Robert Coover - The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop

Rain could end the game, a drunken fan could crack a player's skull with a pitched beer bottle, a brawl could break out, game* throwing scandals could be discovered, epidemics of flu or dysentery could ravage a line-up. But as he got out the chart to look at it, Henry could see only one line:

1-1-1: Batter struck fatally by bean ball.

And the first batter facing Jock Casey in the bottom of the third inning was the ninth man in the Pioneer line-up: Damon Rutherford!

Henry was on his feet. He paced to the refrigerator, to the stove, to the sink, back to the table. He slapped the back of the chair with his hand. Incredible! He tried to swallow, couldn't. He went to the refrigerator, opened it. No more beer. Maybe Bancroft should pull the kid, repent of this crazy game, send in a pinch hitter. Don't be an idiot! No one on base and the boy's got another perfect game going. One inning from the world record.

Of course, come on now, relax, there was only one chance in 216 that he'd throw a triple one. He could just as easily throw a triple six, for example: that was a line drive that struck and killed the pitcher. Was that what it was? Not just a duel of dynasties, but a real duel, a duel to the death between Jock Casey and Damon Rutherford? He saw the sun beating down, saw the sandy space of sixty feet and six inches between the rubber and home plate, saw these two great rookies facing each other, lean, expectant, saw the breathless masses, waiting for this awful rite to be played out.

But no, of course not, they couldn't know. They could feel the rising tension, the terrific stress, the moment's ripeness, but that was all. Only Henry knew. The triple ones stared up at him from the tabletop. He looked away, tried to think of rain or flying beer bottles. Couldn't. No clouds in the sky. Delirious fans, but no malice there. Far from it.

Of course, think now, it never happened before, why should it now? You're getting worked up about nothing. He could throw a 3-4-6, for example: triple and a steal of home plate. Win his own ball game.

But, damn it, could he risk leaving him in there? No, somehow, he had to get him out of there! He sought for some excuse. Something Bancroft saw in the way the kid was exercising the bat as he moved toward home plate? A kind of slump or twitch in his pitching shoulder? Why not? look close, Barney! But who could he sacrifice in his place? Tuck Wilson? Rawlings? And listen! what if he pulled him and then — as had always been the case — Casey threw an ordinary number? The second no-hitter, which could smash nearly all the records in world history, would be out the window… and all for nothing. He rinsed his cup out at the sink, poured himself a cup of cold thick coffee, saw how his hands were trembling. And what about Damon, getting jerked from the game like that, what would his attitude afterwards be? What would he make of it? There was more than one risk here.

Henry returned to the table, leaned over his chair, studied the line-up. Some mistake… batter overlooked? He went over each throw. No, that was how it was: Casey pitching to Rutherford on the Extraordinary Occurrences Chart. There's nothing to be done about it, he said to himself. Play it out. He sat down, drank cold coffee, put the cup on the table beside him, reached for the dice.

But then, suddenly, he remembered old Brock Rutherford up there in the stands, up there where all the bunting was, up there with all the old Pioneers from the Rutherford Era, and all those other great stars, all of them sitting up there, cheering up there, on this, Brock Rutherford Day at Pioneer Park, full of joy, aware of no peril, just the excitement, this great game, wonderful boy, yes, shouting for young Damon to get a hit, and Henry leaped up and paced the floor again.

"Let's get a rally going, Damon boy!"

"Them ain't Knickerbockers, them's bloomers! "

"Put some wood to it, sonny! Kill that bum!"

And there was ragabag Jonathan Noon yelling for a hit, clapping his hands, on the move, never still, just like in the old days, "Come on, boy!" and everybody picking it up, Gabe Burdette howling like an Indian, Jake Bradley slapping his bald head — how small he looked outside his bar! — and that old clown Jaybird Wall pulling off his suit jacket and flapping it around and around like a flag: "Hot damn, son! Give her a ride!"

Henry clapped his hands over his ears. He stood over his chair and stared down at his papers, at the scorecard, and at the three dice, gazing up at him, through him, as though with fearfully constricted pupils. Brock was eating a hot dog. He was joking with old Mose Stanford there beside him. Something about his own abysmal batting record. Then he finished the hot dog, took a drink of Coke, and leaned forward in all his ignorance to cheer his son on.

Damon had stepped out of the batter's box. He was knocking the dirt out of his cleats with his bat. He glanced up at the stands, saw his dad there. Maybe he looked at the dugout, too — yes, he looked at the dugout, just in case, and Bancroft… did nothing, he smiled at the kid. And Damon looked away, stepped back into the box, worked his shoulders, set himself, fixed his steady gaze on Casey.

Henry snapped up the three dice from the table and worked them around in his perspiring hand, but he couldn't sit.

Couldn't swallow, couldn't think, could hardly focus on what he was doing. He wiped his face with his shirt sleeve. Get it over with, he said. Casey stepped up on the rubber, took O'Shea's signal, shook his head. Shook it again. Then he nodded.

The dice felt sticky in his hands. He got a plastic cup out of the cupboard. A glass fell and broke. He put the dice in the cup, shook it. Cold hollow rattle. Casey stretched. The sun beat down, or maybe it was just the lamp — anyway it threw a withering glare off the papers on the table, made Henry squint his eyes, and he felt somehow he was up to something sinister. That's it, he chided himself, pile it on, you'll feel like a fool when nothing — he listened to the rattle, to the roar, held his breath, pitched the dice down on the table.

He knew even before he looked: 1-1-1.

Damon Rutherford was dead.

No one moved. All stared at home plate. Damon lay there, on his back, gazing up at a sun he could no longer see.

Impossible. He blinked, looked again.

Brock sat. Head reared in shock and his face was drawn. He looked suddenly gray and old. He rose.

He stepped back until he came up against the stove. But he couldn't get his eyes off the table. Now the others, Bancroft, the Pioneer regulars, Flynn, the old-timers, were moving, they were running toward the boy, pressing around, crying out. Do something!

But do what? The dice were rolled.

Casey watched—

Henry was thinking, had to think, something, some way…? He was at the table again, leaning over the dice, trying to stop, trying to back up, force like the clashing of tremendous gears shrieked in his mind, the fans were all shrieking, they were crying and shouting, and he reached out — but no, he let them, he let it be, he had to, he stayed his hand, because the boy was dead, he was dead, Damon was dead. Damon Rutherford! "Oh no!"

Barney Bancroft knelt by the boy, unable to believe, faced with those eyes that stared strangely past him, that lean beautiful wrist in one hand, wrist that threw the — crowding round, calling for doctors, yet knowing—" Stand back, please! " Right under the sun. Head cracked like an egg. Bancroft sought the communicative beat, found instead the ebb of warmth, the ebb of all warmth…

Reporters moving now. Fennimore McCaffree, ash-gray and long-striding, darkly emerged from the masses, then into the Pioneers' ball-park office, to the phone.