The Last Western (9 page)

“What you boys doing?”

“He’s got a new ball,” said Clio.

“Wait a minute,” said Coach Moss Gideon. “We’ve got a game to win here. This isn’t any time for new balls or experiments. Just throw the usual stuff, Willie, and keep away from anything screwy.”

“We were just fooling around,” said Willie. Coach Gideon went back to the batting cage.

Clio said, “What does he know? All he cares about is his record. You’ve got a new pitch, man!”

But Willie pitched the game Coach Moss Gideon had ordered—fast balls, change-ups, the fairly good curve he had mastered. At the end of five innings, the score was tied one to one.

In the sixth, Clio tripled, then stole home. When he got back to the bench, he said to Coach Gideon, “Why not let Willie try the new pitch? Just for an inning.”

“He can’t control it.”

“Just a couple of pitches.”

The coach sighed. “Will you get the runs back when he starts walking them?”

“If he walks them, we’ll go back to the straight stuff.”

So Willie went out for the sixth, and then and there for the first time in baseball, the eyes of men beheld what later became known as the Up Ball, the Loop Ball or, in some cities, the Bird.

In that first game, it is true, Willie walked two batters.

It is also true that Clio missed two third strikes and that in the first of the ninth Sam Houston nearly tied the score.

But what made the game remarkable was that from the sixth inning on, not a single batter even touched Willie’s pitch, which the Houston coach called “pretty amazing—in fact damned amazing.”

All twelve batters struck out, utterly baffled by the pitch. Some said the ball was an upcurve, though no one had ever heard tell of an upcurve.

Others said that the pitch was a fast ball that hopped when it got to the plate—though neither the coaches, nor the umpire, nor the players, nor any of the bystanders had ever seen a ball hop a foot and a half.

The ball would come zipping in to the batter exactly like a fast ball. About ten feet from the plate, perhaps twelve feet—at that point in space where the eye of the batter fixes a pitch and in that split second when his brain decides
swing
—the ball would skip up sharply, sailing up across the shoulders of the batter who was swinging underneath it.

The batters missed the pitch by a foot and a half, so swift was the upturn of the ball. Some missed it by two feet.

Clio, too, missed it. It was a most difficult pitch to handle. Of the sixty-three pitches Willie threw in those four innings, Clio dropped, muffed, tipped or otherwise mishandled forty-five. Only in the final inning did he succeed in guessing the approximate point where the pitch would cross the plate.

It was strange to see a catcher crouched down behind the plate holding his mitt above his head. The umpire complained he couldn’t see the strike zone.

After the game, the players and coaches of both teams crowded around Willie.

“How do you throw it, boy?” the Houston coach asked.

Willie said, “It’s simple. You just take the ball like this,” and he began to demonstrate the pitch.

“Wait a minute,” Clio broke in. “It’s
his
pitch. He’s not showing it to anyone.”

“Take it easy, Clio,” Coach Moss Gideon said. “We’re all friends here.”

“It’s Willie’s pitch,” Clio said.

“It doesn’t matter, Clio,” said Willie gently.

And Willie was right; it didn’t matter. After showing every pitcher on both clubs how to throw the pitch and after spending an hour demonstrating it for both coaches, Willie was still the only one who could throw the ball.

The others succeeded in throwing simple fast balls with nothing but spin on them, or else they couldn’t throw the ball at all. Something in the release of the pitch, something Willie did with his wrist, hurt everybody else’s arm.

Willie and Clio stayed on the field practicing until darkness fell. The more Willie threw the ball, the better his control. And the better Clio’s control.

“It’s a miracle!” Clio shouted to the empty bleachers.

Off the field, the coaches walked to their cars.

“Who is the kid?” asked the Sam Houston coach.

“Just some chink-nigger,” said Coach Moss Gideon.

“Where did he come from?”

“He’s been around. He beat you twice last year.”

“I don’t remember him.”

“How could you forget him?” Coach Moss Gideon said. “Isn’t he the craziest looking kid you ever saw?”

“I can’t remember kids—only scores. What were the scores of those games?”

“Four to one, and six to two.”

“Yeah,” said the Sam Houston coach. “You mean that’s the same kid?”

“Yup.”

“Where’d he get the pitch?” ,

“God knows—just jacking around probably. Anyway, it’ll be forgotten tomorrow. He’s the dumbest kid in school. Buy you a beer?”

But
Coach Moss Gideon was wrong.

Willie’s pitch wasn’t gone the next day or the day after that or the day after that when Custer played Thoreau, the strongest team in the city high school league.

Willie and Clio had spent the afternoons between the games practicing the pitch until Willie could throw it with true control and Clio, after a thousand catches, could hold it.

The Custer-Thoreau game became a legend in the history of baseball in the Southwest.

It was the first time in those parts anyone had ever struck out twenty-seven straight batters.

Willie’s pitch bobbed, jumped, skipped,
bounced in the air
, as the Houston telenews said,
as if ten feet in front of the plate, it hit an invisible iron bar. The ball seems to move under its own mysterious power, which not even its affable young hurler can explain. Though he will demonstrate the pitch to anyone holding a scorecard, no one seems to be able to throw it but the young multinational Willie himself. And so far, no one catches it quite as well as Clio, the other half of the battery, who incidentally is one of the best switch-hitters this town has seen in many a moon.

So went the first of the stories about Willie’s remarkable pitch.

In the next few weeks there were other stories, stories on TV and in the papers of other cities, stories that carried across the land, to the Midwest, to the East, and to the far West.

A week later, Willie pitched his second no-hit, no-run, all strikeout game and the stories multiplied and carried even farther across the land.

In the great city of New York, a TV sports show seen by five million persons carried a film about Willie. The film was titled “Young Texan Invents Miracle Pitch.”

Seven thousand people showed up for the next game.

They thronged along the foul lines, they stood on the tops of automobiles, they crowded the diamond on every side and made such a roaring commotion that there was something frightening about their presence.

A simple game of ball, thought Willie, looking at the faces distorted by excitement, grotesque faces pinkening and reddening in the hot sun—a simple game of ball.

Then, as he started to throw, he had the first vague impression of the crowd as being something other than it was, a strange dusky animal with a life of its own.

His first pitch went flying in at the first batter.

Strike one
.

When the roar went up, vaulting into the blue spaces, the animal image came again. He felt a little shiver of fear but he shook it off and looked down at Clio.

Strike two.

It’s a game, he told himself feeling the fear again.
People need games. Games are good. People need
—but when he looked at the people once more, he saw this brutish being, this gray-blue animal that stretched all around. The fear came up to his mouth.

Whiz!
The batter missed the pitch by two feet and the crowd-beast coiled and twisted about the field, excited and somehow angry.

Willie stood still, looking at the spectacle, as the next batter waited for the pitch.

Clio, seeing his hesitation, came out to the mound.

“What’s wrong?”

“The people… .”

“Some crowd!” said Clio. “Somebody said there’s a scout here from Dallas.”

Willie was staring at the people along the foul lines.

“Don’t pay any attention to them,” said Clio, following his gaze. “Just throw the ball.”

So Willie threw and the fears went away but from time to time he felt the sinister energy of that strong sinewy creature coiling around the diamond, which seemed to be calling to him, demanding something other than a game.

The game was a repeat of the others—not a single batter even touched the ball.

As the last batter walked away, the crowd pressed inward, roaring and shouting.

Willie thought for a moment they were angry because the game was over and the game had not been enough, and again he felt the fear.

People moved and pushed against him, wanting to shake his hand or clap his shoulder.

A television film crew cut a path through the crowd, and a man in a bright red blazer held a microphone to Willie’s dry lips.

“How’s it feel to pitch a superperfect game?”- the man asked, looking not at Willie but at the camera.

“Sir?” asked Willie, who had not heard the question.

“Wonderful,” said the man, who then moved in front of Willie and made a little speech that Willie could not hear.

When he had finished his speech, he turned once more to Willie and said, “Isn’t that right, young fella?”

“Sir?” asked Willie.

“And so, folks,” the announcer said, turning back to the camera, “a legend is born—perhaps the greatest legend in Texas sports, right here on the Custer High School diamond,” and the rest of his words were lost in the shouting of the crowd.

Coach Moss Gideon came now to rescue Willie from the pressing, perspiring mob.

The coach led Willie back to the school and into his office behind the locker room. Clio was there sitting by the coach’s desk, listening to two strange men who wore shiny, expensive dark blue suits and great red rings marked with a strange insignia.

“These gentlemen,” said Coach Gideon, “are scouts from the New York Hawks. They are here to offer you and Clio major league contracts.”

“How do you do?” said one of the men, extending his hand. “I’m Mr. Ware and this is Mr. Cole.”

Smiling the smile he could not help, Willie shook hands with the two men. He saw that the insignia on their rings showed a great silver hawk perched on crossed baseball bats made of platinum or silver. He could not take his eyes off the rings.

“You have a great career ahead of you, young fella,” said Mr. Ware.

“Also a very lucrative one,” said Mr. Cole.

“The gentlemen mean you’ll be rich,” Coach Gideon explained. “You’ll make a lot of money.”

Willie’s eyes met Clio’s. They both were dumbstruck.

“As I explained to you gentlemen earlier,” Coach Gideon said, “Willie and Clio are minors. I do think they’ll need some guidance and good advice.”

“By all means,” said Mr. Ware.

“Certainly,” said Mr. Cole. Then the men left the office, leaving on the desk a stack of official looking papers.

“Boys,” said Coach Gideon, “we’ve been friends a long time, haven’t we?”

“Yes,” said Willie.

Clio said nothing. He was studying the picture that hung on the wall of Coach Gideon’s office. The picture was of Jefferson Davis, who had been president of the Confederate States of America back in the days no one remembers.

“Good friends,” said Coach Gideon, “and loyal friends. I feel that I know you two fellows as though you were my own sons. That is what I said in explaining our relationship to Mr. Ware and Mr. Cole. Now boys,” said Coach Gideon, looking a little like Jefferson Davis behind him, “now, I know you well enough to know that you won’t take offense when I say that you are not experienced in the legals. And since I have had many years of experience in the legals, I feel an obligation as a friend to step in and act as an agent in your behalf—for say twenty percent of the bonus money. Both Mr. Ware and Mr. Cole agreed with that viewpoint completely. In fact, they thought it most generous.”

Willie searched Clio’s face.

“Why do we need an agent?” Clio asked.

“Well, Clio, as I told your mother this morning, there are so many legals in a thing like this, without an agent it is screwball time with them pitching, if you follow.”

“You talked to my mother?”

“I wanted to be the first to congratulate her on having raised such a wonderful young American,” Coach Gideon said.

“What did she say?”

“Clio, you have a wonderful mother—don’t let anyone ever tell you different. And a very wise one. She said, ‘Whatever you think, Mr. Gideon,’ and that was that.”

“She said that?” Clio asked, as if he didn’t believe it.

“Her exact words, so help me God,” said Coach Moss Gideon.

“Did you talk to my mother too?” Willie asked.

“Your mother and your grandmother, Willie. They couldn’t be happier. Boys, neither of your families will ever be poor again.”

Clio and Willie looked at each other, still finding it hard to believe.

“How much is the bonus?” Clio said.

“To answer that, Clio,” said the coach, “I’ll ask Willie to step outside a minute. After all, this is a personal matter—a contract between you and Mr. Robert ‘Bob’ Regent.”

“Who is that?” Clio asked.

“Mr. Robert ‘Bob’ Regent is the owner of the New York Hawks and one of the richest men in the world,” said Coach Gideon.

In the hallway Willie met Mr. Ware and Mr. Cole. Their red rings flashed even in the dark corridor.

“You have a marvelous future before you,” said Mr. Ware.

“A superstar future,” said Mr. Cole.

“And we knew, and Mr. Robert ‘Bob’ Regent knew, you would be especially happy to know your pal Clio would share that future with you,” said Mr. Ware.

“Mr. Robert ‘Bob’ Regent said, ‘Let us sign a contract with Willie’s pal Clio, too.’”

“That’s wonderful,” said Willie. “Clio is the only one at Custer who can catch the pitch. He’s a good hitter too.”

“You betcha he is, fella,” said Mr. Ware. “Your good friend and advisor Coach Gideon told us you probably wouldn’t even sign the contract unless Clio was a part of the deal.”