Sam's Legacy (51 page)

When I rounded third base, my teammates were out of the dugout applauding for me. Barton, coaching at third, shook his head from side to side as I went by. “I never seen one that far,” he said. “I never did.” I crossed home plate and, beaming with pleasure, walked to the dugout, remembering to tip my cap to the fans. “Hey Gringo!” one of them called, hanging across our dugout, his hands cupped around his mouth. “You better than Bambino.” He was a young boy, perhaps fifteen years old. His features were sharp and small, like a Caucasian's, but his skin was the color of Johnson's skin: a deep dusty black. He turned from me, shouted to the crowd, and they took up his chant, clapping their hands, stamping their feet, and sounding my name. “Grin-go! Grin-go!”

“That ball not goin' to come down till tomorrow,” Jones said as I ducked into the dugout. “You laid the powder on, honey.”

Jack Henry shook my hand and sat down, somewhat stunned. “I saw John Henry—Lloyd—hit one once when we were playing down here in thirteen, and I didn't think I'd ever see one hit so far again, but you did it. “He glanced to his right.” Old Brick has been around a long time too—I ‘11 bet—”

He stopped. Johnson spat tobacco juice onto the dirt in front of the dugout. “Sure,” Johnson said, looking at the playing field. “He hits good.”

I sat still, urging myself to calm down, trying to concentrate on what was going on on the playing field. Massaguen, batting in last position, singled to right. With Jones at the plate, Jack Henry gave the hit-and-run sign for the third pitch, and Jones poked the ball down the right field line. Then, with men on first and third, Kelly lined out to the third baseman.

I waited as my teammates picked up their gloves and trotted onto the field, and then I forced myself to walk very slowly to the mound. The crowd cheered for me. “Grin-go—Grin-go—better than Bam-bi-no!” I heard them call and the chant gave me immense pleasure. It was the top of the fourth inning, and no man had reached first base: I had given up no runs, no hits, no bases on balls, and there had been no errors. Three men had batted in each of the first three innings, and I had only to do the same thing—set the same nine men down—two more times, and I would have pitched, against the supposed best team in the world, the perfect game.

The numbers spun around in my head, the nine-inning game divided into thirds, each third containing three innings, each inning containing three men, each man receiving three strikes—but the instant Dugan stepped into the box and I started my motion, my head was clear. I thought of nothing. I was there. I struck Dugan out on three straight pitches. I got Koenig on a checked-swing grounder to second. Ruth was at the plate again, and I could not have been happier. I did not bother teasing him. I did not even think of him as I kicked and threw. He swung at the first pitch, and missed. The crowd made noises. He stepped out of the batter's box and rubbed dirt on his hands. The boy who had first called me Gringo lay across the roof of the dugout, on his stomach, taunting Ruth. “Grin-go—Grin-go—better than Bam-bi-no!” he cried, and I could tell that the shrill voice had slipped under Ruth's skin. I could sense, also, that my own teammates, poised in the field behind me, were aware of the special quality of the game—they were quieter than usual, tensed, and it was—I could hardly believe it—Barton who I heard yell toward the plate, with a confidence I would never have believed he possessed: “You can't see that ball, nigger man—our man blows it by you. Oh but you just a poor nigger man, standin' there doin' nothin'.”

I saw Ruth's eyes widen. Jones whooped from third base, and realizing that the word had angered Ruth, he used it also. “You own that nigger, honey,” he called to me. “Oh but you own that man.”

Ruth crouched slightly, coiled and ready to swing. I pitched and the ball moved like a rocket. His anger made him chop at the ball and it cracked into Bingo's mitt for a second strike. “I feel the breeze,” Jones called. “Ain't never felt so good—that nigger sure fans the breeze!” I had the ball back from Bingo and I did not wait for Ruth to step out of the box. His right foot moved, however, as if he wanted to, but he was too late. I had started my motion and he tried to adjust, to set himself for me, but he was as good as dead. I fired the ball with all my strength, low, and he lunged forward, only to have the ball hop as it had never hopped before, hitting Bingo in his glove a good foot above the spot where Ruth's bat had passed. “Ooo-ee,” Jones cried, and he ran from the field. On top of our dugout the boy was standing, his arms stetched above his head, as if he were a
banderillero
, and dancing up and down, he drove invisible darts into a nonexistent animal. I saw handkerchiefs and hats swirling in multicolored circles. I sat in the dugout and watched him run, pigeon-toed, to his position in right field.

We did not score any runs in our half of the fourth, and in the top of the fifth I set down their side again, striking out Gehrig and Meusel, to bring my total of strikeouts for five innings to ten. I batted second in our half of the inning, and slashed the ball toward the hole between first and second. It took a wicked bounce at the edge of the infield grass, and just as I thought it would continue through toward him, I saw Lazzeri fly through the air, spear the ball glove-handed; from a sitting position on the outfield grass, he threw to first base. I was out by a step. “Good wood, though,” Rose said to me as I returned to the dugout. He smiled at me with a tenderness I had never before seen. “Take a look,” he said, and he pointed to second base where Lazzeri, glove off, was blowing on the palm of his hand.

Bingo's hand touched my shoulder. “Gone to have to soak my hand tonight, but that's okay. You keep throwin'. They ain't gone to touch you.”

I nodded and, as I sat by myself, leaning forward so that I could feel the warmth of the sun, I realized that my teammates were feeling close to me—closer probably than they had ever felt. As was the custom, they said nothing to me about the fact that I had given up no hits, but by their very silence I knew that they were aware that I had a perfect game going, and I felt that they knew how intensely important it was to me that I pitch that perfect game. “Goin' to get you some insurance,” Kelly said, passing me on his way to pick a bat from the bat rack, but we watched Barton fly easily to Meusel in left; the fifth inning was over, with our team still leading 1 to 0.

Ruth was ambling in from his right field position as I walked to the mound. “Tony stole one from ya,” he called to me. “He don't have no fits between two and four in the afternoon.” He tried to laugh then, but his laugh was forced. “Grin-go! Grin-go!” the boy called, as Ruth continued toward his dugout. “Better than Bam-bi-no! Grin-go! Grin-go! Better than Bam-bi-no!” I warmed up, preparing to face the bottom third of the Yankee order, and though it was the weakest part of their line-up, I warned myself about not letting up. When Combs stepped into the box to begin the inning, I took Bingo's sign for a duster and fired the ball, without second thoughts, for Combs's chin. He hit the dirt, his bat sailing backward in the air. I pitched again, inside, and though the ball was over the plate, I had Combs backing away for a called strike. He was easy after that: another pitch inside, for a ball, and then two quick ones on the outside and one man was down. Benny Bengough, the Yankee catcher, a shrewd hitter, stepped into the box. My first pitch was perfect, low and away, slicing the outside corner, but Bengough—the crafty Jew, as he was called—was moving with the pitch, and he laid a perfect bunt down the third base line.

I stood there transfixed, watching the ball edge along as if it would take forever to move even five feet. From the corner of my left eye I saw Bengough chugging down the first base line and I was aware that I had not started for the ball. I thought I saw Ruth smiling—but it was Johnson's laugh I heard, deep and raspy. I saw the game dissolving, yet I could not move. Bingo had torn his mask off, but Bengough, a right-handed hitter, had blocked his view, and Bingo was only now—as Bengough must have been halfway down the line—seeing where the ball was, trickling slowly along the basepath, some eight or nine feet from the plate. I thought I heard myself scream, and I could feel the scream tearing through my throat and up through my eyes, but my mouth was not open. The ball rolled along, inch by inch, too far away for me to get it in time. I thought I screamed again, but realized—in the din the crowd was making—that it was somebody else's scream I was hearing. The boy was on our dugout, jumping up and down in a tantrum, and the crowd, on its feet, screamed madly. But the scream I heard, I suddenly realized, came from Little Johnny Jones. Like a mad cat he streaked into view to my right, yelling at me, I now understood, to get my fool head down. I ducked and saw Jones flash by, scooping up the ball barehanded and, in the same incredibly swift motion, firing across the infield, directly above my head, to first base. Were I to pitch a thousand games and strike out every man in every game, I do not believe I would ever see a more perfect and beautiful play: to fly at full speed and scoop up a small piece of leather—to let that ball fly in a direction opposite from your body's motion, with that body, all the while, low to the ground, the back curved forward, the body's balance impossibly maintained so that the ball moves like white lightning to its mark—oh but that was the miracle! Bengough was out by a half-step, and as the umpire gestured, the crowd's noise stopped for an instant, and then returned, cresting and crashing upon me. I turned to Jones and his smile went from ear to ear, filling his dark face. He tipped his cap to me. “All of them,” he said. “All of them, honey.”

“Ooo-eee!” Barton called from behind, as the ball was whipped around the infield. “That's pretty. Oh yes. That's pretty.”

Jones tossed the ball to me. “Nothin' to be scared of, honey—Little Johnny gone to get them all. I get them all—you throw the ball.”

He lifted his cap and wiped his hand across his forehead, across the scar in whose groove his perspiration was collecting. The play, of course, had been his, since my follow-through was toward first base, and yet, even if I had had no chance for the play—it had never, as I now saw, been mine—I knew that I had frozen, and had been saved. I would not receive another chance. I threw harder than I had to, and struck out the pitcher, Moore, on three straight pitches.

Kelly doubled to lead off the bottom of the sixth inning, but he was left stranded at second base as Kinnard, Johnson, and Dell made out. I walked to the mound, knowing that, in their half of the seventh inning, I would face him for what I hoped would be the last time. I told myself not to think about him, for that was the surest way to have the two men who preceded him make easy prey of me. But with the ball in my hand and the sun on my back, I was in no danger. Dugan swung late and popped the ball, in foul territory, behind the plate, where Bingo gathered it in for the first out. I put two quick strikes on Koenig, the next batter, and then—as Ruth waited calmly in the on-deck circle—I threw again and Koenig, who had not yet struck out that day, drilled the ball to straightaway center field. My heart dropped. I turned and saw Kinnard moving backward so easily that the ball appeared to slow down—as if it were waiting until he could catch up with it. He caught it in full stride, over his left shoulder. With the crowd, I heard myself sigh, relieved.

“Last time, honey,” Jones called, as Ruth waved his bat at me. “You just blow the ball by, like always.”

I leaned forward, as if to take a sign from Bingo—Ruth stood there, wanting me to pitch so that he could hit. I took my time, picked up the rosin bag, hitched my belt, then turned to face my team, as if to assure myself that they were in position. Ruth did not move. “Don't fool us, poor nigger man,” Barton cried. “Don't fool us with nothing.”

Ruth dug the heel of his right shoe deeper into the dirt. I wound up slowly, and I realized that I was smiling and that he was watching my smile. The ball was letter-high, like a bullet. He stepped and swung and I closed my eyes. Bingo's arm, when I opened my eyes, was cocked behind his ear, the ball in his hand. My smile broadened, and I was pleased to see that it was angering Ruth. His neck was red. As much as I may have wanted to defeat him—so much did he want to please his fans. I reared back and fired again, straight for his chin. His body dipped backward, but he would not fall. The ball passed an inch or two from his face, cracking savagely into Bingo's mitt. The crowd became hushed. He spat across the plate, his spit falling a few feet in front of the on-deck circle where Gehrig—a man he despised, as everybody knew—was waiting. I gripped the ball and thought of nothing except that invisible tunnel to Bingo's glove. I wound up and delivered, low and outside, and he did not swing. Strike two. On top of the dugout the boy jumped up and down, then twirled around once and squatted, waiting. Ruth stepped out of the box, let his bat fall so that he was leaning upon it, holding the handle. He raised his right hand briefly, pointing toward center field, and the crowd breathed with delight. They had seen him make such promises before. I glanced behind, but Kinnard did not back up. The fans behind him were standing, waiting for the ball they now hoped would be theirs. I might, at such a moment, have had a thousand thoughts—and yet I recall having none, and can remember only the heat my body was generating, and the movements it made as I wound up, twisted sideways, kicked high with my left leg, strode forward, and pitched. He seemed to start his swing even before the pitch was released, and I was, momentarily, terrified. His arms and shoulders, despite his protruding stomach, moved gracefully and powerfully in a clean arc, waist-high. For a split second I thought the ball had stopped and that he would murder it, but then it sped on its way and I saw that I had had nothing to be worried about. I was too fast for him. His bat did not even graze the white pellet. The crowd gasped as he twisted in agony, almost falling down from his effort. I had struck him out for the third time. Jones called to him—something about the pointing he had done—but I did not hear him. I was, as any of my teammates might have put it, home free.