The Brooklyn Nine: Fifth Inning–Sixth Inning

Numbers rackets were illegal—just like blind pigs and speakeasies—but Pop and most of the other cops looked the other way.

“Sorry. You’re sitting on Press Row, so I assumed you were with one of New York’s esteemed periodicals.”

“Do I contradict myself?” he said like it meant something. “Very well then, I contradict myself. I am large. I contain multitudes.”

“Ah. Yes. Very honest work indeed. And do you wager some of your honest pay on those numbers once in a while?”
“Chuh. No. The numbers game is a sucker’s bet.”

Well, yes, occasionally there are some inconvenient facts that have to be worked in. Although with the Brooklyn Robins I can say they lost, and I’m not often wrong.

And Lou Gehrig, Tony Lazzeri, Babe Ruth—they hit a great many home runs and win a great many ball games, if you like that sort of thing. But a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.

I much prefer the capricious Brooklyn Robins. You never know what’s going to happen next.

I greatly prefer to write my story in advance, and then sit back and enjoy the sum total of the afternoon. Besides, the truth is subjective.

So might we consider Burleigh Grimes ‘luckier’ than Jesse Barnes? If they are, in fact, comparable pitchers in terms of base runners allowed, how else can we reconcile the differences in their earned run averages?

After digesting all the box scores on the page, Frankie flipped to the Belmont take to see if any of her players had hit the numbers.

There were little white doilies all over everything too—the tables, the chairs, even the mantel.

“How many times have you won in the last year?”
“Well, none,” she conceded. “But you have only to win once, yes?”

Kieran sometimes didn’t arrive until the first or second inning was under way, but she was too nervous to wait, and ran back down to the main concourse.

Frankie was cursing Kieran's name when she caught a glimpse of his long prim face and white fedora hat.

Tomorrow couldn’t come soon enough, and by morning Frankie was tired from a fitful night’s sleep.

A lanky blond girl lacing up her spikes eyeballed Kat and shook her head.

The skirt had no pleat to it, and Kat felt like she was wearing a parachute.

Ever since the war had started, girls everywhere had been wearing pants and dungarees.

She ran to the last place on the end of one of the letter’s arms just as the band began to warble “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

Luckily she didn’t have to, and the Daisies pitcher wasn’t nearly so crafty. When Kat came up to bat in the third the pitcher laid a fat one right across the plate that Kat laced to right for a hit.

The Fort Wayne catcher lived in her own place beside a graveyard, and that was where she threw shindigs when visiting players came to town.

Someone had brought a portable phonograph player, and Frank Sinatra was crooning “Saturday Night (Is the Loneliest Night of the Week)” with a backup chorus of Daisies bobbysoxers.

Kat ogled the cemetery and the broad, bright sky full of stars.

There was an argument over what would be played next on the phonograph. Eventually the Bing Crosby fans won out and the graveyard was serenaded by “Swinging on a Star.”

Pepper beckoned for Kat to follow her, and they walked alone to a quiet part of the cemetery.

“You gotta run the gauntlet,” she told Kat. Was this some new initiation? A girl pointed Kat toward the first base line, where Kat saw Grand Rapids fans beckoning to her. Still not sure what she was in for, she ran over and found that every one of them wanted to shake her hand or clap her on the back.

Kat stuck with Connie, and together they sat mesmerized for a moment by the passing streetlights outside their window.

“You’re too young for that sort of thing. Looks like I’m gonna have to stick to you like glue, kid. Keep you away from Grand Rapids’ more sinister element.”

She wanted her father to come home safe, wanted the Allies to beat Hitler, wanted her family to stop scrimping and saving and eating nothing but potatoes and carrots from their victory garden.

“Always wear a skirt and look your best. Don’t get your hair cut short, and never wear Oxfords or masculine-looking shoes. And the biggie: No fraternizing with opposing players.”
“No what?”
“You’re not supposed to be chummy with the girls on the other teams,” Connie translated.

“Local Coca-Cola fella says he wants to donate a few cases to the team!” the driver announced. The girls hooted and hollered, and some of them leaned out the window to thank their benefactor and blow him kisses as he unloaded more from his trunk.

“And long have we toiled under Meyer, who God knows ain’t no Moses.”

The girls pelted Ziegler with their caps, and she very un-preacherly shot one of them back at a girl.

“Do you accept the central tenets of our faith—the run, the hit, and the error?” she said, then quieter, “But not so much the error.”

The lady behind him gave Kat a bear hug, and little children ran among the revelers waving American flags and flying little toy airplanes.