Wyatt, York’s number eight hitter, dribbles one up the right side of the infield. The ball’s progress is slowed further by the soggy condition of the ground. Fisher goes for the ball. So does King, the first baseman. Roger grabs it, then slips on the wet grass and crawls for the bag, ball in
hand. Wyatt beats him easily. Fernald comes all the way home on the play to score the first run of the game.
If Roger is going to crack, one would expect it to happen right here. He checks his infield, and examines the ball. He appears ready to pitch, and then steps off the rubber. His sleeves, it seems, are not quite to his liking after all. He takes his time fixing them while Matt Francke, the York batter, grows old and mouldy in the batter’s box. By the time Fisher finally gets around to throwing, he all but owns Francke, who hits an easy hopper to Kevin Rochefort at third.
Rochefort throws on to Matt Kinney, forcing Wyatt. Still, York has drawn first blood and leads, 1-0, at the end of an inning and a half.
Bangor West doesn’t put any runs on the board in the second inning, either, but they score against Phil Tarbox just the same. The rangy York pitcher trotted off the mound with his head up at the end of the first inning. Going in after pitching the second, he trudges with his head down, and some of his teammates glance at him uneasily.
Tarbox doesn’t intimidate Owen King, who bats first in Bangor’s half of the second, but he is a big boy, much slower than Matt Kinney. After running the count full, Tarbox tries to jam him inside. The fastball turns up and in — too much of both. King is hit hard in the armpit. He falls to the ground, clutching the hurt place, too stunned to cry at first, but obviously in pain. Eventually, the tears do come — not a lot of them, but real tears, for all that. At six foot two and over two hundred pounds, he’s as big as a man, but he’s still only twelve and not used to being hit by seventy-mile-an-hour inside fastballs. Tarbox immediately rushes off the mound toward him, his face a mask of concern and contrition. The umpire, already bending over the downed player, waves him off impatiently. The on-duty paramedic who hurries out doesn’t even give Tarbox a second look. The fans do, however. The fans are giving him all kinds of second looks.
‘Take him out before he hits someone else!’ one yells.
‘Pull him before someone really gets hurt!’ another adds, as if being hit in the ribcage by a fastball weren’t really getting hurt.
‘Warn im, ump!’ a third voice chimes in. ‘That was a deliberate brushback! Warn im what happens if he does it again!’
Tarbox glances toward the fans, and for a moment this boy, who has formerly radiated a kind of serene confidence, looks very young and very uncertain. He looks, in fact, the way Stanley Sturgis did as the Belfast-Lewiston game neared its conclusion. As he goes back to the mound, he slams the ball into his glove in frustration.
King, meanwhile, has been helped to his feet. After making it clear to Neil Waterman, the paramedic, and the umpire that he wants to stay in the game and is capable of doing so, he trots down to first base. Both sets of fans give him a solid round of applause.
Phil Tarbox, who of course had no intention of hitting the lead-off batter in a one-run game, immediately shows how shaken he is by grooving one right down the middle to Arthur Dorr.
Arthur, the second-smallest boy in Bangor West’s starting lineup, accepts this unexpected but welcome gift by driving it deep to right center.
King is off at the crack of the bat. He rounds third, knowing he can’t score but hoping to draw the throw that will assure Arthur of second base, and, as he does, the wet conditions become a factor. The third-base side of the diamond is still damp. When King tries to put on the brakes, his feet go out from under him and he lands on his ass. The relay has come in to Tarbox, and Tarbox will not risk a throw; he charges King, who is making feeble efforts to regain his feet. At the end, Bangor’s biggest player just raises his arms in an eloquent, touching gesture: I surrender. Thanks to the slippery conditions, Tarbox now has a runner on second with one out instead of runners on
second and third with none out. It is a big difference, and Tarbox displays his renewed confidence by sinking out Mike Arnold.
Then, on his third pitch to Joe Wilcox, the next batter, he hits him smack in the elbow. This time, the cries of outrage from the Bangor West fans are louder, and tinged with threat. Several of them direct their ire at the home-plate umpire, demanding that Tarbox be taken out. The ump, who understands this situation completely, does not bother even to warn Tarbox. The stricken look on the boy’s face as Wilcox jogs shakily down to first undoubtedly tells him it isn’t necessary. But York’s manager has to come out and settle the pitcher down, to point out the obvious: You have two outs and first base was open anyway. There’s no problem.
But for Tarbox there is a problem. He has hit two boys this inning, hit both of them hard enough to make them cry. If that weren’t a problem, he would need a mental examination.
York puts together three singles to score two runs in the top of the third, opening up a 3-0
lead. If these runs, both solidly earned, had come in the top of the first, Bangor would have been in serious trouble, but when the players come in for their raps they look eager and excited. There is no feeling among them that the game is lost, no whiff of failure.
Ryan Larrobino is Bangor’s first batter in the bottom of the third, and Tarbox works him carefully — too carefully. He has begun to aim the ball, and the result is fairly predictable. With the count at 1-2, he plinks Larrobino on the shoulder. Larrobino turns and pounds his bat once on the ground — whether in pain, frustration, or anger is impossible to tell. Most probably it is all three. Reading the mood of the crowd is much easier. The Bangor fans are on their feet, yelling angrily at Tarbox and at the ump. On the York side, the fans are silent and bewildered; it is not the game they were expecting. As Ryan trots down to first, he glances over at Tarbox. It is brief, that glance, but it seems clear enough: That’s the third time, you. Make it the last time.
Tarbox confers briefly with his coach, then faces Matt Kinney. His confidence is in shambles, and his first pitch to Matt, a wild one, suggests that he wants to continue pitching this game about as much as a cat wants a bubble bath. Larrobino beats York catcher Dan Bouchard’s throw to second easily. Tarbox walks Kinney. The next batter is Kevin Rochefort. After two failed bunt attempts, Roach settles back and allows Phil Tarbox the chance to dig his hole a little deeper. He does, walking Kevin after having him 1-1. Tarbox has now thrown more than sixty pitches in less than three innings.
Roger Fisher also goes 3-2 with Tarbox, who is now relying almost exclusively on soft breaking stuff; he seems to have decided that if he does hit another batter he will not hit him hard. There is no place to put Fish; the bases are jammed. Tarbox knows it and takes a calculated risk, grooving another one, believing Fish will lay off in the hope of a walk. Roger snaps hungrily at it instead, bouncing one between first and second for a base hit. Larrobino trots home with Bangor’s first run.
Owen King, the player who was at bat when Phil Tarbox started to self-destruct, is the next batter. The York coach, suspecting his ace will work even less successfully to King this time, has seen enough. Matt Francke comes in to relieve, and Tarbox becomes York’s catcher. As he squats behind the plate to warm Francke up, he looks both resigned and relieved. Francke doesn’t hit anyone, but he is unable to stop the bleeding. At the end of three innings, Bangor West has only two hits, but they lead York, 5-3.
It is now the fifth inning. The air is full of gray moisture, and the YORK IS BRISTOL BOUND
banner tacked to the scoreboard uprights has begun to sag. The fans look a little saggy themselves, and increasingly uneasy. Is York Bristol bound? Well, we’re supposed to be, their