Satch & Me (8 page)

The batter came out of the other dugout, and all the clowning suddenly stopped. King Tut went into his windup and threw the first pitch.

“Steeerike one!” shouted the umpire.

The batter took a couple of balls, and then hit a grounder to third. The third baseman—the guy with the grass skirt—expertly scooped up the ball and threw it to first…from behind his back! The first baseman was lying on the ground with his leg up in the air and the glove stuck on the end of his foot. He caught the ball that way! It was the most amazing thing I had ever seen.

These guys were clowns, but they could really play.

“Ladies and gentleman,” boomed the announcer, “coaching at first base is Bullet Billy Roberts, who set a Negro League record for pitching two games at the same time—his first and his last.”

King Tut struck the next guy out. Before the batter went back to the dugout, King Tut ran off the mound, grabbed the guy's bat, and pretended to give him some hitting pointers. The crowd roared. The next guy popped up to short, where the midget shortstop tossed away his glove and caught the ball in his baggy pants.

Three outs. The Clowns ran, skipped, hopped, juggled, and cartwheeled their way back to their dugout.

Before the New York Stars took the field, some acrobats who called themselves the Flying Nesbit Family put on a little show in the infield. It was amazing. Then the Stars came out. They looked perfectly normal, especially after seeing the Clowns.

The Stars threw real baseballs around to warm up. But one of the Stars was missing. There was
nobody on the pitcher's mound.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” boomed the announcer, “pitching for the New York Stars…the man you've all been waiting to see…the one…the only…the living legend…SATCHEL PAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIGE!”

SATCH DIDN'T COME OUT OF THE DUGOUT RIGHT AWAY. I
saw him waiting until the cheering got a little louder. Then he stepped onto the field and people started screaming his name.

It seemed like it took an hour for Satch to walk from the dugout to the mound. He ambled out there like he had all the time in the world. With each step, the cheering got louder. When he finally reached the mound, everyone in the bleachers was stamping their feet. Satch really knew how to work a crowd.

“Batting first for the Clowns,” said the announcer, “Eddie Jones.”

Jones was the guy who had walked on his hands out to centerfield. But he wasn't clowning around now. He was swinging his bat viciously in the on-deck circle.

Before Satch threw a warm-up pitch, the
announcer told the crowd, “Satchel guarantees he will strike out the first six batters, or every fan will receive free admission tomorrow.”

A few people cheered, but one guy got up and shouted, “There ain't no game tomorrow!” The crowd cracked up.

Satch swung his right arm around a few times and lobbed four pitches to the catcher to warm up. That seemed enough. He held up a hand to quiet down the crowd as the batter walked to the plate.

“No need to tote that wood up here, son,” he yelled to the batter. “You ain't gonna need it. You'll be sittin' your butt back on that bench before you can work up a sweat.”

The crowd laughed. The batter pumped his bat back and forth menacingly.

“Which pitch do you want, son?” Satch asked. “I call my fastball the Midnight Rider. But I'll give you my Bat Dodger, Jump Ball, or Whipsey-Dipsey-Do, if you'd prefer.”

“Just throw the ball, old man,” the batter shouted back.

“Okey-dokey.”

Satch windmilled the ball around slowly one, two, three, then four times. He kicked his leg way up high over his head and held it there so everybody in the stands could see the sole of his shoe, where the word “Fastball” was written in white letters. He came forward until his foot hit the ground. Somehow, impossibly, he didn't release the ball until a split second later.

Satch had a funny windup.

The ball shot out of his hand like a bullet. The batter was totally fooled by Satch's motion and swung late. It seemed impossible for someone to wind up so slowly and then throw a ball so hard. The ball popped into the catcher's mitt.

“Steeeeerike one!” shouted the ump.

“Oh, you shoulda chose,” Satch said. “That was my Hesitation Pitch.”

“He can't do that!” the batter yelled at the ump. “That's an illegal pitch!”

“Get back in the batter's box,” said the ump.

“What do you wanna swing and miss at now?” Satch asked the batter. “You want my Wobbly Ball, Little Tom, or my Four-Day Creeper?”

The batter didn't answer, so Satch went into his funny windup and whipped one in, sidearm this time. No swing.

“Steeerike two!” shouted the ump.

“I call that my Bee Ball,” Satch informed the crowd. “'Cause it
be
right where I want it to be.”

The batter had two strikes on him now, and he looked really determined. Satch didn't ask him which pitch he wanted this time. He just wound up like usual. But instead of throwing the ball hard, he lofted a high lob way up in the air.

The ball rose maybe thirty feet and hung up there for what seemed like an hour. The batter looked like he wanted to kill the thing. When the ball finally came down, he swung so hard that he spun around and fell down.

“Steeeerike threeeeeeee!” yelled the ump. “Yer out!”

The crowd went nuts.

“That was my Nothin' Ball,” Satch said after the fans had calmed down. “'Cause it don't do nothin'.”

The Clown in the grass skirt was swinging a big war club in the on-deck circle. He dropped it and picked up a regular bat before coming to the plate.
Satch threw him a fastball, and he couldn't come close to catching up with it.

“Whatsa matter?” Satch asked. “Too hot for ya?”

The guy got ready again, and Satch blew another one right by him.

“Got a headache yet?” Satch asked. “'Cause I'm throwin' aspirins, and you're gonna need 'em.”

The Clown got set again, and Satch gave him nothing but heat for strike three.

“That hummer just sang a sweet song!” Satch shouted. “The finest music I ever heard.”

Two outs. The next Clown came up and Satch fanned him in similar fashion with three fastballs—one overhand, one sidearm, and one underhand.

The crowd erupted in cheers as Satch ambled slowly back into the dugout.

After one inning, there was no score. While the Stars jogged back to their dugout, a jeep came tearing out across the outfield with one of the Clowns driving it. He had that gigantic glove on his hand. One of the other Clowns picked up a bat and started whacking fungoes to the outfield. The Clown driving the jeep circled around, trying to catch the balls in his big glove. He missed the first four, but when he caught the fifth one the crowd gave him a standing ovation.

The Clowns put on a great show between innings, and they clearly knew how to play the game. But I wasn't sure that the game they were playing was baseball. One guy slid into second about five feet short, and he pretended to
swim
the
rest of the way to the base. The whole thing looked sort of humiliating to tell you the truth, and I asked Flip what he thought.

“You gotta remember, these guys are banned from pro ball,” Flip said. “They're tryin' to make a living. They're tryin' to entertain folks any way they can. Make 'em forget about the war goin' on over in Europe for a while.”

As Flip was talking, I noticed a white girl making her way down our row. When she got closer to us, I recognized her. It was Laverne, that cute waitress we met back at the diner! She had a suitcase with her.

“Remember me?” she said, flinging an arm around Flip like they were boyfriend and girlfriend.

Remember
her? How could anyone forget her? With that little pink hat on her head, she looked even prettier than before.

“What are
you
doing here?” Flip asked.

Flip could be such a dope! Here was this beautiful girl throwing herself at him, and he was acting like she shouldn't be there. If it was me, I would have hugged and kissed her and asked her what she was doing for dinner that night.

“I ran away from home,” Laverne said.

“What?!”

“You saw what my daddy was like. I couldn't take it anymore. Tomorrow I'll be eighteen years old, and I can do what I want.”

“How did you end up here?” Flip asked.

“I was hitching a ride to Pittsburgh when I saw
this poster about Satchel Paige playing against the Clowns. I thought I'd find you here. And I was right.”

She gave Flip a peck on the cheek.

“Remember me?” I said. “Joe Stoshack? Stosh?”

“Oh, yeah. Hi,” she said, totally unimpressed. I bet she would have liked me more if I had big muscles like Flip. And if I was five years older.

The Indianapolis Clowns were back on the field again. We got Laverne a hot dog and Flip explained the fine points of Clown baseball to her. The third baseman was now sitting on a lawn chair next to third base and reading a newspaper. Somebody hit a pop-up at him, and he stuck out his glove and caught it without looking away from the paper. Laverne thought that was the funniest thing she'd ever seen. She had a nice laugh.

The Stars went down in order and Satch took the mound again. The leadoff batter for the Clowns was that bearded guy who was dressed up like a woman. Laverne couldn't stop giggling.

“You're an overrated bum, Paige!” the guy yelled. “You should be in an old-age home!”

Satch just laughed. He reared back and threw a fastball high and tight. The guy dove out of the way and landed face-first in the dirt.

“Oooooooh!” went the crowd.

“Take your base,” called the umpire.

“What?!” Satch complained. “The pitch didn't hit 'im!”

“It hit his beard,” said the ump.

“Those whiskers can't rightly be called no part of
a man,” Satch yelled. “They is air!”

“Take your base.”

The guy brushed the dirt off his skirt and jogged to first. The fans started yelling. Getting on base against Satchel Paige was big news. Satch stomped around the mound a while before facing the next batter, Shorty Potato, the midget shortstop. The guy must have been about the size of a fire hydrant, and his strike zone was a few inches at most. Satch had great control, but he couldn't pitch to Shorty Potato. He walked on four pitches.

Runners on first and second. Nobody out. People were screaming for a hit.

Satch wasn't fooling around anymore. The guy wearing the tuxedo was up, and Satch threw him smoke. The guy squared around and dropped a perfect bunt down the third baseline. The Stars third baseman ran in and tried to barehand it, but the ball slipped out of his fingers.

Everybody was safe. Bases loaded. Nobody out. Satch was in a jam. The crowd was going crazy now.

Satch asked the umpire for time-out, and he leaned over and put his hands on his knees like he was going to throw up or something. A hush fell over the crowd.

A pretty girl wearing a nurse's uniform came running out of the Stars' dugout. She was holding one of those black bags doctors always carry.

“Whatsa matter, Satch?” the nurse asked, loud enough for everyone to hear.

“Must be nerves, ma'am,” Satch said, rubbing his
belly. “I got the miseries playing in my stomach. I might have to go home.”

“No!” the fans hollered.

“You got yourself into this mess, Paige!” some fan yelled. “Let's see you get out of it!”

The nurse reached into her bag and pulled out a spoon and some medicine. She filled the spoon and stuck it in Satch's mouth. Satch stood there for about a minute. Then he let out a belch that we could hear in the bleachers. Everybody laughed.

“Okay,” he announced. “My stomach is peaceable now.”

Everybody whistled when the nurse ran off the field. The hitter stepped into the batter's box. Satch turned to face his outfielders and waved his arms, signaling that they should move in. The three of them took a few steps forward, and he waved to them again. They took a few more steps toward the infield, but Satch kept waving them in, more urgently.

“
All
the way in,” he hollered. “You boys can have the rest of this inning off. I'll take it from here.”

“He's pullin' the outfield!” Flip marveled. The crowd gasped when all three outfielders jogged off the field.

The batter grinned as he took a few practice swings. All he needed to do was hit a ball past the infield and the Clowns would score three runs. Maybe four.

Next, Satch turned toward his infielders.

“You too,” he shouted, waving them off the field. “You boys look like you need a rest.”

The first baseman, second baseman, third baseman, and shortstop jogged to the dugout. The only Stars left on the field were Satch and his catcher. The crowd was buzzing. People around us started pulling out money and betting on whether or not Satch would strike the batter out.

“Is he crazy?” asked Laverne.

“Maybe,” Flip said. “Maybe not.”