Philip Roth - Our Gang

TRICKY: Oh, I think I can answer that one, Professor, knowing sports as I do inside and out. Poor Flood was in a slump, and a bad one. In his first twenty times at bat this year, he’d had only three hits, and two of those were bunts. Fact is, Williams had benched him. He’d sat out six starts in a row against right-handed pitching. Now I may be the highest elected official in the land, but I still don’t think I’m going to second-guess Ted Williams when he benches a hitter. No, sirree. On the other hand, you can well imagine the effect being benched had upon a one-hundred-thousand-dollar-a-year star player like Flood.

HIGHBROW COACH: With all due respect, sir, for your knowledge of the game, which far exceeds my own, this “slump,”as you call it, might it not have been just the right “cover” for a baseball player planning to leave the country in a hurry, just the right alibi?

LEGAL COACH: If I get your drift, Professor, are you suggesting that Ted Williams, the manager of the Senators, is implicated in this as well? That benching Flood was part of some overall plan?

POLITICAL COACH: Now hold — on. Before we carry this any further, I want to say that I think we are skating on very thin ice here, when we are dealing with a baseball figure of Ted Williams’ stature. Despised as he was by many sportswriters in his time — and I’m sure we could call upon these people for assistance, if we should want them — my gut reaction is that it is in the best interests of this administration to maintain a hands-off policy on all Hall of Famers.

TRICKY: And what a Hall of Famer! I wonder how many of you know Ted Williams’ record. It certainly is a record for all Americans to be proud of, and I’d like to share it with you. Just listen and tell me if you don’t agree. Lifetime batting average, 344. That makes him fifth in the history of the game. Lifetime slugging average, 634. That makes him second only to Babe Ruth himself! In doubles, fourteenth with 525; in home runs fifth with 521; in extra base hits seventh with 1,117; and in all-important RBI’s, and I really can’t say enough about RBI’s and how important they are to the national pastime, in RBI’s, also seventh with 1,839. And that isn’t all. Led the league in hitting in 1941 with an average of — just listen to this — .4°6! In ‘42 again, with.356; in ‘47 with.343; in ‘48 with — 369 — ( Suddenly angry ) And they said Jack Charisma was the one who had the memory for facts! They said Charisma was the one who had the grasp of the issues. Oh, how they loved to downgrade Dixon! No wonder I had a crisis in that campaign! They were always picking on me! My beard! My nose! My tactics! Well, just let me say one thing as regards my so-called “tactics”: if in any of the averages I have just quoted to you, I have altered Ted Williams’ record by so much as one hundredth of one percentage point, I will submit my resignation to Congress tomorrow. Now that would be an unprecedented act in American history, but I would do it, if I had dared to play party politics with the American public on a matter as serious as this one. ( All applaud )’

POLITICAL COACH: Mr. President, that was a most impressive recitation of the facts and has only served to strengthen my conviction that it would be utterly foolhardy to bring a slugger like Williams under federal indictment.

TRICKY: Good thinking. Good sharp political thinking. Of course, with Flood himself, we have a very different situation. To be sure, he batted over.300 for the Cards in ‘61, ‘63, ‘64, ‘65, ‘67 and ‘68, but never once did he lead the league in hitting or home runs, as Williams did, and his slugging average is almost half what Williams’ was at the end of his career.

Of course, in 1964, Flood did lead the National League in base hits with 211, and something like that could stir up a certain amount of sympathy. Now let me make one thing perfectly clear: I am not saying that he is anywhere near the all-time leader in that department, George Sisler, who got 257 hits in the year 1920, but a fact is a fact, and we are going to have to confront it. Those 211 base hits could mean trouble.

HIGHBROW COACH: Mr. President, under ordinary circumstances I too might be leery of bringing a charge as drastic as whichever one we come up with, against a man who, as you so wisely remind us, led the National League in total base hits with 211. But Curt Flood is something more than your run-of-the-mill hitting star of yesteryear: he is a bona fide troublemaker, and was in hot water right up to his neck even before I put him on my list. That is why I put him on my list: for not only has he jumped a hundred-thousand-dollar contract and skipped the country only a month into the season, but he of course is the man who in 1970 refused to be traded by the St. Louis Cardinals to the Philadelphia Phillies, claiming that the trade denied him his basic rights to negotiate a contract for his services on the open market. Subsequently, he hired as his attorney none other than Lyin’ B. Johnson’s appointee to the Supreme Court…

POLITICAL COACH ( hopefully ): Abe Fortas!

HIGHBROW COACH: No, no, but almost as good. Arthur Goldberg. G-o-l-d-b-e-r-g. And these two instituted a suit against baseball on constitutional grounds, asserting that organized baseball was in violation of the Antitrust Laws, and that the owners, by trading players from one team to another without their permission, treated them like pieces of property, which was both illegal and immoral.

Now, impugning the sacred name of baseball in this way did not go over very well with a good many loyal Americans, including the Commissioner of Baseball himself, and in the eyes of many, sportswriters and fellow players, as well as fans throughout the country, Flood, and his mouthpiece Goldberg, appeared to be out to destroy the game beloved by millions. Flood, in a book he has written on the subject, even quotes himself as saying in conversation, ‘Somebody needs to go up against the system. I’m ready.” And, gentlemen, that is only one of the selfincriminating statements that is scattered throughout that manifesto. Of course, as if all that he has said and done isn’t compromising enoughincluding hiring a Mr. Goldberg to represent him in this attack upon the most American of American sports — Flood is a black man.

LEGAL COACH: Where is he now, Algeria? That would sew it up for us, if he was in Algeria.

HIGHBROW COACH: To the contrary, had he fled to Algeria — which he has not — they would already be selling posters of him at bat in a beret, and ads to “Free Flood” would be appearing daily in The New York Times, signed by movie stars and Jean-Paul Sartre. There’d be marches and pickets and probably one of those mule trains camping on the White House Lawn.

TRICKY: Oh, those mule trains! Those marches! Really, I can’t stand those things. It never fail severy time they start marching on Washington, I’m the one who has to leave town. Now does that make any sense to you? I’m the President, I live here, and still I’m the one who has to pack his bags and get on a helicopter and go when these marchers start pouring in from all over the country! Honestly, I’ve got this big beautiful house, and I spend half my life living out of suitcases. Can you imagine what it’s like for a President, on practically five minutes’ notice, to try to pack everything he needs in his briefcase, while outside the window the propellers are going and everybody is screaming “Hurry, hurry, let’s get out of here, before they go crazy and send a delegation to the door!” Oh, it’s just awful. One time I forgot my jersey, one time I forgot my cleats, one time I even forgot to pack my ball — and really, the whole weekend was just ruined. And those marchers couldn’t care less!