The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop

7

STRANGE how that season ended. Some blamed it on the heat, some on the humidity, but they all knew better. Players hit balls, moved around bases, caught flies, but as though at rest, static participants in an ancient yet transformed ritual. Journalists quit writing, just watched. Nobody interviewed anybody. No one sought autographs and no women shrieked or fainted at the feet of heroes. McCaffree swiveled in silence, Wmthrop silent. Umpires jerked thumbs or spread their hands, but no one complained. Good pitchers threw strikes, bad ones gave up hits to good hitters, while bad hitters went hitless. Boys watched grimly, older than old men, and old men hardly watched at all, just closed their eyes and nodded, nodded. Even Pappy Rooney, waterlogged in his own sweat, wrapped a towel around his bony old shoulders and sank back on the Haymaker bench, accepting, accepting, come what may. Sycamore Flynn and the Knickerbocker club-owners went to see Chancellor McCaffree about forfeiting the rest of the schedule. Nobody stood in their way now, but they couldn't seem to win. Just too much, Fenn. McCaffree understood, strange, yes, but what do we know about it all, Sycamore? Do your part, play the game, play it out. So they did and dropped the last nine games in a row. Contrarily, Barney Bancroft's Pioneers, as though released from some inexplicable burden, began to win. Barney ceased all subterfuge, called his plays open-handed, other teams knew perfectly well what was on— and still everything seemed to work. Nothing flashy: he just got men on base and brought them in, while his fielders and pitchers routinely retired the opposition.

The team with the most Stars and Aces, the Pastimers, won the pennant. The final three-game series found the second-place Haymakers, trailing by two games, in the Patsies' ballpark. Rooney, old trouper, stood up, tried gamely to get some life into his boys, but they'd been driven to play over their heads too long, they just collapsed, lost the first game and thus the pennant, so Pappy sank back again. Swanee Law finally did win another game, though, last one of the season, his twentieth, striking out his 303rd man, fifth best mark in UBA history — wonderful, but few cheered, not even when he got named Most Valuable Player. The Pioneers took three at the end from the Keystones to wind up in third, while the Knicks lost all theirs to sink to the cellar. Final Year LVI standings:

So: into blue season. Time to bring all the records up to date, summarize the year's play, plan for the future. It was, in a sense, the static part of the game, this between-seasons activity, but it was activity all the same, and in some ways more intense than the ball games themselves, a concentrated meditative concern with history, development, and equilibria. Especially this one. He'd let things slide the last half of the season, had a lot of catching up to do. But more than that, it was simply a season that would demand a lot more thought than usual. Already, it seemed incredible to him that it had all happened.

He wanted some way to mark it, some special event, down there in the Association. Fenn was thinking, the old-timers, too, and the Council of Elders, but nothing yet. Of course, they'd already named both Damon Rutherford and Jock Casey to the Hall of Fame, joining the twenty-six other great all-time stars — including Damon's father and Jock's great-grandfather — but it didn't seem to be enough. He'd considered a UBA anthem, a monument, maybe a violent change in the playing rules, even a revolution, led by Patrick Monday perhaps, a revolt that would establish, ultimately, a rival league. He'd always wanted some kind of World Series, but on the other hand an entire new league would mean a terrific slowdown in the seasons. Going full time, it already took him two whole months to get a season played and logged, and if anything, he needed ways to speed it up. Another possibility was to imitate the majors and create a ten-team league, but for one thing it upset the record books (seasons would have to be six games longer), and for another it seemed somehow central to the game to maintain the balance provided by any power of two. To say a team finished in "first division" implied the possibility of further divisions, but a five-team division couldn't be further divided. Moreover, seven — the number of opponents each team now had — was central to baseball. Of course, nine, as the square of three, was also important: nine innings, nine players, three strikes each for three batters each inning, and so on, but even in the majors there were complaints about ten-team leagues, and back earlier in the century, when they'd tried to promote a nine-game World Series in place of the traditional best-out-of-seven, the idea had failed to catch on. Maybe it all went back to the days when games were decided, not by the best score in nine innings, but by the first team to score twenty-one runs… three times seven. Now there were seven fielders, three in the outfield and four in the infield, plus the isolate genius on the mound and the team playmaker and unifier behind the plate; seven pitches, three strikes and four balls; three basic activities — pitching, hitting, and fielding — performed around four bases (Hettie had invented her own magic version, stretching out as the field, left hand as first base…). In the UBA, each team played its seven opponents twelve times each, and though games lasted nine innings, they got turned on in the seventh with the ritual mid-inning stretch. Well, he'd think of something, record Sandy's songs maybe, order a commemorative painting, he'd find a project, there was time, and meanwhile, ahead of him lay the winter player trades and contracts, the announcing of the new crop of Year LVII Rookies, balancing of the club financial ledgers, individual team elections and awards, plus this season the UBA-wide elections for Chancellor, reorganization of managerial and coaching staffs, death rolls, essays and obituaries and forecasts for the Book, as well as the traditional blue season basketball and bowling leagues, ice hockey, billiards, and auto racing, and in the spring, the UBA Golf Open, tennis, and the annual Olympiad. Maybe even another pinball toumey. Some of these sports were limited to active team players, but most were open to veterans as well. Helped bring them all together once a year. Big Bill McGonagil, for example, was a perennial contender on the golf links, though now in his fifties, and Willie O'Leary had long been the undisputed billiards king. Chin-Chin Chickering, who'd failed as a Bean-eater shortstop, was making it big as a basketball center, while Brock Rutherford Jr. had taken up car racing. These other games were enjoyable, usually fast and full of action, played off in an hour or two, but ultimately simplistic, shallow, no competition for the baseball league. Relaxations only. Exercise, too, since he played out the bowling tourneys and billiard matches on real alleys and tables.

His immediate task, though, was the compilation of all season LVI statistics, and this he'd pretty largely accomplished by the time Benny Diskin brought up sandwiches and blue-season supplies about sundown, at least well enough to know that the Patsies' Bo McBean had won the batting title, that Damon Rutherford's ERA at the time of his death was far and away the best in the league, that his teammate Witness York had hit the most home runs and had the highest slugging average, and that Swanee Law led in games pitched, complete games, games won, shutouts, strikeouts, and had the second-best ERA. As usual, a number of the LVI Stars slipped below the line. The one that troubled Henry most was Pioneer catcher Royce Ingram, Damon's courageous battery mate and the man swinging when Casey got killed: he wound up with a.284, twenty-sixth among hitters and thus just out of the twenty-four man Star grouping for LVII. Of course, he could make a comeback next year; Henry hoped he would. But maybe it was worse than that. The instrument. Watching Damon, he missed Casey; watching Casey, Ingram… where would it end?

Before posting all the statistics in the permanent records, of course, he'd have to run a complete audit of all box scores and computations — couldn't risk mistakes, it was the one thing that frightened him — but he had enough now to pass out the MVP award to Law, the Rookie-of-the-Year posthumously to Damon Rutherford, and the Manager-of-the-Year prize to the Haymakers' Rag Rooney, his third time to win it, and to name the UBA All-Stars, the dream team of LVI. .

First Base: Virgil (Virgin) Donovan, Pastime Qub

Second Base: Kester Flint, Keystones

Shortstop: Bo McBean, Pastime Club

Third Base: Hatrack Hines, Pioneers

Left Field: Bartholomew Egan, Beaneaters

Center Field: Witness York, Pioneers

Right Field: Walt McCamish, Knickerbockers

Catcher: Bingham Hill, Haymakers

Pitcher: Swanee Law, Haymakers

Pitcher: Damon Rutherford, Pioneers

Manager: Raglan (Pappy) Rooney, Haymakers

When Benny Diskin brought up the sandwiches, along with a couple of cans of good coffee, a box of cigars, a few six-packs of beer, sour pickles and a carton of slaw, crackers, a thick slab of rich cheese, bacon and dry sausages, and a couple quarts of orange juice (Seabrooke Farms. . Seabrooke Orange… Seabrooke Bacon… Stogie Seabrooke… hmmm, yes, Stogie Seabrooke, could be, catcher maybe), he wanted to know if Mr. Waugh was on vacation or something. Miss one day of work and old man Diskin began to worry about the rent. Henry gave Benny a fifty-cent tip to go out and buy him a bottle of brandy, and said nothing about getting fired. Summer, spring, or winter, blue-season was hot-stove-league weather for Henry, and so he always drank hot grogs. Yeah, I'm all washed up, boys, I got the axe, I got the aches…

Henry had been dragged out of a deep and peaceful sleep a little before noon by the telephone. He'd been dreaming, something to do with Fanny Lydell nee McCaffree, she'd been thanking him for something, he couldn't remember what, probably not important what, and he'd awakened to the ringing of bells. It wasn't Fanny, though, it was Lou Engel, calling on behalf of DZ&Z to say, in effect, he'd done all he could, nothing more to be done; hang up your cleats. "But what I, why I called, Henry, is, well, Mr. Zifferblatt here found these, uh, papers in your desk, with funny, you know, like names and things on them…"

"That's a horseracing game, Lou. You'll also find a couple dice there—"

"Unh-hunh. Well, we, uh, he found those, all right. But what he wants to know, why he asked me to call you, is what do you wantbim to do with them?"

Henry yawned. "Is he there beside you, Lou?"

"Yes."

"Well, tell him, if he wants to know where to put them, to look in the folder marked DERBY, year — or I mean page number forty-nine, top horse on the list."

"(He says if you want to know where to put them, Mr. Zifferblatt, to please look on page, uh, forty-nine in the folder marked DERBY, uh, yes, that one, page forty-nine, the top horse, or I mean, name—) Henry? What does it say? Why don't you just tell…?"

"It says.Up Ziffs Ass."

On the other end a squeak. "(Mr. Zifferblatt, listen, never mind, I'll take care of—) "

"(WHAT THE HELL DOES THIS MEAN—!!)"

"Now see what you've done, Henry!" Click! and that was all, nothing more the rest of the day. Didn't know why it should've upset him so, that horse never won a race.

It was down in Jake's old barroom

Behind the Patsies' park;

Jake was asettin' 'em up as usual

And the night was agittin' dark.

At the bar stood old Verne Mackenzie

And his eyes was blood-shot red,

And he turned his face to the people,

These're the very words he said:

"I jist come from the boss's office,

I been up to see ole Number One;

He said: 'Verne, hang up your suit now,

Cause your playin' days is all done.'

"Yeah, I'm all washed up, boys,

I got the axe, I got the aches;

Now you'll find me when you want me

On the sack in the back of Jake's!"

Old Verne Mackenzie! Been some great shortstops since… Sycamore Flynn… Winslow Beaver… Jonathan Noon… and nothing wrong with young Bo McBean… but the greatest of them all was probably Verne. Hired and fired by young Kester Flint's great granddaddy Abe, himself a fine old gentleman, the appointed UBA Chancellor the first twelve years— though back then the office was little more than that of league secretary, so he had time to be skipper of the Excelsiors as well. Though Abe Flint played no ball in the UBA, his son Phineas — the boys called him Skinny Ass — pitched for Dean Sullivan's champion Beaneaters, and his grandson Madison Flint played right field for a few years on the Bridegrooms. And now young Kester.

Maybe that was it, thought Henry, maybe that was the project for this blue season: a compact league history, a book about these first fifty-six years. Needn't be an official history, could even be a little controversial, the exposure of some pattern or other. And in fact, by God, that next verse of Sandy's "Verne Mackenzie" song might be just the perfect epigraph for it…

"Well, boys, I've played some ball now,

I could hit and I could run,

And some of the games we was losin'

But most of the games we won…"

Yes, some of the games we was losin', but most of the games we won — the more he thought about it, the more excited he became! Cover it all, the origins, the early stars, the making and breaking of records, the growth and transformation of the political structure, Dean Sullivan's ball-busting Beaneaters and the Keystones of Tim Shadwell's day, the Brock Rutherford Era, the fabulous Cels of Hellborn Melbourne Trench's heyday, the rise of Fenn McCaffree's Knicks, right up to the fantastic events of Year LVI, with all the Hall of Famers, and all the great personalities like Jaybird Wall and Verne Mac-Kenzie and No-Hit Nealy, Long Lew Lydell and Sandy Shaw and Jake Bradley and Holly and Molly and Yip Yick Ping! It was all there in the volumes of the Book and in the records, but now it needed a new ordering, perspective, personal vision, the disclosure of pattern, because he'd discovered — who had discovered? Barney maybe — yes, Barney Bancroft had discovered that perfection wasn't a thing, a closed moment, a static fact, but process, yes, and the process was transformation, and so Casey had participated in the perfection, too, maybe more than anybody, for even Henry had been affected, and Barney was going to write it…

"Now, they say I cain't play no more, boys,

They say I'm agittin' old;

Ole Abe he showed me the door, boys,

Sent Verne Mackenzie out in the cold!

"So I hung up my ole jersey,

Yeah, I hung up ole number seven,

And I'll never play ball agin, boys,

'Less they's a league up there in heaven!

"Oh yeah, I'm all washed up, boys,

I got the axe, I got the aches;

Now you'll find me when you want me

On the sack in the back of Jake's!"

And what would Bancroft call it? The Beginnings, maybe. Or: The UBA Story. Abe Flint's Legacy. The UBA in the Balance. "Yes, that's it!"

"That's what, Mr. Waugh?"

"The UBA in the Balance—how does that sound to you, Benny?"

"Is it a riddle, Mr. Waugh? I'm not very good at riddles."

"Ha ha! Yes, that's what it is! A riddle! You hit it on the head!"

'Uh, well, they only had American brandy, I told them—"

"That's okay, Benny, we got nothing against Americans.

They invented baseball, didn't they?"

"Well, I guess so, but the—"

"Here's an extra quarter, Benny. My boss to your father!"

"Well, I went to see my woman,

I said, 'Baby, I'm feelin' blue!

The boss he turned me out, babe.

My playin' days is through!'

"My baby she started laughin',

She said, 'Verne, don' bother to call,

Cause I got me a brand-new man now,

He's young and he's still playin' ball!'

"Oh yeah, Fm all washed up, boys,

I got the axe, I got the aches…"

Not really, though. After Lou had called, Henry had phoned an employment agency where he was registered, told them he was semi-retired and wanted half-time work, starting after Christmas. They asked for an updating of his record, but told him there might be part-time work for an accountant there in the agency itself after the first of the year. And meanwhile, he had a drawerful of checks he'd never cashed. So old Ziff, ho, ho, he sent to hell.

Well, I went to see my woman… hmmm, true, bunch of the boys probably be gathering at Jake's tonight, little Monday night blue-season politicking, oil the machinery, work up a new pitch or two, try to score. Lot of things to talk over, like who was going to take over the shell-shocked Knicks now that Sycamore Flynn has resigned, what to do about Mel Trench of the sunken Cels and Wally Wickersham, whose Grooms just can't seem to get going, who to run for Chancellor on the Guildsmen ticket against McCaffree and Maloney, and whether or not Patrick Monday would get up his new party this year, and what to call them if he did. Paragonists. Nonesuchers. Optimalists. Perfectionists. Yes, a good night, this new Monday, to play with all these problems, good night to drink a little, make out a little…

First, though, he decided to push through the death rolls. They often affected managerial and political situations, and it was pointless to worry about them until he knew for sure who was going to be around. It was a somber event, he never took it lightly. The shock of their deaths often dismayed him, though later he usually enjoyed the writing of their obituaries. He dreaded, in short, the death blow, yet it was just this rounding off in the Book of each career that gave beauty to all these lives. Even the forgotten ballplayers who never made it; doing research for their obits often led him deep into for-gotten corners of the past, helped him rediscover some of the more unusual and poignant moments of UBA history, and reminded him always that there was no such thing as excellence without the foundation to measure it by. It was like bald-pated old Jake Bradley always said: Yes, we needed him, too, even him.

His formula for the death rolls was based on a combination of insurance actuarial tables and league population: he tried not to let it drop below about a thousand living veterans. As to how they died, he made his own decisions while composing the obituary; if he was uncertain, he had another chart that provided him general descriptors, but usually he just knew, a certain definite feeling about it that would come on him suddenly while considering the ballplayer's past — Abe Flint's heart failure, Verne Mackenzie's liver, Holly Tibbett's tumor, Rupert Allen's suicide. His sign for death in the records was a

"Oh, when I die, jist bury me

With my bat and a coupla balls,

And jist tell 'em Verne struck out, boys.

If anybody calls…"

This year, the rolls brought few surprises, nor were many really great stars caught. Kester's grandfather Phineas Flint. Three of the other Elders with him, but with undistinguished careers. The politicians all survived. Ironically, the dice picked off young Jacinto Abril, the jockey. Violent death, no doubt, an accident. . probably the reason they decided to close down the tracks for a while. On the whole list, only one really great shock, but it, all alone, was enough to make Henry gasp, sit back, ponder, let fall a tear or two: Jake Bradley, old Jake, second-sacker and barkeep, patron and paraclete, had died of a sudden heart attack!

"And when I'm down in my grave, boys,

Drink a toast and sing me a song,

And tell 'em you knew ole Verne Mackenzie

When he was still young and strong!

"Yeah, I'm all washed up, boys,

I got the axe, I got the aches;

Now you'll find me when you want me

On the sack in the back of Jake's…"

Henry pulled his door to, paused a moment under the hushed glow of the bulb on his landing, then drifted down the dark stairwell into the night street. Full moon outside. Maybe it was the moon that gave that peculiar floating luster to the bottom of the stairs. Old Jake Bradley! A real shock! That bald dome, the soft ironic manner, one of the finest! Oh, they all knew about that camera he'd let Fenn McCaffree install, he joked about it himself sometimes, they knew and didn't care because they loved the old bastard. And now he was gone.

Henry wandered through the moonlit Monday night streets thinking about Jake Bradley and wondering where he could go now for a drink, wondering where they'd hold the wake. At Jake's maybe, but not at Pete's. Or maybe they'd close it down. Too painful to go back in there and not see Jake. So where? He didn't know. Leave it to chance, leave it to Barney. "Come on, Barney, lead the way!" Yes: Lead the way! Of course! Suddenly it was all falling into place! Barney Bancroft for Chancellor! That was why he was writing the history, after all! Or maybe not why, but it was enough to do the trick. He'd lived through it all, hadn't he? Yes, the Guildsmen picked him up, he said no, but they persuaded him. The Man Who Couldn't Quit. The Old Philosopher. I'm not a politician, fellas. That's why you're right, Barney! And then, and then, the Pioneers would go hire Sycamore Flynn to take over for Barney, and the Knicks? Why, Brock Rutherford, of course! Wow! A perfect set-up! The UBA in the Balance! Ho ho! And so Barney's history of the Association: revealing the gradual evolution toward Guildsmen principles, and using the Rutherford-Casey event as the culminating moment, revolving toward the New Day, how the league had progressed from individualism and egocentrism — the Bogglers — through a gradual recognition (perhaps by the mere accretion of population) of the Other — the Legalists — to a moral and philosophic concern with the very nature of man and society: the Guilds-men. Of course, Pat Monday might want to carry that history another step, but never mind, for the moment he's no threat— and, in fact, think a moment, yes, he would probably swing his weight behind Bancroft in an effort to upset the McCaffree machine. The machine indeed! "What we want in this Association is participation — not in real time — but in significant time!"

A couple heads turned his way; he brought his arm down, ducked his head… better get in off the streets… light down there a couple blocks ahead: lead on, Barney! lead on! Yes, by God, old Fenn had been right about that wake for Damon— out of the ashes had risen the new leading light of the UBA. And brought to consummation at another wake.

The Circle Bar. Looked pretty much like Pete's on the outside, and from the inside, he heard country music. Give it a try. Push in…

"Well, boys, I've played some ball now,

I could hit and I could run,

And some of the games—"

Inside, Henry pulled up short. He could hardly believe it! There he was, behind the bar, white-aproned, smiling moon face, paunch and all: Hellborn Melbourne Trench! Henry smiled back, though inside it was damn near a belly laugh, hooked up his hat and coat, asked for brandy, VSOP, the best. Yes, he must have given up that hopeless job of running the Cels to open a bar, carry on the great tradition of Jake Bradley, oh yes, and all the boys were gathering, coming through the door, grand opening! even the young ones now that the season was over and the training rules were down, Witness York and Ham Craft and Maggie Everts and Walt McCamish and Bo McBean, here they come! and Rag Rooney and Jaybird Wall and Cash Bailey with his champion Patsies, the whole goddamn whooping and hollering lot of them! and Chauncey O'Shea and Royce Ingram! Have to find a new manager for the Cels, who'd it be? Well, worry about that tomorrow, maybe easygoing old Mose Stanford, hey yeah, how about it, Mose? and old Mose, coming through the door, shrugged noncommittally and laughed to watch Jaybird go into, his famous wind-up, pitching himself at the plate instead of the ball; and there was old Gus Maloney to catch him, holding up his derby and laughing around his big black cigar. "Yes, set 'em up! it's a goddamn holiday!" And Jake Bradley's old teammates, forgot about them! Burgess and Parsons and Bacigamupo! Darlin' Harlan Hansome and Philpott Loveen! and there's Willie O'Leary and Brock Rutherford and Sycamore Flynn and, goddamn it, even old Fenn McCaffree — hell, yes, Fenn! Come in and have one! Tune it up, Sandy! And yes, by God, there was a new song in the making, a Jake Bradley song, that "paraclete" idea had given it to him: "pair o' cleats" — and second sack, that sack in the back, hot damn! And the girls, too, that's right, let 'em in, fill 'em up, and if they hold out on us, boys, well, maybe old Willie O'Leary will drop by Mitch Porter's later on and see what sweet Molly's got up her skirts for the evening! It's the great American game! And hey! there's Tuck Wilson and Grammercy Locke and Tim Shadwell with his boy Thornton! and Toothbrush and Hard John and Swanee and Jumpin' Joe! Here they come!