Story #10: "The Knuckleball Artist" (Chapter 17)
A tsunami, a game of badminton, a pair of smudged glasses, a dab with a paw, four hubcaps and a "here boy."
⬅️ Previous – Start at the Beginning – Next ➡️
CHAPTER 17
SPARKLING, SALTWATER CLEAN
Phineas kicked the baseball in zigzags down the pitching mound, towards home plate, away from home plate, then course-correcting. He couldn’t have gotten any more frustrated. The moment he reached home plate, the left-handed batter—who’d been waiting for some time for a pitch to hit—stepped aside, bewildered, and let Phineas through.
But Phineas was not aiming at the catcher’s mitt. To everyone’s surprise, he made a sharp break towards the backstop, and dribbled toward the notorious opening at the bottom of the backstop’s chain fence.
He was headed towards Pinball’s Slot.
The penny dropped for everyone at the same time. He was going to kick the ball under the fence and trigger one of Pinball’s eruptions. There were gasps, of course, but afterwards the stands grew quieter than a game of badminton.
Reginald stood on the mound with his arms draped helplessly. He had never felt like less of a coach, less of an anything really.
Phineas’ first shot on goal hooked wide to the left. Heads on both bleachers flapped sideways towards the “O” in Cougars. Then they flapped back towards the hole in the backstop where the boy was going to drain it any second.
His second shot sailed over the top, banged into the chain link, and dropped dead cold. Out in right, Pinball stood up from his rocking chair, and primed to blow.
On the third attempt, this time with a running kick, the baseball shot beneath the fence and disappeared into the parking lot.
Pinball erupted all right.
“Pinball!” he cried. The old coot’s beer spilled everywhere. He thrust his shaking fists into the air and glared at the sky like he was raging at the Almighty.
It wasn’t a second later that Tripod shot out of the “O” in Cougars like he’d heard a racetrack starting gun. It was a tsunami of sixth-graders. The three-legged greyhound cleared that field of players, in groups, then one by one where he had to. Moms and dads charged off for safety, hurtling fences and so forth.
And when the runners finally cleared all three bases, Pinball cried out in a second rage, “Rule 5.09(b)(2).” His whole life, only two people would ever understand the poor guy.
Pinball shook his fist at the little stadium, then out towards the Iowa state flag, then the water tower, and last of all in the direction of small claims court where he’d been robbed so politely of his umpiring responsibilities.
If you’re a believer, you better believe the Almighty was listening.
Reginald watched Phineas from a hiding spot behind the water cooler.
Tripod circled the boy in a frenzy, barking furiously. Phineas ignored him outright. This was the second time now the boy hadn’t the good sense to run away from him. As you can imagine, Tripod was beside himself.
The kid left home plate and threw his glove into the pitching mound dirt and headed out towards right.
When Phineas was ten yards or so from first base, he suddenly stopped short, took off his glasses, and cleaned them with his jersey for some reason. Then the kid turned back and looked at Reginald. Probably because he couldn’t see without his glasses, he stumbled over first base.
He kicked that base with all he’d got, getting it back for tripping him and for everything else, too, but he stubbed his big toe something awful. He limped off in the direction of the “O” in Cougars with more fits and starts than the three-legged dog hopping around him. The two of them were moving slower than a Veteran’s Day parade.
Reginald felt something awful, but all he could do was pick up Phineas’ glove from the mound and call after him. “Phineas! Phineas!” He sounded like the last line of a sad movie.
Phineas was getting dangerously close to the “O” in Cougars. Tripod raced in front of the kid and barked with junkyard fury. It was his “O.” After that, Tripod tried a low growl and that didn’t work either. Eventually, he had to hop aside to let the boy past, giving him a “pat-pat-I’m-warning-you” dab with his paw. It was more cat than dog, but it’s beyond my Midwestern skills to describe it.
Phineas didn’t pay the dog any mind and popped right through the hole.
In confusion, Tripod tilted his head so far to the one-legged side he got himself stuck in the fence trying to catch the boy.
When Phineas emerged out the other side of the fence, Pinball stood waiting for him with his crazy hair and his dirty underwear t-shirt. The town’s once-beloved umpire of twenty-one seasons was still holding a beer in each hand.
Phineas had never seen him up close. Nobody else had either, really, not since he’d raged out of small claims court from the injustice of it all.
Pinball stared right back at this young kid with his smudged welder’s glasses—glasses that had very, very recently been washed sparkling, saltwater clean. Phineas held his glasses up in the air, looked through them closely, and then back at Pinball.
The kid had brown eyes. There was a long pause while the two stared at each other, then the old umpire suddenly said a single word.
“Oh.”
As the starting point for his first conversation in twenty-one years, it wasn’t a huge step, but the angry old man knew right away why the kid never washed his glasses. Reginald himself learn in about a half hour, but we’ll come to that.
The old guy put his beers down and stuck his hand out.
“Give them to me,” Pinball hollered at the boy in one of his rages, shaking.
Phineas shook, too.
“Give what?”
The old umpire didn’t wait for the kid to figure it out. He grabbed Phineas’ glasses right off his face. Pinball tore half his dirty, yellow-stained shirt out of his oversized pants, wiped the kid’s welders hard, and handed them back. His undershirt was so dirty and greasy itself, the kid’s glasses were more smeared than when they started out.
Phineas put them back on, looked around in every direction to check his vision, then paused.
“Better.”
Oddly enough, he sounded serious. Reginald might have even heard the kid say “thank you,” but from the pitcher’s mound, all Reginald could see was the kid headed out the umpire’s broken gate.
After that, and right on schedule, Pinball shook with frustration and hollered out the usual cue.
“Tilt!”
And right on schedule, it reminded Tripod to lift his front-right leg. Tripod tilted through the far side of The “O” in Cougars, and hopped through.
Afterwards, and maybe Reginald caught it wrong, but he was pretty sure he heard Phineas say, “Here, boy.”
It was the saddest “here, boy” in the history of boys.
Later on, in the parking lot of Lutheran Liquors & Lottery, Phineas’ shot on goal was ruled a “wild kick” by a committee of What Cheer volunteer umpires. The Mercy Rule was invoked three and two, and the home plate umpire ruled the Cougars out with the flourish of a called third strike.
The Cougars fell to a record of, well, I can’t even remember what their record was, but none of that’s important.
I should have mentioned earlier sports aren’t really my thing.
The thing is, Reginald had one less shot at a winning record, hope was running out, and it didn’t look like Phineas would be doing the favor of coaching the Cougars any time soon.
That night, Reginald was woken by one of the Sleepmobile’s hubcaps falling off the car and clatteing off in the parking lot gravel. The Sleepmobile gave a little jolt, and Reginald heard a second hubcap slip its axle. The old Yankee struggled up and wiped the windshield glass with his pajamas. Both hubcaps were off and rolling down the parking lot in the direction of The Poison Ivy. Before he could bring himself to watch them disappear into it, Reginald dove back under his blanket.
Then the third popped off and, soon enough, the fourth. They wobbled off to The Baseball Graveyard.
It was a tough April.
⬅️ Previous – Start at the Beginning – Next ➡️
👉🏻 “The Knuckleball Artist” continues next week. Subscribe for alerts.
Oh the sleepmobile! Her poor hubcaps.