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Show mail. Father'd asked him if he'd had any luck and he replied, "The Lord blessed me with a cat," meaning a wildcat., I was sure his son Clyde was as pious as his dad, and neither, I thought, looked anything like a ball-player. When I said that, Vernon glared his contempt at me. He had sized up young Bangle playing catch with him one evening. At any rate Clyde made the ninth man. Now we had as many players as spectators. In a last burst of psychological preparation, the Lund team was playing "pepper" and "talking it up," barking morale-building phrases and jeering at Nada's misfits. Lund looked fearsome in spotless uniforms, really professional beside our boys who stood uncertainly around in bib overalls, worn jeans or pants from Sunday go-to-meeting suits. My heart sank. Despite my jealousy I didn't want Nada humiliated, and I couldn't see how our men, who'd never practiced as a team, could stave off disgrace. Blanked-skunked--routed--buried under an avalanche of runs! This outcome seemed sure to me. And sadly I realize that my dread was for myself as resident of Nada. That dread was not pure, even so, for it was tempered by an iota of unholy desire to watch inglorious slaughter visited upon the team that had not hinted, not once, that I might roam the far reaches of the outfield and perhaps, if lucky, snare a fly or two. 0 ye of little faith! 0 youth resigned to ineptitude and in-glory, inured to defeat as to a foregone conclusion, youth fed upon the mockery of "Casey at the Bat," of Casey who punctured his own balloon of athletic glory, and heard the gas of it hiss out in three |
