The Might Have Been Read Free

that was starting to build again, the organ playing a cadence,
bum bum bum bum bum bum
, Fairly at second base, taking a cautious lead, one, two, three steps.
    Down the third base line, the coach was going through the signals, swiping his shirt, tugging the brim of his cap, tapping his thigh. Edward Everett realized no one had taught him what the signals meant.
    “Time,” he said, stepping out of the batter’s box when the umpire gave him the time-out and trotting down the line to meet the coach halfway.
    “What you need?” the coach said, standing close to him. His breath smelled of cigarettes and something else that was sour.
    “Signals,” Edward Everett said. “I don’t know what you want. No one—”
    The coach laughed. “You’re the only guy in the fucking area code who don’t know. Pop quiz. Runner on second, none out, bottom of the seventeenth, no score. What would you do?”
    “Bunt,” Edward Everett said, deflated. “Bunt.”
    He went back to the plate, trying not to show his disappointment.True enough, even the Pirates knew what he was going to do. The entire infield edged closer, the first baseman and third baseman playing well in front of the bases, the second baseman edging toward first, the shortstop playing behind Fairly to hold him close. For a moment, Edward Everett thought about changing them all up, swinging away, lining a hit to right field, the crowd erupting in joy. But he knew he wouldn’t do that; he would sacrifice.
    At the plate, he took his stance and looked out at the pitcher, who was rubbing the ball between his palms. He was a rookie himself, younger than Edward Everett, maybe only twenty, a stocky, round-faced kid who seemed more like a fast-food fry cook than a professional athlete. The thought pushed into Edward Everett’s head: five or six years ago, the pitcher might have been in junior high. Edward Everett saw him as a boy in a white oxford shirt and blue slacks, sitting in a … but he shoved the thought aside. The past meant nothing. There was only this moment: the pitcher nodding to the catcher’s signal, holding his stretch for a scant second, as Edward Everett slid his right hand along the barrel of the bat, noticing and then dismissing a rough spot in the wood, cradling the bat partway over the plate.
    The pitch came in on the outside corner, and Edward Everett caught it with the meat of the bat, dropping a slow ground ball that trickled toward first base.
Stay fair
, he thought, dashing down the baseline for the bag, wanting to make it more than a sacrifice, thinking, if this were grass instead of artificial turf, it would die in the grass and he could beat it out, but this was not grass but turf. He willed himself to go faster, leaping for the base, urging his body to take off, hearing the
ssszzz
of the first baseman’s throw from behind him, hearing the slap of the ball into leather at perhaps the instant his foot met the bag, just a touch off-stride, making him stumble slightly as he took his turn into foul ground, thinking he was on with a single, but the umpire was throwing his right fist into the air, and grunting, “Out.”
    Edward Everett waited for the coach to argue but he just clapped his hands and shouted, “Good sac, good sac.” And indeed, Fairly stood on third. Edward Everett had done his job.
    He jogged off the field. In the stands, fans gave him polite applause before resuming their roaring and stomping as the announcer introduced the next hitter.
    Then it was over. With the infielders drawn in for a play at home on a ground ball, the hitter punched a flare over the second baseman’s head that fell just at the edge of the outfield grass, and Fairly was in, the game won.
    Later, in the hotel room the team had rented for him across the street from the stadium, Edward Everett stood in the dark, looking eight stories below at the ballpark. The game had been over for hours by then, and the infield was covered by a blue tarp that glinted under the