George Alec Effinger - Naked to the Invisible Eye

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2024-11-24 0 0 42.95KB 14 页 5.9玖币
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NAKED TO
THE INVISIBLE EYE
The one thing a dying institution does not need is an overly brilliant performer.
There were less than a thousand spectators in the little ball park, their chatter nearly inaudible
com-pared to the heartening roar of the major league crowds. The fans sat uneasily, as if they had
wandered into the wake of a legendary hero. No longer was baseball the na-tional pastime. Even the big
league teams, roving from franchise to franchise in search of yesterday's loyal bleacher fanatics, resorted
to promotional gimmicks to stave off bankruptcy. Here, the Bears were in third place, with an unlikely
shot at second. The Tigers had clinched the pennant early, now leading the second-place Kings by nine
games and the Bears by an even more discouraging number. There was no real tension in this game—oh,
with a bad slump the Bears might fall down among the cellar teams, but so what? For all intents and
pur-poses, the season had ended a month ago.
There was no tension, no pen-nant race any longer, just an inexpensive evening out for the South
Carolina fans. The sweat on the batter's hands was the fault of his own nervous reaction; the knots in his
stomach were shared by no one. He went to the on-deck circle for the pine-tar rag while he waited for
the new pitcher to toss his warm-ups.
The Bear shortstop was batting eighth, reflecting his anemic .219 average. Like a great smoothed
rock this fact sat in the torrent of his thinking, submerged at times but often breaking through the rac-ing
surface. With his unsteady fielding it looked as if he would be out of a job the next spring. To the players
and to the spectators the game was insignificant; to him it was the first of his last few chances. With two
runs in already in the eighth, one out and a man on first, he went to the plate.
He looked out toward the kid on the mound before settling himself in the batter's box. The pitcher's
name was Rudy Ramirez, he was only nineteen and from somewhere in Venezuela. That was all anybody
knew about him; this was his first appearance in a professional ball game. The Bear shortstop took a
deep breath and stepped in.
That kid Ramirez looked pretty fast during his warm-ups, he thought. The shortstop damned the
fate that made him the focus of at-tention against a complete un-known. The waters surged; his thoughts
shuffled and died.
The Venezuelan kid looked in for his sign. The shortstop looked down to the third-base coach, who
flashed the take signal; that was all right with him. I'm only batting .219, I want to see this kid throw
one before ...
Ramirez went into his stretch, glanced at the runner on first ...
With that kid Barger coming off the disabled list I might not be able to . . .
Ramirez' right leg kicked, his left arm flung back ...
The shortstop's shrieking flood of thought stilled, his mind was as quiet as the surface of a pond
stag-nating. The umpire called the pitch a ball.
Along the coaching lines at third Sorenson was relaying the hit-and-run sign from the dugout. All
right, thought the shortstop, just make contact, get a good ground ball, maybe a hit, move the man
into scoring position ...
Ramirez nodded to his catcher, stretched, checked the runner ...
My luck, I'll get an easy double-play ball to the right side ...
Ramirez kicked, snapped, and pitched ...
The shortstop's mind was silent, ice-cold, dead, watching the runner vainly flying toward second, the
catcher's throw beating him there by fifteen feet. Two out. One ball and one strike.
Sorenson called time. He met the shortstop halfway down the line.
"You damn, brainless idiot!" said the coach. "You saw the sign, you acknowledged the sign, you
stood there with your thumb in your ear looking at a perfect strike! You got an awful short memory?"
"Look, I don't know—"
"I'll tell you what I do know," said Sorenson. "I know that'll cost you twenty dollars. Maybe your
spot in the lineup."
The shortstop walked to the on-deck circle, wiped his bat again with the pine-tar. His head was filled
with anger and frustration. Back in the batter's box he stared toward the pitcher in desperation.
On the rubber Ramirez worked out of a full wind-up with the bases empty. His high kick hid his
delivery until the last moment. The ball floated toward the plate, a fat balloon belt-high, a curve that didn't
break ...
The hitter's mind was like a desert, his mind was like an empty glass, a blank sheet of paper, his mind
was totally at rest ...
The ball nicked the outside corner for a called strike two. The Ti-ger catcher chuckled. "Them
people in the seats have to pay to get in," he said. "They're doin' more'n you!"
"Shut up." The Bear shortstop choked up another couple of inches on the handle. He'll feed me
an-other curve, and then the fast ball . . .
Ramirez took the sign and went into his motion.
Lousy kid I'm gonna rap it one down his lousy throat ...
The wrist flicked, the ball spun, broke ...
The shortstop watched, unawed, very still, like a hollow thing, as the curve broke sharply, down the
heart of the plate, strike three, side retired.
The Tigers managed to score an insurance run in the top half of the ninth, and Rudy Ramirez went
back to the mound with a five-to--three lead to protect. The first bat-ter that he was scheduled to face
was the Bear pitcher, who was re-placed in the order by pinch-hitter Frank Asterino.
A sense of determination, con-fidence made Asterino's mind orderly. It was a brightly-lit mind, with
none of the shifting doubts of the other. Rudy felt the will, he weighed the desire, he discovered the man's
dedication and respected it. He stood off the rubber, rubbing the shine from the new ball. He reached for
the rosin bag, then dropped it. He peered in at John-ston, his catcher. The sign: the fast ball.
Asterino guarded the plate closely. Johnston's mitt was tar-geted on the inside—start off with the high
hard one, loosen the bat-ter up. Rudy rocked back, kicked that leg high, and threw. The ball did not go
for the catcher's mark, sailing out just a little. A not-over-powering pitch right down the pipe—a true
gopher ball.
Rudy thought as the ball left his hand. He found that will of Asterino's, and he held it gently back. Be
still. Do not move; yes, be still. And Asterino watched the strike in-tently as it passed.
Asterino watched two more, both curves that hung tantalizing but un-touched. Ramirez grasped the
bat-ter's desire with his own, and blotted up all the fierce resolution there was in him. Asterino returned
to the bench amid the boos of the fans, disappointed but unbe-wildered. He had struck out but, after all,
that was not so unusual.
The top of the batting order was up, and Rudy touched their disparate minds. He hid their judg-ment
behind the glare of his own will, and they struck out; the first batter needed five pitches and the second
four. They observed balls with as much passive interest as strikes, and their bats never left their
shoulders. No runs, no hits, no errors, nothing across for the Bears in the ninth. The ball game was over;
Rudy earned a save for striking out the four batters he faced in his first pro assignment.
Afterward, local reporters were met by the angry manager of the Bears. When asked for his
impres-sion of the young Tiger pitcher he said, "I didn't think he looked that sharp. How you supposed to
win managing a damn bunch of zom-bies?" In the visitors' clubhouse Tiger manager Fred Marenholtz was
in a more expansive mood.
"Where did Ramirez come from?" asked one reporter.
"I don't really know," he said. "Charlie Cardona checks out Detroit's prospects down there. All I
know is the telegram said that he was signed, and then here he is. Charlie's dug up some good kids for
us." "Did he impress you tonight?"
Marenholtz settled his wire-rim glasses on his long nose and nod-ded. "He looked real cool for his
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分类：外语学习 价格：5.9玖币 属性：14 页 大小：42.95KB 格式：PDF 时间：2024-11-24

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