The Great American Novel (29 page)

If Ockatur came to seem to the Yamms and to the press an insult to the good name of midgets everywhere, to Ockatur, Bob Yamm seemed the last man in the world to bear the title of “the midgets' midget.” The sight of Yamm wearing a smaller number than his own made him wild with anger (or envy, as most interpreted it): why, if Yamm was Number ¼, then
he
should be
¹
⁄
₈
, if not
¹
⁄
₁₆
!
He
was the shorter of the two, and with his oversized head and bandy legs, was far more representative of the average little person than this perfectly proportioned, well-spoken, college-educated, smartly dressed, “courageous,” “dignified,” forty-inch fraternity-boy Adonis, with his spic-and-span Kewpie-doll of a wife! Oh how he hated the kind of midget who went around pretending that he was nothing but a smaller edition of everybody else! who wanted no more than “an even break like everybody else”! As if it were possible for a midget's life to be anything but a trial and a nightmare! As if it were possible sitting in a high chair in a restaurant eating your dinner to feel like “everybody else,” while as a matter of fact “everybody else” was either looking the other way in disgust, or openly staring in wonder. And that, only if the management would seat you to begin with. Sorry sir, no room—
no room,
to somebody who weighs only fifty-five pounds and could take his dinner in the phone booth! And what
about
phone booths? What about having to ask the policeman on his beat if he will be kind enough to pick you up so you can dial—is that like “everybody else,” Bob Yamm? Is it like “everybody else” to go into a public urinal and stand on tiptoes at the trough, while “everybody else” is pissing over your shoulder? And what about the movie show, where either you sit in the front row and look straight up at figures that loom over you even worse than in life, or you go all the way to the back, to the last row, and stand there on your seat—if the usher will permit. Ushers—
those
compassionate souls! And what about doorknobs, Bob? What about stairways! Turnstiles! Water coolers! Is there a single object that a midget confronts in this entire world that does not say to him loud and clear, “Get out of here, you, you're the wrong size.” An even break like everybody else! Oh,
that's
whose midget Bob Yamm was, all right—
everybody else's!
And that's whose midget he wanted to be, too!

Is it any wonder then that on the afternoon they were to be photographed shaking hands outside the Reaper dugout, Ockatur muttered at Yamm that insult of midget argot ordinarily applied to the so-called normal-sized people? Chin to chin, looking into Yamm's clear, kind blue eyes, Ockatur snarled, “I didn't know they piled shit that high!” then turned and angrily walked—waddled, alas, would be a more accurate description—down into the Reaper clubhouse, leaving Bob to interpret Ockatur's appalling behavior in what he hoped would be the best interest of their mutual cause.

OCKATUR, YAMM IN DUGOUT SLUGFEST; BRAWLING MIDGETS DRAW SUSPENSION, FINE FROM MAZUMA; PINCH-HIT STAR ADMITS GUILT, ADDS: “THIS CLUB NOT BIG ENOUGH FOR BOTH OF US”; TO QUIT GAME, MAY RUN FOR CONGRESS AFTER HOLLYWOOD FILMS LIFE

Sept. 14—The much-feared volcano the Reapers have been worrying over privately for two weeks erupted yesterday in the team dugout, when the first two midgets in baseball, pinch-hitter Bob Yamm and pitcher O.K. Ockatur, came to blows. Yamm was just about to leave the Reaper dugout to pinch-hit against Asylum in the eighth [Asylum won the game 5–4, tumbling the Reapers into seventh place. See story p. 43] when a remark from Ockatur sparked the feud that has been developing between the two since the midget pitcher joined the Reapers in the stretch drive for sixth.

Following the bloody battle, both players were taken by ambulance to Kakoola Memorial for treatment of cuts and bruises.

Would Suspend Pope

Owner Frank Mazuma promptly slapped a one hundred dollar fine and a ten-day suspension on each player for “conduct unbecoming a Reaper.” Mazuma said: “Of course it's going to hurt the club. If Bob had walked yesterday he would have forced in the tying run and we might well be in sixth right now, where we belong. But there is more to this game than winning.”

Mazuma replied with some salty language when asked if he would have meted out such punishment to the players if either had been “someone your own size.” “It strikes me,” said an angry Mazuma, “as somewhat odd that the guy who has single-handedly lifted the barrier against midgets should now be accused of picking on them because they happen to be small. I don't care if they were giants. Throw a punch in my dugout, and I don't care if you are the Pope himself, out you go on your ———.”

[In the Vatican, sources close to the Pontiff said the Holy Father had not yet been informed of Mazuma's remark. Photo story on local Catholic reaction, pro and con, p. 7.]

Brilliant Midgets

No one knows yet what exactly passed between the two players as Yamm was moving out of the dugout to pinch-hit against the Keepers with the bases loaded and one out. According to other players, ever since Ockatur came up and began his brilliant winning streak—3–0 to date—he has been needling Yamm, asking him why he doesn't go ahead and swing away. In the fifteen times he came to bat prior to his suspension, Yamm had not swung at a pitched ball. To date there have been only three strikes called against the forty-inch-high pinch-hitter, each coming in a different game.

His fifteen consecutive bases on balls already exceed the old major league record by seven.

Second Volcano

The second volcano erupted in Kakoola—and the nation—at exactly 9:07
P.M.
Central Daylight Saving Time, when Bob Yamm went on station KALE to read to Reaper fans the letter which he had just sent by special messenger to owner Frank Mazuma. [See back page for photo story on midget messenger and his reactions.]

Yamm appeared at the studio with a bandaged head and hand, accompanied by his wife, Judith. Both were dressed in the style they have made a nationwide fad in only a matter of weeks. Bob wore his famous gray double-breasted pin-striped suit, and Mrs. Yamm a monogrammed yellow sunsuit, with matching yellow purse, shoes, and hair barrette. Mrs. Yamm maintained her composure throughout, but was seen to dab at her face with a yellow handkerchief when her husband read the final paragraph of his prepared statement. [See story “Grown Men Weep” for reaction of studio technicians to Yamm Farewell Speech, p. 9.]

The Farewell Address

The following is the complete text of the Yamm speech, as broadcast over KALE:

Good evening. I am Bob Yamm. I have in the past hour sent a letter to Mr. Frank Mazuma, owner of the Kakoola Reapers, which I shall now read to you in its entirety.

Dear Mr. Mazuma: I want to tell you that I am wholly to blame for the violent incident that occurred this afternoon at 3:56
P.M.
, as I was leaving the dugout to pinch-hit against the Asylum Keepers. In the five hours that have elapsed since, I have remained silent as to my responsibility, and have thus caused a great injustice to be visited upon my teammate O.K. Ockatur.

No Excuse

I have no more excuse to make for this unconscionable delay than for the incident itself. If I told you that I was too “dazed” at the time to collect my thoughts, I would be reporting only a fraction of the truth. I fear that it was unjustifiable anger, and a cowardly fear of the consequences, that served to seal both my lips and O.K. Ockatur's fate.

In Anguish Since Five-Thirty

I was discharged from the hospital at 5:14
P.M.
, clinging still to my self-righteous attitude and fully intending to maintain my silence. I will tell you now that my conscience has not given me a moment's peace since 5:30 when I returned home, and, in anguish, heard the news bulletin announcing your decision to punish O.K. Ockatur and myself equally. That I allowed three hours and two minutes more to intervene between your press conference and my decision to come on the air (reached at 8:32 C.D.S.T.), is, I fear, yet another black mark against my integrity.

Keeps Pitchers Honest

Mr. Mazuma, it will not do any longer to intimate—if only by my silence—that even if I am responsible for this ugly affair, I should be excused from blame because of the burdens I have borne since entering the big leagues. I do not wish to minimize the difficulties and hardships that must befall any man who is a pioneer in his field. I mean rather to suggest that the pressures—and the prejudices—that I have had to withstand as the first midget in baseball, have been as nothing beside those under which my teammate and fellow midget, O.K. Ockatur, has had to labor.

That there might one day be a midget pinch-hitting in the big leagues had long ago occurred to baseball men, if only as a “funny” idea, a curiosity to draw fans to the ball park. Moreover, on the basis of the thousands of letters I have received from midgets around the country since joining the Reapers, I think I can safely say that this dream of a midget pinch-hitter, who one day would stand at home plate testing the control of the best pitchers in the game, has been a secret ambition of American midgets from time immemorial. I have even received letters from nonmidgets, from full-grown baseball fans, who write to wish me well, and to say that the presence of a midget in the batter's box may well be what is necessary to prevent big league pitching from deteriorating any further—to keep the pitchers, as they like to put it, “honest.” And many of these correspondents are fans who admit to having scoffed at the idea just a short month ago.

Unfortunately, they continue to scoff at the idea of a midget on the mound. Victorious though he has been in three consecutive outings, in many ways the spark plug of the Reaper drive on sixth, O.K. Ockatur continues to remain to many something less than a major league pitcher. Sad to say, in their estimations he is still “a freak.”

Outstanding Freaks

Yes, “freak” is the word that some Americans will use to describe a man whose style of pitching is his own and no one else's, a man who is unusual, unorthodox—in a word, an individualist. Well, if to be one's own man, if to pursue excellence and accomplishment with all that is unique to your being is what is meant by “a freak,” then I guess O.K. Ockatur is a freak, all right. And so too, I submit, were the Founding Fathers of this country, so too were the great Greek philosophers, so too were the lonely geniuses who invented the wheel, the steam engine, the cotton gin, and the airplane. And so too is every hero in history who has lived and died by his own lights.

But perhaps what makes O.K. Ockatur “a freak” isn't his unyielding individualism, but the determination he has displayed in the face of every conceivable obstruction, his courage in the face of the most heartbreaking adversity. Yes, perhaps it is his bravery that makes him “a freak”—perhaps it is that to which the fans are paying tribute, when they lean over the dugout roof and ery, “Hey it is a midget—I thought it was a monkey!” or when they write letters to him, unsigned of course, in which they tell him to go back to the sideshow. Well, that must be some sideshow, including as it does such freaks as George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Socrates, the Wright Brothers, and Thomas Alva Edison—in short, every man who has ever dared to pit himself against the ingrained habits and customs of his time, who has dared to brave the jeers of the rabble, the envy of the cowardly, the smugness of the complacent, the sarcasm of the know-it-alls, and the unremitting opposition of the vested interests.

Fails All But Dog

Mr. Mazuma, knowing as I did the extent of the abuse and ridicule that have been O.K. Ockatur's daily fare since arriving in the big leagues, knowing too how even the most proud and independent of men may come to be poisoned by such venom, it was surely incumbent upon me to be understanding, if not forgiving, of his stronger moods. Surely it was not too much to ask that I overlook conduct that might vex an ordinary person, and grant remission where another might condemn. But I failed him, at the very moment that he most needed a friendly smile, a kind remark, a brotherly gesture of solidarity. I failed him, and failed as well: my wife; my teammates; you, Mr. Mazuma; the Patriot League; General Oakhart; Judge Landis; organized baseball; midgets throughout the country, many of them in important war work; those everywhere who have supported the midget in his drive for equal opportunities; and, last but not least, our soldiers across the Atlantic and the Pacific, hundreds of whom have written asking for autographed photos of me at the plate. I don't think it is an exaggeration to say that I failed everyone everywhere, regardless of faith, creed, color, or size, who has clung to the vision of a better world, even as this bloody war rages on. And, of course, most unforgivable of all, I have failed myself.

Though it may seem insensitive of me to be momentarily lighthearted, may I add that just about the only one I seem
not
to have failed is my chihuahua pup, Pinch-hit, who has sat in my lap all the while I have been composing this letter, blissfully ignorant of the fact that his master is not the same man today that he was yesterday, and that he will never be again.

Bows Out

Mr. Mazuma, I fear that my usefulness to the Reapers has come to an end. Much as I continue to respect O.K. Ockatur as an athlete and a man, I cannot expect that, following today's atrocious episode, we two will ever be able to resolve our difficulties amicably. And surely the last thing our team needs, in the midst of a battle for sixth, is a smoldering battle simultaneously taking place on the bench, between an occasional pinch-hitter and a starting pitcher who has not yet lost a game in the majors.

Nor do I think it would be in the interests of O.K. Ockatur himself, if I were to remain with the Reapers as his teammate. Mr. Mazuma, if any of what I have said here will cause you to rescind, or even mitigate, the punishment you have leveled upon O.K., perhaps that may repair to some degree the damage that I have done his reputation. But I do not really believe there is any way to meet his justifiable sense of grievance, or fully to restore his manly dignity, short of my departure from the club.