[Pommpie]

Remember what I said... well, yesterday... about writing either in spurts or in droughts? Yeah. This is a spurt. To be fair, I was kinda driven on by the fact that events in my simming ahead were getting interesting, and I really wanted to write about them. So if this chapter seems a bit rushed and a bit heavy on exposition, that's only because it is.

Chapter Three: Big Money, Little Else

Two hundred thousand dollars.

The number was on everybody's lips. Two hundred thousand dollars. The collection of dentists, lawyers, and physicians who owned the Civics were even more haunted by the figure than the rest of the baseball world. Two hundred thousand dollars.

Nobody had really expected Xiang-ling Xun to sign a contract extension. Making the league minimum on a two-year deal, Xiang-ling had established himself as a star of the United League, and it was almost an axiom that the Edmonton Civics couldn't afford any stars. There were reports that the Minnesota Drummers had their eye on Xun, and that he'd probably spend the next year in AA or AAA. Even if he stayed in the United League, it wouldn't be with Edmonton. The Civics had a deep infield, so deep that La Glove Grande winner Carlos Mendoza had only just been called up to the active roster. Xun would be missed, of course, but if anybody could replace him, it was Edmonton.

So that number hit the baseball fans of the City of Champions like a tonne of bricks. Two hundred thousand dollars.

Two years. One hundred grand per season. Forget the highest-paid Civic in these cash-strapped times, he was the highest paid Civic ever. He made more money than Mitch Daniels and Adam Wallace combined.

Many of the fans were ecstatic: Xiang-ling Xun may have been reclusive and unpopular, but he was still the best damned player on the team, and the papers were full of "commitment to winning" and "determination to bring a championship back home" and such catchphrases. Less discussed, but perhaps far more important, was its impact on the team's finances. Rich Walcott, in short, was gambling on a consistent, skilled roster bringing enough fans through the gates to make up for the investment. But he was gambling with somebody else's money.

Normally sedate, Xiang-ling Xun had just signed for more money than he had ever seen in his life, and even he was in the mood to celebrate. The Bowden Bowl had been a favourite of the Edmonton Civics since it opened in 1990, for it had many features that lent itself to the discriminating ballplayer. First, the beer was cheap. Second, a Civic could always could on getting a booth for himself and his friends even if they walked in at two in the morning reeking of vomit and cheap gin. Finally, the restaurant was owned by none other than Edmonton baseball legend Kelsey 'Howitzer' Bowden, the old-timer pitcher who in the late-70s had led the Edmonton Civics to the first three titles in United League history with the power of his cannon arm.

The fact that Bowden was now managing the Civics had altered the face of the Bowden Bowl somewhat. At first, the players had avoided it like the bubonic plague. But Bowden, so gregarious at his restaurant and so willing to regale any patron with a story of his playing days, had now become the morose, almost bipolar minor league manager that he never seemed born to be. His appearances at the Bowden Bowl became rare, and when he did show up it was as though he was working overtime, as though his restaurant were the only thing that made sense to him and he was utterly ecstatic for every second he could afford to spend within its walls. Still, nobody likes to drink with their manager looking over their shoulder, and it was two months before Pancho Gonzalez had dared to show Mitch Daniels the place.

Now, it was just like old times, except with a jubilant shortstop buying the drinks and a second baseman providing the old stories.

"It would have been 1991," Daniels said from his booth, smiling towards the other four Civics in attendance: Pancho, Denny King (nursing his second iced tea of the night), Xiang-ling, and closer Dusty Gill. "I was with Wilkes-Barre in the Institutional League at the time, and Philly Guay was playing with Orwell, the Tracers, in the Pacific League. Exhibition game, right? Nothing to it. Except Phill and I had tied for the AAA lead in dingers the last season." Mitch chuckled, very softly, at the memory. "Well, y'know, exhibition to them but the real thing to us, right? So, first inning comes up, Tracers at the bat, and the Lumberjack just tatt-ooo-s one right into dead centre. Seriously. You haven't seen a guy hit until you've seen the Lethbridge Lumberjack hit. I think he hit nine out of every ten home runs to straight-away centre. It was amazing."

"He hit the home run..." prompted Pancho, nudging Mitch in the side. Part of the reason they got along so well is that the soft-spoken Pancho was always able to stop Mitch's rambling.

"So, Guay gets his homer, and he does this cocky little trot around the basepaths, and all the while I'm at second and he just gives me this look, like..." Mitch turned sharply towards Denny King, eyes wide, leaning forward slightly like an axe murder, the diminutive centre fielder shrinking back very slightly in the booth. "I'm hitting fourth and my boys go out 1-2-3, so I come up in the second and I -nail- one. I mean, I just hit that son-bitch on the screws, and just -barely- hit it higher up the stands than Phill. Guy was strong as an ox, let me tell you." The last sentence was somewhat drowned out by the roar of the other three Civics, as though the home run had happened right in front of them.

"Sure enough, Phill comes up in the third, and -pow-." Lifting his hand, Mitch moved it in the smooth arc of a really high home run. "Goodnight baseball. I come up in the fourth, -pow-." A repeat of the hand motion. "Then I come up in the fifth, -pow-. He hits in the sixth, -pow-. We're at three homers each, now, on three at-bats. I come up in the eighth..." the dramatic pause from Mitch, "and I strike out."

The booth erupted into a chorus of angst and disappointment, quickly waved off by Mitch. "So it's the bottom of the ninth. Two down, Phill Guay comes up again. Game tied, runner on second. First pitch, curveball, and it hangs just a -little-... and I mean -so- little... and Phill kills it. Just hits the hell out of that ball. I'm not sure it's ever come down."

"So he goes into his trot, and he's rounding second, and his teammates are starting to run onto the field because, of course, he's hit the walk-off home run. And he turns... I remember this so distinctly... he turns to look at me as I walk to the dugout, and I look at him, and he catches his toe on the second base bag, twists his knee around, goes down in a heap."

"ACL and MCL. Tore 'em both. The guy was going to the majors that year for sure, and he never played above A-ball again."

The silence at the booth was suddenly deafening. Even the formerly boisterous Denny King went quiet.

"That's a true story," Mitch said with a quiet, confident nod.

The fate of Phill Guay was looking almost as grim as the fate of the Edmonton Civics. Edmonton had dropped six of their first seven games in May, including a disasterous sweep at the hands of Billings to send the Barnstormers into first place in the North Division. The nadir had come on May 3, with Kichebei Fujita getting the start for Edmonton. Fujita had boasted a lousy 0-3 record entering Billings, and the Civics had lost every one of his starts. The signs, in short, were not auspicious.

Things started out well. Danny King and Xiang-ling Xun opened the scoring with two sacrifice hits in the first to score Mitch Daniels and Raúl Garcia, and the Civics took a 2-0 lead after half an inning. But Kichebei Fujita would face a dangerous player: leading MVP candidate Bill Williams, the right fielder for the Barnstormers. The cleanup hitter for Billings led the league in homers, total bases, and boasted excellent speed, fielding skills, and a solid batting average. The best player by far in the United League, Fujita was simply no match for Williams.

In the first, Williams tied the game with a two-run homer. He spent the rest of the game walking, hitting, and stealing bases. Fujita needed ninety-two pitches to get through four and two-thirds, and a modest burst of offense from the Civics was nowhere's near enough to match the sheer beating Edmonton took in Billings that night. The Barnstormers took the second game of the series 12-5, and a 7-4 victory to complete the sweep was not as close as the score indicated. It took six solid shutout innings from Adam Wallace at AGT Field before the Civics got on track with a 5-0 win over Trail, and even then the Smelters took the next two games.

The problems were assorted. There were injuries. Mitch Daniels missed two games against Salem after aggravating an old injury to his right knee which had been plaguing him for years. Reliever Roberto Sánchez went down for two weeks on the eighth with a back injury. Another reliever, Chatham native Charles-Émile Sirois, hurt his shoulder and missed another two weeks. New third baseman Sam Quintal suffered a dead arm. But none of the injuries were particularly long-lasting and only Daniels was a particularly key cog.

There were slumps. After starting out the year promisingly, Ki-tae Yi had gone straight into the tank, his batting average declining and his never-remarkable defense suffering. Reserve catcher Nick Smart was brought in to catch nine games, and though he brought a gun of an arm, his always-bad offense had not improved (in 1996 with Edmonton he batted a remarkable .196 in 24 games). Eventually, Rich Walcott had little choice but to go outside the system, signing Scott "Groundhog" Leighton for the league minimum. Yet another of the cheap Canadians Walcott had been stockpiling, the 21-year-old Leighton brought a reputation as a rock behind the plate and a man with absolutely no stroke. However, Leighton managed to hover on the safe side of .250 while Yi finally got his swing back.

"The sixty-fourth round," Kelsey Bowden had said to Leighton when he arrived. "I think you're the highest-drafted player we have." He opened his mouth slightly to share in the inevitable team guffaw, but nobody even chuckled. Losing did that.

There was outright ineffectiveness. Joe Bascombe, after starting out 2-0, lost his next four decisions (much to the relief of Adam Wallace, once again secured as the team's ace). Drees Wolf, the Aruban Annihalator, continued to pitch steadily after his injury. But outside the top of the rotation, it was a horror show: 21-year-old Corpus Christite Artie Hines sported a .290 opposing batting average and a 7.04 ERA in three starts, and he was the best of the bunch. Kichebei Fujita dropped to 0-6, with statistics just this side of abysmal and his curveball looking so juicy that even United League hitters were teeing off on it. From the bullpen, around his injury Charles-Émile Sirois managed to pitch in eleven consecutive defeats. And in the outfield, even steady hitters like Sam Quintal and Wei-kang Nao managed to hit under .200 for the month. Bemusingly, one of the players not under the Mendoza Line for May was light-hitting defensive specialist Carlos Mendoza, who managed two hits in four at-bats.

Even some of the stars were out of sorts. Mitch Daniels had flirted with .400 in April, and settled on flirting with .250 in May. In three more at-bats, he managed three fewer homers and batted in fourteen fewer runs. His knee was part of the problem. It had bugged him since his last season in the majors with the Sky Warriors, and it flared up just when his team needed leadership most. Unable to turn on a pitch properly, Mitch Daniels was reduced to a slap-happy singles hitter with poor mobility until the pain subsided.

One man got better. Xiang-ling Xun seemed to take his record contract as permission to cut loose, and he did. While his team decomposed around him, Xiang-ling began to hit and hit hard. Balls cleared fences, sneaked through infielders, came in a little too hard to permit an out. He hit for more average, walked far more, slugged better, and hit more home runs in May than all but a handful of United Leaguers who had ever lived. On April 30, Xun had not been in the top five in league home runs, and on May 30 he was second behind the all-consuming Bill Williams of Billings.

Xiang-ling Xun was no leader. He was not an inspiring dressing room presence. When Daniels had missed his second game, Xiang-ling had taken a try at an inspiring dressing room speech, and managed to almost completely stumble over himself. Yet it proved more effective than many a speech from Kelsey Bowden, for the Civics did the improbable: they managed to overcome a meltdown in the eighth by reliever Félix Vásquez and eked out a 4-3 win in Salem, with big Páncho Gonzalez going hard in the top of the ninth to give Edmonton the lead and Dusty Gill taking fourteen pitches to strike out two, throw one perfect inning, and get his fifth save of the year. Charles-Émile Sirois's streak was broken: he got the win.

From there, amazingly, the Civics began to once again get on track. The Civics gutted out another win in the third game of the Salem series when Sam Quintal doubled home two runs in the top of the ninth (again) and Dusty Gill got the save (again) to grab a 2-1 victory. The Civics then took two of three at the home of the Boise Idahoes, and though they dropped two against Trail they still went into Billings high on confidence: only two games back of the North Division lead and a chance to be on top when the dust cleared.

The Civics sent Joe Bascombe to face Carlos García on the mound, and it went awry almost instantly. Bascombe got tagged for five runs from the relentless Billings attack, and Sirois allowed three in only an inning and two thirds. But the bats finally... finally!... came alive. Twelve hits, ten runs, and five stolen bases later, the Civics grabbed a 10-8 win on the heels of heroic relief from Mark Stewart and Dusty Gill. Poor Luis Hernández, at catcher for Billings, managed to gun down Denny King twice, but was unable to stop Raúl Gárcia from swiping second as the eventual winning run.

The next night, Adam Wallace went out for Edmonton. There is no need to recite who pitched for Billings: it didn't matter. Antonio Castillo in his prime would have struggled to outduel Wallace that night. His fastball was zipping and his menagerie of breaking pitches were devestating. Mighty Bill Williams went 0-for-4 and struck out twice. Poor Stewart Horton, on the hill for Billings, threw one of the lousier complete games in United League history, allowing ten runs and earning nine of them. Xiang-ling Xun and Ki-tae Yi both took Horton deep in the fifth inning, and in the eighth, with the bases loaded, Mitch Daniels stepped into the batters box and, bad knee and all, barely managed to turn on a 2-0 fastball, eking it over the seats in left.

"That's more like it!" roared Xiang-ling Xun from the dugout as Daniels went into his trot, the Billings crowd utterly shellshocked, the home run ball rolling under the few seats in left utterly unmolested. Daniels gave Xun a fistpump as he rounded third, before high-fiving Wei-kang Nao, Sam Quintal, and Ki-tae Yi at home. The mighty Billings Barnstormers took their heaviest loss of the season: 10-1.

But all good things had to come to an end. The name "Kichibei Fujita" pencilled in as the Civics starter was one indication. As was "Sam French" as the starter for the Barnstormers: French was 5-1 on the season and, though not actually a very good pitcher, had caught fire in May (while Fujita was merely going down in flames).

The Civics got a run in the first when Páncho Gonzalez drove in Mitch Daniels, but it was as though the offense was exhausted by its two previous games of war against the Barnstormers. French's stuff was not great, but it was more than good enough to confound the weary Civics, who racked up only four hits against French in seven innings and were no-hit by his replacement, Hongwu Thean, in two. Meanwhile, Fujita served up his obligatory terrible pitches, taking six earned runs in four and a third, and while Sánchez and Stewart did well coming out of the bullpen, it was too little, too late as the Barnstormers avoided a sweep and held their divisional lead with a 7-1 victory.

Both teams closed out May with victories, and at month's end, Edmonton was one game back of Billings for the division, two games back of a wild-card spot, and held a record of 28-26. But the team was healing up. The slumps were breaking. Guys were hitting and pitching again, and the Civics had ended May 8-4 against strong teams. Amazingly, the Edmonton Civics were looking more and more like a playoff team.

Coming Up: Chapter Four: The Fractures of Fate