same giant frame. But he reached out across theplate and caught that curve and dropped it between third-baseand short; and both men were safe.

“You’re on,” said a tinny little voice in Boley’s ear; it wasthe little intercom, and the manager was talking to himover the radio. Boley walked numbly to the plate.

Sixty feet away, the pitcher looked taller than ever.

Boley took a deep breath and looked about him. The crowdwas roaring ferociously, which was normal enough exceptthere wasn’t any crowd. Counting everybody, playersand officials and all, there weren’t more than three orfour hundred people in sight in the whole studio. But hecould hear the screams and yells of easily fifty or sixty thousandThere was a man, he saw, behind a plate-glasswindow who was doing things with what might have beenrecords, and the yells of the crowd all seemed to comefrom loudspeakers under his window. Boley winced andconcentrated on the pitcher.

“I will pin his ears back,” he said feebly, more to reassurehimself than because he believed it.

The little intercom on his shoulder cried in a tiny voice: “You will not, Boleslaw! Your orders are to take the first pitch!” “But, listen”

“Take it! You hear me, Boleslaw?”

Page 18

There was a time when Boley would have swung just

-._to prove who was boss; but the time was not then. He stoodthere while the big gray pitcher looked him over withthose sparkling eyes. He stood there through the windup. And then the arm came down, and he didn’t standthere. That ball wasn’t invisible, not coming right athim; it looked as big and as fast as the Wabash Can-nonballand Boley couldn’t help it, for the first time in hislife he jumped a yard away, screeching.

“Hit batter! Hit batter!” cried the intercom. “Take your base, Boleslaw.”

Boley blinked. Six of the umpires were beckoning him on, so the intercom was right. But still and allBoley hadhis pride. He said to the little button on his collar,

“I am sorry, but I wasn’t hit. He missed me a mile, easy.

I got scared isall. “

“Take your base, you silly fool!” roared the intercom.

“He scared you, didn’t he? That’s just as bad as hitting you, according to the rules. Why, there is no telling what incalculabledamage has been done to your nervous sys-temby this fright. So kindly get the bejeepers over to first base, Boleslaw, as provided in the rules of the game!”

He got, but he didn’t stay there long, because there was apinch runner waiting for him. He barely noticed that it wasanother of the gray -skinned giants before he headed Page 19

forthe locker room and the showers. He didn’t even re-membergetting out of his uniform; he only remembered thathe, Boley, had just been through the worst experience ofhis life.

He was sitting on a bench, with his head on his hands, whenthe owner’s uncle came in, looking queerly out of placein his neat pin-striped suit. The owner’s Uncle had tospeak to him twice before his eyes focused.

“They didn’t let me pitch,” Boley said wonderingly.

“They didn’t, want Boley to pitch.”

The owner’s uncle patted his shoulder. “You were a gueststar, Boley.One of the all-time greats of the game.

Next game they’re going to have Christy Mathewson .

Doesn’t that make you feel proud?”

“They didn’t let me pitch,” said Boley.

The owner’s uncle sat down beside him. “Don’t you see? You’d be out of place in this kind of a game. You goton base for them, didn’t you? I heard the announcer sayit myself; he said you filled the bases in the all-importantfourth inning. Two hundred million people were watchingthis game on television! And they saw you gpt onbase!”

“They didn’t let me hit either,” Boley said.

There was a commotion at the door and the team came trottingin screaming victory. “We win it, we win it!” cried Manager Magill.”Eighty-seven to eighty-three! What a Page 20

squeaker!”

Boley lifted his head to croak, “That’s fine.” But no-bodywas listening. The manager jumped on a table and yelled, over the noise in the locker room:

“Boys, we pulled a close one out, and you know what thatmeans. We’re leading in the Series, eleven games to nine! Now let’s just wrap those other two up, and”

He was interrupted by a bloodcurdling scream from Boley.Boley was standing up, pointing with an expression ofhorror. The athletes had scattered and the trainers were workingthem over; only some of the trainers were using pliersand screwdrivers instead of towels and liniment.

Next to Boley, the big gray -skinned pinch runner was flaton his back, and the trainer was lifting one leg away fromthe body

“Murder!” bellowed Boley. “That fellow is murdering thatfellow!”

The manager jumped down next to him.”Murder?

There isn’t any murder, Boleslaw! What are youtalking about?”

Boley pointed mutely. The trainer stood gaping at him, withthe leg hanging limp in his grip. It was completely removedfrom the torso it belonged to, but the torso seemedto be making no objections; the curious eyes were openbut no longer sparkling; the gray skin, at closer Page 21

hand, seemed metallic and cold.

The manager said fretfully, “I swear, Boleslaw, you’re anuisance. They’re just getting cleaned and oiled, bat-teriesrecharged, that sort of thing. So they’ll be in shape tomorrow, you understand.”

“Cleaned,” whispered Boley.”Oiled.” He stared around ethe room. All of the gray -skinned ones were being some-howdisassembled; bits of metal and glass were sticking outof them. “Are you trying to tell me,” he croaked, “that thosefellows aren’t fellows?”

“They’re ballplayers,” said Manager Magill impatiently.

“Robots.Haven’t you ever seen a robot before? We’re allowedto field six robots on a nine-man team, it’s per-fectlylegal. Why, next year I’m hoping the Commissioner‘11let us play a whole robot team. Then you’ll see some baseball!”

With bulging eyes Boley saw it was true. Except for a handfulof flesh-and-blood players like himself the team wasmade up of man-shaped machines, steel for bones, electricityfor blood, steel and plastic and copper cogs for muscle. “Machines,” said Boley, and turned up his eyes.

The owner’s uncle tapped him on the shoulder wor -

riedly. “It’s time to go back,” he said.

So Boley went back.

He didn’t remember much about it, except that the owner’suncle had made him promise never, never to tell Page 22

anyoneabout it, because it was orders from the Defense Department, you never could tell how useful a time ma-chinemight be in a war. But he did get back, and he wokeup the next morning with all the signs of a hangover andthe sheets kicked to shreds around his feet.

He was still bleary when he staggered down to the coffeeshop for breakfast. Magill the pitching coach, who hadno idea that he was going to be granddaddy to Magill theseries-winning manager, came solicitously over to him.”Bad night, Boley? You look like you have had a badnight.”

“Bad?” repeated Boley. “Bad? Magill, you have got no idea. The owner’s uncle said he would show me some-thingthat would learn me a little humility and, Magill, he camethrough. Yes, he did. Why, I saw a big bronze tablet withthe names of the Series winners on it, and I saw”

And he closed his mouth right there, because he re-memberedright there what the owner’s uncle had said aboutclosing his mouth. He shook his head and shud -

dered. “Bad,” he said, “you bet it was bad.”

Magill coughed. “Gosh, that’s too bad, Boley. I guess I mean, then maybe you wouldn’t feel like pitching an-othercouple of innings well, anyway one inning today, because”

Boley held up his hand. “Say no more, please. You Page 23

wantme to pitch today, Magill?”

“That’s about the size of it,” the coach confessed.

“I will pitch today,” said Boley. “If that is what you wantme to do, I will do it. I am now a reformed char-acter. I will pitch tomorrow, too, if you want me to pitch tomorrow, and any other day you want me to pitch. And ifyou do not want me to pitch, I will sit on the sidelines.

Whatever you want is perfectly all right with me, Magill, because, Magill, hey! Hey, Magill, what are youdoing downthere on the floor?”

So that is why Boley doesn’t give anybody any trouble anymore, and if you tell him now that he reminds you ofDizzy Dean, why he’ll probably shake your hand and thankyou for the compliment even if you’re a sportswriter, even. Oh, there still are a few special little things abouthim, of course not even counting the things like howmany shut-outs he pitched last year (eleven) or how manyhome runs he hit (fourteen). But everybody finds himeasy to get along with. They used to talk about the changethat had come over him a lot and wonder what causedit. Some people said he got religion and others saidhe had an incurable disease and was trying to do goodin his last few weeks on earth; but Boley never said, heonly smiled; and the owner’s uncle was too busy in Washington to be with the team much after that.So now theytalk about other things when Boley’s name comes Page 24

up. For instance, there’s his little business about the pitch-ingmachine when he shows up for batting practice (whichis every morning, these days), he insists on hitting againstreal live pitchers instead of the machine. It’s even inhis contract. And then, every March he bets nickels against’anybody around the training camp that’ll bet with himthat he can pick that year’s Series winner. He doesn’t betmore than that, because the Commissioner naturally doesn’tlike big bets from ballplayers.

But, even for nickels, don’t bet against him, because he isn’tever going to lose, not before 1999.

Page 25

Table of Contents

Start