The Right Fight Read online

  Contents

  COVER

  TITLE PAGE

  PART ONE: AMERICA

  CHAPTER ONE: In the Dugout

  CHAPTER TWO: Ball Games

  CHAPTER THREE: War Games

  CHAPTER FOUR: Time Waits

  PART TWO: AFRICA

  CHAPTER FIVE: For Lost Time

  CHAPTER SIX: Torch

  CHAPTER SEVEN: The Road to Tunisia

  CHAPTER EIGHT: Peaks and Passes

  CHAPTER NINE: Europe by the Toe

  TEASER

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  COPYRIGHT

  There are six teams today in the Eastern Shore Baseball League. Tomorrow there will be none.

  The war is changing everything. And we’re not even in it yet. We will be. We should be. If the big boys asked me, we’d be all the way in already. As of yet, nobody’s asked me.

  Sure feels like the shift is on, though, from peacetime to wartime. And today has a definite feeling of change about it.

  The Sudlersville band is marching around and making noise for us, for the fans, for baseball, for John Philip Sousa, for our way of life, for freedom. Here they come now, right past the dugout, and every man is standing at attention as they go by. They are from Jimmie Foxx’s hometown and Jimmie Foxx’s hometown is right down the road and they’re playing for Jimmie Foxx, who used to play in this very league, if not for this exact team, the Centreville Red Sox. He plays for those other Red Sox now, a little ways north of here. Jimmie Foxx, for crying out loud.

  The Sudlersville band is playing for all this and more because today is the last day of the Eastern Shore League season, and this season is the last one until who knows when.

  Bigger fish to fry tomorrow. But that’s tomorrow. Today, there is no bigger fish than baseball.

  The Nazis hate baseball. This I know. And I hate the Nazis. So it is in their honor that I am going to play as hard as I can today, and beat the stuffing out of the Federalsburg A’s.

  Actually, that’s probably the one completely unchanged thing about today. I always want to beat the stuffing out of the A’s.

  I’m sitting in the dugout with Eddie Popowski, who everybody calls “Pop,” which is kind of a riot since he’s five foot four and he looks young enough that half the guys on the team could be his old man. He’ll never make it to The Show with that physique. He must have used every trick there is to even get to D-League, which is probably why he has such a sharp eye for every detail of the game. Which is why I sit next to him every chance I get.

  “Look at those two guys,” Pop says, and with just a little flick of his head I know who he’s talking about. The McCallum brothers, who play shortstop and second base for the A’s.

  “Yeah, Pop, I see them.”

  “Yeah, you see them. But did you ever see anything like them?”

  “Maybe,” I say coolly, perhaps even childishly.

  Pop knows just what I’m up to. He leans away from me and gives me the slicing sideways stare. “Maybe? Roman, you maybe saw the likes of these two before? No, sir, you did not. Look at them.”

  I am looking. They are taking infield practice right now and turning double plays with the kind of effortless grace that makes the batter not even bother running.

  “They are like one organism out there,” Pop says. “They are a two-headed beast of baseball beauty.”

  Now I give him the sideways stare.

  “I hate those guys,” I finally confess.

  “Yeah?” Pop says, laughing. “Well, you better plan to hate them more, because those guys are going to The Show.”

  And because Pop is a kind person, he leaves out the “… and you’re not” part.

  But, really, I’m okay with that. I was always borderline as a prospect, anyway, and since I tore up my ankle last season and lost a step or three that I never got back, it’s not even a question.

  So I’m not quite quick enough for pro ball, but I’m plenty quick enough for the Army. And since it’s going to be the United States Army and friends who save the world for baseball, and for every other aspect of the American Dream, I kind of consider this a promotion.

  I’d take The Dream over The Show every time.

  Mel Parnell comes and sits next to me on the bench. Mel is the tall and jug-eared talent who is pitching for us today. The conversation with Pop hasn’t managed to make me any more mature or gracious.

  “Mel, would ya be a pal and bean both of the McCallums for me today?”

  Mel first grins broadly then drops all serious on me. “What is it about those guys that gets you so riled up?”

  “You know what it is?” I say. “No guts. Y’know, they fly around like it’s ballet or something, make routine plays look hard. They hotdog it. The shortstop, what’s his name …”

  “Theo,” Pop says.

  “Yeah, well, he’s all spikes when he slides into the bases, but when somebody tries to take out the other jamoke, what’s his name …”

  “Hank,” Pop says.

  “Yeah. You try and take him out with a hard slide that isn’t even illegal, jeez, you gotta chase the guy into center field before you can even touch him.”

  They are both laughing at me now. It’s not entirely clear if they agree with me or if they’re just enjoying my outrage, but I know I’m right. And Pop, anyway, would say something if he disagreed because he doesn’t like it any better than I do when guys don’t play the game right.

  “And that’s why you want me to hit ’em,” Mel says.

  “Yes, please.”

  “Both of them.”

  “Yes, please.”

  Pop slaps me on the back, adds in a little massage thing, too, on my neck muscles like I’m some kind of nut who needs pacifying. “You don’t take no prisoners, do ya, kid?”

  “No, I don’t. And I never will, either. Fight for right. That’s the way I look at it. Fight for the things that are right. Otherwise you lose them.”

  Mel stands all lanky, stretches a bit, starts out of the dugout toward the bull pen. “I gotta go warm up,” he says.

  “So you’ll hit ’em, yeah?”

  “No. C’mon, Roman. I’m not one of those guys. I pitch inside when I have to, to keep ’em honest, but I don’t throw at nobody on purpose.”

  “But you’re a lefty. Anything can happen with a lefty. They’ll just think you went all goofy for a few minutes.”

  “No,” he says, emphatic but not nasty. “But I do admire your passion, Roman, I’ll give you that.”

  “Then give me this. If they crowd the plate, you’ll send ’em a message pitch, high and inside. A little chin music is all I ask, for a pal, for the grand old game, for the final day of the Eastern Shore League, and for doing things right.”

  He turns and starts toward the bull pen. “Well, they do tend to hog the plate. Especially that Theo …”

  Baseball is a tough game. It’s an honor game. It’s a beautiful game, and this is going to be a beautiful baseball day.

  Then I get jolted.

  “Did I really just hear you request two beanings?”

  Startled, I do a sort of hop–midair twist in the direction of the voice. The lovely honey voice, which tells you right away it’s not any of the mugs on this team.

  “I didn’t think you’d come,” I say, kinda goofy but so what. “Hannah, I’m very glad you could make it.”

  “So am I. Only thirty seconds in the dugout and already I know about the violent shenanigans that go on behind the scenes at these clubs.”

  “Oh, that?” I say, pointing over my shoulder in the direction of today’s starting pitcher who is on his way to brush up on his brushback pitch at my request. “That’s not violence, that’s … strategy.”

  “Hmmm,” she says. “Violent strategy.�
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  “No, really. It’s just about the unwritten rules, the integrity of the game. It’s The Code. And The Code says that guys who spike and hide and don’t face the music —”

  “The Code also says no dames in the dugout,” barks Nardini from the far end of the bench. Nardini is a fine left fielder, a little too pugnacious for his own good, a guy you’re usually glad is on your side.

  “Hey,” I bark back, “this is no dame. This is a ballplayer.”

  I turn and give my girl a big, protective smile, even though we have not quite established that she is my girl.

  “Thanks,” she says. “I guess.”

  Hannah is a ballplayer, and a fine one. That’s how I found her and how I fell for her, if you want to know the truth. She played right here on this field earlier this year, for the Centreville Ladies in an exhibition match. She played center field better than the guy we have, and went four-for-four, including an inside-the-park home run where she had to bowl over the catcher to score. That was the moment. I knew I was gonna marry her, or try real hard to, anyway, even before I went over like a dumb ol’ fan to meet her after the game.

  “Looks very much like a dame to me,” says Nardini, who is suddenly not at the other end of the dugout. He is right here giving Hannah a close inspection.

  I step in between them. “Well, you look like a dame to me, Nardini, and nobody’s saying you can’t stay.”

  The guys all burst out in exaggerated laughter, hooting and whistling at Nardini. He’s not the hardest guy in the world to get a rise out of, and he gives me a shove. I stumble back, banging into Hannah, then rush to shove Nardini in return. Before it can get too crazy, all the guys are right there with us, separating us, cooling things, making light of it all.

  “C’mon, boys,” Pop calls loudly, clapping. “Time to take the field. Let’s go, let’s go.”

  We scramble for gloves, hats, whatever, bumping into each other, stepping over each other, and then Nardini is back. He’s carrying his glove in one hand. He steps right up to Hannah and I tense up until he whips off his hat and does almost a bow.

  “Of course you’re welcome in our dugout, miss. It’s an honor to have you.”

  She smiles, bows back, and I am just about reappreciating Nardini until he slips me a sneer that says he’d clobber me right now if she wasn’t watching.

  I have one eye on Nardini, watching him do that distinctive horse-parade high-step run out to his position in left, and I trot to mine at first base. I’m a little disappointed in myself for even letting him distract me this much because at this point, less than a minute after the dustup, I should have forgotten about it already. A little disappointed with myself, and a little impressed with Nardini for his moxie. Nobody else on the team would give me that kind of guff. I’m The Captain.

  I don’t mean the captain of the team. Well, yes, I do, because I am. I’m captain of this team, as I was captain of last year’s team and my high school baseball and football teams. It’s just how it always is, and everybody has pretty much always called me The Captain. Since, I think, even before high school, though I can’t for the life of me remember how that started.

  I can say with certainty I was not the best player on any one of those teams. But just as certainly, I was, rightly, The Captain.

  I could lie and say that I’m not concerned with the whole Captain business, or that I’m humbled by it. But a true Captain doesn’t lie.

  I am immensely proud that The Captain is me.

  Which is probably why I’m still hanging on a little too much to the Nardini incident, which is unusually undisciplined of me.

  Or, maybe …

  Maybe this is why dames don’t belong in dugouts.

  The game itself, for all its significance as the final throw for Eastern Shore League baseball and everything, is kind of not monumental. You might even call it boring, if you weren’t an avid baseball fan and a student of the game. I myself happen to be an avid baseball fan and a student of the game, and I’m tempted, anyway.

  Parnell, though, is dominating. He’s mowin’ ’em down at such a clip it’s hard to tell whether he’s just got the stuff today, or if the A’s have already half packed it in for the season. The first two innings pass the same way: three up, three down. Three strikeouts, two weak grounders, and a pop out to the catcher. Ball never gets out of the infield, and the A’s look like they aren’t really bothered by it. This enrages me. I don’t care what game it is. When you play, you play, play the game right, show respect, fight through at bats, make the pitcher work, at least, run hard down the line, make something happen. You can put your lazy feet up later.

  Not that we’re doing a whole lot better. Down in order in the first. Nardini, our cleanup hitter, is in the box now, but he’s taken two ugly, undisciplined swings at balls in the dirt. Pitcher then gets comical and throws one about three feet above the strike zone, and I swear Nardini looks like he might go for it before pulling himself together.

  “I hate that team,” I grumble to Hannah, who is sitting next to me on the bench. She’s been hunched over, leaning in the direction of the action, charting every pitch.

  “What’s wrong with you?” she says, still locked on the pitching. Another ball in the dirt fails to tempt Nardini this time and it’s 2-2.

  “What do you mean, what’s wrong with me? Are you blind?”

  “Don’t talk to me like I’m an umpire.”

  “Sorry. But it’s plain obvious. The A’s are laying down. If they’re not pulling dirty tricks they’re quitting, and I don’t know which I hate worse.”

  Hannah takes a short, irritable break from watching baseball to turn and watch me, with a very scrunched scowl. “Is it about tomorrow?” she says, gradually unfrowning as the words roll out.

  It’s not. It’s about what’s right.

  “What it?” I say. “There is no it to be about tomorrow. And no, it’s not.”

  She is still staring at me, with bold, obvious, radiating doubt on her face, when the Federalsburg pitcher finally decides to be a man and challenge Nardini with a fastball in the strike zone. The play takes place behind Hannah but in front of me, and I see her instantly wince at the sound of the murderous crack of the bat. She doesn’t even turn to watch as the crowd howls and the ball screeches across the sky to get out of the park in a real hurry.

  Nardini is making a show of it, smiling and waving to the crowd as he circles the bases for, who knows, maybe the last time. Everything’s like that now, like what’s tomorrow gonna bring, and what am I doing right now that I will never do again? A home run is that kind of thing, that’ll make a person think a thing like that, and the crowd’s reaction sounds like they know it, too.

  “Are you not ready for tomorrow, is that it?” says Hannah, one of the world’s great baseball fans completely ignoring a quality baseball moment. All the Red Sox are up off the bench hooting and clapping all around us as Nardini tags the plate and trots our way. It’s a cozy, odd, isolated moment, Hannah and me alone in the middle of it.

  “I’m ready for tomorrow,” I say sternly. “I’m ready for every tomorrow. I’ve been ready for tomorrow forever.”

  “Oh,” she says with an exaggerated sigh and a mocking pat on my knee. “That’s much better. I like it when you’re a blowhard much better than when you’re a grouch.”

  “I am never a bl —”

  “So,” Nardini butts in, talking straight to my lady, “what did you think of that smash?”

  “That’s blowharding,” I say to her, pointing at him.

  She ignores me, goes coy with him. “Oh, I’m really sorry, but I was just talking to my gentleman friend here, and took my eye off the ball for a second. Did you do something quite special?” She throws in some rapid blinking for added effect.

  This is a perfect woman. This is the perfect woman.

  He opens his mouth wide to start explaining, but even big ol’ dumb Nardini knows that if you have to try and tell the story of a perfectly hit baseball and its tri
p across the sky, you’ve already lost. You can never tell the story the ball told itself, and trying just makes it all smaller.

  “Sorry,” he says politely, “please go back to your discussion.”

  He does have respect. He’s a jerk, but he has respect, or something like it, anyway.

  “Maybe I am a little irritable,” I say to her. “A little distracted, sure.”

  As I’m talking, and the usual noisy ruckus of a ballpark roars all around us, Hannah’s eyes squint in an amused tight grin, and she covers her chuckling mouth.

  “What?” I say, and the roar of the game comes closer and closer until Pop is bellowing in my ear, shoving a bat into my hands.

  “You’re on deck, ya big knucklehead,” he says, grabbing me by the shirt and hauling me up.

  There is laughter from the guys all around me, guys slapping my back and poking my sides.

  “Dames in the dugout!” Pop calls out, flailing like a little crazy man. “Dames in the dugout! This is why.” He stops short. Takes off his hat, speaks like an altar boy to Hannah. “No offense, miss,” he says.

  “None at all,” she says, then flamboyantly spits onto the floor.

  “Whoa!” the dugout erupts at the move, and as I am shoved out in the direction of the on-deck circle, I am aware of her having the dugout — my dugout — in the palm of her hand.

  I am still thinking it as I take my practice swings. I glance over in her direction, and as soon as I do, she looks at me furiously, waving me away with both hands.

  She’s completely right. No part of my mind should be in that dugout when I’m about to hit. Jeez, she’s a better baseball man than me at this point.

  Ed Hall is batting ahead of me and, like always, he’s giving the pitcher a heavy time. He never wastes an at bat, and rarely swings at any junk. The pitcher’s nibbling, pitching him careful, trying not to get hit, rather than trying to get the guy out. A pitcher deserves what he gets when he takes that approach.

  And what he gets is a walk. So there’s a man on first when I come up.

  I dig in quick, like I always do, one-two-three quick scrapes of the ground with each foot until my spikes grab good, and I’m ready.