The House of Daniel (6 page)

In I went, scared he was right and hoping he was wrong. I sat down in the second row back of the first-base dugout, the one the visitors used—the one I'd been in the day before. I sat there, and I watched the House of Daniel loosen up.

The more I watched, the more it looked like the guy who took my two quarters had it pegged. I'd already played with and against some pretty fair ballplayers. The general rule was, the better you were, the smoother you seemed. Oh, not always, but that's how to bet. Takes somebody who knows what he's doing and who's done it a million times to make it look easy.

Those House of Daniel fellas, they made it look so easy, it was like the ball wasn't even there. I needed longer'n I should have to see that part of the time it wasn't. They were doing a phantom infield the likes of which you'd never seen the likes of. They'd catch and throw and pivot and all, as if they were working a rundown or turning a double play or whatever, and you'd follow the ball with your eyes, only there was no ball to follow. It was something to see—or not to see, I guess you could say.

Over by the home dugout, the Greasemen were stretching or playing pepper or having a catch. They were supposed to be, anyways. Half of 'em, though, couldn't keep their eyes off the shaggy men with the lion's heads on their shirts.

When it was Ponca City's turn to take infield, they played it straight as a yardstick. If they'd got even a little bit cute, the crowd—and it was gonna be way bigger than Enid drew—would've seen they weren't as good as the House of Daniel guys. This way, they just looked boring. Not a great choice, maybe, but a better one.

Pitchers were warming up, too. Ponca City's other main hurler besides Walt Edwards was a right-hander everybody called Close Shave Simpkins. Not because his face was so smooth—oh, no. He had almost enough gray stubble to make you reckon he belonged to the other side today. But he'd put one under your chin or spin your cap as soon as he'd look at you.

Closer to me stood Frank Carlisle, who'd go for the House of Daniel. His beard hung down almost to the emblem on his shirtfront. His hair was even longer, and a couple of shades lighter. He was a lefty.

“Let's see what you got, Fidgety Frank!” yelled a loudmouth not too far from me. Carlisle didn't even look his way. He just pegged it back and forth with the guy catching him. He threw somewhere between three-quarters and sidearm, so his curve broke wide but not down too much. Tell you the truth, he didn't look all that tough.

Both sides cleared the field. Some kids dragged it a last time to get it nice and smooth. One of the House of Daniel players bawled into a big old megaphone with a lion's head painted on each side (they didn't miss a trick, the House of Daniel boys).

“Ladies and gents, gents and ladies!” he roared. “Welcome to the latest celebration of America's game by the Lord's team, the House … of … Daniel!” He stopped there for cheers and boos. He got about a fifty-fifty split—what you'd expect, I suppose. “Today we're mighty pleased to be in Ponca City to play against your Greasemen!”

He waved toward the home dugout. Everybody whooped and raised Cain. I figured it was the first time an outsider ever said he was pleased to be in Ponca City. I also figured they'd whale the tar out of me if I said so, so I shut up.

Out trotted the home team in their white flannels. The Chinamen at the laundry—it's next door to the Ponca City chop-suey house—must've worked overtime getting 'em all nice and clean again so soon after the game against the Eagles. The crowd cheered some more.

Out trotted the umps, too. The guy behind the plate was the same one who'd worked yesterday's game. I didn't recognize the fella who would work the bases. By the way he talked, he'd come down from Kansas or somewhere like that. Nobody cheered either one of them.

“Play ball!” yelled the plate umpire, and they did.

The first two men for the House of Daniel made easy outs. Their third hitter … The fellow with the megaphone called, “Batting third and playing center field, number fourteen, Rabbit O'Leary!”

He was a left-handed hitter. As soon as you saw him, you knew he meant business. About six-one, maybe 175. Yeah, he'd run like the wind. You need speed to play center. And he'd be trouble with the stick, or he wouldn't have hit where he was. I could hope I was as good an outfielder as he was. One look told me I wasn't as good a ballplayer.

Close Shave Simpkins had to be thinking the same kind of thing. On the second pitch, O'Leary hit a mean foul—pulled it past Mort Milligan, the wide-shouldered first sacker I'd robbed the day before, no more than a foot and a half outside the chalk. Pitch after that would have gone in one ear and out the other if Rabbit hadn't flattened out like a snake. That was no brushback. That was a beanball.

O'Leary got up, brushed himself off, and dug in again. He flied out to right, medium deep, two pitches later, and the inning was over. In came the Greasemen, out went the House of Daniel, and we started the bottom of the first.

I found out soon enough why that big-mouthed fan called Carlisle Fidgety Frank. The long-bearded pitcher might've been smooth loosening up, but not once he took the hill for real. He wiggled like an octopus with fleas. All arms and legs and herks and jerks and hesitations, and you never knew where the ball was coming from or how to pick it up till it was on top of you or past.

He struck out the first Greaseman on three pitches. The second guy hit a dribbler to short. The third hitter, Carlisle plunked right in the ribs. Message sent, message answered.

Message answered hurt more. “Ow!” the Greaseman yelled. “Fuck you!”

Polite as a preacher—which he was sometimes—Fidgety Frank tipped his cap. “And your granny,” he said. The Greaseman trotted to first. He didn't rub. You never rub, not in semipro and not in the bigs, either.

“Uh-oh,” somebody behind me said to his friend. “Gonna be one of those games.”

“Looks like,” Friend answered. I was thinking the same thing.

Carlisle gave up a squib single then, but he made the next guy pop up, so he fidgeted off the hook. In the top of the second, Simpkins drilled the first hitter up in the behind. “There! I gave you a brain concussion!” he shouted.

He was the one who ended up with the headache, though, on account of the House of Daniel scored four that inning. The guy he'd nailed plated the first run. He looked out at Close Shave when he came home, but only for a second.

Well, you had to know Fidgety Frank was gonna get his own back. He plunked Mort Milligan on the right arm. Mort eyed Carlisle as he took his base, but he didn't say anything. The next batter hit into a force play to end the inning.

There were a couple of more brushbacks after that, but things kinda settled down. It was 5-2, House of Daniel, in the bottom of the sixth. The Greasemen were a good nine—I ought to know—but the traveling team didn't seem to be having much trouble with 'em.

Then Ponca City's cleanup guy doubled to start the inning. The fellow behind him worked a walk Fidgety Frank really didn't want to give away. And up came muscly Mort Milligan, who was the tying run.

Carlisle came up and in, not to knock him down but to push him back from the plate an inch or two. Sure enough, the next one was low and away. Milligan swung and missed to even the count. Fidgety Frank thought he'd go low and away again. That was where the House of Daniel catcher set up, anyhow. Only Frank made a mistake.

Whack!
I knew that sound. I'd heard it just the day before. Mort Milligan clobbered this long, low liner to almost the same place he'd hit the one then. Just like me, Rabbit O'Leary was off at the crack of the bat, trying to run the line drive down.

But I'd known I was the only one who had the ghost of a chance of catching the one yesterday. Enid's right fielder could throw fine, but he was slower than some dead people—and I don't mean zombies. I mean dead dead. Unlike the Eagles, the House of Daniel was a high-class outfit. Their right fielder didn't just throw. He could run, too.

It cost 'em plenty.

Rabbit O'Leary streaked after that scalded baseball. So did the right fielder. He was a big, lanky Dutchman called Aaron Aardsma or Double-Double-A or mostly just Double-Double. He was sure he could catch it. So was O'Leary. They both kept their eye on the ball. Neither one thought about anything else.

Till they slammed into each other.

That's the worst collision I ever saw. None of the others comes close. It's the worst collision I ever heard, too. You wouldn't think flesh and blood could make a noise like that smashing into more flesh and blood.

O'Leary went down flat and didn't move. Aardsma rolled over three or four times. When he stopped, he was bent like a bow, both hands clutched to one ankle. The ball shot past them and rolled all the way to that far-off fence in right-center. By the time the left fielder finally picked it up and threw it in, even Mort Milligan had himself the easiest inside-the-park homer anybody could want. House of Daniel 5, Greasemen 5.

A few people in Conoco Ball Park cheered the home-town hero. But those cheers were like ripples on a great big old pool of quiet. Most of the crowd was staring out at the train wreck in the outfield. I can't have been the only one wondering whether Rabbit O'Leary was even alive. He not only didn't move, he didn't twitch.

After getting the ball back to the infield, the House of Daniel's left fielder ran in to see what he could do for his buddies. The bearded second baseman was running out at the same time. They both took one look, cupped their hands in front of their mouths, and yelled the same thing: “Is there a doctor in the house?”

Two men in business suits, one young, the other bald with a gray fringe, came out of the stands. The bald guy had his black bag; the other fellow didn't. The young man went to work on Double-Double. He shouted in to the House of Daniel's dugout. Somebody brought him some boards. After a while, stretcher-bearers came out and lugged Double-Double off, the way they would have during the Big War. That ankle he'd grabbed had a splint on it.

The Ponca City folks gave him a nice hand. He'd earned it. He'd been going all-out when he got hurt. He never would've got hurt so bad, or maybe at all, if he hadn't been. He managed to wave back before they carried him down into the dugout and away.

Which left O'Leary still down on the grass. The bald doc had him rolled over onto his belly. He was pushing down on his ribs and lifting his arms. “Artificial respiration,” somebody behind me said, like we couldn't see that for ourselves.

Only purpose for artificial respiration is when the fella getting it can't breathe on his own. Some of the reasons for that are bad. The rest are worse. It got pin-drop quiet in the ballpark while the old guy worked on Rabbit. The other doctor came over to help him out. I wondered if the next fellow we saw helping out there would be the undertaker.

But that didn't happen, thank heaven. After a long, scary while, Rabbit's motor caught and turned over and he started breathing on his own. Everybody clapped when the bald doc stopped breathing for him and got to work on the other bad stuff that had happened to him.

The guys with the stretcher came back. They carried Rabbit away. His left arm was in a sling. What looked like a whole roll of bandage was wrapped around his head. The crowd cheered him, too—quietly, but they did. Just before he disappeared, his right arm came maybe two inches off his chest in a try at a wave. That took him more hard work than running after Mort Milligan's liner must have. People cheered again, louder this time.

*   *   *

And then? Then the game went on.

Yeah, that smashup gave folks most of their money's worth. Most, but not all. They wanted to see who won and who lost. Plenty of 'em had bets down on who won and who lost. In those parts, ballgames are right up there with cockfights and dogfights for making money change hands.

So the House of Daniel's left fielder moved over to right. A fellow who'd taken grounders at third went into left. And one of the pitchers who'd warmed up back of Fidgety Frank took over for Rabbit in center. Even the fanciest semipro team carries only fourteen, fifteen guys, sixteen tops. The fewer who split the take, the bigger the take is for everybody who does.

They got out of the sixth. The new left fielder made a nice catch—not a great catch, but nice—for the last out. The seventh was scoreless. In the top of the eighth, the House of Daniel scored three runs. They set up the inning with the prettiest hit-and-run you'd ever want to see. Guy on first broke for second. When the second baseman went to cover the bag, the batter slapped the ball through where he'd been. The runner kept on to third, and they were percolating.

Ponca City scored one in the last of the ninth, but only one. The House of Daniel took the game, 8-6. The two teams shook hands. Nobody on the House of Daniel tried to deck Close Shave Simpkins. It wasn't like they'd never got thrown at before. In the stands and under them, cash went back and forth.

Then the fellow with the megaphone stood up in front of the visitors' dugout and blared, “Is there an outfielder in the house?” People laughed, 'cause he sounded just like the guys who'd yelled for a doctor after the collision.

Me, I wasn't laughing. As soon as Rabbit and Double-Double trainwrecked like that, I started hoping the House of Daniel would put out a call like that. I could play the field with them—I knew I could. Hitting? Well, I wasn't terrible, or the Eagles would've turned me down. Maybe I'd get on a hot streak or something.

You hate to wiggle on to a team because somebody else gets hurt. You wouldn't want anybody else wiggling on 'cause you got hurt. But guys do get hurt all the time. Teams need players all the time. And, by now, Big Stu would know I didn't do what he told me to do. Big Stu, he got mad
and
he got even.