Champion introduced us. Grant’s fingers brushed mine and his pale eyes flicked on to Andy, no sign in them that I had registered. It felt strange to tower over a war hero. I noticed that Grant’s movements were awkward and tentative. When Champion invited him to our game, Grant mumbled, “Schedule . . . time.” Still puffing his cigar, he moved vaguely toward the door and nodded as we filed out. I realized that he was enormously popular, like Eisenhower after World War II. But this guy had zero charisma. TV would have stopped him cold. In the Capitol Building we listened to a Congressman from Indiana argue for more western roads. The Library of Congress, lacking a building of its own, was currently housed there also. We visited the Patent Office, located in the Interior Department even though that too was unfinished—a condition that characterized much of the city. There George led the rest in gaping at marvels of steel and steam: engines and boilers and mechanized loaders; telegraphs and steamboats. They were all so hungry for progress, so certain it would come. Had I described electric light and power, radio and TV, phones, cars, jets, and all the rest, they’d probably just nod sagely and tell me their futuristic visions—including space shots. Hadn’t Jules Verne published A Trip to the Moon four years earlier?
Grant did not show up that afternoon, when we led the Olympics only 4-0 after four innings. Their pitcher teased grounders from us which their five-foot-four shortstop, Davy Force, ate up. In the fifth a steady downpour began. To our disgust Champion and Harry agreed to a replay on Monday. That meant two more days before heading home.
On Sunday we took a trip down the Potomac. I was surprised to see Mt. Vernon badly in need of paint and portions of Alexandria still war-damaged. Virginia was technically outside the Union, not yet readmitted under the Radicals’ reconstruction plan. The home state of Jefferson and Washington was subjugated territory, under military rule.
As we powered back upriver I came across Harry, standing alone near the stern, holding several envelopes and looking subdued. “Bad news?” I said.
“No, just reading Carrie’s old letters. Haven’t gotten another since Philadelphia. Touring is hard on a family, and Sabbaths are the worst.”
I nodded, aware that baseball was not played anywhere in America on Sundays. Harry had several children by a previous marriage. I presumed that his first wife had died, but I wasn’t sure; nobody spoke of her. When he’d remarried at the end of the previous season, the Stockings presented him with a hundred-dollar bond wrapped around a gold watch and a medal bearing all their names. According to Allison, Captain Harry had actually been teary-eyed—a dramatic break from his usual stoic persona.
“What’s she like?” I asked.
“Carrie?” He sounded surprised, then spoke slowly. “Why, she’s the truest wife a man could have, a servant in my home and queen in my heart.” His voice throbbed. “To my mind she embodies the noblest elements of the human spirit. She promises the highest I can hope. She purges what is dark within me, strengthens what is failing.”
He meant every syllable. I looked away, embarrassed, thinking that it might have been Twain carrying on about his Livy. Willingly or not, women in this time perched on incredible pedestals.
“And your people, Sam? I understand from Andy that you have family in Frisco.”
“Had,” I said. “I’m on my own now.”
“You didn’t desert them?” he said sharply.“No, circumstances forced a . . . separation.”
It must have sounded forlorn. His brown eyes warmed with sympathy. “You’re welcome to visit our home, Sam. As often as you like. My daughters love to see the nine.” Daughters. The word sliced into me. “I’d like that, Harry, very much.”
He put his hand on my shoulder. The river sparkled around us, radiant and poignant.
Monday, June 28, marked exactly four weeks since I’d come back in time. The Stockings toured Arlington that morning. I didn’t go. I’d heard enough about the glorious military dead. And I didn’t want to be reminded of coming attractions: JFK’s eternal flame, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, fields of white crosses from future slaughters.
That afternoon, again swinging for the fences, we scored sixteen runs on twenty-three hits. George belted another homer and a double. Brainard limited the Olympics to five runs on five hits. But we were victims of the game’s outstanding play. Their left fielder caught Gould’s deep drive going away, then his bullet peg nailed Mac loafing to the plate. George, trying to distract the Olympics by taking off from first, was then gunned down at third. Triple play! Harry looked ready to puke.
The B & 0 run to Wheeling took nearly twenty-four hours. Hurley and I lost forty dollars playing whist—this time real, not imaginary dollars—to Brainard and Waterman. Worse yet, Hurley was broke; I had to cover our losses.
At the Pittsburgh depot Champion bought a stack of the latest Harper’s Weekly. Inside was a full-page engraving of the team, made from the Newark portrait. We debated who’d come out worst. Waterman looked like he’d discovered a turd in his pocket; Hurley was a glowering psychopath, George a propped-up dummy, and Allison, Mac, Andy, and Sweasy a row of moronic moon faces.
We stopped long enough in West Virginia to demolish Wheeling’s hapless Baltics, 44-0. George went eight for eight with two doubles, two triples, and seven steals. Allison, swinging from his heels, smacked two home runs and Andy one. We were on a power binge.
The Ohio was turgid and yellow, a silt-choked current that disappointed my romantic visions. We ferried across and boarded another train at Bellaire for the final run to Cincinnati.
“What’s Sam’s averages?” Andy asked Millar, who was preparing Harry’s stat totals for press distribution.
“Easy to figure,” I said. “I only had the one double in Baltimore.
