[Pommpie]

I know it's been a while. Between some computer troubles and general laziness, I have been less-than-able to write. The good thing about being a fledgling story with no following to speak of is that I'm not going to disappoint anybody when I don't write until August.

Chapter Five: Slings and Arrows

"Mired in a four-game losing skid, the Edmonton Civics host the Pueblo Anchors at AGT Field. Joe Bascombe will get the start tonight for Edmonton..."

Frankie Truro fidgeted slightly in his folding steel chair, looking down from the press box to the field. New signing Bob Zasko, brought in on the first of July, was making his debut in centre field after playing a few games in left; a 24-year-old Gold Glove outfielder fresh out of the University of Calgary. Another one of Rich Walcott's Canadian scrubs, signed for the league minimum. At this rate, he'd go next year with three good veterans and seventeen useless kids on his roster. And he's probably expect that to work.

Down on the field, Xiang-Ling Xun fielded a grounder, flipping it over to Carlos Mendoza at second. Setting his feet and taking his time, Mendoza fired a quick strike into Raúl Garcia's glove at first, achieving a perfect faux-double-play on invisible runners. On the hill, Joe Bascombe fired warmup pitches into Ki-tae Yi's glove, the Taiwanese catcher snagging each pitch with the effortless ease so typical of Bascombe's declining fastball.

However, his other pitches were still at least modestly nasty. The Anchors leadoff man José Sánchez was neither the first nor the last batter fooled by Bascombe's surprising stuff: standing in the box on a 1-2 count, a ludicrous cutter flew in, sending Sánchez to the dirt in a heap as he swung and utterly fanneed on it. The modest crowd gave Bascombe the mild ovation due a player whose ballclub had lost four straight.

In the bottom of the inning, Sam Quintal strode up to the plate to leadoff. The third baseman was hitting a whopping .232 from the leadoff spot, and as he swung the timber towards Pueblo pitcher Roberto Espinoza, failure and defeat were already etched on his features, his shoulders turning to head towards the dugout as a fastball flew in.

"Ball one!"

Well, that was a bonus, mused Quintal, steadying the bat over his shoulder once more. When ball two whipped in, he allowed himself a small trace of a smile. When he walked on four pitches, he was quite pleased, and after Raúl Garcia and Xiang-Ling Xun each singled to load the bases, Quintal stood at third with exuberance on his face.

"Commeeeooon, Panchooooo!" yelled Quintal from third, clapping his hands together as Xiang-Ling looked on spitefully from across the infield. Smiling, the affable designated hitter glances over to Quintal and waved, not even the third baseman's meagre statistics damping González's enthusiasm for anything to do with baseball. Even when he lined out to left, he smiled jauntily upon his return to the dugout.

Denny King looked less optimistic as he stepped into the batter's box, swaying his bat as if it were an extension of himself (nervous) and swinging it with all the confidence and power of a steroid user going clean the week before the urine test. From the dugout, ashen-faced supremo Kelsey Bowden looked on, face blank, the sheer blankness of a man knowing precisely what was going to happen. As King lined it straight to Rafael Vásquez at second and caused an easy double play, Bowden didn't even blink.

"Skip?" asked backup catcher Sloan Leighton from the bench, leaping up and poking the solitary manager in the back of the shoulder.

"It's happening again," murmured Bowded. "It's happening again and there's nothing I know to do about it."

Bowden's preferred strategy was inaction. Bascombe buzzed through seven innings with only a single run to his name, and a strong sixth staked Edmonton to a 3-1 lead. But, as though his arm were set to a clock, Bascombe began to fall apart in the eighth. By the time Melvin Stewart came out of the bullpen and stopped the bleeding, the Civics were down 5-3.

Still, for all their misery, the Civics weren't quite done yet. In the bottom of the eighth, Xiang-Ling Xun managed a leadoff walk, advanced on a throwing error that also saw Páncho Gonzalez get to second, and when Denny King strode to the plate, Xiang-Ling took one of the largest leads in baseball.

From second, Páncho looked at the solitary shortstop, a slight raise of an eyebrow betraying his curiousity. At the plate, Denny King spared the baserunner the smallest of glances, swung, and grounded an utterly harmless ball to short. King jogged towards first just in time to see Xiang-Ling fly down the line, turning on the jets and eliminating even the possibility of a throw as the Civics clawed within one.

The next batter was the mighty Wei-kang Nao: a mighty swinger but also a mighty whiffer, owner of 15 home runs and a batting average just north of the Mendoza line. Luckily, Pueblo pitcher Randall Anderson was the perfect mark for Nao: a tired pitcher with mediocre velocity, an assortment of breaking stuff that he largely ignored in favour of firing fastballs down the heart of the plate, and an ERA above four.

Nao tagged the ball into deep right field, sending Pablo Gómez and José Sánchez flying towards each other and the ball. By the time Gómez had played the carom off the top of the wall, Nao was heading across second, and the rather tubby González had already crossed the plate as the tying run, leaping up in joy and high-fiving the entire Civics dugout as he rushed in with typical Pancho exuberance. Gómez let the ball fly in, but the cutoff man merely held onto it as Wei-kang Nao stopped at third, proud owner of a triple.

With Nao's speed, ninety feet was as good as a step, but with mighty whiffers Bob Zasko and Carlos Mendoza due up, that step was seperated by two lousy players. Zasko promptly struck out on five pitches, sending up Mendoza to face Anderson.

Pancho barely had time to yell "c'mon, Carlos!" before Mendoza, as if feeling the spectre of his lack of playing skill, promptly dropped down a rather feeble bunt down the first-base line and ran for the bag. With two out.

Catcher John Smith didn't even run to the ball. Picking it up easily, he fired it almost casually to Jesse Cantrell at first to retire the side. Even Kelsey Bowden, standing in the dugout, was utterly speechless. But one inebriated fan behind home plate had the perfect answer.

"MENDOZAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

The failed play sucked the life out of the Civics. Even formidable veteran reliever Melvin Stewart, working on an 8-1 record, was not immune, serving up the winning run in the top of the tenth as Woody Ford laced a single into centre field on a rather juicy slider, scoring Pablo Gómez from second.

The Civics won their next game on a walk-off homer by Pancho González in the bottom of the eleventh, but Edmonton was still mired in their worst slump of the season. The next night against Pueblo, young Canadian southpaw R.J. Yeo got the start for the Civics and had a spectacular night: he threw two pitches, wrenched his shoulder, and left the game. A rogue's gallery of relievers was highlighted by "closer" Dusty Gill, pressed into long relief once again by the beleaguered Kelsey Bowden, throwing four innings, allowing four runs, and taking the loss. Denny King went 5-for-5 in the defeat and wasn't even the player of the game, with Pueblo centre fielder José Sánchez going 4-for-5 with five RBI, two runs, and a homer.

An eight-game win streak in June had been nice, but July was a debacle. Billings and Trail were both flying past Edmonton, and the Civics had dropped to third; the Boise Idahoes had a very real chance of passing Edmonton despite being the worst team in the league all season.

One of the few bright spots had been the annual United League All-Star Game, where the North Division had managed a mighty 14-8 victory over the West Division. However, the Civics had contributed only three players to the All-Stars: Pancho González, Xiang-Ling-Xun, and Melvin Stewart. The original starting second baseman, Mitch Stewart, was still picking up bits of his knee in Pueblo and had been replaced by Barnstormer Pat Morton. Meanwhile, the normally-disciplined Xiang-Ling Xun made three plate appearances and struck out three times, tying the United League All-Star record, Melvin Stewart threw a single inning, and it was González who made the Civics proudest, grinding out a two-for-five, scoring a pair of runs, and knocking one in himself. Closer Dusty Gill was also named, but did not appear.

With the utter destruction of Mitch Daniels and the statistical collapses of Wei-kang Nao, Bob Zasko, and Ki-tae Yi, Pancho González was not only the team's leader off the field but the leader on the field. Xiang-Ling Xun had hit some home runs but was mired in a slump and seldom had anybody to bat in, batting average leader Rick Lewis was injured, and when the team managed to claw out a win, it was Gonzalez who was at the forefront.

Pancho González was, unfortunately, nobody's idea of a star player. Gregarious and popular, certainly. The 28-year-old Nicaraguan was the most popular player in the dressing room and carried himself about with an infectious enthusiasm that not even the sombre Xiang-Ling Xun had been able to entirely resist. He could constantly be found in the community and volunteered his time cheering up children at the Stollery Children's Hospital every year. He lived year-round in Edmonton and, after coming in during the 1992 season from Japan's Yokohama Tiger Sharks, had become virtually synonymous with the Civics. He had won a batting title, was Rookie of the Year in 1992, and had overcome a fractured skull to been a key part of Edmonton's last Liberty Series victory in 1995.

Still.

It was said among long-time United League watchers that one fractured skull had sent González's career downhill. In a game against the Trail Smelters, González had dived out from first base to snag a fly ball, but he dove out over the path between first and second just as a baserunner had gone hurdling past. González's head went from knee to gravel, and it would have been a comic highlight had the situation not been so serious. González, amazingly, recovered and went on to play in the playoffs, with the United League ring he sometimes wore on his middle finger a token of that.

But he was never the same. His first three seasons in the United League had brought OPS of .797, .840, and .971. His .801 the year after his injury was his lowest since his rookie career, and his 1997 was slipping to a career low. His batting average had never been worse as a United League baseball player than it had been since his injury. In 1994, he was considered a solid defensive first baseman, and in 1997, he was essentially a full-time designated hitter. At twenty-eight, Pancho González ought to have been in his prime as a baseball player. He was still an All-Star, perhaps the most important player on the Civics (if not the best), and the only man Rich Walcott could consider genuinely untouchable. But as a 24-year-old, González was considered a lock for the United League Hall of Fame if he stayed healthy and if he managed to avoid interest from higher levels of baseball: the latter being considered a distinct possibility.

In 1996, Pancho González made his regular-season comeback in the same game as Xiang-Ling Xun's United League debut. González went 0-for-4 and Xun homered, one of forty the shortshop would send out that season. González, once the great young star of a skilled team, found himself knocked out of the alpha dog role on a team going down faster than it was going up. And for all his smiles, the murmurings of the United League old-timers and the sight of his own career's declining couldn't help but flap the nigh-unflappable Pancho.

Things just got worse for González and the Civics. Edmonton came off the All-Star break with a four-game losing skid, the nadir a 10-0 defeat against Eugene against Cranes star pitcher Allen Arthur. Only Xiang-Ling Xun and Denny King managed to break up a no-hitter. A win the next night against the last-place Idahoes was followed by two losses: the highlight a 4-3 defeat when Raúl García nailed a solo home run in the top of the tenth and Melvin Stewart lost the game with two runs in the bottom, while erstwhile ace Adam Wallace managed only three and a third and Dusty Gill was forced to throw four.

On July 27, the Civics month was summed up in spectacular style. After practice, Kelsey Bowden surveyed the dressing room and chose that moment to make an announcement to the sombre cast. "By the way, R.J. screwed up his hip this afternoon. So he's done for the season."

The room was dead silent. The next day, Pancho González went to see Yeo, who he found surprisingly bouyant, sitting up in a hospital bed after surgery.

"Yeah, it was my labrum or something. Something in the hip." R.J. smiled at Pancho, who, in spite of his usual exuberance, was peering at the chipper pitcher with something resembling shock. "I was going down the stairs, right, and I kinda wiped out. Tried to grab the bannister, but," with a laugh, he pointed to his still-bound left shoulder. "So I kinda tore something going down, or something. I really don't know."

"Are you on morphine or something?" Pancho asked R.J., voice tinged with horror.

"Nah. Just kinda funny." As if to signal this, Yeo giggled.

Finally, July closed in typical Civics style: a sweep at home to Trail, with the last game being a 6-4 defeat to the Smelters in which mediocre starter Israel Anaya managed to throw a complete game and allow six earned runs. Edmonton was third in the four-team North Division, with only Boise in the rear-view mirror and even they closer than they appeared. Kelsey Bowden was even more thoroughly out of his element than usual, staring out into the field as Anaya yielded another hit, Pancho González more-or-less openly managing the team from behind him.

Things had been less civil in Edmonton.

Coming Up: Chapter Six: The Coup de Grace