The Team That Stopped Moving (2 page)

“We’re a bunch of dingalings,” Dick heard Stan say to Art as the pair started out to their positions. “And I’m the chief dingaling.”

“You think it’s too late to quit?” Art said.

Stan shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Well, let’s.”

Dick listened carefully, finding himself heading toward second base instead of first in order to catch Stan’s reply.

“No, we’ll wait,” Stan said. “Coach Banks wouldn’t like us to quit right off the bat. Of course, Dick wouldn’t either, but
who cares what he …”

Dick glanced over at Stan just as Stan glanced over at him. Stan’s face pinked, and his lips tightened as he looked away.

“Wouldn’t you know it?” he muttered half under his breath.

The Panthers picked up two more runs, one from a line drive at Dick that was too hot for him to handle. 17-1.

In the top of the sixth, the Tigers’ last chance to redeem themselves, Mark Patten uncorked a triple to left center field,
and scored on Ben’s single. That brought another happy roar from the faithful Tiger fans who apparently felt that their green
team, with
some luck, might still run up seventeen runs to beat the Panthers.

Stan’s cannonball shot over second kept up their faith. The blow advanced Ben to third. Andy’s hot drive to short resulted
in a double play — second to first. Two outs. One man left on.

“Wake up, Dick,” Stan said as the plate umpire looked toward the dugout for the next batter to appear. “You’re up.”

Dick shook himself loose from the dream like state into which the Tigers’ scoring spree had put him. He picked up his bat
and hurried to the plate, his heart pounding, his face hot and sweaty. The first pitch drifted in so slowly that Dick could
see the colored threads.

“Strike!” boomed the ump.

“C’mon, Dick!” Stan cried. “Don’t just stand there! Swing!”

Phil Sandsted delivered the next pitch almost in the same spot. This time Dick
swung.
Smack!
A hard blow to left field! The ball soared like an eagle as Dick dropped the bat and raced for first base. He touched the
bag and headed for second. But a groan sprang from the fans — the familiar, disappointing sound that meant only one thing,
an out. He looked out to left field and saw the fielder come running in, the ball nestled in the pocket of his glove.

The game was over. The Tigers lost it, 17-2.

“Oh, so what?” Eddie said as he, Dick, and two other guys helped Coach Banks pile the equipment into a couple of canvas bags.
“We had a lot of fun, anyway. I know I did.”

“Trouble is, Eddie, everybody doesn’t feel as you and I do,” Dick said sadly.

“Don’t worry about it,” Coach Banks said. “We were hitting pretty good in that last inning. That ought to be a good sign.
It was only a practice game, anyway.”

Dick’s parents and Cindy walked home
with Dick. The elfish smile on Cindy’s face warned Dick that she was just bubbling over with funny things to say to him.
Funny to her,
he thought,
but not to me.
She was only waiting for their parents to stop talking a minute. They were both trying to make Dick feel better about the
lopsided loss.

Her chance didn’t come until they arrived home. “You guys would have looked better in clown outfits,” she said, grinning mischievously.
“With your noses painted barnyard red.”

“Why, you snail!” Dick snarled, and looked around for something to throw at her. When he saw that he was near her tropical
fish tank, he lifted the front cover, dipped his hand into the water, and lifted out a wiggling red swordtail.

“Oh, no! Please put it back! Pleeeease!” Cindy cried frantically. “I take it all back! Just please … !”

His anger subsiding, Dick dropped the
fish back into the tank, closed the cover and tromped into the kitchen to dry his hand.

His mother looked at him curiously. “What happened, Dick?”

“Sometimes that sister of mine is just too much,” Dick answered stiffly.

Mrs. Farrar put a comforting arm around his shoulders and smiled. “Oh, don’t let her get under your skin. Sisters are like
that. They like to kid their brothers. Deep down inside they’re for you all the way.”

“Then why doesn’t that ‘deep down inside’ come up once in a while?” he said, his anger practically burned out now.

She laughed. “Don’t worry. It will.”

A half hour later Cindy was hitting Dick grounders and pop flies in the backyard. It had taken him a while to consent to her
offer, but when he realized that she was really serious about it he yielded.

Eddie, who lived next door, came over with a fielder’s glove and joined them.

“You’ll have to get a catcher’s mitt,” Dick advised him.

Eddie shrugged. “If my brother hadn’t left me this I wouldn’t have
any
glove.”

Five minutes later Eddie’s mother, barely taller than he, stepped out onto the back porch and called to him, “Eddie! I told
you that I don’t want you to be playing baseball! You’ll injure your fingers and that’ll be the end of your piano playing!”

“Oh, Mom!” Eddie cried, more embarrassed than disappointed. “I’m wearing a glove!”

“Don’t argue with me,” his mother replied sternly. Even though she was small — probably weighing less than a hundred pounds
—her voice had power. “Come inside. I’ve got a job for you.”

“Job? What job?”

“Never mind. Come in.”

“Oh, all right. See you later,” he said to Dick and Cindy as he crossed over to his yard and went into the house.

“Man, I feel sorry for him,” Cindy said softly. “He’s such a nice kid, but you can count the number of friends he has on two
fingers.”

“And he’s nuts about baseball,” Dick added. “I hope his mother doesn’t insist that he quit. I don’t know what we’ll do without
him.”

He was to find out at their first league game against the Foxes. Eddie didn’t show up.

C
OACH BANKS
had Clyde McPherson, the infield sub, catch in Eddie’s place.

The Tigers had first raps. Right off Mark drew a walk. Ben walked, too, and it looked as if the Tigers were off to a good
start.

Stan banged out a long, shallow drive over short for a double, scoring the two runners. Then, as if Jack Munson, the Foxes’
redheaded pitcher, had jinxed the ball with some magic, he struck out Andy. Then Dick lined a sharp drive right back at Jimmy,
who spun on his heels and whipped the ball to second to double off Stan before he could tag up.

Stan kicked the second base sack so hard
that dust puffed off it. “Rotten luck!” he grumbled.

Pat Hammer, the Tigers’ alternate pitcher, was able to put the ball right over the plate — and right in the path of Fox bats.
The first Fox batter drove a hot grounder down to third that sizzled through Ben’s legs to the outfield. The second Fox batter
popped a high fly to first that Dick fumbled and missed. The third Fox then slammed a rabbit-hopping grounder to second base,
which Mark fielded and whipped to home in an effort to get the runner from third. The throw wasn’t bad, but the ball glanced
off the edge of Clyde’s mitt, rolled to the backstop screen, and the run scored.

Dick waited for a slow dribbler to come to him, caught it, then raced the hitter to first base and lost.

“Charge those, Dick!” Coach Banks yelled at him.

A Fox struck out, but two more runs
scored before the next two outs were made. Tigers 2, Foxes 3.

Clyde led off in the top of the second inning.

“We know he can’t catch,” Stan remarked dismally. “Let’s see if he can hit.”

Clyde blasted a single over second base.

“Well, how about that? He can!” Stan cried, standing up and applauding.

Both Jim and Tony got out, bringing up Pat. Pat took a three-two count, then laced a line drive over second base for a neat
double, scoring Clyde. Mark flied out, and that was it for the half-inning.

A Fox doubled on a sharp drive just inside the third base line. The second hitter socked a pop fly high over Clyde’s head.
Clyde, circling round and round under the ball until he was nowhere near it, missed it by a mile. Then the hitter slammed
out a long home run, scoring the runner on second.

Another double followed and next, a
batter hit a dribbler just in front of the plate and Clyde pounced on it like a cat on a mouse. He picked it up and hurled
it to first. The throw was wild, and the sixth run scored.

Dick didn’t know how they finally got the Foxes out, but they did. When the Tigers trotted in to the dugout, there was Eddie
— quiet, shy, peace-loving Eddie — waiting for them, wearing his uniform and cap.

“Eddie!” Dick cried. “Am I glad to see you! What happened, anyway?”

“Mom and Dad had a talk,” Eddie said as everyone listened wide-eyed. “Dad won.”

“Am I glad!” Clyde exclaimed, throwing his arms around Eddie. “I think that if I were to keep on catching I would be scalped
after the game!”

“Well — clipped, anyway,” Dick said, smiling. “But nobody’s done well, so you didn’t have to worry.” He saw a chilled look
come over Stan’s face and corrected himself.
“I’m sorry. I guess that the only guy doing real well is Stan.”

The Tigers failed to hit safely in the top of the third inning, which didn’t surprise anybody. The Foxes returned to bat,
this time uncorking five clean hits and collecting four runs. Tigers 3, Foxes 10.

As each half-inning ended, the Tigers seemed more dispirited than ever. Now and then they hit and scored, but the Foxes, as
if they were endowed with some magic formula, were able to do so more often. When the game ended, the Tigers were literally
buried, 23-5. Tempers flared after the game.

“I thought that getting up a team would help make friends, not break them up,” Dick said to Coach Banks as they collected
the balls and bats.

“Well, most of the guys are new at this,” he explained. “Each is hurt because he thinks the other guys are down on him for
missing a grounder, or a fly, or for not hitting.
I’m trying to teach them that we’re here to play for the fun of it. No matter what some big leaguers say, my feeling is that
winning
isn’t
everything. Of course we
want
to win. We do the best we can to win. But somebody’s got to lose, too. Must the loser dig a hole into the ground and bury
himself?”

He laughed. “I sound like a soapbox lecturer. Take off. I’ll see all of you at the next game.”

“I like him,” Eddie said as he and Dick headed for home behind their parents. “He understands.”

“Right, he does,” Dick said.

“I hope we don’t break up,” Eddie said sadly. “Baseball is a lot of fun, and it’s good exercise. Better than piano playing!
I like it especially because, well …” He shrugged, as if unable to find the right words to express himself.

“Because we can all get together once in a while,” Dick said. “It’s like a party.”

“Right!” Eddie said.

That night Eddie came over and the boys played chess. Dick won. It was too late to play another game so they listened to records
and talked.

When Eddie left, Cindy said to Dick, “You know that you’re the only guy I know who pays any attention to him?”

“Anything wrong with that?”

“No. I think it’s super. But why don’t the other guys have anything to do with him? I could understand it if he’s a creep,
but he isn’t.”

“I guess it’s his personality,” replied Dick. “He’s a real shy kid. You know that he never raises his hand in school when
the teacher asks a question? Yet he’s one of the smartest brains there?”

“He’s wrapped up in a shell,” Cindy said.
“Maybe playing baseball will get him out of it.”

“Not unless the guys cooperate,” Dick replied somberly.

Thursday, June 21, was a day of sunshine and ninety-degree heat. Most of the crowd that attended the Bears-Tigers game sat
in the shade of the trees behind the left-field foul line. Only a few braved the scorching sun by sitting in the stands.

The Tigers took the field first. Eddie was behind the plate and Art was on the mound. Dick wished that Eddie would do some
yelling to help perk up the team, but he knew that no one could force Eddie to do anything.

The game started, and the Bears’ leadoff hitter pushed a Texas league single over second base. Right fielder Tony Berio fielded
the ball and pegged it to first. On the throw in, the hitter raced to second, and Stan
yelled at Tony, “To second, Tony! Second! Never behind the runner!”

Stan was right, of course, thought Dick as he tossed the ball to Art. “Stay in there, Art,” he said encouragingly.

Art, rubbing the ball as hard as if he were trying to pull its cover off, faced the second batter, then pitched. Crack! A
solid hit to short! Stan caught the ball and whipped it to second as the runner, after making a start for third, turned and
dashed back. Mark reached out to tag him, but the runner made it in time.

Then Mark bullet-pegged the ball to first. But there, too, the ball arrived too late to nab the runner.

We’re playing like a bunch of beanheads!
an inner voice screamed inside of Dick.
Are we going to lose all of our games by such terrible scores as 17-3 or worse?