Mudville Read online

  “Wow, that's c—commitment.” I'd started to say “crazy,” which is a better word for it.

  “We can play on Labor Day,” Peter says cheerfully, like it's all in fun. “It'll be like the old days, right? Everyone will have the day off.”

  “What's the hurry? We barely have a team ourselves. We could even play next year.”

  “This is when we're supposed to play,” Peter replies seriously, so low only I can hear. “That's why the rain stopped. He was waiting for the right moment. This is it.” I guess that “he” is Ptan Teca, the old ghost who's got nothing better to do than fix baseball games.

  Peter raises his voice again. “We can have a picnic and fireworks. It's not the Fourth of July, but it's almost as good.”

  “Sounds great,” I lie. Then I think, Maybe it won't be so bad. So what if the Pirates were perennial champs? With Sturgis pitching for us, it would be a close game. We could get lucky and score a couple of runs. Who knows? Maybe we'd surprise them.

  Sturgis turns to watch the other boys. They're ignoring us, continuing with their game.

  He pulls out a yellow baseball cap that's been scrunched up and stuffed in his back pocket, hidden under his shirt. It's tattered at the edges and looks older than him. He shakes out the wrinkles and puts it on, pulling the brim down to shade his eyes.

  The hat has SB stitched on it. It's an old-school Sinister Bend cap. I wonder how old it is.

  “I'll be on their team, of course,” he says.

  As far as anyone knows, it's a friendly rivalry and we're all good sports. I even stay for lunch. Peter grills up a few dozen hot dogs, his wife brings out a huge bowl of potato salad and some big bottles of soda, and we have a little barbecue.

  While we eat, Peter introduces the Sinister Bend team. The names and faces blur for me, and it takes a second to sink in that my friend Ty is also on their team. When he's introduced, he just nods, like we've never met.

  Sturgis is at the far side of the table, acting aloof. He talks a bit to the other kids but barely talks to me. If he thinks we're still friends, he's wrong. I don't know if he's playing for Sinister Bend out of loyalty or just because he's mad at me for dissing his dad. Either way, I taught him to pitch, and I stuck up for him, and I think it's pretty low to go slinking off in the night to join another team.

  I never cared much about winning. I just like the game. But now I realize with a burning in my stomach that I must beat Sturgis. It's not just about Moundville beating Sinister Bend, but me personally beating him. I want to pound his fastball right back at him, knock it right over his head and out of the ballpark, taking his stupid baseball cap with it.

  That's how I feel, but to watch me, you'd think I was at a wedding reception. I'm all smiles and pleased to meetcha and pass the potato salad. I have my game face on.

  Peter offers us a ride after lunch, but I decide to walk. Sturgis decides to walk, too. And so I set out for home, quietly fuming, with Sturgis trailing about ten paces back. Once, I stop to let him catch up. He pauses to stamp some of the mud off his shoes and doesn't stop until I resume walking myself.

  Eventually, I turn around and face him.

  “Well?”

  “Well what?”

  “Do you want to talk about this?”

  “What is there to talk about?” He tries to walk past me, and I push him in the chest.

  “You being a traitor.”

  He shrugs. “I'm a free agent.”

  “I helped you learn how to pitch,” I remind him.

  “I don't need your stupid junkball to win. I'll throw nothin’ but fastballs and strike you babies out.” He's not playing it cool anymore. I can see his face turning red, at least where it isn't scarred.

  “Like to see you sneak one past me.” I poke him in the chest again.

  “It won't just go past you. It'll go through you,” he says.

  “What the heck does that mean?”

  “It means you're not just getting fastballs, Roy. You're getting fastballs right in your ear hole.”

  “You just try. I'll rip that fake ear off your head and cram it down your throat.”

  “That'll be hard to do when you're unconscious.”

  “That's all you can do, huh? Throw things at people? Like crab apples. I'm sure your dad will be real proud.”

  “Yesterday you put down my dad, and now you make fun of my ear. You really hit below the belt, don't you?”

  “Better than being a lousy traitor.”

  “Who did I betray, huh? You?”

  “The team. All of us.”

  “Those kids don't even like me,” he says.

  “It's not true,” I say lamely. It is kind of true. The other guys like having Sturgis on their team, but I don't think they like Sturgis.

  “You never really tried to make them like you,” I remind him. “You yell at them all the time, and you sulked when you got taken out of a game, and …” I try to think of his other crimes. “You plunked David that time.”

  “You can't make guys like you,” he says. “All you can do is strike them out.”

  “Oh, right.”

  “Or plug 'em,” he says. He mimes a throw and makes a little whistling noise like a missile flying. “Kaboom!” He throws up his hands, his long fingers splayed out all over. “Keep your chin up, Roy,” he says, and marches on ahead toward home.

  The rumors take flight and ride on the wind back to Moundville. By the time we get to town, there is already a buzz in the air and whispers on the street. The rematch is on! Moundville and Sinister Bend will play! Pedestrians whisper as we pass by and point us out to their friends. Cars slow down so people can get a look at us. I wonder if it's my imagination, but when a car beeps its horn, it's followed by another and another. A few people on the sidewalk clap a little as we pass. Pretty soon, there's so much honking and clap-ping it sounds like a parade of geese and trained seals is marching through town.

  Nobody is more excited than my dad.

  “You know I can't pick sides,” he says. “I have to stay impartial. So I'm just rooting for both teams to do well. Boy, this will be so great for the town, won't it? And great for my business. Every person in town will see that sign on the outfield fence and ask about it, and the word will go around that we put down the grass, that we're the ones who brought base-ball back to Moundville. And they'll think, You know, we could use a new lawn and a patio or maybe a pergola. Plus, I can get a concession stand. T-shirts, even.”

  “Sounds good, Dad.”

  I'm glad he can make a profit out of my impending disgrace.

  On Tuesday morning, the ballpark is a madhouse. We had occasional onlookers before, but now there's an actual crowd. They hoot and holler at us as we gather at the mound for a short team conference.

  “You've probably all heard the rumors by now,” I announce.

  “I hear we're playing Sinister Bend next week,” says Steve.

  “Six days, actually.”

  “And Sturgis has quit the team.” Shannon sounds hoarse. “Is that true?”

  “He's playing for the Sinister Bend team now,” I admit.

  “No way!” Kazuo reels in disbelief.

  Apparently, not everyone has heard the rumors.

  “What's up with that?” says Rita furiously. “I ought to …” She can't think of what she ought to do. I assume it's something violent.

  “No way we can win now,” says Carlos.

  “Never liked that guy anyway,” says Miggy casually.

  “Benedict Arnold,” says Steve bitterly.

  “Maybe if we go back to him and apologize for… for whatever he thinks we did?” suggests Shannon.

  “It's not about us,” I tell her. “He's just loyal to Sinister Bend.”

  “I don't understand!” says Shannon.

  “I hate Sinister Bend,” says Tim.

  They continue to complain and commiserate for several minutes, until Kazuo ends it with a question.

  “Who's pitching for us?”

 
Everyone is quiet, then looks at Rita. Rita looks at me in fright—either because she might not be the starting pitcher or because she might be. It's hard to say.

  “I don't know yet,” I tell them.

  “Is there any way we can win?” asks Carlos.

  “I don't know,” I tell him. “Probably not.”

  “Do we have to play at all?” asks Shannon.

  “You're darn right we have to play!” says Tim. “It's Sinister Bend!”

  “So what?” Shannon shrugs.

  “We shouldn't have out-of-towners on the team,” he grumbles. “They don't understand.”

  “Well, are we going to practice, or are we just going to complain?” says David in disgust. He heads out to first base. “Who's batting?” We look at him in disbelief.

  “I'll bat,” says Rita. “Just throw me some slow, fat pitches and I'll pretend they're Sturgis's head.”

  “I can pitch a little,” says Kazuo. “I can pitch BP anyway.”

  Pretty soon we're all in position and playing ball.

  We run the drill the usual way, trying to get batting practice and fielding practice in by taking turns at the plate and moving around the field to fill in the gaps.

  The crowd of spectators mostly stays out of our way, but they also give us plenty of unsolicited advice.

  “Keep your wrists together!” a fellow shouts while David is batting. David whiffs on the first pitch from Kazuo. It's embarrassing because Kazuo is lobbing grapefruits at him.

  “Open up your stance!” shouts another. David whiffs again.

  “Go with the pitch!” shouts the first fellow. David swings late and barely nicks the ball.

  “Go the other way!” shouts the second. David swings early and pops the ball foul. It's fielded by an onlooker, who tosses it back to Kazuo.

  “Try changing your arm angle,” he tells Kazuo. “You want your arm to be at two o'clock.”

  “I can't concentrate!” David complains, throwing the bat on the ground.

  “Get used to it,” I tell him. “It'll be a lot worse on game day.”

  New kids show up, too, wanting to play. I have to try them out, just in case one is a brilliant pitcher. None of them are, and I have to tell most of them to wait until next year—they don't know how to play, and we don't have time to teach them.

  We do keep one kid. He's no bigger than a peanut and knows about two words of English. He's got a glove so old it might have been used by George Wright.

  “Baseball,” he tells me, nodding happily at the diamond.

  “Do you have any experience?”

  “Search me,” he says, smiling and nodding enthusiastically.

  “Do you know what position you want to play?” I ask.

  “Search me,” he says again, with the same nod.

  “Third base?” I point to the base. “Er, beso tres?”

  “Sí!”

  He runs out there and proves within minutes that he was born to play the hot corner. What he lacks in height, he makes up for with enthusiasm and the ability to jump about four feet in the air. He also knows the fundamentals and barks orders and instructions to the other fielders— mostly in Spanish, but he seems to know what he's talking about.

  “What's your name?” David wants to know.

  “Search me,” the boy tells him with a nod.

  “Pleased to meet you, Google,” says David. Pretty soon we're all calling him Google, even after Miggy figures out that the kid's real name is Félix.

  “He says he's from Miami,” says Miggy.

  “I thought they spoke English in Miami,” says Steve.

  “Search me,” says Google, followed by a string of Spanish.

  “He's from Cuba by way of Miami,” Miggy corrects him-self.

  “How does anyone come from Cuba?” asks David. “I thought they didn't allow it.”

  Miggy puts the question to Google in Spanish, but Google just shrugs.

  “Search me,” he says.

  “He says it's a long story,” says Miggy.

  With good leather at third base, I move Miggy to left field, where he gets into less trouble, and demote Carlos to batboy. Carlos doesn't mind, so long as he can hang out with the team.

  Google takes Carlos under his wing, explaining the du-ties of a batboy in elaborate detail—in Spanish, of course.

  “He's kind of bossy,” Carlos tells me. “He sure knows a lot about baseball, though.”

  Finding a third baseman and getting a minor upgrade in left field don't make up for losing our pitcher. Steve says he can handle it, but I'm not sure he can, and I don't want to lose him at shortstop. I think the only thing we can do is teach Rita how to throw a fastball.

  “Your screwball will be more effective if you can set it up with a fastball,” I explain to her. It's late Wednesday after-noon, which gives her about four days to develop a skill guys spend ten years learning. The pressure takes all the romance out of holding her hand, trying to show her the right grip.

  “I told you, I can't throw straight,” she says.

  “If you can just straighten out a little bit, you'll be okay,” I tell her. “Try overthrowing it a bit.”

  She throws some balls to me, but even when she straightens them out, she can't get any smoke on them. I begin to wonder if Kazuo should pitch, with Google at second base and Miggy back at third. The thought doesn't thrill me. I only think of Kazuo because he can pitch left-handed.

  Rita is rearing back to try again when a stocky guy, about thirty-five years old, comes marching in and grabs the ball from her.

  “Let me demonstrate,” he says. He shows her a four-seam grip and starts to say something.

  “Thanks, but we've got it under control,” I tell him.

  “No, no you don't,” he tells me. “If she throws like that, she'll get shelled.” He turns back to Rita, sticking the base-ball in her face.

  “Excuse me, sir.” She backs up a few paces.

  “Come on, just let me show you a four-seamer. I want us to win this thing,” he says. He starts modeling the pitch, telling her to look at how he anchors his feet and keeps his elbow in and finds the balance point and turns his hand over.

  “Really, sir, we appreciate it, but we need to have focus,” I tell him.

  “Listen, kid,” he says, “I don't know who put you in charge, but I've seen you kids practicing, and you'll get destroyed. You got no pitching.”

  “The team put me in charge,” I tell him.

  “Your pitcher's going to get shelled if she throws like that.”

  “Hey, buddy, what's the problem?” A thick hand takes the man by the elbow, and another takes the baseball from him.

  It's Frank. Right behind him is Lou.

  “I was just trying to help,” the man says meekly.

  “The kid told you he's got it under control,” says Frank.

  “They're going to lose!” the man shouts. He turns to the crowd, looking for support.

  “Hey, I believe in these kids,” says Lou. “Are you saying that you don't?” He says it more to the crowd than to the man.

  It's a short battle for public support, won by Lou.

  “Horn out, jerk!”

  “Leave the kids alone!”

  “Let them practice.”

  “Mind your own business, chump!”

  The group cheers when the man finally backs off the field, looking glum.

  “Thanks,” I say to Frank and Lou.

  “Hey, no problem, Roy. I guess Bobby there just wants to relive his glory days.”

  “Bobby? You know that guy?”

  “That's Bobby Fitz. He used to play ball, you know.”

  I remember the boy on the old video who mows down the opposition in the top of the first but is injured trying to take an extra base. “My dad says he's the best pitcher Moundville ever had.”

  “Great hitter, too,” adds Lou. “Almost a better hitter than he was a pitcher.”

  “Are you kidding? He had an ERA in the decimals.” Frank shakes his
head at Lou's ignorance.

  “I did say ‘almost,’” Lou protests.

  “He could steal bases, too,” says Frank. “He was an all-around great player. Had all the tools. Should have gone pro. Problem was, you know, the nagging injuries.”

  “And the fact he maxed out at five foot six.” Lou crouches down to illustrate. “Not too many pros that size.”

  “And that was him?” I can't believe it. My dad talks about him all the time. They used to be good friends. I never met him, though.

  “That's the guy. If he's acting like a jerk, it's just because he's really fanatical about Moundville baseball.”

  “Just a sec!” I take off in a sprint and chase the balding man about a block and a half. He's just getting into his car, maybe heading back to his insurance job in Sutton.

  “Hey, Mr. Fitz!”

  “Call me Bobby.”

  “Can you teach Rita how to throw a fastball?”

  “That's what I was trying to do.”

  We walk back to the field, and he picks up where he left off. I don't know what the magic is, but pretty soon Rita is throwing straight. Not fast, but for now I'll settle for a straightball.

  It's lonely at home. My dad and Sturgis are talking shop and cooking something together in the kitchen. Sturgis proves to have the same improvisational flair. Under my dad's tutelage, he invents the enchilada stew.

  Over dinner, my dad tells us he found a place in Sutton where he can rent a food service tent and a big grill. “I can get everything I need for the game,” he says cheerfully.

  “Um, what are you going to cook?” I ask nervously.

  “Just hot dogs and stuff.”

  I'm relieved. Even my dad can't mess up hot dogs that much.

  “So what's in this?” I ask a few minutes later, taking a forkful of stew and looking skeptically at a piece of meat. “Is it rabbit meat ?” I give Sturgis a hard, squinty look I hope is menacing.

  “No, it's chicken,” my dad says, confused.

  Sturgis just squints back at me. “There's beans in it, too,” he says. “You love beans, don't you, Roy?”

  “Huh?” my dad says. “I'd say Roy is ambivalent about beans.”

  “Oh, I bet he'd like to feast on beans,” says Sturgis.