Boley came off the field to a spattering of applause. He stopped under the stands, on the lip of the dugout. “I guess I am a little rusty at that, Fogarty,” he called.
“Don’t let me forget to pitch another inning or two before we play Baltimore next month.”
“I won’t!” snapped Fogarty. He would have said more, but the owner’s uncle was talking.
“I don’t know much about baseball, but that strikes me as an impressive performance. My congratulations.”
“You are right,” Boley admitted. “Excuse me while I shower, and then we can resume this discussion some more. I think you are a better judge of baseball than you say.”
The owner’s uncle chuckled, watching him go into the dugout. “You can laugh,” said Fogarty bitterly. “You don’t have to put up with that for a hundred fifty-four games, and spring training, and the Series.”
“You’re pretty confident about making the Series?”
Fogarty said simply, “Last year Boley win thirty-one games.”
The owner’s uncle nodded, and shifted position uncomfortably. He was sitting with one leg stretched over a large black metal suitcase, fastened with a complicated lock. Fogarty asked, “Should I have one of the boys put that in the locker room for you?”
“Certainly not!” said the owner’s uncle. “I want it right here where I can touch it.” He looked around him. “The fact of that matter is,” he went on in a lower tone, “this goes up to Washington with me tomorrow. I can’t discuss what’s in it. But as we’re among friends, I can mention that where it’s going is the Pentagon.”
“Oh,” said Fogarty respectfully. “Something new from the factories.”
“Something very new,” the owner’s uncle agreed, and he winked. “And I’d better get back to the hotel with it But there’s one thing, Mr. Fogarty. I don’t have much time for baseball, but it’s a family affair, after all, and whenever I can help I mean, it just occurs to me that possibly, with the help of what’s in this suitcase “That is, would you like me to see if I could help out?”
“Help out how?” asked Fogarty suspiciously.
“Well I really mustn’t discuss what’s in the suitcase.
But would it hurt Boleslaw, for example, to be a little more, well, modest?”
The manager exploded, “No.”
The owner’s uncle nodded. “That’s what I’ve thought.
Well, I must go. Will you ask Mr. Boleslaw to give me a ring at the hotel so we can have dinner together, if it’s convenient?”
It was convenient, all right. Boley had always wanted to see how the other half lived; and they had a fine dinner, served right in the suite, with five waiters in attendance and four kinds of wine. Boley kept pushing the little glasses of wine away, but after all the owner’s uncle was the owner’s uncle, and if he thought it was all right It must have been pretty strong wine, because Boley began to have trouble following the conversation.
It was all right as long as it stuck to earned-run averages and batting percentages, but then it got hard to follow, like a long, twisting grounder on a dry September field.
Boley wasn’t going to admit that, though. “Sure,” he said, trying to follow; and “You say the fourth dimension?” he said; and, “You mean a time machine, like?” he said; but he was pretty confused.
The owner’s uncle smiled and filled the wine glasses again.
Somehow the black suitcase had been unlocked, in a slow, difficult way. Things made out of crystal and steel were sticking out of it. “Forget about the time machine,”
said the owner’s uncle patiently. “It’s a military secret, anyhow. I’ll thank you to forget the very words, because heaven knows what the General would think if he found out Anyway, forget it. What about you, Boley? Do you still say you can hit any pitcher who ever lived and strike out any batter?”
“Anywhere,” agreed Boley, leaning back in the deep cushions and watching the room go around and around.
“Any time. I'll bat their ears off.”
“Have another glass of wine, Boley,” said the owner’s uncle, and he began to take things out of the black suitcase.
Boley woke up with a pounding in his’ head like Snider, Mays and Mantle hammering Three-Eye League pitching.
He moaned and opened one eye.
Somebody blurry was holding a glass out to him. “Hurry up. Drink this.”
Boley shrank back. “I will not. That’s what got me into this trouble in the first place.”
‘Trouble? You’re in no trouble. But the game’s about to start and you’ve got a hangover.”
Ring a fire bell beside a sleeping Dalmation; sound the Charge in the ear of a retired cavalry major. Neither will respond more quickly than Boley to the words, “The game’s about to start.”
He managed to drink some of the fizzy stuff in the glass and it was a miracle; like a triple play erasing a ninth-inning threat, the headache was gone. He sat up, and the world did not come to an end. In fact, he felt pretty good.
He was being rushed somewhere by the blurry man.
They were going very rapidly, and there were tail, bright buildings outside. They stopped.
“We’re at the studio,” said the man, helping Boley out of a remarkable sort of car.
“The stadium,” Boley corrected automatically. He looked around for the lines at the box office but there didn’t seem to be any.
“The studio. Don’t argue all day, will you?” The man was no longer so blurry. Boley looked at him and blushed.
He was only a little man, with a worried look to him, and what he was wearing was a pair of vivid orange Bermuda shorts that showed his knees. He didn’t give Boley much of a chance for talking or thinking. They rushed into a building, all green and white opaque glass, and they were met at a flimsy-looking elevator by another little man. “This one’s shorts were aqua, and he had a bright red cummerbund tied around his waist.
“This is him,” said Boley’s escort.
The little man in aqua looked Boley up and down.
“He’s a big one. I hope to goodness we got a uniform to fit him for the Series.”
Boley cleared his throat. “Series?”
“And you’re in it!” shrilled the little man in orange.
“This way to the dressing room.”
Well, a dressing room was a dressing room, even if this one did have color television screens all around it and machines that went wheepety-boom softly to themselves.
Boley began to feel at home.
He biinked when they handed his uniform to him, but he put it on. Back in the Steel & Coal League, he had sometimes worn uniforms that still bore the faded legend 100 Lbs. Best Fortified Gro-Chick, and whatever an owner gave you to put on was all right with Boley. Still, he thought to himself, kilts!
It was the first time in Boley’s life that he had ever worn a skirt. But when he was dressed it didn’t look too bad, he thought especially because all the other players (it looked like fifty of them, anyway) were wearing the same thing. There is nothing like seeing the same costume on everybody in view to make it seem reasonable and right. Haven’t the Paris designers been proving that for years?
He saw a familiar figure come into the dressing room, wearing a uniform like his own. “Why, Coach Magill,”
said Boley, turning with his hand outstretched. “I did not expect to meet you here.”
The newcomer frowned, until somebody whispered in his ear. “Oh,” he said, “you’re Boleslaw.”
“Naturally I’m Boleslaw, and naturally you’re my pitching coach, Magill, and why do you look at me that way when I’ve seen you every day for three weeks?”
The man shook his head. “You’re thinking of Granddaddy Jim,” he said, and moved on.
Boley stared after him. Granddaddy Jim? But Coach Magill was no granddaddy, that was for sure. Why, his eldest was no more than six years old. Boley put his hand against the wall to steady himself. It touched something metal and cold. He glanced at it.