Story #10: "The Knuckleball Artist" (Chapter 22)

Big city burglars, tea towel wisdom, the President of the 4th of July, fossilized gum, and a baseball card.

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CHAPTER 22

THE NOTORIOUSLY LONG RED LIGHT

It was the big day, and all of What Cheer was off to the Championship Little League game. Cougars Volkswagen was playing Misfit Tailoring for seats at the banquet table—the one that looked out at all the classmates that lost.

There wasn’t a second car in a single driveway. Even the parking lot over at Final Sunset Nursing Home was a ghost town.

On the drive into town, birds had settled on the friendlier scarecrows, and the farmers left house keys poking out from flower pots. “I don’t want burglars breaking all the windows.” This had never happened in What Cheer, but during one of the kids’ big games up in Cedar Rapids, burglars did this very thing.

“Well, that’s no surprise for the big city,” the mothers agreed.

The mothers, a more forgiving bunch, set out milk and cookies on the kitchen tables, with tea towels “folded up all nice.” You never knew when a Game Day Burglar might need a glass of milk or a little tea towel wisdom to tip them over to salvation.

“Bless their souls, let them finish the cookies off,” the mothers would say. “Anyway, we have nothing to steal, and we’re running late.”

Downtown was no different. A sign in the big window at the grocery store read “Back by 7 (if we don’t go into extras).”

At the courthouse, the small claims judge gave a good-luck tap with his gavel before locking up. His grandson—mostly a good kid, just going through a rough patch—had been named team captain.

“Awful proud how that whole mess turned out,” the judge told himself, locking up. “Good thing I was on duty.”

As for Reginald and Phineas, it was their last ride in The Sleepmobile together. And not just their last ride together—if the Cougars lost, it’d be Reginald’s last ride in the Sleepmobile. That’s “period full stop and no exaggeration” last ride. The Sleepmobile would be The Boil’s.

At the edge of town, Reginald wished he hadn’t seen it, but he did. Cougars’ Volkswagen had hung a banner over the President’s reserved parking spot. “Welcome Home, Sleepmobile!” There was a picture of The Boil beneath it like he was running for the President of the 4th of July.

She must have seen it, too. Reginald patted the old girl’s dashboard as they sputtered past.

Phineas started to say something. Then Reginald started to say something. Then they both got stuck.

It was awful quiet in the car for pre-game.

From time to time, Phineas took a quick peek inside the baseball glove he’d folded on his lap. The boy’s uniform was trim and white, but his welders were as grimy as ever. Reginald drummed on his steering wheel, but no matter how much he fussed with the radio, there was nothing on but static.

Then they missed the Notoriously Long Red Light. Reginald gave up and put the hand brake on. This was a battle he’d surrendered long ago. Clearly, the Notoriously Long Red Light wanted something worked out before the big game.

At last, Phineas broke the silence.

“Do you have a baseball card?”

“Nope.”

There were probably better questions as ice-breakers.

“You can’t really be a big leaguer unless you have a card.” Phineas stared out the window for a bit, then turned to his coach. “You really wouldn’t be official, right? How would you ever prove it to anyone if you didn’t even get a single out?”

“I guess you couldn’t.”

Phineas turned to him.

“You’re sure you don’t have a card?”

Reginald shook his head.

Phineas gave him a thumbs-up like he was checking a box in his head.

“I collect baseball cards. Mostly for the gum. If you buy the old, unopened packs the gum is super hard and cracks the way I like it. It’s like eating fossils.” Phineas laughed, kind of. Then he went quiet.

“Do you know what I mean?” Phineas looked in his glove again.

“Gum is gum, I suppose,” Reginald said.

“I don’t mean the gum. I mean being a real baseball player without a card. If you had one, you’d definitely be a Yankee.”

This time Reginald didn’t answer.

Phineas took a wrapped package from his glove and handed over a pack of baseball cards. It was sealed with a tiny bit of Christmas present tape.

“There are a lot of them out there. It wasn’t like my dad had to buy a thousand packs of baseball cards to find it.”

“Find the Yankee. Careful with the gum.”

Now, before you get your hopes up, let me be perfectly clear: Reginald Perry did not have a baseball card.

He almost did, which is the worst kind of didn’t. They took the Yankees Team Photo the evening of Reginald’s disaster, but by that time, Reginald was staring out the window on a Greyhound bus to What Cheer.

Topps executives held a meeting about a “Yipper Card.” In the knuckleballer’s favor was the Greatest Pitch Ever Thrown in the History of Baseball. On the flipside, he hadn’t recorded a single out, so he didn’t have any stats. Flipside won.

Reginald opened the pack to look at the cards. Albert Pujols, Ichiro, Manny Ramirez. Barry Bonds.

“Not them. Find the Yankee.”

And then, there it was.

On the front of the baseball card was a picture of a very tall pitcher at Yankee Stadium in full, knee-up windup. At the top of the card was an old time American banner that said, “Great Yankee Moments of 2003.” It looked an awful lot like the “Welcome Home, Sleepmobile” at Cougars’ Volkswagen.

“Careful you don’t crack the gum.”

It was Randy Johnson’s card. Reginald didn’t understand why he was being given a baseball card of the legendary pitcher, but to be Midwestern polite, he said, “Thanks. I love Randy Johnson. The ‘Big Unit.’”

“Yup. That’s correct. Six-foot-seven and a quarter.”

“He had a whole conversation at me once,” Reginald said.

“No, coach. You’re not seeing it.”

He wasn’t. He couldn’t see anything. A huge crowd. Bright lights. His old manager in the dugout. A player looking under a dugout bench for a misplaced glove.

“No matter how I look, kid. It’s still gonna be Randy Johnson.”

“Yup, but nope. Try harder.”

Reginald tried the other side. Randy Johnson had so many stats, his career barely fit on the back.

“There’s about a million of these cards, coach. A million.”

Phineas sounded like a five-year-old who just learned the word infinity.

“Great Yankee Moments of 2003,” Reginald read the card out loud, hoping maybe that would help.

Most of the time with gifts, unless you’ve picked it out for yourself, the whole thing is a minefield.

Reginald shook Randy Johnson like a Polaroid photo so something might show up eventually.

The Notoriously Long Red Light was still red.

Maybe a handful of times in life, you buy someone a gift, and you know it is perfect at the shop — but then you’re driving home, and you start worrying maybe it isn’t. By the time you’re in the driveway, you’re sure the whole business was too risky in the first place. What could you possibly have been thinking? Right when they’re opening it up, you are getting ready to take it back and apologize.

But the moment they open your gift, you know it was perfect, just like you thought in the first place. It was so perfect you would have paid a hundred times whatever you happened to pay, just to see your special person open that present again.

You used to believe in money, but now you only believe in faces.

Phineas saw the exact moment Reginald got it, because Reginald brought the card all the way to his nose and squinted with one eye.

Deep in the background of the Randy Johnson card, there was the thinnest sliver of the Yankee bullpen. And in that bullpen, stood a pitcher—must have been six-foot-four. He was getting ready to enter the game.

It might have been a printer’s squiggle on that pitcher’s back, or it might have been the number 21, but it sure looked like the number 21.

“Reginald “The Yipper” Perry,” Phineas said. “The Yipper.”

Phineas said “Yipper” the way you say something no one else is allowed to say, but you are, and they couldn’t possibly be hurt by it.

“The Yipper,” Reginald agreed, nodding.

“It’s right before Your Pitch.”

“Yup. Reginald ‘The Yipper’ Perry,” Reginald said. Then he said it again. He turned the card over in his long fingers. “The Yipper.”

Funny thing was, somehow he was mostly okay with “The Yipper” now. Reginald had gotten down to life’s nuts and bolts. He swapped out the Yipper part and popped in his true middle name.

“Reginald Gaylord Perry,” he said. “My father said I was named to live on the mound like Gaylord.”

“Doesn’t matter what you’re named. Your number is the most important. You’re Number 21. The card isn’t worth even a dollar. There’s a million of them. You’re in every baseball card store in the world. You’re in Japan. They love Randy Johnson in Japan because he was a Mariner.”

To be fair, Reginald was kind of a dot in the photo, and it might not even have been him. He was small enough that you could get into a reasonable argument about it.

Except that it was him.

“I mean, it’s nothing, but I’ve always known the guy who swept up at the dealership and lived in The Sleepmobile was a major league dot. I stole the pack from my dad, by the way. He hid it behind his Wilkes-Barre team photo.”

Phineas cracked the gum exactly in half with a snap that startled both of them.

Reginald took his half of the gum, spun the card around in his long fingers, first super fast, then super slow. Then he set it carefully inside The Sleepmobile’s Glove Compartment Refrigerator. He didn’t say “thank you” or anything appropriately polite. He didn’t even look at the boy.

Perfect gifts can be like that.

Then, suddenly and with some oomph to it, Reginald popped the hand brake and ran What Cheer’s Notoriously Long Red Light.

“Game Day,” Reginald said.

“Game Day,” Phineas laughed. “Chew your gum. It’s good luck.”

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