back yard,’ yelled Roger, and curled his lip at McCracken.
The first pitch was a curve in the dirt, followed by a change-up low, another curve at the ankles, and something that may have been a screwball that hit two feet in front of the plate. Roger trotted to first. A fourth run scored, and the bases were still loaded.
On the first pitch to me McCracken came right down the middle with his fastball. I got part of it with the end of the bat, a dying quail just beyond the second-base man’s reach. Runs five and six scored. Lindy Travis ended the inning.
McCracken’s team tried to get all six runs back in the bottom of the first. They went out one-two-three.
I bounced around at second base, feeling as though I had insects crawling all over my body I wanted the ball to be hit to me. I dreaded the ball being hit to me.
McCracken walked the first batter in the second inning, but that was it. His curve started snapping over the plate at the last second, pitches that had been breaking into the dirt now crossed the plate as strikes at the knees.
We led 6–0 after three innings. But McCracken Construction got a run in the fourth, one in the fifth when Byron dropped a fly ball with two out, and two in the sixth with a single and a long home run by McCracken himself.
I managed to hit another Texas League single, but grounded into an inning-ending double play in the sixth.
McCracken and his team were at last catching on that Roger was little more than a journeyman pitcher with a lot of guile. He had a screwball that floated up to the plate like a powder puff, only to break in on the batter’s hands at the last instant, usually resulting in a polite pop-up to the pitcher or shortstop. His fastball was nothing, and, knowing that, he usually threw it out of the strike zone. But his change-up was a beauty, like carrying the ball to the plate. Roger’s pitching motion never changed an iota; a hitter would be finished his swing and on his way to the bench, shaking his head, by the time the ball reached the catcher.
The seventh went scoreless.
We got a run in the eighth on a double and a single, but McCracken’s team got two in the bottom, aided again by Byron’s misjudgment of a fly ball.
It was obvious that Roger was tired. His face was streaked with sweat and grime, he took off his cap after almost every pitch. To compound matters, we went out on four pitches in the top of the ninth, allowing Roger only about two minutes’ rest.
With our team leading 7–6, the first batter in the last of the ninth hit a clean single up the middle. The next sacrificed him to second. (I managed to cover first on the sacrifice – my greatest fear was that I would botch that play.) The third batter swung very late on a change-up and sent the ball like a bullet just to the inside of first. Lindy Travis lunged for the ball and, by accident, it ended up in his glove. He threw from a sitting position to Roger, covering the base, for the second out. The base runner advanced to third.
McCracken was at the plate. As he dug in he sent a steady stream of words toward the mound. Though I couldn’t hear, I knew he was baiting Roger. Well, if we lost, there would at least be enough profits from the concessions to pay my employees off and buy Roger a bus ticket for somewhere not too far away. All I hoped was that the ball wouldn’t be hit to me.
McCracken, even though he was right-handed, hammered one down the right-field line on a 2–2 count. Byron actually ran in a step or two before he judged it properly; then he ran frantically down the line, his back to the plate. The ball nearly hit him on the head as it plunked onto the soft grass a foot outside the foul line.
Roger delivered a fastball in the strike zone.
It was, of course, the last pitch McCracken was expecting. Roger had thrown nothing but junk the whole game, using his fastball only as a set-up pitch, always, like McCracken, throwing it out of the strike zone.
McCracken swung just late enough to send a gentle fly to right-center. The center fielder waved Byron off and clasped the ball for the final out.
At our bench Roger wiped his face and hair with a towel.
‘You get the rest of the gate receipts and the concession money,’ he said. ‘One of McCracken’s men will count it with you.’
‘You didn’t bet against us, did you?’
‘Of course not. I bet it all on us. Which, incidentally, will increase your profits considerably. Even after I take my percentage.’
‘What if we’d lost?’
‘It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve left a town on foot with people throwing things at me.’
Roger collected his winnings from the mayor, and stuffed the envelopes and stacks of bills into his equipment bag. He settled his debts, then bought the entire team supper, plus unlimited ice cream, at the Springtime Café. He tipped Mrs. Grover twenty dollars.
Later, while Byron and I again turned our backs, he opened the safe and stuffed it full of bills.
‘I’ll be on the road before daylight,’ he said. He gave Byron and me an extra twenty each. At bedtime we said our goodbyes.
Though I was dead tired, I forced myself to only half sleep; I jumped awake every time the old house creaked in the night, and I was up and at the window as soon as I heard Roger’s step on the stairs.
As I suspected, he did not leave immediately, but took the gardening tools from the trunk and hoisted them to his shoulder, careful not to let them rattle. There had been a heavy thunderstorm about ten o’clock and the air was pure and sweet as spring water.
I was waiting by the Caddy when Roger returned, clothes soiled, his shoes ruined by mud.
‘You been in a fight, or what?’
‘I suspect you know where I’ve been,’ he said, keeping his voice low. He deposited the tools into the trunk.
‘I know a little about distances,’ I said.
‘When did you suspect?’
‘I measured your practice field out by the lumberyard. Sixty-one feet from the rubber to the plate. No wonder your arm’s big as a telephone pole.’
‘You figure on telling McCracken?’
‘No.’
‘Don’t lie for me. Do what you have to do, it’s okay. Just wait until morning. Also, remember that cheating is making your opponent do something you don’t have to do. We both pitched from the same distance. It was just that I’m used to that distance, and it took him a while to adjust.’
‘I’m not going to turn you in,’ I said.
Roger picked a chunk of mud off one of the tools and threw it on the street. He began to fiddle with the combination of the safe.
‘I’m not planning on blackmail.’
‘I appreciate talent when I see it. I’ve been working this scam for ten years. I’ve lost an occasional game, but no one’s ever cottoned onto my edge. I must be getting careless.’
He
