The Right Fight Read online

  Only, apparently, I’m not.

  High heat, fastball on the outside corner. Strike one, caught looking.

  High heat, fastball on the outside corner. Strike two, caught looking.

  Changeup, looking exactly like the guy’s fastball delivery, same arm speed and angle, only, here it comes, here it comes …

  It’s about seven miles per hour slower, and I am so early and overaggressive in hacking away at it, I probably have enough time to reset and swing again before it arrives.

  There is striking out, then there is striking out.

  As I trudge the seventy-five miles back to the dugout, the team, and the stadium, are as quiet as they were loud just a couple of minutes before.

  He embarrassed me, that pitcher. That mediocre junk merchant made me look like I didn’t even belong in the Red Sox system, in the Eastern Shore League, in D-ball at all.

  And on that long walk back to the home dugout, I realize he did the right thing. He did exactly what should have been done.

  Because I don’t belong here.

  Batting sixth. Sixth. I have been steadily migrating my way down the lineup this year. Started out batting second. I was never really fast enough to be a leadoff man, so for me, second was top of the order. Then I was moved down. Third, very briefly, as third is usually the spot for your best hitter. Fourth, cleanup, very briefly, as cleanup is usually the spot for your most potent power hitter, and that was always Nardini. But I was The Captain, so if I needed to move into a spot, the spot was mine until I proved that it wasn’t. Which I promptly did.

  Maybe that’s one of the reasons Nardini has a bit of a chip about me. Because they gave me his job, even if only for a while, without my ever earning it.

  I’m already getting a little tired of saying this, but maybe Nardini’s right.

  I keep walking to the dugout. I see it there. I recognize the general outlines of teammates and the completely fine-tuned features of the girl I’m going to marry, and I hear the relentless silence all around. But the dugout is taking forever to get to me.

  Then, fifth. Fifth is a good spot to hit, a place I felt comfortable, a place I could do some damage, knock in some runs. Fifth was a good fit.

  Then, I blinked, and I was reading the lineup card, and there I was, sixth.

  You are not a prospect if you’re hitting sixth. You’re okay, a decent ballplayer, but not really a threat. You’re not one of the guys like shortstops and pitchers they hide at the bottom of the lineup, but you’re not far away, either. Guys hitting sixth are on their way up or on their way down, but they are not who a Class D minor league team is really thinking seriously about.

  And when you are The Captain, and you used to be a real prospect, and you have cascaded your way down the lineup all year, and now, at lowly sixth, you get embarrassed on three pitches by a guy who’s probably already thinking about if his old job on that Chesapeake crabbing boat is still waiting for him, then things are probably happening the way they should. Times and the world and situations are shifting, and if I couldn’t pick up the spin on that changeup and know it for what it was, then that is because I am no longer what I have been for a long time: a privileged, lucky guy in spikes and a soft hat, playing games and just hoping that the sun shines today.

  I am falling out of baseball, the greatest thing in the world.

  But I’m falling up. Into something much, much greater.

  The walk, from my humiliation to the dugout of the last game of the 1941 Centreville Red Sox season, is endless but finally ending, and I have again been so caught up in something else that I haven’t even realized what I have been looking directly at, what has been ringing in my ears.

  They are all up, my teammates, clapping for me. Clapping that clapping where their hands are way high above their heads, like you do for something truly extra special that deserves a higher something than a standing ovation. It’s spreading up into the stands, and the fans’ appreciation is wonderful, and confusing and stunning, and I’m almost angry because hey, I struck out, and did so like a guy who had never seen a baseball before.

  But. Oh. Now I get it. I get it that they get it. Word filters, and people know I am switching uniforms for good.

  My ankle doesn’t allow me to torque into the swing the way I once did. So I’m hedging, guessing, anticipating the pitch, hoping. My average has dropped to .239.

  London was bombed, again, mercilessly last week. Rubble. The little kids have all been moved out of the city to places far and wide to be out of the line of fire. There are no kids in London. Here, we’re playing baseball. I’m playing baseball. Badly.

  The whole crowd is on their feet by the time I reach the dugout. Even the rotten Federalsburg A’s are applauding, and that’s really giving me the willies.

  Fighting for my baseball life is so obviously stupid right now.

  Fighting for baseball, though. That I can do. That makes all the sense in the world.

  I leave for basic training tomorrow. When I signed up, I scheduled it for the very first day after the season was over. We are not in the war yet. But we should be. I, for one, am going to be well-trained when we get in.

  It’s really crashing noise as I enter the dugout, but that noise has become a tremendous nothing. Though I’m almost knocked forward onto my face by all the serious poundings on the back, I plow my way right through the onslaught to get to the dedicated follower of the game who is not even supposed to be there. I drop down hard on one knee.

  “Marry me,” I say, sounding as inhuman as a telephone operator droning, number, please?

  Hannah looks at me with a startled hop, like her eyes are doing a quick jumping jack. Then, she recoups.

  “Sorry,” she says, brushing me aside, craning her neck to look around me, “I think Mel Parnell’s going to bunt the runner over.”

  Wow.

  I whip around in the direction of the action on the field.

  “They’re hitting Parnell seventh? They’re hitting the pitcher right behind me?”

  “Yes,” Hannah says to the back of my muddled, preoccupied head.

  Parnell lays down a textbook bunt. Moves the runner over to second like I was unable to do, and he even beats the throw to first.

  There is one out — mine — in the bottom of the second. It’s a 1-0 game at the end of the season between the teams that are in fourth and fifth place in the league, a league that isn’t even going to exist in a few hours. Suddenly, it’s a game. And suddenly, the game seems to matter.

  “Yes?” I say, looking back into the openness of her face. “Yes? Really?”

  “Yes,” she assures me. “You are hitting sixth, and the pitcher is hitting seventh. And he’s hitting better than you.”

  There have always been, in my mind, two complete indignities that might well make life no longer worth living. Those would be: backing down from a righteous fight, and hitting in the bottom third of the order.

  I will never back down from a righteous fight. That I can pledge.

  As for the other thing … I’m dangerously close, and hearing it said back at me out loud is somehow even more demoralizing than I had braced for. Not to mention she has completely bypassed the other small question I was asking.

  “And, yes,” she says, brushing me aside once again.

  The eighth hitter is our catcher, Brock, who is a wonderful guy, has twice brought huge pans of an amazing penuche fudge made by his mother that we all devoured like locusts on a field of wheat. He handles the pitching staff like a magician, and would be a dynamic hitter, if the rules were changed to make the ball four times its current size. He simply cannot hit professional-level pitching with any consistency.

  First pitch, he makes contact, which was his assignment, and lofts a lazy but useful fly ball to right field. Both runners tag up and advance safely.

  Two outs, runners on second and third. Suddenly, all the guys who are not expected to produce are finding the grit and moxie to get the job done in the best baseball scratching
and clawing I have seen in a very long time. They are finally acting like the next run matters. In this game. Now.

  The game is transformed, like everybody somehow now understands. It’s exciting, stupid exciting.

  Ninth batter. Our shortstop, Corky, who plays the position like a spider plays flies. Nothing gets by him. Plays his position as well as it is possible to play it. So why does he seem so surprised and befuddled every time a pitcher throws a ball in his direction? Guys named Corky can never hit.

  “Did you say you will marry me?” I say to Hannah.

  “I would have a better chance of driving in those runners than that kid does,” she says.

  “Yes,” I say, urgently, “but …”

  “Pay attention,” she says, turning me in the direction of the action.

  Since I have no choice, I watch the action despite the action being no action at all. The pitcher overwhelms Corky with one fastball, then blows a second straight past him. At least the kid is going down swinging, if that’s what you want to call it. Pitcher winds up and we all await the inevitable fastball and the accompanying pleasant breeze to be caused by Corky’s helpless swatting at it.

  Except of course this day is different, and Corky sort of throws himself and his bat out over the plate and the ball bumps into the bat and the right fielder is caught by such surprise that he’s not even started his run in when the ball just makes it over the first baseman’s reach and nestles into the shallow outfield grass without even a bounce. The runner on third scores, then the runner on second chugs around and scores without drawing a throw. Corky has delivered, the crowd goes delirious, and this final baseball game is now three to nothing in the hands of the good guys.

  I turn back around to Hannah, feeling so triumphant and full of the rightness of things I make my approach a second time, more forcefully, back on my knee but not back on my heels this time.

  “Marry me, Hannah,” I say.

  She looks down at me with a squint of conflict crisscrossing her features.

  “How can I do that at this point? As of now, you’re officially the worst hitter on the team.”

  This is getting really rough.

  “For goodness’ sake, marry the poor guy,” Popowski says.

  “Can I wait ’til the end of the inning and see if Corky asks me first?” she says.

  My knee is starting to hurt. Not as much as my pride, however.

  “Sounds fair to me,” Pop says graciously.

  I remain on my knee while play resumes and Hannah acts all engrossed. I do not take my eyes off her face as she eyes the action. But she cannot suppress a sweeping beautiful smile, and both her hands reach out to take both of mine.

  The excitement of the moment catches on, reaching all the way out onto the field, where Corky cannot contain himself, tries to steal second on the first pitch, and is thrown out.

  “Well,” Hannah says, “I suppose you’ll do, then. That was horrible baserunning.”

  I have to confess that focus is a struggle by the time I take up my position at first base again. I am thinking of bigger things, of reporting for duty, and of engagement to Hannah, her waiting for me while I am away in the Army, and really it is time for this game and this season to be over, so we can make the world safe for all the other games and all the other seasons.

  But then come the McCallums.

  Ground ball, slap hitters, the both of them, which is why they hit, deservedly, at the bottom of the order, seventh and eighth, and why it’s taken so long for them to come up to bat. Up first is Theo, the shortstop. Suddenly, focus doesn’t seem to be a problem for me. I crouch in anticipation, watching Brock setting up behind the plate and calling for an inside fastball. Parnell goes into his windup.

  But Parnell seems to be having control issues. First pitch is outside. Second pitch is in the dirt.

  Come on, Mel, look at him crowding the plate. He’s owning it. Take it back, send him a little chin music. Go after him, it’s your right.

  Third pitch is a big looping curveball that fools Theo completely, leaving him flailing and almost falling. It was a fine pitch. But it was not inside, and now Theo McCallum is digging those spikes right back in, crowding home plate like he holds the mortgage on it.

  “Time!” I yell to the umpire as I stride across to the mound.

  Normally, conferences at the mound are called by the catcher or the coach. But I am still The Captain after all, and this needs to be addressed.

  “What’s up, Cap?” Mel says.

  Brock has come trotting out, too. “Yeah, Roman, what’s the problem?”

  “We need to pitch him inside.”

  “But I have him where I want him.”

  “Where you want him is off the plate. You let him stay where he is and I promise he’ll have you. Trust me on this.”

  The two of them exchange looks, like they know better, but I’m The Captain, right?

  We take our positions again. Mel winds up and sends another off-speed pitch out over the plate. Theo attacks it, and slashes a line drive right over my head that thankfully lands foul by a foot.

  Parnell half looks at me, and I growl, loud enough for pretty much every guy on the field to hear.

  Windup, pitch, sizzling fastball.

  Plunk. Ouch. Right in the ribs. That was not exactly the plan. He was just supposed to brush the guy back, get him uncertain. Theo pauses for several seconds, a little hunched over, before dropping the bat and trotting to first.

  “You all right, kid?” I say as I stand next to him at the bag. It’s a professional courtesy, as I’m not all that concerned.

  He says nothing. I hold him close to the base as Parnell winds up and throws the first pitch to his brother.

  Same pitch, same speed, same spot, only Hank hits the deck before he can get hit. Guys on the Federalsburg bench start barking, some of our guys bark back. Parnell ignores them, winds up, and comes hard inside again.

  Hank is ready, though, and fists a grounder to the left side of the infield. Our third baseman scoops it up and fires to second to start the double play. Only the ball and Theo McCallum reach the second baseman at the same time, and Theo hits the guy like it’s a football tackle, driving his shoulder into our guy’s hip, and sending him head over heels through the air and hard into the dirt. There is no double play. Hank is already safe at first. I don’t even know where the ball has gone, but it doesn’t matter.

  We have a rhubarb.

  Nardini is somehow the first guy to get to Theo McCallum, bombing in from left field. The two of them are locked in a kind of death-grip grapple, rolling into the outfield trying to get a decent shot at each other. I run in their direction as I realize both benches have cleared. Coaches and umpires are trying to get between guys, punches are flying, big haymakers, and it’s difficult to even tell who’s hitting who. Nardini is on top of Theo and then another guy jumps Nardini from behind so I hustle to help.

  Then, I’m on my face with a mouthful of turf. I’m rocking and bucking to try and get the jerk off of me but he keeps jamming my head down and I’m getting nowhere until, suddenly, somewhere, I find the strength to flip him and send him flying.

  I jump up and turn around to find it wasn’t me flipping him after all.

  “Hannah!” I shout, horrified.

  She has Hank McCallum from behind, a pretty solid choke hold around his throat with her forearm.

  “Ain’t hittin’ no dame,” he croaks, his eyes bulgy and his face red with probably some mixture of embarrassment, outrage, and, well, strangulation.

  “Hannah,” I say again, rushing up and prying her loose, bundling her back toward the dugout.

  The fight is petering out, guys mostly shoving and puffing up at each other. There is shouting — some of it aimed in my direction — but cooler heads are prevailing. If heads that will brawl in such a meaningless situation can ever be called cool.

  I’m actually laughing by the time Hannah and I sit on the bench together.

  She turns a furiou
s glare on me that stops the laughter like I’ve been corked. I can smile, though. “The Fighting Bucyks,” I say, nodding big approval. “I like it.”

  She acknowledges my wit with a frown and nothing else. She reaches up to her neck, pulls something out from under her blouse and up over her head like a necklace or dog tags.

  “You have to wear this,” she says, holding it draped over her fingers for me to see.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a scapular. If I’m going to wait for you, you’re going to wear this for me.”

  I take it from her and examine it more closely. It’s a portrait of Christ, on a one-inch square of fabric, strung with a thin strip of the same stuff. Her face is pinched and serious as she looks back and forth between Jesus’s face and mine.

  I slip it over my fat head — it’s a close call whether it’ll get down, but, success.

  Her face unpinches. She smiles. She reaches out and gently flicks away some small pieces of turf from my lips.

  Nardini adds absolutely nothing to the moment when he plunks down on the bench on the other side of Hannah.

  “Hey,” he says, like nothing unusual has happened. “Game’s starting back up.”

  “Argh. Hannah, I gotta —”

  “No, you don’t,” Nardini says. “You’re ejected.”

  “What? I didn’t even —”

  “Yeah, right, neither did I. That’s why I’m ejected, too. If it’s any consolation, there aren’t any McCallums left in the game, either.”

  “Well,” I say, “I suppose it is.”

  The game retakes its shape, and the Eastern Shore League resumes its steady march to the conclusion, with me as a spectator. Never would have seemed right before. But it is now.

  “This is kinda cozy, huh?” Nardini says, scooting a bit closer to my Hannah.

  “The fighting might not be over yet,” I growl.

  “Ya think not?” he says, scanning the field obliviously for trouble spots. Hannah elbows me playfully.

  The game eventually does end, as all games eventually do.

  It’s a quiet end, the A’s going down without a fight, so to speak. Once the McCallums were out of it that was pretty much guaranteed. There is no attempt at players shaking hands. They just turn to their respective dugouts to pack it in. The crowd applauds enthusiastically, on their feet and loud because a Centreville crowd appreciates. Then, unexpectedly, the Sudlersville marching band is fired up and marching back in from right field, while over the crackly, tinny Tannoy public address system, a deep baritone somebody tries to sound important about something.