The Great American Novel (45 page)

“Tell
me
why, Samuel. Say what is in your heart. Why has the Lord chosen you for such suffering and pain?”

“Because,” said Mister Fairsmith, bitterly, “because the Lord hates baseball.”

“But Our Lord is just and merciful.”

“No, He hates baseball, Billy. Either that, or He does not exist.”

“Our Lord exists, Samuel. Moreover, He loves baseball with a love that is infinite and all-encompassing.”

“Then why is there such a team as the '43 Mundys? Why a Hothead Ptah! Why a Nickname Damur! And now a dwarf who blinded a midget! A dwarf in a Ruppert uniform!
Why?
”

“Samuel, you must not lose faith. He will answer our prayers, albeit in His own time.”

“But they are already in last place
by fifty games!
”

“Many that are first by fifty games shall be last, Samuel, and the last by fifty, first. Let us pray.”

So he prayed: in Tri-City with the Reverend Billy Tollhouse, in Aceldama with the Reverend Billy Biscuit, in Independence with the Reverend Billy Popover, in Terra Incognita with the Reverend Billy Scone, in Asylum with the Reverend Billy Zwieback, in Kakoola with the Reverend Billy Bun. Yes, the most famous radio preachers of the era sought to save the great manager from apostasy; but, alas, by the middle of September, with the Mundys having won but twenty-three of one hundred and forty-two games, those who patiently tried to explain to him that perhaps he would have to wait until next year for his prayers to be answered, feared that if the Lord did not intervene in behalf of the Mundys before the season's end, Ulysses S. Fairsmith's faith would be extinguished forever.

And then it happened. Mundys 14, Blues 6. Mundys 8, Blues 0. Mundys 7, Keepers 4. Mundys 5, Keepers 0.

Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

*   *   *

“So there is a God on high, and He does love baseball.”

“It would appear so, Billy.”

“And He has tested His servant, Ulysses S. Fairsmith, and He has not found him wanting.”

“Then
that
was His reason.”

“It would appear so, Samuel, it would appear so.”

Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

*   *   *

Perhaps they were a last place team with the worst record ever compiled in the history of the three leagues, but on the train ride back across the country following the 9–3 home-run extravaganza against Terra Incognita—their eleventh in a row—they were as joyous and confident as any Ruppert team Mister Fairsmith could recall, including the great pennant winners of the twenties.

The train was bound for Tri-City, where they were to play their final game of the year, a contest rained out earlier in the season against the Tycoons. And what a victory that was going to be! Oh sure, the bookmakers had them down as four-to-one underdogs (how on earth could they do it again? how could the Mundys knock the Tycoons out of first on the last day of the season!) but there wasn't a Ruppert Mundy who heard those odds, who didn't have to laugh. “Well, you want to be a rich man, George,” they told the grinning porter, “you lay down two bits and see if you ain't got yourself a dollar in your pocket by tomorrow night.”

Soldiers on board the eastbound train continually drifted back to the dining car during the evening meal to get a peek at the miracle team of the Patriot League. “Our pleasure, our pleasure,” the Mundys said, when the G.I.s asked for autographs. The soldiers said, “You don't know what it means to a feller headed to he-don't-know-where, just to be ridin' the same train with a team what's done what you guys have. Wait'll I write home!”

“Good luck, soldier! Good luck, G.I. Joe!” the Mundys called after them. “You make it hot for old Hitler now!”

“We will! We will!”

“Good luck, lads! You're brave boys!”

“And good luck to you—in Tri-City!”

“Oh, tell that to them Tycoons! Them's the ones need luck!”

They were up till midnight in the diner, playing spit-in-the-ocean and smoking Havana cigars. The waiters, who ordinarily would have shooed them off to their berths hours ago—after having flung their food at them, cold and greasy—were more than happy to stay and do their bidding, just for the privilege of hearing the rampaging Rupperts recount inspirational anecdotes from their amazing eleven-game streak. After all, if the Mundys could rise from ignominy to glory virtually overnight, who in this world could consider himself doomed?

“Yes,
suh,
Mistah Hothead! Yes,
suh,
Mistah Nickname! Mistah O.K.—you want sump'n, suh?”

“A new pack of Bicycles, George!”

“Yes,
suh!
”

At midnight, leaning on Jolly Cholly's arm, Mister Fairsmith entered the dining car. Nickname doused his cigar in his beer, and Ockatur, who had the lion's share of the winnings piled on the tray of the high chair in which he was seated, slipped the money surreptitiously into his pocket.

Following the two victories in Independence and the four in Asylum, Mister Fairsmith had rejoined the team in the dugout, remaining with them throughout their last five triumphs in Kakoola and Terra Inc. His cane across his lap, a beatific gleam in his blue eyes, he slowly rocked to and fro on his chair, as one Mundy runner after another crossed home plate. He was a far more decrepit figure than they remembered from Opening Day—the wear and tear of all that prayer. Indeed, if anything had the power to subdue these spirited Mundys, who now virtually quivered with energy from breakfast to bedtime, it was that look in Mister Fairsmith's eye of exceeding wisdom and benevolence.

With Jolly Cholly's assistance, Mister Fairsmith was helped into a chair drawn into the aisle at the head of the car. “I have a telegram to read to you before I retire for the night,” he said, studying the face of each of the redeemed. “It has just this minute arrived, and was brought back to me by the engineer. ‘Dear Sam. No matter what the outcome of tomorrow's game, I want you to know how proud I am of you and the Ruppert Mundys. As a result of what you have accomplished against the most insuperable odds, the R that once stood for Ruppert must henceforth be considered to stand for nothing less than this great Republic. The Mundys are a homeless team no more—they belong to an entire nation. Sam, I will consider it a great privilege if I may board the train in Port Ruppert tomorrow morning and accompany you and your team to their final game in Tri-City.' Signed, ‘General Douglas D. Oakhart, President of the Patriot League.'”

With this, Mister Fairsmith signaled for Jolly Cholly to help him to his feet. “Good night, Mundys. Good night, my Ruppert Mundys,” and his creased and craggy face beamed with love.

*   *   *

Rupe-it!

There was a band to greet them—at 6
A.M.
! And all along the tracks into the station, Rupe-it rootas, waving hand-lettered signs wildly in the air.

MUNDYS WE MISS YOU!

GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN!

MUNDYS COME HOME ALL IS FORGIVEN!

The players pressed their noses to the windows and waved at the crowd that had turned out at dawn just to watch their train pass through on the way to Massachusetts.

When the train stopped to receive passengers, mobs of schoolchildren surged to the side of the sleeping car to gape at the heroes whose names had all at once become legendary throughout the land. The players winked and laughed and blew kisses, and then, when they were moving again, lay back in their berths, not a few with tears on their faces. Winning! Winning! Oh, you just can't say enough good things about winning!

*   *   *

Festooned with ribbons, General Oakhart stood at the entrance to the dining car to receive them; Mister Fairsmith, supported by Jolly Cholly, introduced the victorious players one by one. When the last Mundy was seated before his orange juice, the President of the league addressed them:

“Before I drink a toast to this brave and courageous ball club”—he amused the players, who were easy to amuse these days, by tapping a fingernail on his juice glass—“I have a telegram to read to you date-marked yesterday noon. ‘Dear General. No one could be more delighted than I am by the remarkable Mundy winning streak. As you know, at the outset of the season, I shared your fears that the burden they had chosen to bear might ultimately do serious damage to their morale. And indeed, there were moments during the season when being a permanent road club seemed to be weighing too heavily upon the shoulders of the Ruppert team. But just when it appeared that our worst fears were about to be realized, they have astounded and heartened the entire country with the most incredible display of Big League ball many a fan has seen this season, or
any
season. It is a great moment, not only for the Mundys and Mister Fairsmith, not only for you and the Patriot League, not only for baseball, but for the nation. I am deeply honored by your invitation to join you in your box at Tycoon Park to watch this final contest of the Patriot League season, and wish to inform you that despite pressing business here in the Commissioner's office, I will leave Chicago in time to be in Tri-City to address the Mundys in their clubhouse before the game begins.' And, gentlemen, the telegram is signed by the Commissioner of Baseball, Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis.”

And there he was, craggier even than Mister Fairsmith, the czar of baseball, waiting to greet them as they entered the visitors' clubhouse at noon. If till then the Mundys had any doubt that they had passed from being the most despised to the most beloved baseball team in America, it surely disappeared when the Commissioner, of his own accord, kneeled to exchange a few pleasantries with O.K. Ockatur. Then, while the flashbulbs popped, the fearless judge—so aptly named for an American mountain—read the following telegram to the team:

“‘My dear Judge Landis. It has been a bracing experience for me, as for my fellow Americans, to watch the Ruppert Mundys turn a season of seeming catastrophe into a gallant triumph. I firmly believe that the farmers and the factory workers, the children in our schools and the women who keep the home fires burning, and above all, our brave fighting men around the globe, cannot but draw inspiration from the “Never Say Die” spirit of these illustrious men. Though I cannot join you today at Tri-City to watch this undiscourageable nine in their final battle of the season, I assure you I will, from the War Room, be in continual telephone contact with the stadium in order to remain abreast of the inning-by-inning developments. Accepting your most kind and thoughtful invitation in my behalf will be my wife, a baseball fan in her own right, and one who has seen in the resurgence of the team everyone had counted out, a stirring example for all underdogs everywhere. With every best wish, very sincerely yours, Franklin D. Roosevelt.'”

So, along with Mrs. Trust and General Oakhart and Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, the wife of the President of the United States sat that afternoon in a box behind the Tri-City dugout, there to pay tribute to the Ruppert team in behalf of America's Chief Executive. The game, in fact, was delayed thirty minutes while Mrs. Roosevelt went down into the visitors' dugout to shake the hands of the players and ask them what states they were from. Then she rejoined the other dignitaries in the box, and the Tycoons, weary from their season-long battle against the surging Butchers, and visibly unnerved by all the attention being heaped upon their adversaries, took the field. Though the day was breezy, and he had taken no more than a dozen warm-up pitches, Smoky Woden's uniform was already gray with perspiration when Frenchy Astarte stepped up to the plate and the umpire cried, “Play ball!”

No need to chronicle here the records compiled in a game about which tens of thousands of words were written during that fall and winter: the record number of times Hothead Ptah tripped on his mask going back for foul pop-ups, the record number of times that Mike Rama knocked himself unconscious against the left-field wall, the record number of times Specs Skirnir “lost” ground balls in the sun—every stupid and humiliating mishap of that afternoon was recounted by the sports columnists of the nation no less frequently than the third strike that Mickey Owen dropped in the '41 World Series, or the error that earned Bonehead Merkle his nickname in 1908, and lost the Giants the pennant.

With two out in the ninth and his team down by thirty-one runs, Nickname Damur got the fifth Mundy hit of the day—Agni had the other four—a clean shot up the alley in left center, and then was out when he tried to stretch the double into a three-bagger. The Tycoon fans, by reputation as sober and scholarly a crowd as you could find anywhere, were so busy laughing at the sheer idiocy of Nickname's base-running, that it was a while before they even realized that their team had just won the '43 flag. In the dugout, streaming tears, Nickname stood before Mister Fairsmith and tried to think of some sort of explanation for what he had just done.

“I don't know, sir,” he said, shrugging. “I guess you could say I gambled.”

“Thirty-one runs behind in the ninth … and you say … you say you
gambled?
My God,” moaned Mister Fairsmith, “my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” and rolling off his rocker, died on the floor of the visitors' dugout.

*   *   *

“What happened, you son of a bitch!”

“I couldn't—I couldn't do it.”

“Why, Roland,
why
couldn't you?”

“Don't you know who all was eatin' breakfast with us? General Oakhart! You know who all was in the box? Judge Landis, the Commissioner! And Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt! And you know who sent us a telegram?
The President of the United States!
”

“And what do they have to do with anything?”

“They just happen to be the most important people in the world, that's all!”

“Idiot! They are the most important people in the world just like the Wheaties they make in Minneapolis are the Breakfast of Champions!”