The Great American Novel (51 page)

(b) With a runner or runners on base and less than two outs, rely almost exclusively on the hit-and-run

(c) Bat the hitters in descending order of run productiveness

(d) Instead of removing pitchers “randomly and haphazardly” in a game for defensive reasons, rotate for offensive reasons; start with “a relief pitcher” who works approximately two innings, follow with “a starting pitcher” who goes approximately five, and finish up with “a second relief pitcher” who pitches the final two

       (To justify this bizarre and outlandish system, Ellis offered a wealth of spurious statistics and pseudoscientific explanations [see charts attached]; he argued that if instituted on opening day, the system would land the Mundys in the first division by the All-Star break and the team would be in contention for the pennant by the season's end.)

d. Analysis. It was of course immediately apparent to the Chief Investigator that (J) Isaac Ellis was a Communist agent assigned to spy on Gil Gamesh; (E) that if hired by Gil Gamesh to be a Ruppert Mundy coach he might well be able to act to inhibit the counterespionage activities of Gamesh; but (W) that if he were
not
hired, it would be immediately apparent to Moscow that Gamesh, by refusing to capitalize on Ellis's brilliantly destructive scheme, had acted to preserve rather than to undermine the Patriot League—in short, that he had (as indeed he has) resumed his loyalty to his native land.

When, at the end of June, the Mundys moved up into undisputed possession of fourth place, Roland Agni found himself unable to justify any longer, either to his father or to Manager Gamesh, his refusal to honor his Ruppert contract. Never mind that a day didn't pass now without a Mundy player being thrown out of a ballgame for cursing the ump or taking a poke at an opposing player; never mind that there were fist fights with fans and rumors of knives in the Mundy dugout; never mind the invective spewed forth from the Mundy bench, the likes of which had never before been heard in big league ball. The point was this: how could he continue to call them the worst team in history when there now appeared to be four teams even worse in the Patriot League alone—and only three that were better! Just what kind of prima donna was he to refuse to play ball on a major league team with a better than .500 average? “What about Walter Johnson, Roland—twenty years with the Senators and only two pennants—and did he complain? Did he run home and refuse to leave his room?” “But it's a fluke, Daddy!” cried Roland from the bed where he now lay for weeks on end. “I know these fellas—they can't even
field
.500!” “Yet,” said his father, peering into the darkened room, “here are today's official standings, for all to see. Tycoons first. Butchers second. Keepers third. And Mundys fourth, with thirty wins and twenty-nine losses. In ten weeks, they have won almost as many without you as they won
with
you during an entire season of play.” “But that wasn't my fault—
I won the batting championship of the entire league!”
“Yet oddly it didn't help that team one bit. From the looks of things, it may even be what hindered them. You and your superior ways may well have been what crushed the confidence of that entire team. Oh, son, when will you understand that no man is an island unto himself?”

So the fatal, final step was taken: the incomparable Roland Agni, who had never wanted any more from life than that it should reward him with the dignity and honor commensurate with his talent, returned to don the uniform whose scarlet R—heretofore the initial letter of “Ridiculous” and “Refugee”—was now said to stand for “Ruthless” and “Revenge.”

And it was ghastlier than ever. Winning every other game through a systematic program of hatred and loathing was worse even than losing them all through ineptness and stupidity. Enraged, his teammates were even more repulsive to Roland than they had been cowed and confused; at least then, in a weak moment, he could feel a little
pity.
But now they could not even step bareheaded to the top step of the dugout to listen to the National Anthem without hissing among themselves like a pack of venomous snakes—despicable bastards!

“Fuckin' Betsy Ross!”

“Fuckin' Francis Scott Key!”

“Fuckin' stripes!”

“Fuckin' stars!”

And that was just the pregame vitriol. By the time nine innings had elapsed there was nothing around that had not been traduced and vilified by the Ruppert team, beginning of course with the opposing ballplayers, their parents, wives, sweethearts, and children, and proceeding right on down to the local transportation system and the drinking water. It did not let up for a moment, neither from the field nor the bench, and certainly not from the third-base coaching box, where No.
¹
⁄
₁₆
, the most vengeful of the vengeful, could turn an opposing pitcher into a raving madman by saying what was more disgusting even than what Hothead used to whisper to the Southern boys about their moms—referring as it did, in O.K.'s case, to their little tiny daughters in kindergarten, girls just about the right size and shape, insinuated O.K., for a fella of his dimensions. Oh, could that vile little dwarf make those pitchers balk! Why, he could score a man all the way around from first on three well-timed remarks about some little bit of a girl just out of diapers.

And could old Jolly Cholly make them bastards jump! Oh, did they go down when he threw that fast one back of their shoulder blades! “Know who that is out there?” Hothead would whisper to the batter with his face in the dust. “Tuminikar, that once killed a guy. Fella just about your size too.”

“Tag 'em, Kid, right in the gazoo!” Nickname would shout across to third, and Heket—grinning sheepishly—would feint one way, and then, the old man's revenge, slam the ball and the glove right up between the base runner's thighs.

“Yeeeeowwwwww!” cries the base runner.

“Out!” cries the ump, even as the fans swarm on to the field screaming for Heket's scalp, and the most aged of the Mundys swarm up out of the dugout, armed with two bats apiece to protect their decrepit brother.

Inning after inning, day in and day out, Gil Gamesh sends his pitcher back out to the mound with only three words of instruction: “Knock somebody down.”

“Who?”

“Anybody. They live off your suffering,
each and every one.
”

“Those dirty bastards!”

“What right have they to be batting last all the time?”

“The filthy pricks!”

“Who are they to mock and ridicule you?”

“They're nobody! They're nothin'!”

“They're
worse
than nothing, boys! They're
not Ruppert Mundys!
They're baseball players
who don't wear scarlet and gray!
They're Keepers, they're Greenbacks, they're fucking
Tycoons!
”

“The filthy slimy shits!”

“Ah, that's the spirit!
That's
my Mundanes! Cut his face, Nickname! Crush his balls, Kid! Defame his wife! Threaten his life! Calumniate his kids! I want blood! I want brawls! I want hate! I want a baseball team that nobody is ever going to laugh at again!”

C
HANSON DE
R
OLAND

“The end justifies the means. All we're trying to do out there is win a ballgame.”

“But it ain't a ballgame anymore—not by anybody's standards!”

“What then?”

“It's hatin', threatenin', and cursin'—it's wantin' to kill the other guy, wantin' him dead—
and that ain't a game!
”

“Never heard of Ty Cobb, did you? Mugsy McGraw? Leo the Lip?”

“But they ain't nothin' compared to this! And that's only three. This is a whole team that's gone crazy! And you goadin' and goadin' em, till one day they is goin' to take the ump and rip him into little pieces! It's got to stop, Mr. Gamesh! Why do they have to hate the whole country? Even Cobb didn't do that! And Leo Durocher don't go around cursin' Abraham Lincoln and Valley Forge!
What does that have to do with baseball?
”

“Hatred makes them brave and strong—it's as simple as that.”

“But it ain't brave
or
strong—it's just stupid! They are just a bunch of stupid fellers to begin with, and all you are doin' is makin' them stupider!”

“And what was so smart about being in last?”

“I ain't sayin' it was smart—it was just
right.
That's where they belong!”

“And you, where do you belong? Let me tell you, Roland. Away where they put the rest of you guys who go around trading in
phony breakfast foods.
”

“But they weren't
mine.
Who told you
that?
”

“Who do you think?”

“But
he's
the one who made 'em, the little Jew! Did he tell you that, too?
He
made 'em, not me!”

“But you're the one who dropped them in their breakfast bowls, All-American Boy.”

“But I
had
to.”

“Tell it to the Commissioner, Roland, tell it to General O. Or would you prefer me to?”

“No! No!”

“Then keep your clean-cut ideas to yourself, Roland—underneath me? That's Babylonian, Star, for understand. The Mundys are fourth in the league—and without the benefit of your clean-cut advice.”

“But they don't
deserve
to be fourth!”

“What about all that winning, Roland?”

“But they don't deserve to be
winning!
”

“And who does in this world, Roland? Only the gifted and the beautiful and the brave? What about the rest of us, Champ? What about the wretched, for example? What about the weak and the lowly and the desperate and the fearful and the deprived, to name but a few who come to mind? What about losers? What about failures? What about the ordinary fucking outcasts of this world—who happen to comprise
ninety per cent of the human race!
Don't they have dreams, Agni? Don't they have hopes? Just who told you clean-cut bastards you own the world anyway? Who put you clean-cut bastards in charge, that's what I'd like to know! Oh, let me tell you something, All-American Adonis: you fair-haired sons of bitches have had your day. It's all over, Agni. We're not playing according to your clean-cut rules anymore—we're playing according to our own! The Revolution has begun! Henceforth, the Mundys are the master race!”

*   *   *

“Ellis.”

“What do
you
want?”

“Ellis, why did you tell the skipper about them Wheaties?
Nobody's supposed to know.
”

“Nobody's supposed to know what, Agni? That Mr. Perfect isn't Mr. Perfect after all?”

“He's goin' to blackmail me!”

“Not if you keep your clean-cut mouth shut, Roland.”

“But this ain't baseball anymore at all! This is worse than last year even! Him and his hatin' and you and your charts—you two are destroyin' the game!”

“Let's say we're changing things.”

“But it's all wrong! A Jew at first, a dwarf at third—whoever heard of coaches like that! You can't even catch a ball, Isaac! All you know is numbers! To you we're just pieces of arithmetic! Somethin' you can multiply and divide—and to him, to him we're wild savages! We're somethin' that you open the cage and let 'em out to run wild! It's gotta stop, Isaac!”

“Why is that?”

“Because—this ain't the time-honored way!”

“Neither was feeding them ‘Jewish Wheaties' the time-honored way. But you did it.”

“But I
had
to!”

“In order to be the hero you are, right, Golden Boy?”

“Oh, why is everybody against me bein' great—when I am! Why does everybody hate me for somethin' I can't help! It ain't my fault I was born superior!”

“Well, maybe the same holds true for the inferior, Roland.”

“But I ain't tellin' them
not
to be inferior. That is their right! Only give me mine! Instead there is this plot to beat me down!”

“Poor little .370 hitter.”

“But if I wasn't always goin' crazy with this here team, I could hit more! I could be a
.400
hitter—instead they're drivin' me mad!”

T
HE
S
HOT
H
EARD
R
OUND THE
L
EAGUE

Then, fans, it was over: Roland Agni was dead and the Mundys were no more.

Fifty-five thousand Kakoolians were already in their seats when the Ruppert team came out for batting practice on the Fourth of July 1944. All around the P. League now the sight of the Mundys emerging from their dugout set the spectators' mouths to foaming, but nowhere did the resentment reach such a pitch even before the first pitch as in Kakoola, in part, of course, because the ingenious Kakoola entrepreneur was always on hand to get the day's frenzy under way—“Renegades! Roughnecks! Rogues! Rapscallions! Rowdies”—but also because Gamesh's snarling, scowling nine was still the bunch that had crippled Doubloon and blinded Bob Yamm, and sold the Reapers that one-armed lemon named Parusha.

(Afterwards, when that day's tragedy was history, the editorialists around the nation were to lament this “climate of hatred” that had gripped the city of Kakoola on “the fateful Fourth” and prepared the way for the bloodshed—though Mayor Efghi was quick to remind the papers that it was not a Kakoolian who had pulled the trigger, but “a deranged, embittered loner … whose barbarous and wanton act is as repugnant to Kakoolians as it is to civilized men the world over.”)

When the visitors departed the clubhouse that day for the pregame workout, one Mundy stayed behind. Seated before his locker wearing only his support, he was as striking and monumental a sufferer as any sculptor had ever hewn from stone. “What am I to do? Go home again? No, no,” he realized, “you
can't
go home again. Who ever heard of anybody great going home—who ever heard of a great man who lived with his mom and his dad!” Oh, he could just see himself, lying there in his bedroom till his hair turned white and his teeth fell out, his high school trophies and that year in the majors all he had to prove that he would have been and
should
have been the greatest center-fielder of all time. He could just imagine those meals at the family dinner table, himself ninety and his father a hundred and twenty-five. “No man is an island unto himself, Roland.” “But they were not men!” “All ballplayers are men, Roland. The Ruppert Mundys were ballplayers. Therefore the Ruppert Mundys are men.” “But all ballplayers are not men. Some are freaks and bums!” “But freaks and bums are men. The freak and the bum are your brothers, my son.” And would it be any better down in the town? “See that one there, with the cane and the beard. That's old Roland Agni. Let him be a warning to you, children.” “Why, what'd he do wrong, Mommy?” “He never thought about others, that's what, only about himself and how wonderful he was…”