‘When you are on the field, we’ll love you and you will love each other,’ Waterman tells the boys again and again, and in the wake of Bangor’s eleventh-hour, 15-14 win over Hampden, when they all did love each other, the boys no longer laugh at this. He continues, ‘From now on, I’m going to be hard on you – very hard. When you’re playing, you’ll get nothing but unconditional love from me. But when we’re practicing on our home field some of you are going to find out how loud I can yell. If you’re goofing off, you’re going to sit down. If I tell you to do something and you don’t do it, you’re going to sit down. Recess is over, guys – everybody out of the pool. This is where the hard work starts.’
A few nights later, Waterman hits a shot to right during fielding practice. It almost amputates Arthur Dorr’s nose on the way by.
Arthur has been busy making sure his fly is zipped. Or inspecting the laces of his Keds. Or some damn thing.
‘Arthur!’ Neil Waterman bellows, and Arthur flinches more at the sound of that voice than he did at the close passage of the baseball. ‘Get in here! On the bench! Now!’ ‘But…’ Arthur begins.
‘In here!’ Neil yells back. ‘You’re on the pine!’
Arthur trots sullenly in, head down, and J. J. Fiddler takes his place. A few nights later, Nick Trzaskos loses his chance to hit away when he fails to bunt two pitches in five tries or so. He sits on the bench by himself, cheeks flaming. Machias, the Aroostook County/Washington County winner, is next on the docket – a two-outof-three series, and the winner will be District 3 champion. The first game is to be played at the Bangor field, behind the Coke plant, the second at Bob Beal Field in Machias. The last game, if needed, will be played on neutral ground between the two towns. As Neil Waterman has promised, the coaching staff is all encouragement once the national anthem has been played and the first game starts.
‘That’s all right, no damage!’ Dave Mansfield cries as Arthur Dorr misjudges a long shot to right and the ball lands behind him. ‘Get an out, now! Belly play! Let’s just get an out!’ No one seems to know exactly what ‘belly play’ is, but since it seems to involve winning ball games, the boys are all for it.
No third game against Machias is necessary. Bangor West gets a strong pitching performance from Matt Kinney in the first one and wins 17-5. Winning the second game is a little tougher only because the weather does not cooperate: a drenching summer downpour washes out the first try, and it is necessary for Bangor West to make the 168-mile round trip to Machias twice in order to clinch the division. They finally get the game in, on the twenty-ninth of July. Mike Pelkey’s family has spirited Bangor West’s number two pitcher off to Disney World in Orlando, making Mike the third player to fade from the team, but Owen King steps quietly in and pitches a five-hitter, striking out eight before tiring and giving way to Mike Arnold in the sixth inning. Bangor West wins, 12-2, and becomes District 3 Little League champ. At moments like these, the pros retire to their air-conditioned locker rooms and pour champagne over each other’s heads. The Bangor West team goes out to Helen’s, the best (maybe the only) restaurant in Machias, to celebrate with hot dogs, hamburgers, gallons of Pepsi-Cola, and mountains of French fries. Looking at them as they laugh at each other, razz each other, and blow napkin pellets through their straws at each other, it is impossible not to be aware of how soon they will discover gaudier modes of celebration.
For now, however, this is perfectly O.K. – great, in fact. They are not overwhelmed by what they have done, but they seem tremendously pleased, tremendously content, and entirely here. If they have been touched with magic this summer, they do not know it, and no one has as yet been unkind enough to tell them that it may be so. For now they are allowed the deep-fried simplicities of Helen’s, and those simplicities are quite enough. They have won their division; the State Championship Tournament, where bigger and better teams from the more heavily populated regions downstate will probably blow them out, is still a week away. Ryan Larrobino has changed back into his tank top. Arthur Donhas a rakish smear of ketchup on one cheek. And Owen King, who struck terror into the hearts of the Machias batters by coming at them with a powerful sidearm fastball on 0-2 counts, is burbling happily into his glass of Pepsi. Nick Trzaskos, who can look unhappier than any boy on earth when things don’t break his way, looks supremely happy tonight. And why not? Tonight they’re twelve and they’re winners.