the ground rules, Edward Everett caught sight of a heavy, balding man in a nylon Perabo City Owls windbreaker—a remnant from when the team had fans who wore clothing with their logo—leading a three-year-old boy up to what should have been the concession window, knocking on the plywood covering it, the boy saying, “Want ice cream.” They left the ball field, the boy crying all the way up the long flight of steps to the parking lot, a major dent in the attendance even before anyone had thrown a pitch.
Early in the game, it became clear that the man had probably done a shrewd thing in leaving, as it was a sloppy contest. A cool drizzle fell intermittently throughout—never hard enough for the umpires to stop the game, although the field was wet. In the top of the fourth, Perabo City made three errors, two by Vern Stuckey after there were two outs. The first, he slipped on the wet grass in right field, his feet flying up in the air like a silent comedian stepping on a banana peel, the ball popping out of his glove, letting a runner on third score. The second, he fielded a base hit cleanly and snapped the ball toward second to try to catch a runner who had rounded the base too far, but his throw sailed over the head of Rausch covering the base, the Quad Cities runner banging into him trying to get back to the bag, knocking him down. For a moment, Rausch lay there, Edward Everett sending Dominici out to see if he was hurt, but he’d just had the wind knocked out of him, and Dominici helped him up. The perhaps five dozen people in the bleachers gave him polite applause. By the sixth inning, Perabo City was down eleven–three. On the mound, his starter, Matt Pearson, paused before nearly every pitch, looking pointedly at Edward Everett, as if to ask: When is it enough? Finally, with only one out and the bases loaded, Edward Everett called time-out and went to the mound to talk to him.
“I’m sorry, Skip,” Pearson said, handing him the baseball. “I just can’t work the kinks out today.” Edward Everett took his left arm by the wrist, popping the baseball back into the pocket of his glove. “I’m sorry, Pearson. I didn’t come out to get you.”
“Jesus Christ, Skip,” he said through clenched teeth. “I’m getting demolished.”
“I know, and I’m sorry, but I need the pen for tomorrow and Sunday.”
“You’re saying this one is lost and I’m the sacrificial lamb?”
“I need you to give me whatever you can.”
“Christ, my numbers.”
Edward Everett regarded him. You’re on the wrong list, he thought. Your numbers don’t matter. “Look,” he said, not meeting Pearson’s eyes, “shut ’em down; the more innings with no more damage, the better your numbers.”
“Fuck you, Skip.” Pearson walked away, rubbing the baseball between his hands.
As it turned out, he might have done better to remove the pitcher when Pearson had wanted to leave the game. Perabo City scored four in the seventh and seven in the eighth and if he had replaced Pearson with someone who might have shut down Quad Cities, Perabo City might well have won; but he left Pearson out there and, perhaps through some perverse obstinacy, the pitcher allowed half a dozen more runs to score, glaring at Edward Everett each time someone got a hit or he walked a batter: Take that, you bastard. Finally, Edward Everett relented, sending someone else in for the ninth, Pearson stomping angrily up the steps to the locker room, no longer interested in any show of restraint, screaming, “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” the entire way up, the final score seventeen–fifteen, Quad Cities in first by one with two to play.
The second game went better. Perhaps because his team had gotten such a large lead in the first game and Perabo City had picked away at it, the Quad Cities manager had not been as restrained in his use of the bullpen as had Edward Everett, and he’d used seven pitchers in all to lock down the win. As a result, when his starting pitcher got into trouble in the second game, it was his turn to leave him out there, resting his other pitchers for the final game—the one that would decide the league. Perabo City scored three in the second, two in the fourth, five in the sixth, and led twelve–one by the bottom of the eighth inning when the