The Natural

Red talked about the Knights. “They are not a bad bunch of players, but they aren’t playing together and it’s mostly Bump’s fault. He is for Bump and not for the team. Fowler, Schultz, Hinkle, and Hill are all good pitchers and could maybe be fifteen or twenty game winners if they got some support in the clutches, which they don’t, and whatever Bump gives them in hitting he takes away with his lousy fielding.”

“How’s that?”

“He’s just so damn lazy. Pop has thrown many a fine and suspension at him, but after that he will go into a slump on purpose and we don’t win a one. If I was Pop I’da had his ass long ago, but Pop thinks a hitter like him could be a bell cow and lead the rest ahead, so he keeps hoping he will reform. If we could get the team rolling we’d be out of the cellar in no time.”

They were approaching the hotel and Roy counted with his eyes up to the fourth floor and watched the curtains in the windows.

“I read Scotty’s report on you,” Red said. “He says you are a terrific hitter. How come you didn’t start playing when you were younger?”

“I did but I flopped.” Roy was evasive.

Red cringed. “Don’t say that word around here.”

“What word?”

“Flopped — at least not anywhere near Pop. He starts to cry when he hears it.”

“What for?”

“Didn’t you ever hear about Fisher’s Flop?”

“Seems to me I did but I am not sure.”

Red told him the story. “About forty years ago Pop was the third sacker for the old Sox when they got into their first World Series after twenty years. They sure wanted to take the flag that year but so did the Athletics, who they were playing, and it was a rough contest all the way into the seventh game. That one was played at Philly and from the first inning the score stood at 3–3, until the Athletics drove the tie-breaker across in the last of the eighth. In the ninth the Sox’s power was due up but they started out bad. The leadoffer hit a blooper to short, the second struck out, and the third was Pop. It was up to him. He let one go for a strike, then he slammed a low, inside pitch for a tremendous knock.

“The ball sailed out to deep center,” Red said, “where the center fielder came in too fast and it rolled through him to the fence and looked good for an inside-the-park homer, or at least a triple. Meanwhile, Pop, who is of course a young guy at this time, was ripping around the bags, and the crowd was howling for him to score and tie up the game, when in some crazy way as he was heading for home, his legs got tangled under him and he fell flat on his stomach, the living bejesus knocked out of him. By the time he was up again the ball was in the catcher’s glove and he ran up the baseline after Pop. In the rundown that followed, the third baseman tagged him on the behind and the game was over.”

Red spat into the street. Roy tried to say something but couldn’t.

“That night Fisher’s Flop, or as they mostly call it, ‘Fisher’s Famous Flop,’ was in every newspaper in the country and was talked about by everybody. Naturally Pop felt like hell. I understand that Ma Fisher had the phone out and hid him up in the attic. He stayed there two weeks, till the roof caught fire and he had to come out or burn. After that they went to Florida for a vacation but it didn’t help much. His picture was known to all and wherever he went they yelled after him, ‘Flippity-flop, flippity-flop.’ It was at this time that Pop lost his hair. After a while people no longer recognized him, except on the ball field, yet though the kidding died down, Pop was a marked man.”

Roy mopped his face. “Hot,” he said.

“But he had his guts in him,” Red said, “and stayed in the game for ten years more and made a fine record. Then he retired from baseball for a couple of years, which was a good thing but he didn’t know it. Soon one of Ma’s rich relatives died and left them a pile of dough that Pop used to buy himself a half share of the Knights. He was made field manager and the flop was forgotten by now except for a few wise-egg sportswriters that, when they are too drunk to do an honest day’s work, would raise up the old story and call it Fisher’s Fizzle, or Farce, or Fandango — you wouldn’t guess there are so many funny words beginning with an f — which some of them do to this day when the Knights look foolish. The result is that Pop has the feeling he has been jinxed since the time of his flop, and he has spent twenty-five years and practically all of his pile trying to break the jinx, which he thinks he can do by making the Knights into the world champs that the old Sox never did become. Eight times he has finished in second place, five in third, and the rest in fourth or fifth, but last season when the Judge bought into the club and then took advantage of Pop’s financial necessity to get hold of ten per cent of his shares and make himself the majority stockholder, was our worst season. We ended up in the sewer and this year it looks like a repeat.”

“How come?”

“The Judge is trying to push Pop out of his job although he has a contract to manage for life — that’s what the Judge had to promise to get that ten per cent of stock. Anyway, he’s been trying everything he can think of to make things tough for Pop. He has by his sly ways forced all sorts of trades on us which make money all right but hurt the team. It burns me up,” Red said, “because I would give my right arm if I could get Pop the pennant. I am sure that if he took one and the Series after that, he would feel satisfied, quit baseball, and live in peace. He is one helluva white guy and deserves better than he got. That’s why I am asking you to give him the best you have in you.”

“Let him play me,” Roy said, “and he will get the best.”

In the lobby Red said he had enjoyed Roy’s company and they should eat together more. Before he left he warned Roy to be careful with his earnings. They weren’t much, he knew, but if in the future Roy had a chance to invest in soniething good, he advised him to do so. “There is a short life in baseball and we have to think of the future. Anything can happen to you in this game. Today you are on top and tomorrow you will be on your way out to Dubuque. Try to protect your old age. It don’t pay to waste what you earn.”

To his surprise, Roy answered, “To hell with my old age. I will be in this game a long time.”

Red rubbed his chin. “How are you so sure?”

“It wasn’t for nothing it took me fifteen years to get here. I came for more than the ride and I will leave my mark around here.”

Red waited to hear more but Roy shut up.

Red shrugged, “Well, each to their choice.”

Roy said good night and went upstairs. Entering Bump’s room, he picked up a gilt hairpin from the carpet and put it into his wallet because some claimed it brought luck. For a while he stood at the window and watched the lit Empire State Building. It was a great big city, all right. He undressed, thinking of Pop’s flop that changed his whole life, and got into bed.

In the dark the bed was in motion, going round in wide, sweeping circles. He didn’t like the feeling so he lay deathly still and let everything go by — the trees, mountains, states. Then he felt he was headed into a place where he did not want to go and tried urgently to think of ways to stop the bed. But he couldn’t and it went on, a roaring locomotive now, screaming into the night, so that he was tensed and sweating and groaned aloud why did it have to be me? what did I do to deserve it? seeing himself again walking down the long, lonely corridor, carrying the bassoon case, the knock, the crazy Harriet (less and more than human) with the shiny pistol, and him, cut down in the very flower of his youth, lying in a red pool of his own blood.