Gehringer, on second, made it easily to third while Munson chased it down.
The count was 3 and 1 now, with a man on third and two outs. The Babe started to step back in, then hesitated.
He stared at Root and saw a look of utter hopelessness in the pitcher’s face. Root knew the Babe was going to hammer him, blast the ball out of sight, just the way he’d done in ’32. The infielders all looked like whipped dogs, too. Hell, even Durocher had that hangdog look about him. That’s not like Lippy, he’d always been a scrapper.
What had the catcher said? You still don’t get it, do you, Babe? And before that: Some of us don’t have a choice out here.
Damn, he wanted to get even with these guys, he really did. But… something really weird was going on here.
And the Babe remembered. Remembered his own cancer, remembered Lou being so sick and frail and—the Dutchman had died. I went to his funeral, for God’s sake! I died! The Babe looked around the field again. Cobb, Hornsby, Joe Jackson.
“Time out,” he said to Klem. And he went over to the dugout, trailing his big brown Louisville Slugger in the dust.
Connie Mack came halfway up the dugout steps. “Something wrong, George?”
Feeling perplexed, not really believing what his own mind was telling him, the Babe asked, “Mr. Mack, this ain’t just another ball game, is it?” Mack’s blue eyes seemed to sparkle. “No, George, it certainly is not an ordinary game.”
Lou came over and joined them, holding an ice bag on his right wrist. “It’s a special game, Babe. We’ve got to win it.”
“But we’ve got to win it in the right way,” Mack said. “It won’t matter if we win the game but you end up playing with Mr. Comiskey’s team.”
The Babe felt startled. “You’d trade me?”
Mack shook his head. “No, George. Up here the players make their own decisions about which side they want to be with.”
“Well, I sure don’t want—” The Babe hesitated. ‘You mean all those guys, Leo and Cobb and Shoeless Joe and all, they chose to play for Comiskey?”
“They didn’t realize it at the time, but, yes, they chose the wrong team.”
“They didn’t mean to, though, did they?” Gehrig asked.
The ghost of a smile played across Mack’s bloodless lips. “I’m sure that if they knew then what they know now, they would have acted differently.” The Babe frowned with concentration. This was a lot to think about, a lot to figure out.
“Are we playing a ball game here or not?” Klem bellowed from home plate. “Get back in the box, Babe, or I’ll forfeit the game.”
“Okay, Klem, okay,” the Babe hollered back. He started back toward the plate, his mind churning. These other guys have got to play for Comiskey, whether they want to or not? They got no choice?
Abruptly he turned and yelled to Mack, “If we win this game, it’s for all of ’em. Get me? Not just for me. All of the others, too!”
Lou grinned happily at him. Mack seemed to hesitate for a moment, as if holding a private conversation with himself. Then he, too, smiled, and tipped his straw boater to Ruth, agreeing to the terms.
And the Babe dug in at the batter’s box, cocked his Louisville Slugger, looked ready to cream Root’s next pitch.
But that’s what they all expect, he thought. They’re waiting for me to crush it, waiting for me to show them how much better I am than any of them.
“Pride, George.” He remembered Brother Dominic telling him, time and again at the orphanage in Baltimore. “Pride will be your undoing, unless you learn to control it, use it for good.”
He took a deep breath. As Root stepped onto the rubber and checked Gehringer, leading off third, the Babe pointed with his bat again toward the right-field seats. “Maybe twenty rows up,” he taunted.
Root scowled, went into an abbreviated windup, and threw a wicked fastball at the Babe’s ear. He hit the ground. The ball thwacked into Munson’s mitt.
“Strike two!” called Klem.
The Babe leaped to his feet, bat in hand. Klem stared at him from behind his mask.
Then, with a childish grin, the Babe got back into the batter’s box. “Come on, chickenshit,” he yelled to Root, hoisting the bat over his shoulder. “Put one over the plate.”
Root did. Another fastball, low and away this time. The Babe knew Klem would call it strike three if he let it pass.
He didn’t. He squared his feet and tapped the ball toward third base, as neat a bunt as ever laid down the line. The infield had been playing way back, of course. The outfielders too. Everybody knew that the Babe was going to swing for the fences.
And here’s this bunt trickling slowly down the third-base line, too far from the plate for Munson to reach, too slow for Tabor at third to possibly reach it. Gehringer streaked home with the winning run while the Babe laughed all the way to first base.
The game was over.
And the other guys were laughing, too! Tabor picked the ball off the grass near third and twirled it in his hand. As the fielders headed in for the visitors’ dugout, Durocher cracked:
“Twenty rows up, huh, Babe?”
Cobb gave a huff. “You’re stealing my stuff now, Babe. Using your head out there.”
Even old Charlie Root just shook his head and grinned at the Babe. “Who’d a thought it?” he said, true wonderment in his eyes. “Who’d a thought it?”
On impulse, the Babe reached out his hand. Root looked startled, then he took it in a firm ballplayer’s grip.
“I was afraid you’d strike me out, Charlie,” said the Babe.
Root actually laughed. ‘Yeah. Sure. Like I did in Chicago.”
And he followed his teammates into the shadows of the dugout, where Charlie Comiskey stood glaring hotly at them.
The Babe trotted to his own dugout. Lou and the other guys slapped his back and congratulated him on the big winning blast. One of the Negro players, Mays, raised his hand up above his head, palm outward. The Babe didn’t know what to do.
Hank Aaron, looking slightly embarrassed, demonstrated a high five with Mays. The Babe grinned and tried it.
“Okay!” he laughed, and said again, “Okay!”
He was proud of himself. He’d done the right thing with the bunt, the right thing for the team.
As the other players trooped into the clubhouse, laughing and slapping backs and making wisecracks, the Babe lingered behind, looking out from the dugout to the field. The sun was breaking through the clouds, throwing long shadows across the infield. What a lovely place a ballpark could be.
He heard a polite cough from behind him, down in the tunnel that led to the clubhouse. It was Mr. Mack, half hidden in the shadows.
“That was really something, George. Very unselfish of you. When those other fellows come over to join us in our clubhouse I’m sure they’ll want to thank you.”
The Babe didn’t know what to say. Praise from Mr. Mack left him tongue-tied.
Mack smiled, said, “Yes, George. You’ve learned to think out there. You’ll make a fine manager some day soon.”
“Geez, Mr. Mack, you really think so?”
“Yes, George, I do. We’ll have to talk about that, about just what kind of contract we can work out for you. Player/manager, I’d think.”
“Player/manager!”
Mack put out his frail, bony hand and they shook on it, the Babe pumping poor Mack’s arm so hard that Mack finally had to disengage himself.
“Oh, gosh. I’m sorry, Mr. Mack. I just got carried away there,” said the Babe.
“It’s all right, George,” Mack replied gently. “It’s perfectly all right.”
Then he headed down the dark tunnel toward the clubhouse. The Babe started after him, but turned first to look out at the field once again.