Wing Ding (5 page)

A
s the visiting team, we batted first.

Our lead-off man, Ducks Bunion, clapped on a helmet and strode up to the plate. Stump picked up a bat and headed into the on-deck circle.

“Let's go, Ducks,” the guys and I called from the bench. “Give it a ride!”

Out on the mound, ace Haymaker pitcher Flicker Pringle rolled his trademark toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other.

He started Ducks with a trademark fastball. At least I think he did. The pitcher whipped the old pill so hard, I didn't actually see anything. The ball whooshed like a steam engine as it cut
through the breeze. Then came a firecracker
pop
as it slammed into the catcher's mitt. Next I heard a sharp yelp that sounded like when Mr. Bones got underfoot and I accidentally stepped on his paw.

The yelp came from the Haymakers' catcher, Hanky Burns.

It hurt to catch Flicker Pringle's wrecking-ball pitches. Even the toughest catchers could only take an inning or two of it. That old fireballer ate them up like potato chips.

“STEE-RIKE ONE!” the umpire barked.

Flicker got the ball back and rolled that toothpick of his from side to side. I hated to see him do that. I knew from experience that he only flashed his toothpick when he felt good. And one thing and one thing only made Flicker feel good: striking out batters.

Two blazing pitches later, luckless Ducks trudged back to the bench, Flicker's first victim of the afternoon.

Out in the bleachers, rowdy fans taped a
red
K
to the wall. In baseball code,
K
stands for strikeout. Flicker had once notched seventeen of them in a single six-inning game. Not only that, but we were the team he had done it against. In the championship, no less. But that particular game didn't end so well for the Haymakers. I knocked a ball out of the park in my last at bat, winning the pennant with a walk-off tater.

I'll never forget the feeling.

Of course I won't ever forget all the times Flicker struck me out, either. Those memories stung like jellyfish. I hoped to avoid his tentacles today.

“Forget it,” I told Ducks on my way out to take Stump's place in the on-deck circle. “You'll rip one next time.”

Up at the plate, Stump knocked the dirt out of his spikes. Flicker wound up and delivered smoke.

Stump started to swing, but the umpire cut him off.

“STEE-RIKE ONE!” he roared.

In the stands the crowd started punching around a beach ball. Bad idea. The wind grabbed the brightly colored ball and instantly blew it clear out of the park.

“Hit one that way!” I called to Stump as Flicker delivered another frightening pitch.

Stump surprised us all by squaring up to bunt. It took courage to bunt against Flicker. Or lunacy. You might as well jump into the path of a bullet.

Stump managed to deflect the incoming projectile, a neat little trick that probably saved his life. But it didn't do much for his attempted bunt. The ball caromed wide down the first-base line.

“STEE-RIKE TWO!” the umpire hollered.

Expecting another fastball, Stump swung at the next pitch like the crack of dawn. He swung early.

Good idea.

Except crafty Flicker didn't fling a fastball.
He fooled Stump with a wicked changeup. The ball might as well have been trailing a parachute, it settled so gently into Hanky Burns's mitt.

“STEE-RIKE THREE, YOU'RE OUT!” honked the ump.

Stump dragged himself back to our dugout looking like a kid heading home from school with a bad report card. Another red
K
appeared in the bleachers. The fans out there must have been using superglue to stick them to the wall. Nothing else could have withstood the gusts.

“BATTER UP!” cried the ump.

That meant me.

I took my favorite Louisville Slugger from Billy, rubbed the batboy's head for luck, and strode to the plate. Flicker glowered down at me from up on the hill, that rotten splinter rolling from side to side in his mouth. Part of me wanted to knock it out with a scorching hit.

Another part of me just hoped to survive.

“Howdy, Walloper,” the pitcher drawled as I
tapped the plate with my bat.

“Flicker.” I nodded at him.

“Get ready to have your socks blown off,” he said.

He could have been talking about the wind. It tugged at my uniform like it wanted to strip me down to my underwear. But Flicker didn't care about the wind. He meant
he
was going to blow my socks off. With his fastball.

“We'll see about that,” I said.

The All-Star pitcher wound up and hurled a high hot one.

Whoosh
went the pitch.

Pop
went the ball.

“Yowch!” hollered poor Hanky Burns.

“STEE-RIKE ONE!” barked the ump.

I was in no position to argue. All I saw was a vapor trail.

From the bench, my teammates shouted encouragement. “One swing, Walloper! One is all it takes.”

I banged down my helmet and cocked my
bat. Flicker kicked. I watched the ball roll off his fingertips, flat, straight, true.

Yes!
I thought.

I swung.

CRACK!

The ball leaped off my bat like Mr. Bones springs off the sofa when it's time for a walk. Jackrabbit quick. Finding daylight between short and third, it settled into left field for a clean single.

Our bench exploded in cheers. You would have thought we had won the World Series, the way the guys hooted and hollered. Getting a simple hit off Flicker Pringle could have that effect. It happened so rarely, it felt like a major victory.

Velcro came up next.

“C'mon now, Velcro,” I called from first. “Drive me home!”

Flicker would have none of it, though. Raging now, his eyes smoky and hot like the eyes of some kind of demon, he shifted into overdrive.
The ball flew from his hand in a blur.

“STEE-RIKE ONE!”

“STEE-RIKE TWO!”

“STEE-RIKE THREE!” the ump barked hoarsely, sounding like a Doberman with laryngitis.

The top of the first ended without a score.

To a steady chorus of cowbells, we grabbed our gloves and headed onto the field to play some defense. Our bats weren't working yet. I hoped our gloves would be.

After tossing a few blades of grass into the air to get a read on the breeze, Slingshot opened with a fastball. Goosed by a tailwind, the ball blew past the Haymaker leadoff batter for strike one. Slingshot threw two balls after that, then another strike. With the count even at two and two, he broke out one of his muddy boots. That's his name for a big, looping curve-ball that looks like it's going to break inside and settle over the corner of the plate.

I grinned when I saw it coming, because I
knew something about this pitch that batters never recognize until it's too late. The ball never breaks. It stays outside. Which, according to Slingshot's mom, is exactly where muddy boots belong.

The batter lunged and missed.

“STEE-RIKE THREE!” barked the ump. “YOU'RE OUT!”

The second guy up dropped a fly into shallow right field. Ocho would have caught it, but at the last instant a strong gust nudged the ball out of his reach. He plucked it off the grass and fired it to the Glove at second base, holding the runner to a single.

With one out and one on, Flicker Pringle came to bat. The crowd went bonkers. The stands sounded like the Salvation Army on Christmas Eve, so many bells rang. The fans knew, we all knew, that if there was one thing Flicker could do even better than throw the ball, it was hit the ball.

Slingshot stared in for the sign. Tugboat
flashed his index finger. Slingshot nodded, wound up, and delivered an inside fastball for strike one. Next came ball one, low, then another called strike.

Ahead in the count, Slingshot decided to play it safe. Rather than giving Flicker something good to hit, he tried to goad him into a swing by nibbling at the corners. Flicker refused to bite. Not even a tantalizing muddy boot could get him to wave. The ump called balls two, three, and four, and Flicker trotted down to first base with a walk.

When he got there, he stomped on Gilly's foot. “Oh, sorry,” he growled as Gilly winced.

What came next was even worse.

W
ith men on first and second and the wind ripping like a band saw, Slingshot kicked and delivered to the fourth Haymaker batter of the inning. The pumped-up goon got out ahead of the ball and chopped it weakly toward short.

Just what the doctor ordered,
I thought, as Stump charged in to make the scoop: a perfect double-play grounder.

Stump fielded the ball cleanly. But as he turned to flip the ball to the Glove at second base, his right arm jerked like it had a case of the hiccups. The ball squirted away. By the time the Glove tracked it down, runners stood safely on every base.

“Heads-up out there,” called Skip Lou from the bench.

The next batter wasted no time in pasting another hit directly at Stump. This time the shortstop played it on a bounce, picked it neatly from his glove, and gunned it to Tugboat to cut down the lead runner at home.

Only his throw never reached Tugboat's big pie plate.

It bounced six feet up the first-base line.

“SAFE!” roared the ump.

With the first run of the afternoon in the bank, the Hog City bench jeered Stump's error mercilessly.

“Shortstop's got a chicken arm!”

“He has ants in his pants!”

“More like grasshoppers! He's all jumpy.”

Stump looked like he wanted to crawl under second base and hide. I called time to give him a minute to pull himself together. The Glove and Slingshot joined our huddle.

“Forget it,” I said, draping my arm around
my friend's shoulders. “The wind grabbed it. New batter, new chance.”

“That's right,” encouraged Slingshot. “Couple quick outs, the inning is over and we're only down one.”

Punching the pocket of his mitt, Stump nodded gamely.

When I got back to third base, I had company. Flicker Pringle now stood on the bag.

“Dude, that is the worst I have ever seen,” the pitcher sneered.

“Worst what?” I bristled.

“Case of the yips,” said Flicker. “Stick a fork in your shortstop, pal, because he is cooked.”

“You scored one run,” I said. “We'll get it back, easy.”

“Going to be a lot more than one with old Yippie McYipperson in the middle,” said Flicker.

“His name is Stump,” I said coldly, eyes straight ahead.

“Way he plays,” Flicker shot back, “it should be Chump!”

“He's an All-Star,” I barked.

“Not on my team, he isn't,” Flicker said smugly. “You better believe I'm not going to let any chicken-winged shortstop ruin my All-Star Game.”

“Since when is it
your
game?” I muttered.

At the plate the Haymaker hitter ripped Slingshot's very next pitch into right field for a single, and Flicker jogged home with the game's second run.

After that, the wheels really came off.

More accurately, Stump's arm did.

He committed two wild throws in a row, and Hog City cleared the bases. By the time Ducks snagged a swirling pop fly in left field to end the inning, nine batters had come to the plate, Stump had notched four errors, and Hog City sat on a six-run lead.

The only thing wilder than Stump's arm was the weather. Clouds raced across the sky like clipper ships. Occasionally, something solid raced along with them. I swear I saw a
whole set of patio furniture zip by—a table, four chairs, and a sun umbrella. A man dozed in one of the chairs.

“Whipping williwaws!” exclaimed Skip Lou as he sent Tugboat up to bat to start the second. “It's blowing cats and dogs! Try getting some air under a ball, and we'll see if something good happens.”

Tugboat caught Flicker off guard by swinging at the first pitch. He popped the ball up and, just as Skip had hoped, the wind did the rest. It grabbed his short fly and carried it over the center fielder's head and all the way to the wall. Tugboat chugged into second with a stand-up double.

“No fair,” Flicker complained loudly. “The wind took it!”

“There's a lot of things I can control, son,” said the ump. “But weather isn't one of them. Batter up!”

Gilly stepped in and promptly lofted a ball to short left. The third baseman camped under
it to make what looked like a sure out. But the ball never came down. It caught a fast-moving air current and abruptly darted toward center field. Turning three quick circles—kind of like Mr. Bones before he settles down for a nap—it dropped straight from the sky between bewildered fielders. Tugboat raced home and Gilly wound up on third with a wind-aided triple.

It wasn't a normal way to score, but at least we were on the board.

By now Flicker Pringle practically had smoke pouring from his ears. It definitely came off the fastballs he hurled past Slingshot.

“STEE-RIKE ONE!”

“STEE-RIKE TWO!”

“STEE-RIKE THREE!” barked the ump without coming up for air.

“YOWCH!” yelped Hanky Burns, who after an inning and a third of catching volcanic heat was just about done for the day.

Flicker rolled his toothpick around in his mouth, while out in the bleachers, the Hog City
faithful managed to glue another
K
to the wall.

Ocho followed Slingshot to the plate. New batter, same old result: a swinging whiff.

With two outs Ocho sat down and the Glove took his place in the box. The scrappy second baseman swung three times, and three times the ball sped past him like an express train. Fans tried to paste up another
K
, but this time the wind was ready for them. It snatched their cardboard letter and sent it sailing.

We went to the bottom of the second with the score six to one in favor of our rivals.

Staked to a big lead, the Haymakers started clubbing for the fences. Hog City is like that. They like to do things big. Besides, after watching us, they knew any ball they hit in the air would be near impossible to catch.

Slingshot is no dummy, though. He saw what the Haymakers were trying to do and used their aggressive swings against them. Throwing a battery of off-speed pitches, he goaded them into one wild-swing miss after another.

The second, third, and fourth innings passed without either team scoring. In the fifth, Flicker Pringle cleared everything with a line drive that moved so fast, not even the wind could slow it down. Right fielder Ocho James never had a chance. We got the run back in the sixth on zigzagging flies by Gasser Phipps (who had replaced Velcro in center), Tugboat, and Gilly.

But that was all we scored.

“STEE-RIKE THREE!” bleated the ump as the Glove swung and missed for our third out, the game ending exactly as it had begun: with a Flicker Pringle comet.

The pitcher pumped his fist, while out in the stands the windburned Hog City faithful fed their collection of red
K
s to the squall. Sheets of cardboard swirled like confetti.

Final score: Hog City seven, Rambletown two.