[Pommpie]

Well, that took a while. But look at it this way. You can go back and read it from the beginning if you've forgotten what went on! This may or may not be an advantage depending on what you think of my OOTP story! Whee!

This chapter's a little shorter than some of the others, but truth be told it was a pretty dull month and there wasn't a whole hell of a lot to write about. But, for that one of you who's worried about this kind of thing, rest assured that this story isn't dead. It's never dead until I say it's dead. Sometimes I take my sweet time updating the thing, but it's still going strong. Don't worry about that.

Chapter Twelve: The Seventh-Inning Stretch

Rich Walcott hardly even looked up from his paperwork when he heard the small knock at the door. "Come in, Kelsey."

The manager of the Edmonton Civics stepped carefully into his boss's room, as if the old carpet at AGT Field had been sewn with landmines and he had to tread warily. The manager, however, was as subtle as a slashed tire: the years had not been kind to the old pitcher, his flabby body lacking the grace and finesse he had been known for in his athletic days. He looked more a fool than the cagey veteran he supposedly was.

Rich Walcott didn't look up. He didn't think he could bear it if he did.

Carefully, the manager lowered himself into the guest chair before Walcott's desk. It was only then that the general manager deigned to raise his gaze, to look at the man to whom he had, over a season and a half ago, entrusted the future of the Edmonton Civics.

The manager's mournful, flabby face looked back at him. Bowden looked like he'd lost quite a bit of weight, but the effect was more like a man suffering from a terminal illness than somebody getting themself into shape. His skin drooped, his every step was flaccid and weak, his eyes were watery. He looked tired: like the weight of the world had been on his shoulders and he had proven unequal to the burden but had nobody to hand it off to.

Before Rich Walcott had brought him in, Kelsey Bowden had been managing a popular pub on Edmonton's Whyte Avenue. What a mistake that had been.

"Kelsey," began the general manager, getting right down to business, "I've consulted with the ownership, and we've decided not to offer you a contract extension for the coming season. The team has opted to go in a different direction."

Kelsey Bowden nodded. He looked completely at ease, as if he had seen this moment coming for months and was relieved it had finally arrived.

"So I'm gone, then?"

Walcott paused. "Not as such," he said, simply. "We're going to keep you on until the end of the season when..." hesitating, the general manager shuffled one particular piece of paper under a stack of other papers, "until our preferred candidate becomes available. Until that time, you will continue as manager, and Jose will take on a more active role running the team."

Once again, Kelsey Bowden nodded. That was it. He was out. Bench coach Jose Morales would be calling the shots from now on, and Bowden would stick around for appearance's sake. Many managers in Bowden's situation would be asking themselves where it had all gone wrong, wondering what they could do differently next time. But Kelsey Bowden had only one thought dominating his mind.

He wanted to go home.

---

"Second?" Luis Reyes stormed after Kelsey Bowden in the dugout. On the mound, Civics starter Yoshida Uemura was taking his warmup tosses, most of the fielders were taking their assigned positions, but the temperamental left fielder was warming up on his manager instead. "You have me batting second?" He was using the voice usually reserved for the government taking somebody's children away.

Kelsey Bowden kept walking. His expression was almost serene, and the other players picked up on it: Michael White, who hadn't been with the Civics long but was still used to Bowden's trademark angst, looked at the skipper as if he had grown a third arm out of his head and was trying to throw an eephus pitch with it.

Reyes continued to storm after Bowden, yelling phrases that, with another manager, would have gotten him a one-way bus trip to obscurity. Still, the manager appeared as if he was enjoying winding Reyes up, and when José Morales stepped between the left-fielder and the manager, Kelsey Bowden's fat face fell instantly.

Putting a hand to Reyes's chest, Morales softly said, "**** off, Reyes."

Reyes was a tall ballplayer, but Morales was every inch of his height and quite a bit heavier. Moreover, decades in the game had given Morales the sort of mental presence that a blustering buffoon like Luis Reyes could never hope to compete with. The two stared for a moment, and the dugout was silent.

Morales broke it. "Get on the field before I tear your arm off and feed it to the goats."

A comeback failed Luis Reyes. With one last somewhat feeble glower, he stomped off towards his accustomed position in left field.

Backup catcher Sloan Leighton stared from his spot near the top of the dugout, his catching gear protecting him from the smothering gaze of José Morales, in charge for the first time in his career and liking it. Turning to the nearby White, the Groundhog rubbed a pattern on the side of his mask somewhat absentmindedly.

"Guess old man Bowden has checked out more than usual tonight," Leighton murmured.

White was more upbeat. "Or somebody checked him out for us."

The two journeymen glanced upward, towards Rich Walcott's office above AGT Field. "God," murmured the Groundhog, "I hope you're right."

It turned out that Luis Reyes played good angry baseball. An average fielder on the best days, Reyes came up with a diabolical catch off of Pueblo's Aruban designated hitter Wout de Jager to prevent extra bases in the top of the sixth and added two firm hits of his own, one of which came off his bat hard enough that pitcher Luis Castillo hit the deck rather than even try to field it. The rest of the Civics were little worse: Uemura threw seven and two-thirds, pitching decently and picking up six strikeouts, while Bill Williams, Pancho González, Greg Hubbard, and Michael White all had multiple hits.

It was Hubbard, however, who was the hero. In the top of the eighth Uemura had gotten himself into trouble. After striking out Manuel Morales and Aaron Miller to lead off the inning, Uemura gave up consective hits to Men Virgolino, Mario Durán, and Pablo Gómez, scoring two runs. A rare error by Xiang-ling Xun at shortstop prevented Uemura from getting out of the inning, and by the time the inning was over Félix Vásquez had come into the game and three more runs had plated. A five-run inning on only four hits put Pueblo up 6-2 heading into the bottom of the inning with the heart of the order due up.

Seeking to make amends for his costly error, Xiang-ling Xun strode to the plate to lead off, swinging the bat hard and glowering out to Castillo on the Pueblo mound.

"Get us a single, Xi-Xi!" yelled Pancho González encouragingly from the dugout.

"Bet you I can hit the power station!" yelled Xun back.

He didn't hit the power station. Frustrated, Xun took an atypical cut at a pitcher high out of the zone and was popped up harmlessly to left. Castillo had no time to relax, though, as the best hitter in the United League was on deck. Bill Williams was far more serene than Xun - as usual. And far more aggressive - as usual. He was also, as much as any Civic might hate to admit it, far better. Castillo buzzed in a fastball well off the plate and Williams got it anyway, tagging a nice single into centre field, jogging into first, and smiling over at Xiang-ling Xun in the Edmonton dugout. Five pitches later, Jesse Cantrell walked and there were runners on first and second with one out.

That was it for Luis Castillo. Pancho González was up and Castillo had always struggled against the Civics star, to the tune of a .368 career batting average. Coming in was 23-year-old Tim James, a fireballing United League rookie with a fastball that touched the mid-nineties. González had never faced James before, and it showed. González had let two strikes go by him while trying to size up the rookie, and the third pitch was a hellacious fastball that beat González easily and sent him back to the dugout muttering.

Any baseball fan could tell you that Angel García was a quick study. Seeing González flail away had been all the catcher needed to see, and he was more than quick enough to keep up with James's heat. The first pitch was fouled off behind home plate as García tried to get his eye in, the second was outside, and the third was a picture-perfect Texas-Leaguer between the centre fielder and second baseman. The fly was too shallow to let the slow Bill Williams score, and so the bases were loaded for Greg Hubbard.

Hubbard was possibly the most dangerous hitter in the United League. He was dangerous to the other team - he had already hit thirty-one home runs in 1998. He was dangerous to his own team - his batting averages always hovered around the Mendoza line and no baseball player who had ever lived was less adept at running out a double play. But he also had a surprisingly good eye, and if James was expecting to get Greg Hubbard on bad pitches, he was sorely mistaken.

At first, he tried to nibble around the edges. But you don't get to the United League with Tim James's velocity unless there's something wrong with you, and in his case it was control. Hubbard had an easy time laying off the pitches - once the umpire felt generous and credited James with a called strike, but the count was soon 3-1.

With the bases full, James had little choice. A walk gave the Civics a lifeline into the match, and with Greg Hubbard the odds always were that he would hit the ball harmlessly. Closing his eyes for a moment, the young pitcher looked at the signs from Jeff Graves, nodded once, took a deep breath, and fired in his absolute best fastball around Greg Hubbard's knees.

This was a profound mistake. A crack ripped through AGT Field like an assault rifle firing through six layers of balsa wood. Tim James jerked around so fast to watch the ball go that he almost strained his neck. From the Civics dugout, the only sound was Pancho González's amazed "Jesus Christ!" as the ball went for a very, very long ride.

Eventually, of course, the fans exploded, almost ten thousand patrons leaping from their seats and saluting Hubbard's trot around the bases, flexing a big bicep to the crowd's delight as Tim James looked on, his youthful face the expression of mortal horror, his manager soon moving up the stairs from the dugout and putting the rookie out of his misery.

Félix Vásquez overcame his earlier jitters to go 1-2-3 in the ninth, and the bottom of the inning came with utility infielder Jake Cameron leading off, pitch-hitting for Luis Reyes and driving a single on the first pitch. Bob Zasko and Xiang-ling Xun were both retired in short order, and Bill Williams came up with Cameron on second and two down.

The crowd cheered the star slugger, and Williams focused his eyes on Pueblo pitcher Doug Stevens. Stevens was twenty-four but already in his fourth season in the United League, the polar opposite to Tim James: an experienced pitcher in spite of his age who boasted an assortment of good pitches and decent control, not to mention three All-Star appearances. He was, on paper, the ideal sort of pitcher to go against Bill Williams. On paper - Williams was hitting over .400 career against Stevens.

Fortunately, the two had always had good battles, and with two outs in the bottom of the ninth and the star slugger at the plate, it was the stereotypical time for a war between pitcher and batter. Stevens readied back, glancing back to the speedy Cameron at second as though daring him to try anything before looking back in towards home. One deep breath, and one pitch, a slider on the outside half of the pitch.

Bill Williams had never much cared about the fans, and it showed. They had come expecting the sort of pitcher-batter battle they could tell their grandkids about, and instead he ripped the first pitch into right field. Jake Cameron scored by so much he was already into his celebratory dance halfway between third and home. The more personable Civics mobbed Cameron as the scored, jumping up and down delightedly, high-fiving, and revelling in the roars of the delighted crowd.

Nobody even bothered to meet Bill Williams.

The Civics bats had picked the beginning of August to go on a tear. The next night Hubbard hit another two home runs in a 9-6 victory, Edmonton tagging former Civic Kichibei Fujita for seven hits, six runs, and two walks in two and a third. Any night where Adam Wallace allows five runs before the second inning is usually a big loss for the Civics, but power hitting once again saw them through. Even when they lost, as in two defeats to the Eugene Cranes, they still put a combined twelve runs across the plate.

The winning didn't go on forever - it never does. But the unofficial managerial change had a positive effect on the Civics regardless of the outcome on the field. José Morales was the epitome of the hard-boiled baseball manager: the sort of man who read scouting reports over breakfast and dreamed of bunt singles, suicide squeezes, and running from first to third on a hit into the outfield. Many years ago, Morales had been a catcher in the Mexican league, serving for twenty years with teams across the nation and in every one of the many leagues the Mexicans boasted in the 1960s. There was nothing he hadn't seen and little he hadn't done. He had won championships sometimes, he had finished dead last far more often, and after retiring he had moved into the dugout as though it was the only possible progression.

Edmonton was a long way from Mexico, but baseball was baseball and it knew no national borders. Thirty degrees in Yucatan or minus thirty in Edmonton, it was all the same to José Morales. And, even for the most tempramental players, it was impossible not to respect Morales a little bit.

But he wasn't perfect. The simple truth was that, for all his experience and wisdom, José Morales wasn't managerial material. Never had been. He could cow players but he could never relate with them. He could fill out a lineup card but he could never massage the egos that went along with it. He worked best as a secondary figure: the enforcer of the dugout rather than the leader. With all the eyes upon him and all the players coming to him first for answers, his act would rapidly grow thin.

Fortunately, Rich Walcott could not be accused of making the same mistake twice. The instant he had sent Kelsey Bowden out of his office, he had already been working the phones.

In the short-term, though, the Civics were responding well to Morales's treatment for the most part. Some of the changes he made were long overdue. Luis Reyes's futility as a leadoff hitter had been well-documented, and Morales's first act was to move him further down in the batting order against left-handers. Pancho González, whose on-base percentage was first on the team by a stupidly high amount, found himself taking leadoff against southpaws, and Morales made it abundantly clear to Reyes that the only reason he was in the top half of the order at all was that almost none of the Civics could get on base to save their lives.

This didn't mean that the Civics always got along. Early on in his managerial career, Morales had attempted to resolve the icy detente that existed between two of his best players, Xiang-ling Xun and Bill Williams. His solution was to get the more personable Pancho González to take the two out for drinks and to have them "straighten things out". González had registered his protests, but one of José Morales's flaws was that other peoples' protests might as well have been in Swahili, and the meeting went off regardless.

It was a catastrophe. Xun and González had always gotten along as well as Xun got along with anybody, but his resentment of Williams more than overcame his friendship with the first baseman, and he spent most of the night glowering at both of them. Williams, meanwhile, was a braggart with no time for either of his teammates, and liquor did not improve his disposition. While González tried to improve relations, Williams spent the night bashing their teammates, bashing their organization, and bashing his drinking partners, before Xiang-ling Xun finally got fed up and bashed Bill Williams with a beer bottle.

González was a big man, and towered over both Williams and Xun. But he wasn't big enough to stop the resulting scuffle, caught like the filling in a sandwich as Williams and Xun dove at each other, yelling things about each others' family and each trying to put the other's head through the bar. It was only with the help of the bouncer that González seperated them at all, flinging Williams (still cursing a blue streak) into a cab and dragging Xiang-ling Xun home himself.

The meeting had far from its intended impact. Xun and Williams were on even worse terms than before, and the shortstop was almost as pissed off at Pancho González. Trying to strike up a conversation at batting practice the next day, Xun told González to do something biologically improbable.

"It'll pass," said Morales to González as the two watched events unfold from the dugout later in batting practice, while Xiang-ling Xun seemed to aim for the skulls of his fellow infielders every time he was at the plate and Bill Williams, complete with bandaged cut on his forehead, was playing as lazily as physically possible while shooting spiteful gazes to any Civic daring to inhabit the same field as him.

"It better," murmured González under his breath. Even Pancho was disgruntled with the Civics' leadership, and it showed.

"Hell," he admitted to his long-time teammate Melvin Stewart after the game that night, a 3-1 loss in Port Angeles in which González, Xun, and Williams combined to go 2-for-12, "I think I liked Bowden better."

Kelsey Bowden was still around the team. The Civics had no intention of suffering the indignity of terminating his contract or paying for another manager for the rest of the season, and so the old pitcher endured stalking around the dugout, hanging around AGT Field, and generally getting in the way, all-but-forgotten by the team he was ostensibly in charge of. Players passed him in the hallways as though he were part of the scenery. José Morales didn't even do him the dignity of pretending to ask for his advice on the lineups. It was a sad, lonely life for any man, and it was made clear to Bowden that his paycheques rode on his continuing to show up and make sure that appearances were maintained. His only real role was walking out to the mound and replacing the pitcher, and even then it was only when José Morales whispered in his ear.

Nobody was fooled, least of all Bowden. He took to slumping about in the corridors, reading a book during batting practice, fulfilling the terms of his contract and not a whisper more. Young pitcher R.J. Yeo took to asking Bowden for advice just to relieve himself of the sight of Bowden sitting on the bench and staring out into space, slowly working over a piece of gum like a cow chewing her cud, mentally counting the seconds until he could go home, grab a bottle of whisky, and just forget. Probably the greatest pitcher who had ever worn the pink and white of the Edmonton Civics, Kelsey Bowden wanted nothing more in life than to go home, but the paycheques were important enough that the only thing he could do was show up.

If anything, it was even worse that it had been before.

---

"A clear Sunday evening at AGT Field, the wind blowing in from right field, as the Edmonton Civics prepare to take the ball in the top of the first. Adam Wallace gets the start for Edmonton tonight... the lanky left-hander leads the United League with thirteen wins this season and will look for a big result over the Salem Bingoes here tonight."

Frankie Truro's usual dulcet tones echoed over a transistor radio in the stands as the Civics took to the field. Adam Wallace was getting the start and he was hot. He was best in the United League in wins, earned run average, and strikeouts, and near the top in every other category that counted. Thirty-one years old, Wallace was just heading towards the downslope of his career but was responding with the best season he had ever posted at any level. He had been healthy and, by Adam Wallace's modest standards, happy. Angel García caught his warmup tosses and fired them back with an easy grin. The battery was made up of two mercurial, solitary figures who had never had a close friend in any clubhouse, so naturally the two got along famously.

"Xun and Williams ought to take lessons," Morales growled from the dugout.

The Salem Bingoes weren't a bad ballclub, and they needed a result against the Civics. Designated hitter Chris Lynch was a scrappy veteran of five professional leagues and yanked out a remarkable infield hit in the top of the inning, squirting a little ball between Michael White at second and Pancho González at first that González had to desperately sprint to get to and flip the ball backwards to Adam Wallace covering first - just a bit behind him, and the runner was safe. Gasping frantically for air, González looked up at the grinning Lynch and scowled.

"You son of a bitch, don't make me run like that!" he demanded between gulps of oxygen. Lynch, a tall player of the sort who averaged twenty-five steals a season even in his thirties, merely grinned and stood, solid as a rock.

It was González who had the last laugh. The next batter, left fielder Jim Balcom, launched a single into right and Lynch, with a good head-start, tried to head for third and test the arm of Bob Zasko from shallow right.

"You don't want to do that, boy!" González yelled from across the diamond and, of course, he was quite right. Bob Zasko could rifle a ball into a catcher's mitt from the warning track harder and more accurately than half the United League could from second base, and Lynch was utterly dead to rights. Sliding through a cloud of gravel, Lynch felt the tag from Greg Hubbard seemingly miles before he felt the bag beneath his left foot, and fired his helmet to the dirt in frustration as he stalked off.

"Better luck next time, Chris!" González called after him. He had no love lost for any Salem Bingo.

Right-hander Ronald Tipton was on the mound for Salem and so Luis Reyes returned to the leadoff spot, glowering at the 26-year-old with his accustomed scorn. A free-swinger at all times, Reyes tore through the first two pitches and got lucky on the third, sending a looper just above the second baseman that the centre fielder had to run like hell to get to. Reyes managed to get into second with a leadoff double, and the applause was enough that even he felt obliged to tip his cap to the crowd.

Bob Zasko came up as the second batter. He had gunned down Lynch in the top of the inning but that was likely to be his only contribution: Zasko was a .220 hitter most valuable as a pinch runner and defensive replacement. It said something about Ronald Tipton, then, that Zasko doubled as well, hitting one into the corner in left and scoring Reyes. Another huge cheer from the AGT Field crowd, and the Civics went up 1-0 in a hell of a hurry.

Tipton settled down slightly, managing to retire the always-dangerous Xiang-ling Xun and Bill Williams in order. His luck ran out on Jesse Cantrell: Cantrell didn't so much as lift the bat off his shoulder as he walked in five pitches, and when Pancho González got to the plate he slapped the first pitch weakly but accurately between second and short. Zasko managed to score and Cantrell moved to second, while an Angel García walk left the bases loaded for Greg Hubbard.

Calling the game, Frankie Truro flipped through his papers to try and find Hubbard's career batting average with the bases loaded. He was unable to come up with the number but confessed that it was "a lot", an unusually imprecise statement from the veteran play-by-play man. Fortunately, Hubbard proved his point: on a 2-2 count, Tipton made the mistake so many others had made with Greg Hubbard and tried to catch him off-guard with a zippped fastball. Hubbard turned on it ferociously, launching one of his trademark big flies out towards the river valley and putting the Civics up 6-0 in the bottom of the first.

Delerium. As the ball exploded off of Hubbard's bat AGT Field exploded with it, roaring and stamping and chanting and welcoming Greg Hubbard home with the biggest ovation any Civic had probably ever had after two thirds of an inning. They didn't even stop cheering when the number nine hitter, Michael White, narrowly missed legging out an infield hit on a close play at first and ended the inning. They kept standing when Adam Wallace retired Félix Serrano on a sublime splitter. They grew a bit quiet when Wallace fell down 3-0 to the next hitter, Carl Boyd, and then cheered even louder when Wallace devestated Boyd with three picture-perfect pitches and struck him out swinging.

Unsurprisingly, the bottom of the second saw a new pitcher for Salem: Pete Swerdlove, a 32-year-old Montrealer and a United League rookie who had never played professional baseball in his life before the 1998 season; an ill-advised choice to face the top of the order. He retired Luis Reyes but walked Bob Zasko - as Frankie Truro put it, "there's no right time to walk a .200 hitter who can steal bases with power on deck." Xiang-ling Xun singled and moved Zasko to second, and Bill Williams fought off a couple of foul balls before singling on his own, scoring Zasko and moving Xun to second in turn. Jesse Cantrell pulled the same trick on a 1-1 pitch, and by the time Pancho González came to bat it was clear the Civics had Swerdlove's stuff figured out. One pitch did it for González, rapping a line drive single that scored Williams easily from second and would have scored the runner from first if he'd been anybody else but Jesse Cantrell.

Swerdlove left the game at that point in favour of veteran Steve Bond, but the Civics fans were too happy to much care. 9-0 after one and a third. 9-0! When was the last time the Civics had led any game at home 9-0? Ronald Tipton and Pete Swerdlove sat in the Salem dugout with shell-shocked expressions, and though Steve Bond got out of the inning and fought through the third without allowing a run, the Bingoes were dead men walking. The fifth was another catastrophe for Salem: 37-year-old Aubrey Williams had taken the hill for the Bingoes and, facing Bob Zasko as his first batter, allowed a solo home run.

"Bob Zasko!" yelled Pancho González from the dugout, leaping up as the ball eked over the left field wall and leading the charge out to high-five the light-hitting outfielder. "Who the hell taught you to hit while I wasn't looking?"

"I'm seeing the ball tonight, Pancho!" replied Zasko excitedly, hugging the bigger infielder happily. "I mean, why can't I do this every night? I'd have an American Baseball League contract before you knew it... holy hell!"

The exclamation came in response to Xiang-ling Xun, who had spent the whole game seeing other players get into the home run act and wasn't happy about being left out. Williams put his hand on his head as Xun hit a solo bomb of his own - back-to-back home runs and a 13-0 Edmonton lead. The crowd was almost drunk on their own excitement, clinging to each other, yelling frantically, and running AGT Field out of beer. Ushers high-fived delighted old-timers as they moved up the staircases. AGT Field hadn't rocked like this in years.

"Good hit, Xiang-ling!" González yelled, not wanting the shortstop to feel left out. In spite of their disagreement of late, Xun returned González's high-five with at least some friendliness, and spent the pitching change discussing how the Bingoes staff seemed to think they had the night off. Javier González was coming into the game as Salem's new pitcher, and warmed up with Bill Williams waiting, not at all patiently. When Williams at last got to have an at-bat he swung on the first pitch and hit the everloving bejeezus out of it. The sound of a smashed windshield from the passing roadway echoed through the Edmonton night. The crowd thundered.

Leading off the inning with back-to-back-to-back home runs! It was 15-0 Edmonton, and in spite of himself Bill Williams couldn't conceal a smile as he trotted around the bases. Jesse Cantrell strode to bat next, took a mighty cut, hit the top of the ball and grounded out, but the crowd cheered him on anyway. The Civics even got another run in the inning, as Luis Reyes managed to single home Pancho González from second, the fat first baseman huffing and puffing and barely beating the throw home before high-fiving everybody in sight, including a bat boy and the Bingoes catcher.

Adam Wallace got into the seventh inning before getting the hook and (another) standing ovation, and though Roberto Sánchez let a run across in the eighth nobody cared. It ended up as a 16-1 final, and the fans of the Edmonton Civics danced long through the night. More than one diehard showed up at work Monday morning with the mother of all hangovers. There had been precious little to celebrate in recent seasons, but this would do.

"Pretty simple, really," Bob Zasko said in an interview after the game. "See the ball, hit the ball. Don't see what all the fuss is about." The next game, he went 0-for-4.

But the Civics were rallying. If they could figure out the Salem Bingoes - their probable playoff adversary if it got that far - the sky was the limit for them. And, managerial troubles aside, the Civics were winning ballgames again. The Civics were two games back of the Bingoes with a week left in the regular season. It was questionable whether they'd finish first or second heading into the playoffs. What was certain is that, after the 16-1 victory over the Bingoes, it was a mathematical certainty that they'd be there for the first time since 1995.

Who could blame them if some champagne corks popped?

Coming up: Chapter Thirteen: Talking Playoffs