Maybe that was it, thought Henry, maybe that was the project for this blue season: a compact league history, a book about these first fifty-six years. Needn't be an official history, could even be a little controversial, the exposure of some pattern or other. And in fact, by God, that next verse of Sandy's "Verne Mackenzie" song might be just the perfect epigraph for it…
"Well, boys, I've played some ball now,
I could hit and I could run,
And some of the games we was losin'
But most of the games we won…"
Yes, some of the games we was losin', but most of the games we won — the more he thought about it, the more excited he became! Cover it all, the origins, the early stars, the making and breaking of records, the growth and transformation of the political structure, Dean Sullivan's ball-busting Beaneaters and the Keystones of Tim Shadwell's day, the Brock Rutherford Era, the fabulous Cels of Hellborn Melbourne Trench's heyday, the rise of Fenn McCaffree's Knicks, right up to the fantastic events of Year LVI, with all the Hall of Famers, and all the great personalities like Jaybird Wall and Verne Mac-Kenzie and No-Hit Nealy, Long Lew Lydell and Sandy Shaw and Jake Bradley and Holly and Molly and Yip Yick Ping! It was all there in the volumes of the Book and in the records, but now it needed a new ordering, perspective, personal vision, the disclosure of pattern, because he'd discovered — who had discovered? Barney maybe — yes, Barney Bancroft had discovered that perfection wasn't a thing, a closed moment, a static fact, but process, yes, and the process was transformation, and so Casey had participated in the perfection, too, maybe more than anybody, for even Henry had been affected, and Barney was going to write it…
"Now, they say I cain't play no more, boys,
They say I'm agittin' old;
Ole Abe he showed me the door, boys,
Sent Verne Mackenzie out in the cold!
"So I hung up my ole jersey,
Yeah, I hung up ole number seven,
And I'll never play ball agin, boys,
'Less they's a league up there in heaven!
"Oh yeah, I'm all washed up, boys,
I got the axe, I got the aches;
Now you'll find me when you want me
On the sack in the back of Jake's!"
And what would Bancroft call it? The Beginnings, maybe. Or: The UBA Story. Abe Flint's Legacy. The UBA in the Balance. "Yes, that's it!"
"That's what, Mr. Waugh?"
"The UBA in the Balance—how does that sound to you, Benny?"
"Is it a riddle, Mr. Waugh? I'm not very good at riddles."
"Ha ha! Yes, that's what it is! A riddle! You hit it on the head!"
'Uh, well, they only had American brandy, I told them—"
"That's okay, Benny, we got nothing against Americans.
They invented baseball, didn't they?"
"Well, I guess so, but the—"
"Here's an extra quarter, Benny. My boss to your father!"
"Well, I went to see my woman,
I said, 'Baby, I'm feelin' blue!
The boss he turned me out, babe.
My playin' days is through!'
"My baby she started laughin',
She said, 'Verne, don' bother to call,
Cause I got me a brand-new man now,
He's young and he's still playin' ball!'
"Oh yeah, Fm all washed up, boys,
I got the axe, I got the aches…"
Not really, though. After Lou had called, Henry had phoned an employment agency where he was registered, told them he was semi-retired and wanted half-time work, starting after Christmas. They asked for an updating of his record, but told him there might be part-time work for an accountant there in the agency itself after the first of the year. And meanwhile, he had a drawerful of checks he'd never cashed. So old Ziff, ho, ho, he sent to hell.
Well, I went to see my woman… hmmm, true, bunch of the boys probably be gathering at Jake's tonight, little Monday night blue-season politicking, oil the machinery, work up a new pitch or two, try to score. Lot of things to talk over, like who was going to take over the shell-shocked Knicks now that Sycamore Flynn has resigned, what to do about Mel Trench of the sunken Cels and Wally Wickersham, whose Grooms just can't seem to get going, who to run for Chancellor on the Guildsmen ticket against McCaffree and Maloney, and whether or not Patrick Monday would get up his new party this year, and what to call them if he did. Paragonists. Nonesuchers. Optimalists. Perfectionists. Yes, a good night, this new Monday, to play with all these problems, good night to drink a little, make out a little…
First, though, he decided to push through the death rolls. They often affected managerial and political situations, and it was pointless to worry about them until he knew for sure who was going to be around. It was a somber event, he never took it lightly. The shock of their deaths often dismayed him, though later he usually enjoyed the writing of their obituaries. He dreaded, in short, the death blow, yet it was just this rounding off in the Book of each career that gave beauty to all these lives. Even the forgotten ballplayers who never made it; doing research for their obits often led him deep into for-gotten corners of the past, helped him rediscover some of the more unusual and poignant moments of UBA history, and reminded him always that there was no such thing as excellence without the foundation to measure it by. It was like bald-pated old Jake Bradley always said: Yes, we needed him, too, even him.
His formula for the death rolls was based on a combination of insurance actuarial tables and league population: he tried not to let it drop below about a thousand living veterans. As to how they died, he made his own decisions while composing the obituary; if he was uncertain, he had another chart that provided him general descriptors, but usually he just knew, a certain definite feeling about it that would come on him suddenly while considering the ballplayer's past — Abe Flint's heart failure, Verne Mackenzie's liver, Holly Tibbett's tumor, Rupert Allen's suicide. His sign for death in the records was a 
"Oh, when I die, jist bury me
With my bat and a coupla balls,
And jist tell 'em Verne struck out, boys.
If anybody calls…"