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

The idea excites him. A rising above. Yes, why not? He feels better than he's felt for months! Of course, so simple! What will they do to him after? Is he martyrizing himself? It doesn't matter: death is a relative idea, truth absolute! Yes, it was Squire who said that. He understands it now. Or did Squire put it the other way around? Stop and think. But he is too upset to think. He forgets now which is relative and which is absolute. If either. It is all falling apart on him. And either way it's coming. Yes, now, today, here in the blackening sun, on the burning green grass, and the eyes, and the crumbling— they shout. He sweats. Damon's pitches sting his hands. Can't hang on to them. All like a bad dream. And die. They're all going to die. And nothing he can do about it. Foolish things pass through his head. Rooney reaching the age of 143. The mystery of Casey's burial. The Brock Rutherford Era—

" Play ball! " the umpire cries, and he feels a terrific grabbing in the chest.

That dead boy. And the wake. Sandy's songs. The sack in the back of Jake's — cordoned off with a rope now and overseen by a museum guard, just like his ancestor Mel's Circle Bar, so they won't tear it up and carry off the pieces as souvenirs. They! Pieces! He laughs.

He flings the ball to second; then, impulsively, he walks out there, to the mound, not because it's a rule of the game, but because he feels drawn. The ball goes from Ramsey to Wilder to Hines. Hatrack comes in halfway from third, tosses the ball to Paul. He hands it to Damon, standing tall and lean, head tilted slightly to the right, face expressionless but eyes alert.

Paul tries to speak, but he can find no words. It's terrible, he says; or might have said. It's all there is.

And then suddenly Damon sees, must see, because astonishingly he says: "Hey, wait, buddy! you love this game, don't you?"

"Sure, but…"

Damon grins. Lights up the whole goddamn world. "Then don't be afraid, Royce," he says.

And the black clouds break up, and dew springs again to the green grass, and the stands hang on, and his own oppressed heart leaps alive to give it one last try.

And he doesn't know any more whether he's a Damonite or a Caseyite or something else again, a New Heretic or an unregenerate Golden Ager, doesn't even know if he's Paul Trench or Royce Ingram or Pappy Rooney or Long Lew Lydell, it's all irrelevant, it doesn't even matter that he's going to die, all that counts is that he is here and here's The Man and here's the boys and there's the crowd, the sun, the noise.

"It's not a trial," says Damon, glove tucked in his armpit, hands working the new ball. Behind him, he knows, Scat Bat-kin, the batter, is moving toward the plate. "It's not even a lesson. It's just what it is." Damon holds the baseball up between them. It is hard and white and alive in the sun.

He laughs. It's beautiful, that ball. He punches Damon lightly in the ribs with his mitt. "Hang loose," he says, and pulling down his mask, trots back behind home plate.