About the B'nai Bagels (5 page)

All the managers and coaches of our league were there. Spencer and Mother, like all the others, went around and made notes on a clipboard. Spencer knew what he was doing just as Mother had known what she was doing when she forced him into being coach. Spencer had been catcher on his Little League team. Give him any chance at all, and he’d tell you what a terrific team they had had when he was a youth. That’s how he’d refer to that time: “When I was a youth,” he’d say. But you had to admit that in his year the B’nai B’rith team had won the championship of our league. And you had to admit that Spencer had been picked as a Tournament player. You had to admit it; it’s in the records. Spencer had been catcher in the game that won the district championship for Point Baldwin.

Each team in the Point Baldwin League would pick their best eleven- and twelve-year-olds to be on the Tournament Team. Only fourteen guys get chosen from the eight teams. Like All Stars. Our Point Baldwin Tournament Team would play the next town, Rye. If they won that, they would play for area championship, then district, section, state, division, on up to regional champs. Spence’s team had lost out at the sectional playoffs. Region champs play in a World Series of Little League, and that’s a big deal. Really big. Little League Baseball, Inc., pays your way to Williamsport, Pennsylvania, where the World Series is held. Williamsport, Pennsylvania, is the Jerusalem of Little League.

I figured that with Spencer having already made the tracks, it wouldn’t be hard to follow in his footsteps. I began to follow him and his clipboard until he noticed. “What are you doing, kid?”

“Oh, I just thought I’d follow you around, you being my big brother and coach and all.”

“Now, listen, kid, don’t get mushy. Get unattached. Go pick up somebody your own age.”

“There’s no one around here I want to play with.”

“Hersch is right over there, and so is Barry Jacobs.”

“Hersch who?”

“Herschel Dmitri Ivanovich Castro.”

“You mean Herschel Miller?”

“Very good. Verrry good. You guessed. Now go. I’m your coach. Not your nursemaid.”

“You’re also my brother.”

“I told you, don’t get mushy. Now scat.”

That remark was the beginning of the kind of special attention I got the whole season from my brother, my coach.

There had been about sixty boys trying out. When we got home, I sneaked a look at Mother’s and Spencer’s clipboards. Each boy was listed with his age in parenthesis beside. I came across two names that were underlined and double-starred. On both clipboards.

**Rivera, Simon (11)
**Rivera, Sylvester (11)

There weren’t any remarks by their names; there didn’t have to be. Those guys were terrific. Identical twins. They had moved to Point Baldwin from Miami in September. Any team would be lucky to get one, but they would be auctioned as a package. The League didn’t like to break up manager and son or brother and brother. Franklin P. Botts was also underlined. A powerful batter. He had only one star and one underline; the Chicken Delights had given up his option.

Spencer and Mother now had to draw up a list of the players they wanted in order of preference. I didn’t even look at that list. I had my own idea about where I stood, and I didn’t want to know if I was exactly right. I was relieved when Mother sent me to bed.

Spencer had to study for some exam the night of the auction, so Mother went without him. You wouldn’t believe the list of instructions he gave her. And she listened! You would think that he was a candidate for King of England, and my mother acted as if no one had ever taught her that kings get born not elected.

She returned home about 10:30 and called to Spencer and Dad right away. “We got them. We got them. The twins, we got. Cost me 6,800 credits for the two, but we got them. Also picked up Botts. Cheap for him, only 1975. What do you suppose is wrong with him that he was so cheap?”

Spencer then asked about some of the others, and they talked on about how she couldn’t get Romano because she ran out of credits, so she just picked up her nine- and ten-year-olds for five hundred each and came home.

Spencer must have been looking over the list when he saw my name. “What! You spent nine hundred and twenty-five credits for Mark. Nine hundred and twenty-five?
You could have gotten him for eight hundred. That was his option price. Didn’t you pick up his option? He should have cost only eight hundred.”

Mother answered, “Yes, by the way, how is my Moshe?”

By the way
, how is he? That’s the first that she had asked about me. I was less than a hobby to her.

“He’s fine,” Spencer said, but he wasn’t willing to stop his accounting. He must have inherited a counting gene from Dad.

“How come he cost you nine hundred twenty-five credits? Tell me, Bessie, didn’t you pick up his option?”

“Well,” Mother said, “I let his option go and put him up for auction. I pushed the bidding up to nine hundred twenty-five. I figured that no son of mine would go for only eight hundred. Especially when Hersch’s option was a thousand.”

“Hersch happens to be a better batter than your son.”

“But he’s not nearly as cute.”

“Bessie Setzer! You can’t run a team on heart.”

“Yes, you can. If you’ve got guts, too.” Long pause. Then Mother said very quietly, “By the way, I bought Sidney Polsky. I couldn’t tell his mother what you told me to tell her.”

“Mother! You’re impossible. No wonder you couldn’t
afford Romano. I let you out of my sight for one evening, and you…”

I didn’t listen any more even though they were talking loud enough for good eavesdropping. I was worth only eight hundred, and I was experienced. Finding out that I was only one and three fifths as good as Sidney Polsky was about as joyful news as finding out that I had been a leftover. Only it was worse. Having everyone in your family know your option price makes you feel like you have nothing on in front of them. Nothing but a big tattoo saying 800.

Hersch, who didn’t even care about baseball nearly as much as I did, was worth twice as much as Sidney. I was a cheap outfielder. Only eight hundred credits. The one hundred twenty-five was sales tax just because I’m Moshe, my mother’s son. No one was allowed to tell auction prices. The other kids who were cheap would never know it. If I hadn’t been trying to outgrow the habit, I would have cried.

I would never let my manager and my coach know that I had listened in. I would just be nonchalant about the whole thing, but I would be terrific, simply terrific on the field.

T
he orthodontist tightened my braces late on the Saturday before our first practice. On Sunday I was in pain. But pain. About seven out of ten kids in my Hebrew Class wore braces. When the class laughed, it looked like an open face mine with a silver lode one third of the way down. You could tell when someone got theirs tightened; their noses would be pink and their eyes watery: like before Dristan.

Aunt Thelma and Uncle Ben came to dinner on Sunday. Aunt Thelma had a habit of rapidly becoming an expert on anything Mother got involved in. Like the herb garden. That is, in addition to being an expert in her two specialties: raising other people’s children and educating them. Aunt Thelma has one maid, Valerie, and one husband, Uncle Ben. Both the maid and Uncle Ben
commute to work. And even if she had kids, I don’t know why Mother should listen because Aunt Thelma is the
younger
sister, even if she is richer. But Aunt Thelma went to daytime college and finished. Mother went to nighttime college, part-time, and quit when she met Dad who was also going to nighttime college, part-time. They still talk about how Mom worked so that Dad could go to day-time college, full-time, and finish being an accountant. They talk about it often. You’d think that they’d have gotten over it by now. I figured that my mother respected education, and that’s why she put up with Aunt Thelma. Spencer, also.

Although Mother didn’t like to have both hostessing and baseball on her mind at the same time, she put out a nice meal. Pot roast and cheese cake. Mother is great with cheese cake; she tops it with strawberries.

Aunt Thelma was dieting; dieting is part of Aunt Thelma’s character. Dieters annoy Mother. When she was pot roasting and cheese caking, she expected everyone to eat a lot. Because of the braces I let her down, too.

Mother commented as she was clearing up, “I’m putting away more than I put out.” She always said that when we had company.

Aunt Thelma and I made an effort to help Mother clean up, but when Mother is aggravated, she is very
difficult to help. Like when I asked, “Where should I put the leftover roast?” Mother didn’t answer. She sighed, wiped her hands on her apron, and took it from me. Looking straight at me, she wrapped it in aluminum foil, and then with movements like a ballet dancer, put it in the refrigerator. As she closed the refrig, she said, “I started keeping leftover roast in a refrigerator five minutes after it got invented.” Aunt Thelma never looked comfortable in a kitchen; she perspired. And I wasn’t comfortable; my whole face felt on the verge of pain except when I chewed, and then it felt in actual pain.

By the time we arrived at the practice field, Mother was exhausted, and Spencer was irritated. Dad had decided to stay home and read; he always went on a reading jag after tax season. Uncle Ben chose to keep him company. As soon as we got there, Aunt Thelma ran out onto the field full of dignified enthusiasm until her heels sank into the ground and she began tilting backwards. After that she sat on the bench and observed.

The team arrived in dribs and drabs after we did. They came in carloads driven by mothers who were all dressed like Aunt Thelma in stretch pants and ski jackets with their hair all pasted together. The trouble with the way Aunt Thelma looked was that when she walked, nothing moved but her legs. When Mother
walks, it’s like she carries a private breeze with her, and that’s much nicer.

Mother herded all the kids into the dugout and began by introducing herself and Spencer. “My name is Mrs. Setzer. Here is Spencer who is your coach.” There was dead silence. Mother smiled and cleared her throat. “I’m your manager.”

There followed one loud snort from the left end of the dugout. Mother ignored it and continued, “I think we can be a winning team if you listen to me and to Spencer and work hard and train hard.” The snort was louder and longer this time. Mother ignored it again. “After this we’ll practice every Tuesday afternoon and Friday before sundown unless there is rain.” Again the snort. Everyone began to laugh. Mother cocked her ear this time and listened. “Would you please repeat that?” she requested. Her head remained tilted, but she kept her eyes from the left side of the dugout. There followed a double snort. Everyone laughed again. Louder. “Does someone here have trouble with adenoids?” she asked. Spencer was getting nervous; he began picking imaginary lint off his pants, a sure sign that he was nervous.

Hal Burser pointed to Botts and said, “Botts wants to know why we have to have a lady manager. Like why can’t we have a man?”

“If Botts wants to know, let Botts ask,” Mother said.

Botts asked. “Why do we have to have a lady manager?” His voice kind of trailed off at the end of the question.

Mother said, “The question has been asked and seconded, ‘Why do we have to have a lady manager?’ There is only one possible explanation.” She paused, took a deep breath, and with her hands straight down at her sides, said, “The reason why you have a lady manager is because chlorophyll is a catalyst that enables a plant to use the energy of the sun to convert carbon dioxide and water into sugar and oxygen.”

Long, long pause. No snorts. Nothing. We all waited, but Mother said nothing more. She just folded her arms across her chest and tapped her foot and smiled at the whole dugout, her audience. We were all puzzled.

Finally, Hersch said, “But, Mrs. Setzer, that about chlorophyll is just a fact of life.”

Mother didn’t give his sentence a chance to cool off before she pressed in hers. “And so is your having a lady manager! It’s just a fact of life, and you have to face it. You have to face facts.” Then she took her arms from her chest and raised them outward. She shrugged her shoulders and smiled at the boys. “Now that we have that over with, can we play ball?”